Dawn

Dawn

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Regal setbacks; Jewish fears; Pegida in Spain; Funny names; Charlie Hebdo; Tirada; & Spanish superstitions.

It's been a bad week for the Spanish royal family when it comes to legal processes. One court has allowed a paternity suit against the ex-king to go ahead and the judge in the trial of Princess Cristina has rejected her appeal against the suit. Thus irritating - yet again - the Public Prosecutor responsible for Corruption. If you see what I mean. The latter has accused said judge of 'excesses' and of being intent on putting the princess on the stand despite a lack of evidence against her. With my legal friends like that . .

It's an irony that while thousands of French Jews are crossing to the UK to escape rising prejudice back home, British Jews are feeling more uncomfortable than they have for a long while. Everything's relative, I guess.

Which reminds me . . . A Spanish branch of the German anti-immigration/Islamist group - Pegida - has opened up and started to twitter. This has surprised those of us who'd felt you couldn't get more right wing than the extremists of the PP Party, normally associated with the Catholic 'fascist' entity Opus Dei. But, then, this development has thrown up the fact that there's also a (Francoist) Falange group. It takes all sorts.

A friend yesterday told me she's flying later this year on an airline called cheapOair. A Norwegian outfit, apparently. Which has some very good - or very bad - marketing advisers.

Talking of names . . . Do you remember the old Paris-Dakar Rally? Well, it's now called just the Dakar Rally. And takes place in . . . South America. As to why, your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps they improved all the roads in Africa.

Charlie Hebdo: Now that the grandstanding is over, here and here are articles which have impressed me this week. One by a Muslim and one not.

Spanish words: There are some of these which constantly bring me to halt, essentially because they have a lot of everyday meanings and I have to try and figure out - from the context, of course - which one is relevant. One such is tirada, from the verb tirar: to throw. It can mean:-
a throw
a print run
a reprint
a circulation of
an offprint (tirada aparte)
an edition
a distance
a stretch
dirt cheap
stranded
a series
in one go (de una tirada)
a string
a boring speech (Lat. Am)
a hint (S. Am.)
a dirty trick (Caribb.)

Not that English is easy, of course.

Finally . . . The Local has this time come up with a list of 10 Spanish Superstitions you might not know (I didn't) and preambled them thus: Did you know that Tuesday the 13th is considered unlucky in Spain, and not Friday the 13th? That's because Tuesday is said to be dominated by Ares, the Greek god of war, who gives his name to Martes, or Tuesday, in Spanish. There is an even old proverb that explains the superstition: "On Tuesday, don’t get married, embark on a journey, or move away'. Click here.


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