I’d been to Barcelona twice I think and my understanding of spoken Catalan and Catalan culture was rudimentary and theoretical at best; at the very least I was respectful if largely ignorant of its finer points. When Marina and Jordi came to over to Lisbon for a long weekend in the spring of 2005 I […]

Read more "Sketch: Thursday"

The five years I worked for Roche I commuted back and forth on a branch line of what for us Barcelona locals call the Ferrocatas. For all intents and purposes the Ferrocatas are a parallel and complementary service to the Barcelona metro system although in reality they predate the metro. Roche’s installations are in a […]

Read more "Sketch: Isabel II"

My father has a fantastically large collection of shirts. Aside from these he clearly also owns many other items of clothing in varying quantities and styles and cuts but it is his so many shirts that come to mind very often when I think of him. I could count them some day but I feel […]

Read more "Sketch: Gifts"

It wasn’t so much that he was perfect for her or she for him. It was more about the fact that he was right for her. Right for her and right for them both. They seemed right for each other. Those around them, the chattering classes to the finca born, seemed enamored with what they […]

Read more "Sketch: Other animals."