There's
a 4 or 5 star 'thermal' hotel along our coast between Vigo and
Bayona. Allegedly it was financed by a narcotrafico
and certainly it's illegal. It seems the local council which approved
its construction failed to put a notice in the relevant bulletin.
This seems like a minor technicality to me but maybe it masks
something rather more serious. Anyway, the courts have ordered the
hotel's destruction, only for the owners to demand payment for this
which is 14 times the local council's annual budget of €18m. So, it
could still be standing in 10 years' time. In fact, I'd be prepared
to bet on that. Though I think it should be knocked down tomorrow simply for publishing English like this:- People
Kitchen team, led by chef Cruz, transmitted through the food delights
of good food has always excelled in Galicia. An elaborate cuisine
market in which traditional dishes as well as other more daring live
in the Charter of one of the best restaurants in the Rias Baixas. In
addition to a varied Menu that
changes daily, we offer a service "a
la Carta",
which highlights his interest in rice, such as police[???] or
lobster.
In
a podcast I heard last night, a woman said Princess Diana was a
feminist icon who'd successfully taken on the Royal Family, "the most
powerful family in the land". Personally, I'd have thought this was the
accursed Murdochs. After all, what can the Royal Family actually do?
Start a political party? Initiate a law? Commit crimes with impunity?
No. They can't even make me (or you) do anything I don't want to do.
Privileged? Yes. But powerful? No.
There's
no foreign name which isn't transformed into a Spanish
equivalent. Unless, like David for example, it's the same in both
languages. So it is that Chekhov in
English is partnered by Chéjov in Spanish. Though, on reflection,
the latter may well be closer to the pronunciation of the original
Russian.
Finally
. . . There's an exclamatory expression in Spanish - Me cago en
la madre que te parió. Or "I shit on the mother who gave
birth to you." My elder daughter was at a family dinner where,
during an argument, the mother threw this at her son. At
dinner last night with local friends, they seemed remarkably
unsurprised at this, giving the strong impression there was nothing
unusual about it. You don't have to be robust to work here but it
helps.
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