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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