I haven’t been following the X-factor/Rage Against the Machine story, but it’s one of those things that filter through even if you aren’t the least bit interested in it, and the headlines this morning make it unmissable.
Even so, the only real interest I have in the story is that it’s triggered a memory of being asked by a Swedish friend’s son, back in the early Nineties, what Rage Against the Machine meant.
Continue reading “all the rage”
They say that in Valladolid they speak the purest Spanish. And apparently it’s powerful as well as pure.
From the Castilla y León pages of El Mundo, the headline: “Una pareja de sexagenarios desarma a un atracador en su portal sólo con palabras”.
The story begins:
El poder de la palabra es inmenso, pero no sólo en sentido figurado. Solamente con ese arma, una pareja sexagenaria logró desarmar al atracador que trató de robarles cuando entraban en el portal de su vivienda en […] Valladolid.
Every school pupil in England is to be taught that domestic violence against women and girls is unacceptable, as part of a new government strategy.
Which is all very well – and I’m glad they got that comma right – but what about domestic violence against men and boys? And what about violence in general?
Continue reading ““back to common sense””
There’s nothing funny about a story of Turkish workers dying from silicosis after working in factories where sand is used to pre-age jeans. Nor is there anything funny about the Night Stalker who allegedly attacked 108 old people in the Croydon area over a period of 17 years.
Sadly, the juxtaposition of two reports in a newspaper can add an inappropriately humorous twist. Which is what happened in Sunday’s El Mundo, Crónica section, where, in the printed edition, the two stories occupied full pages opposite each other:
It’s not the double page spread that’s the problem, it’s the photo captions:
Continue reading “dust up”
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.
Continue reading “alien affairs”
don't confuse the narrator 