As they say, if you need it, then you probably already know it. A Spanish verb conjugator. And a Catalan one. But the Basque and Valencian ones bring up empty pages.

For the first 10 years of my life in Madrid, my home was a small apartment in the picturesque little Calle del Oso, in the centre near Tirso de Molina. I have very fond memories of it and sometimes still miss it, partly because I enjoy a bit of creative disorder about my dwellings and there's not too much of that these days, now I'm married. In Calle del Oso, inspired by Rachmaninov and Meat Loaf, I wrote my novel. I had some good parties. I broke two beds. I made love to countless women of many nationalities (though thinking about it, that might not have been me). Calle del Oso is famous as the street where Ana Belén, the singer, was born and where a gay hairdresser murdered his lover in the 1980's. And now it's back in the news again because (and this is where the creative disorder comes in), on 25th August the news stories reported the following:

"Operarios del servicio de limpieza del Ayuntamiento de Madrid han retirado, entre ayer y hoy, 2.000 kilos de basura del domicilio de dos ancianos que padecen el llamado "síndrome de Diógenes", y que habían acumulado en su vivienda todo tipo de desechos, lo que había motivado la denuncia de los vecinos."

Basically, 2,000 kilos of rubbish were removed in late August from the apartment, at no. 13 where I once lived, of an elderly couple with Diogenes Syndrome - a condition of extreme self neglect that generally affects people who live alone, often accompanied by a tendency to hoard rubbish (come to think of it, blogging is probably a form of it). The picture tells the story: apparently the rubbish had caused mice and rats to occupy the staircase up which I once trudged. I don't think I knew them, because they only moved in three years ago. The old woman, Felisa, could be heard screaming that everyone should be allowed to live as they wish. Up to a point.

If, like me, you think Kubrick's The Shining is a great film, then you'll find this clever little item to your taste, the winner of a competition to design a trailer for a classic film as a different genre. (via Waxy.org, but currently all over the place.)

"The moon and the sandy beach love each other madly."

PdS Blog apologizes for its two-month absence, but since a few kind souls have wondered where I've been hiding, here I am. I've had quite a few thoughts and seen quite a few things since August 2nd, but I've forgotten most of them now. A new PdS has been prepared, featuring lots of info about a certain Miguel de Cervantes (you can't step out of your door in Spain at the moment without being Cervantes-ed), and about the Alhambra. It may not be the best moment to revive a blog when you start teaching on Monday and your wife is expecting your second child, but hey. So just a little link to get us going again, where you'll hear extracts from the new Enrique Morente album, Morente sueña la Alhambra, one of the year's musical must-haves. The last song on the album has Morente reciting and singing the tremendously moving final letter written by Miguel de Cervantes to his patron, the Count of Lemos, four days before the writer’s death. It is in this letter that Cervantes’ famous phrase “Puesto ya el pie en el estribo” (“My foot already in the stirrup”) appears, a superbly evocative metaphor from a man who is preparing for his final journey. The image above shows Morente and guitarist Tomatito in a scene from the accompanying documentary. Morente and Tomatito in the Alhambra: don't you wish you could have been there?

BTW... Like language? Look here.