Catalan (and Spanish) "Dollar Stores"

Last week the New York Times Magazine published a very interesting article by Jack Hitt on the "dollar-store economy", here. It remined me very much of the stores now to be found in every town and village (of say 2,000+ inhabitants) around here. Ten years ago they were still called "Todo a 100" ("everything at 100 pesetas" - then still Spain's currency; 100 pesetas roughly equalled 60 Euro cents). Today they are not called dollar or euro stores either, but typically bear names such as "Bazar Asia", etc. and are run by Chinese immigrants.  There you find more or less everything small sized that you might need for your household, and the goods come almost exclusively from the PRC. The store I have in mind starts with plastic boxes of a great variety of sizes on the right side of the entrance door (these come from Ibi, Alicante, the Spanish plastics hub). In all there are about ten rows of goods. At the far end of that side of the store one finds detergents, etc., all kinds of boxes, buckets, small drawers, kitchen and bath utensils, etc. made of plastic, metal and glass.
The wall opposite to the entrance is dedicated to small tools, appliances, and electronics such as energy-saving light bulbs of all kinds, sizes, types, etc. A limited but very practical and low-price offer of what you normally find in a hardware store (though some of the tools are also very low quality). There is one row dedicated to office supplies, another one to small home electronics, such as radios, computer accessories, hair cutters, etc. At least one and a half rows are filled with bright toys - all made of plastics, nothing to be found for the progressive parents that trust in good old wooden building blocks... On the left side of the entrance there is the cash register, on the far off wall the luggage department and the clothes section. Next to the cash register is the battery and watch section, always under the vigilance of one of the staff. The watches are among the most expensive goods on sale...
In general, on one's first visit one is constantly monitored by some staff - they always find something to do nearby; on successive visits they leave you alone.
In comparison with their American counterparts, they are tiny stores, do not sell food, do not have any customer parking, etc. And, unfortunately, they do not sell branded goods whatsoever except for some footballs with the FC Barcelona or Dora the Explorer logos, so one cannot put too much trust into the quality of the goods purchased there...
These stores are typically run by one Chinese family taking turns to fill all shifts of a Monday to Saturday working week. The goods come from centrally located distributors in Barcelona or Madrid and the whole ownership structure seems opaque (there were no interviews done for this blog entry)...

Barcelona: Museum of Ideas and Inventions

I saw it mentioned in an article on creativity in La Vanguardia's Saturday lifestyle supplement, itself a creation of 2011. Haven't been to it but would like to go some day. Its website in English is here, but only its basic functions work. Looks as if it has an interesting giftstore.

The Economist on Spanish politics

On August 6, The Economist published an article titled "Anyone want to run this country", here; it made some headlines in the Catalan media, too, as it was highly critical of the opposition's Popular Party leader, Mariano Rajoy, who looks set to become Spain's next prime minister and promises "cuts without pain". Though regional branches of his party, especially in Valencia, have been involved in numerous corruption scandals, Spanish voters are fed up after seven years of Socialist rulers concentrating on marginal topics and not standing up to trade unions but going slow-motion on economic reforms.