Hello. I’m back, taking stock. What on earth have I been up to since the wins I posted back in 2017?  I finished my first novel  – a crew of

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Story News

UPDATE My short story ‘Hotel Catatonia’ was Highly Commended and a runner-up in the 2017 Victoria Literary Festival writing competition (Canada). It was published in the competition anthology which you can buy

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Stuff Catalans Do

Welcome to Stuff Catalans Do. Here, for easier reading, I’ve combined all the Stuff Catalans Do posts from April 2017 into one. You can read the Intro here. Do you

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Stuff Catalans Do: Zumzeig

Zumzeig Aka the joy of research.  To tell you the truth, I was stumped. There aren’t that many Z-words in Catalan, at least not native words. Most are international ones

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Stuff Catalans Do: Yperita

Yperita My hefty (dead-tree) Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana has only one word with Y – yperita (the y is pronounced ‘ee’)  It doesn’t even have its own page, but

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Stuff Catalans Do: Xiuxiueig

Xiuxiueig Did you freak out when you saw this word? People tend to when they see a piece of text in Catalan because of the liberal sprinkling of ‘x’ s, 

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Stuff Catalans Do: W

W is not really a ‘native’ letter in Catalan. The only words in the W section of the dictionary are those of foreign origin, from wagnerià through waterpolo and watt

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Stuff Catalans Do: Verdaguer and Vermut

Verdaguer Maybe the first thing that springs to mind is that metro station in Barcelona whose name you can’t pronounce.  The Verdaguer monument is close by, unreachable in the centre

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Stuff Catalans Do: Ullastret and Ulldecona

Ullastret and Ulldecona From ancient Iberian settlements in the north to rock art and ancient olive trees in the south,  the history of Catalonia goes way back. Ullastret (oolyaSTRET), a

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Stuff Catalans Do: Tombatruites

Tombatruites Making a truita (trooEETeh) de patates (Spanish omelette) is dead easy.  You fry the diced potatoes in olive oil till soft. You beat the eggs in a bowl, with

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