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”
I used to work in Millbank Tower in London and of all the city’s many galleries and museums, the one I am most familiar with is the Tate – Tate Britain as it is now. When in London, I usually try and find time to visit.
Apparently next year they are going to start to allow photography, but at the moment the only works you can take pictures of are a few sculptures at the entrance and the works displayed outside. Which includes the 1999 work by Martin Creed, currently displayed on the building façade above the Millbank entrance:
When I first moved to Spain, I found that many Spanish words are similar to high-register Latin-root words in English. It was easy to start cruising along, thinking this language learning wasn’t so bad after all, when suddenly I’d be brought up short by something completely unexpected.
Once I’d learned to drop my aitches – easy enough for an Essex gir! – I could cope with hotel and hostal, but staying in a pensión was somewhat less intuitive.
Continue reading “something to celebrate”
There was an interesting article on the BBC yesterday, about “information visualisation”, written by Davd McCandless, the guy behind the Information is Beautiful website.
The article discusses how information can often be shown more easily by pictures than by text, and includes a number of different types of graphic to demonstrate the point.
Continue reading “picture a fact”
Translating an article on Brazilian beaches, I’ve just learned a new word in Spanish:
carioca.
1. adj. Natural de Río de Janeiro. U. t. c. s.
2. adj. Perteneciente o relativo a esta ciudad del Brasil o a su provincia.
(definition from the Diccionario de la Lengua Española.)
I suppose it’s my lousy accent than makes me connect it to karaoke. It does mean, though, that I should find it relatively easy to remember carioca by picturing the Rio carnival procession all singing karaoke as they dance the samba.
Actually, that’s such a dreadful image that I hope I don’t have much call to talk about the people and activities of Rio in Spanish.
don't confuse the narrator 