Accusations of political corruption
hit the Spanish media headlines yesterday, a short while before the
government there holds an election that's really a proxy for
independence. A coincidence? I rather doubt it. More likely the Dirty
Tricks Department in Madrid has taken a break from Gibraltar and
moved to something far more important - calling the kettle black.
Yesterday I saw a T-shirt bearing the Spanish national motto - albeit in English:-
Fuck rules
Talking of Castellano . . . Is there
really a Top Ten of Spanish words that English lacks? Well, The
Local thinks so. They're:-
Espabilar
Maruja
Estreno
Cachondeo
Pagafantas
Guiri
Autónomo
Trapichear
Empalagar
Desvelado
Entrecejo
You can
see what these 10 words mean here. All 11 of them. After which, you
might wonder whether Spanish has anything like the word
'barrel-scraping'. Or even 'counting'.
How long
before the selfie craze grinds to a halt? Yesterday I saw a couple
walking backwards and wielding a stick to take pictures of a friend
walking forwards scattering pigeons. Now, if she'd been
machine-gunning them, I could have seen the point of this selfie. Which
wasn't really a selfie,of course. Just 2 friends taking a video of you. Like they had a camera of their own.
I've
wondered(worried?) for years about security on trains. So, last month I was
pleased to see that, down at Tiffintown and Vigo stations, they'd
introduced X-ray machines and changed access to the platforms so you had to go past them. Less encouraging was the shut-down of the
machines the following day. And the fact that you could, anyway, by-pass the changed access and the machines by waiting for someone to exit through the
old door and walking through it as they did. I wonder if the event in
Paris will lead to a re-think of the re-think.
Beggarly Notes: 1. A newish addition to our catalogue - a woman in her 50s(?)
and reasonably well turned out - last night hassled me while licking
an ice-cream cone. She could hardly get her words out. I had no such difficulty; 2. The sweaty-shirted bag-man who stands all day in
one quarter of our main square can sometimes be seen in another part
of town, sitting on a bench and reading a paper he's fished out of a
rubbish bin. He was there last night, with 10-15 variably-sized
plastic bags of stuff. And reading a mobile phone catalogue. Good
times or very bad times, then.
Finally .
. . My daughter, Faye, left for Madrid yesterday afternoon. Which was
saddening. Then again, three troublesome episodes of my life ended
cleanly and happily. As the estimable (but dead) John Denver sang:- Some days are diamonds; some days are stones. And some days are both, of
course
Finally, finally. . . . This is Tiffintown's newish, fashionable restaurant, in the environs of our not-so-newish but still ugly Edificio 6(Building 6) of our museum. I will definitely write my review on Tripadvisor later today. Now, in fact.
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