rules & regulations – Page 4 – don't confuse the narrator

the leisure business

The local piscina natural is now active for the summer and new signs have been painted and displayed. This is one that has escaped the graffiti artists so far:

Some of my pedantic readers will realise quickly enough why I am not impressed.
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using language

I hadn’t realised that the library in Navarredonda was following a long and honourable Spanish tradition with their sign listing their rules and regulations for behaviour.

Still, the tile in the photograph was spotted embedded in the wall outside a bar in Pedro Bernardo and does seem to be a genuine antique.

Presumably, though, the residents don’t want visitors to think that they are quite so stuck in the past as a ban on blasphemy and the image of a pony parked in the bull ring might lead you to believe. At least, I assume that’s why they felt the need to add the small explanatory tile that reads, “curiosidad antigua”.
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silence in the library

So, what do you go to the library for?

Prohibido gritar, pegar e insultar en la biblioteca — Which still leaves a lot of options.

I think most of us go to read books, refer to works of reference, borrow books to take home, use the computer facilities etc. But it seems that either other people have other motives, or they get a lot more het up and argumentative than I would expect.

That’s the only explanation I can see for the sign displayed in the library at Navarredonda. For those who don’t read Spanish, it says:

IT IS FORBIDDEN
TO SHOUT, HIT OR
INSULT
IN THE LIBRARY

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not if, but when

It's not if we catch you, it's when — Big Brother is watching you

For reasons I won’t go into, I clicked a link to watch a video on YouTube and was startled by the advert that came up alongside.

I don’t think I have a particularly guilty conscience, but I can’t imagine I’m the only person who has seen that appear on their screen and immediately started wondering what on earth they’ve been doing that they shouldn’t have.
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it’s all Greek to them

An interesting story on the BBC website under the headline Spanish hairdressers rebel against radio tax. It’s all to do with the fact that here in Spain the SGAE (Sociedad General de Autores y Editores) is determined to protect the intellectual property rights of its members.

The SGAE are the people responsible for the Canon por copia privada, a tax imposed on recording devices (both storage media, such as cds, and reproduction devices) in Spain.
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