The Spanish President,
Sr Rajoy, gave a state-of-the-nation address to Parliament yesterday.
At the end of it, the serried ranks of his PP party stood up en masse
and applauded him to the rafters. Except for the smiles on everyone's
face, it rather reminded me of similar events in North Korea.
Rajoy has endorsed his stance that a referendum on
Catalan independence will not take place as it would be
illegal. He'll be telling us next that corruption doesn't exist in
Spain because it's illegal. Meanwhile, I guess he'll be slapping an
injunction on President Mas of Cataluña. Though, the good news is he's also said he's open to dialogue. Not before time.
The old expat name
game: Anyone who lives here knows it's hard for the Spanish to
get their heads around the combination of two forenames and one
surname. It being the opposite case here. And you'll also know this
leads to endless problems. The latest for me is the Honda
concessionary in Vigo calling to tell me I didn't exist on the Honda
computer, though my car did. I said this was OK as it was the car
that needed repairing, not me. Nonetheless, I had to give him my ID
number. This time I felt it best not to do what I routinely do with the postman and give something totally fictitious.
Words 1: I see
from the TV reports that Independence Square in Kiev is call 'Meidan'
in Ukrainian. I assume this is
related to the Arabic/Persian word for square, also meidan.
From which Spanish gets Alameda. Small world.
Words 2: I see the internet has
thrown up the new word/phrase - clickbait/click bait. Which seems to mean something in an on-line paper or mag
which is designed to attract the maximum number of clicks. Usually with breasts.
Words 3: Musing
on the major corruption case labelled Gurtel, I was wondering
how it got its un-Spanish name. Turns out this is the German for
Correa (belt), which is the name of one of the 'protagonists',
as they're called here. A bit more musing led me to the conclusion
that the English equivalent is Girdle. Problem solved. Details
of this case here.
Words 4: Reading
through something from the 18th century the other day, I came across
a couple of words which have fallen out of use but which I feel
should be brought back. One such is whim-wham. No idea what it
means.
Finally . . . A gypsy
man from Lugo has been arrested for the abduction and murder of his
pregnant wife. The latter was from one of the gypsy encampments near
my home and I was intrigued to read that the police had intervened to stop
members of her family travelling to Lugo to 'settle accounts' with the man's family. As the report had it, the
police had stopped the Pontevedra gang because they were showing
signs of planning to approach the Lugo gang con intenciones poco
amistosas. I'll bet!
The Environment
January: 31 days. On which it rained: 28 - 93%
February: 26 days. On which it has rained: 26 -
100%.
So, 54 out of 57 - 95%.
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