Dawn

Dawn

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Relative numbers; Spanish English; A new ferry; The EU; Misc: & An easy mistake.

RELATIVE EU NUMBERS: In a UK TV program last week, there were said to be 80,000 'sex-workers' in Britain. From memory, the number is 200,000 in Germany and - wait for it - 400,000 here in Spain. 10,000 in Galicia alone. 400 here in Pontevedra City. Hence all the ads in the back of the local papers. And the brothels on the edge of every town. An ancient Catholic institution. Even older than the Church itself, they say.   

SPANISH ENGLISH: It's common-place for native speakers of English to bemoan the fact local authorities don't take up offers to check announcements for just a few pence. Or even - in my case - for free. But the city of Vigo is taking a step in the right direction. Because of the vast numbers of tourists now arriving aboard mammoth cruise liners, the local coppers are to be given lessons in English. Let's hope - without too much confidence - that they're not going to be taught by whoever wrote the headline on the article in the Faro de Vigo - "Thank you so much, Mr Police". 

NEW SPANISH FERRY: Talking of boats and Vigo . . . There's to be a new service between Vigo (for some reason 'The Olive City') and and St Nazaire/Nantes in France. Whether this will be of use to me, I've yet to determine. Anyway, it starts sometime next year. Maybe.

THE EU: Finland - A case study in euro ruination? A Fixit to join the ranks of the Brexit? Click here for the reasons for the questions, if not the answers.

MISC:
  • My neighbour, the lovely Ester, joins me for English conversation a few times a week. Her concept of time is idiosyncratic but yesterday she boasted that she was only 5 minutes late. Since she arrives at this number by deducting the time it takes her to get from her house to mine, it's a good job she doesn't live a few kilometres away.  
  • Reader Q10 has kindly provided the explanation of the emergency number of 112, which operates throughout the continental EU, it seems. Click here for this. 
  • It was reported yesterday, in respect of a Spanish football match, that the ref. had noted that "A man invaded the pitch and approached assistant number one and tried to hit him with his penis, which he had pulled out beforehand" . I rather think this sentence was longer than it needed to be. 
  • I didn't really believe that Spanish books usually lacked an Index until, reading Garzón's massive tome on corruption in Spain, I tried to look up 1999 case of the fire-prone Spanish flax crop. No index at the end of . . . pages. Very odd.   

FINALLY . . . AN EASY MISTAKE TO MAKE: The lovely Ester is relentless in her demand that I let her 'improve' at least my man-oriented living room. As she left yesterday, she pronounced that I should cut one of my plants with a pair of trousers. She meant 'scissors', of course. How we laughed. But the last laugh may be on me; my elder daughter arrives soon and they are often in cahoots.

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