Talking of clowns and under-clad young women, here's an ad produced by Indian employees of Ford's agency there. Given the recent reports of gang-rape in India and the allegation that there's a rape there every twenty minutes, one can only wonder at the lack of sensitivity. While finding it basically a good idea to take the piss out of Berlusconi.
In his book, Voices from the Sea, Norman Lewis talks of a Curandero. This translates as:- Quack, medicaster, an artful and tricking practitioner in physic. Lewis has him coming to the village every autumn to guide the fishermen to the most promising grounds. I wonder if the word is still is use today and, if so, with what meaning. Anyway, here's a few more extracts from the book.
- Medina del Campo – The Spanish equivalent of Stockton-on-Tees.
- The fisherman remained uneasy about the suggested road, largely because, if it came to be built, people would be likely to stand on it, looking out to sea, thereby in some cases – however innocent their intentions – bringing bad luck to the fishing.
- The public sentiment of Farol was that those who were obliged to leave the village were instantly exposed to evil influences, which increased almost mile by mile until Figueiras – seen as a huge, bewildering and utterly immoral metropolis – was reached.
- Don Alberto used the grand old unit of measurement, caballerĂas – denoting the area a horse could be ridden around at a brisk walking pace in one hour.
- It was a period when the Civil Guards had decided to renew their harassment. All the boats had to be checked to ensure that all their atheistic names were not showing through the purposely thin coating of paint with which they had been covered, and the occasional stubborn heretic who had repainted eyes or even stars on the front of his boat was called to the casa cuartel for official rebuke.
- Don Ignacio [the village priest] thought that the democracy of foreigners was misunderstood by a people who had never encountered it before and who were encouraged by it to presumption and lack of respect.
- In 1950 a male tourist was not allowed, in theory, to go about in shorts unless he covered his knees with handkerchiefs. . . . In the same year, a local girl was sent to a correctional unit run by nuns for wearing a two-piece bathing costume.
Finally .
. . My mother's cleaner came today. Being of that generation, my
mother got up early to clean the place before she arrived. More than
that – she removed every item from every surface and placed them
either on her bed or on the dining table. My first reaction was to
laugh but then I realised, if I'd done that over the years, I'd have
avoided breakages made by those of my cleaners who were clumsy. Viz.
all of them.
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