In today’s El Mundo there’s a report entitled Los borrosos rostros de la nueva Unión – “the vague faces of the new Union”. (It’s in the print edition, but it seems you need a subscription to read the article online.) In it, they talk about the new president of the European Union and the “superministra”, Catherine Ashton.
There are two possible reasons for that slip, I think: one, going back to the Eighties when I first learned about databases with dBase II, an Ashton-Tate product; and two, the fact that the article is accompanied by a photo of a dalek.
Ashton is described as “consumidora entusiasta de televisión”, though I wonder if the fact she likes the X Factor can have quite the cachet of being a Dr Who fan. Talking about her home in St Albans, the article says:
En su sala de estar tienen un robot extraterrestre llamado Dalek,
Of course, daleks are not common in Spain, so it’s not enough to say she has a dalek in the dining room. The piece continues:
del tamaño de un persona, una especie de salero gigante metálico salido de una serie de ciencia ficción británica de los 60. La figura, que le regaló su marido, es un mito nacional convertido en Reino Unido hasta en inspiración pornográfico.
Approximate translation:
In her dining room she has an extraterrestrial robot called a Dalek, the size of a person, a sort of giant metal salt cellar from a British science fiction series from the Sixties. The figure, which was given her by her husband, is a national myth, which in the UK has even been a pornographic inspiration.
I don’t doubt that the last phrase is true – many readers will be familiar with “internet rule 34”, which basically says that “If it exists, there is porn of it.” – but I fail to see the relevance in a piece on the new European Union foreign affairs chief. I don’t think it’s that sort of affair that she’s expected to deal with.
don't confuse the narrator 