Un saludo salado a ti

A very warm welcome to those of you who have arrived via Barcablog's mention on the front page of the magisterial English language newspaper Barcelona Business.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am your resident local expert, observer, wit, gent, cad, connoisseur and philanthropist. I am your eyes and ears, your last hope and your first port of call. There, there. You're safe now.

The last in the distinguished line of Andalusian Losowsky's, Barcelona has been my heart and home since the family fled to higher ground following my uncle's controversial re-imagining of the tango. It's not the first time we've been in trouble; back in 1640, my great-great-great grandfather was forced to move to Chile when, during a particularly heated argument about the Spanish Inquisition, he accidentally invented the upside-down question mark. Long and bloody were the nights on that anniversary, I can tell you.

Naturally, I don't write the text of Barcablog myself. A highly trained team of Gitano boys spend night and day furiously typing on ancient accordion-shaped typewriters, before a skilled board of editorial directors, with more than 400 years of global media experience between them, compacts the 200,000 words of weekly carbon into pure shimmering diamonds of wit. Finally, once it's been passed by the flotilla of lawyers I keep offshore for this very purpose, it reaches my butler who prints the text out, corrects it, irons it and brings it to my mahogany desk (courtesy of the Hemingway estate, bless them. Ernie would be so proud) up in my luxury apartments in the Collserola Tower, high above the city.

As and when I stir from my nightly whisky-induced coma, I read the text, screw it up, phone one of my illegitimate children, swear loudly, order another whisky, light a fine cigar, take a quick bathe in my stream of consciousness and eventually reach for the pen Gorbachev gave me on his way back from Perestroika. Once my signature has been confirmed as genuine, the steam-powered internet is then stopped dead for a half-hour while each week's entry is hand-carved into its soul.

Oh, and never forget that everything you read here is true. Keep on visiting, y'hear?