Posted in Zaragoza, Spain, Ireland on Mar 17th, 2008 4 Comments »
Zaragoza´s flea market takes place every Sunday on a street next to the bull-ring. It’s less than five minutes from my flat. Despite that, and despite the fact that I’ve been living here for six months now, yesterday was the first time I made it up to the place. And that’s been my loss, for […]
Posted in Zaragoza, Irish social history, Irish Labour History, Spain on Mar 13th, 2008 6 Comments »
And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass (”And the days are not enough,” Ezra Pound)
It’s 3.14am and I’m sipping coffee in the arrivals lounge in Barcelona airport. The only bulls are the ones on the Osborne port bottles […]
Posted in Zaragoza, Irish housing, Spain, Politics on Mar 10th, 2008 No Comments »
Zapatero has to overcome rising unemployment, inflation at double the EU average, and a crisis in the construction industry, which has been hit by the global credit squeeze. Having seen the economy grow at a rate of 4% in recent years, analysts say it could drop to 2.5% this year.” (”Spanish socialists pledge new era […]
Posted in Zaragoza, Ireland on Feb 20th, 2008 4 Comments »
The tenth name was Hibernia; and it is the sons of Míleadh gave that name to it. However, it is said that it is from a river that is in Spain which is called Iberus. (Geoffery Keating, The History of Ireland, written 1634 AD)
It is raining outside, a rarity for these parts. Inside I´m watching […]
Posted in Zaragoza, Spain, History, Ireland on Feb 14th, 2008 1 Comment »
There´s a charity shop on Calle San Pablo, around the corner from where I live, where I like to spend my free time. (I live on Calle Las Armas.) The Spanish - well, at least the Aragonese - do not go in for tiendas de segunda mano. I´ve only come across one second-hand book shop, […]
Posted in Zaragoza, Spain, football, Ireland on Nov 20th, 2007 No Comments »
The name of the village is El Centenillo. It was once home to a mining community. The company that ran the mines was English. It was called the ‘New Centenillo Silver Lead Mines Company Limited’, and in 1898, along with the opening of the mining company, the British workers sent to start the new venture […]
Posted in Zaragoza, Spain, Ireland on Nov 18th, 2007 7 Comments »
I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.
My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.
My harp also is turned into mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.” (Job:30:29-31)
Sometime around the early 1980s I had a primary school teacher who made it quite […]
Posted in philosophy, Zaragoza, aesthetics, Working Class, Labour, satire on Nov 12th, 2007 2 Comments »
Sometimes, just sometimes, ideology can be piss-funny. I mean, intentionally so, not in an Eoghan Harris piss-funny kind of way. The following is taken from Wikipeida:
La Dialectique Peut-Elle Casser Des Briques?, in English, “Can Dialectics Break Bricks?”, is a 1973 Situationist film produced by the French director René Viénet which explores the resolution of conflict […]
Posted in Zaragoza, aesthetics, Spain, Ireland on Nov 10th, 2007 No Comments »
The Osborne bull is 51 years old. Regarded as the unofficial symbol of Spain, it began life as a roadside advertisement for a sherry produced by the Osborne family group. The iconic silhouette was designed in 1956 by Manuel Prieto Benítez, and in 2005 they were declared a national monument by Spain’s socialist government.
I […]
Posted in Zaragoza, Spain, Ireland on Oct 29th, 2007 No Comments »
Michael has a clean burial in the far north, by the grace of almighty God. Bartley will have a fine coffin out of the white boards, and a deep grave surely. What more can we want than that? No man at all can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied.” (Riders to […]
