What Makes Catalunya Tick: Anar De B?lit

I have to confess, I made a mistake in my post about the Sagrada Familia : one of those things where you have a blind spot and you just don’t see it.

I'd always translated ?anar de b?lit' as ?to go like a bullet': i.e. fast - shooting around. Right concept, wrong word. As my son points out, un b?lit - un b?lido in Castilian - is ?a motor vehicle that attains extraordinary speeds', especially, a racing car. (According to the Diccionario of the Real Academia Espa?ola, which watches over the purity and correctness of the Spanish language, it can also mean a meteor.) In fact, ?vaig de b?lit' really means I'm very very busy / running around like a lunatic / have barely got time to breathe etc etc. And the most annoying thing is, they do all this mad dashing around all day every day and still manage to look perfectly groomed. Don't Catalans ever get tomato sauce /olive oil / coffee down their front? I once had lunch with a group of people including one incredibly elegant and impeccable Catalan lady of the alta burgesia. And she spilled food down her front! Immediately a waiter appeared with a can of Cebralin and a clothes brush on a silver platter. Within five minutes the silk blouse was restored to pristine purity. Such a thing had never occurred to me. So now you know. Valerie Collins is the co author, with Theresa O'Shea, of In The Garlic: Your Informative, Fun Guide to Spain. And don't miss the In The Garlic blog.