Dawn

Dawn

Monday, May 07, 2012


Back in Spain, I'm still using my old-style, no-longer-issued, and anyway-expired ID card to prove who I am when I use my debit and credit cards. And still giving them my signature though I thought the chips in them had made this unnecessary. But I'm sure that one day everything will be as it should be.

I learned last week that Spanish has a nice word for someone/ something that's bland, tasteless, dull, insipid or boring. It's soso and it's hard not to believe this comes from the English expression so so. So, another bit of Spanglish, I guess.

Which reminds me . . . The Spanish verb buscar means 'to look/search for'. But, taking my car for a service last week, I discovered it also means 'to pick up/collect'. Which is worth knowing.

Did you know that, whilst demanding severe belt-tightening in all EU states, the Commission in Brussels has voted itself a budgetary increase of 6.8% for next year? You couldn't make it up.There's something far more luxurious than gravy on that particular train. Molten gold, perhaps.

But, be that as it may, the weekend's election results have unleashed a cat - and not just a little domestic moggie - among the pigeons. So, I guess we'll now have a least a month's crisis management as both the Commission and the German hardliners come up against the discomforting expression of democratic will in France, Holland, Rumania and Greece. Not that this has caused much of a problem for the former over the last thirty years or more. So, it'll be interesting to see what they come up with. Apart from reducing the increase in their planned expenditure on themselves.

Meanwhile, does anyone know of any EU country which stands a chance of reaching its 2012 deficit target? Will there be an official amnesty if none of them do? Or will they all be fined by Brussels? Where, notwithstanding any economies elsewhere, the quantities of food and wine consumed will almost certainly surpass those of last year.

All the adverts on my Facebook page are still about dating agencies. A new one today is for the over-50s and the picture is of a well-endowed lady who's considerably less than 50 and who'd surely fall to the floor if she leant forward ever so slightly. I was going to say "fall flat on her face" but - if you've got the picture - you'll readily appreciate this wouldn't be physically possible. If you haven't got the picture, click here.

Finally . . . It's struck me that, such is the acceptance and spread of them, if I live another 20 or even 30 years, there must come a time when I'm the only person in the room not sporting a tattoo.

THE SAYINGS OF DR. WILLIAM OSLER

Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal thought.


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