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.
No comments:
Post a Comment