spain – Page 62 – don't confuse the narrator

“good enough for Keats”

Having been reminded recently that I am not as familiar with the works of P. G. Wodehouse as I should be, I downloaded an audio copy of The Clicking of Cuthbert to listen to.

It’s slightly surreal to walk around rural Spain with something so eminently English sounding in my head, and it does mean that I am liable to reply in English to any neighbourly salutation, but I don’t find as much time for reading as I’d like and some of the free audio books from librivox.org are an absolute delight, even if they are read by amateurs.
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plain speaking

When I wrote the post about the PP’s Rescate game earlier, I visited their web site to see if I could actually see or play the game myself. The page (http://www.ppcatalunya.com/rescate/) loads but there’s no game there. What there is, is a little diagonal strap across the top left hand corner with the slogan hablando claro – speaking clearly:

Clicking on it takes you to a ten-point survey.
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political polemic

I know I try and keep away from politics on the blog, but because of the Catalán elections, there have been a couple of Spanish stories in the news this week and they are really too good to ignore. The first, reported by the BBC under the headline Spain outrage over migrant bombing game centres on a video game – Rescate (Rescue) – that the Partido Popular launched a few days on their website.

I haven’t played the game, which seems to be no longer available on the website, but have read a few of the reports in both Spanish and UK national press. The tag line for the game appears to be:

Ayuda a Alicia y a Pepe, su gaviota, a rescatar a Cataluña de la crisis

and it features Alicia Sánchez-Camacho (President of the PP in Catalonia) as Alicia Croft, perched on a great white seagull shooting at illegal immigrants and symbols of Catalán nationalism.
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the bright side

Half empty wine glass with marina backdrop — Half empty?

I was at a writing workshop this weekend and one exercise involved writing about our childhood homes. When the first few pieces were read out they involved anecdotes of family arguments and illness etc.

Some of the people involved grew up during the War, so it’s not surprising that there were some bad memories, but the tutor commented that her experience shows the vast majority of people will write something negative. I suppose this ties in with the fact that first memories are often of some traumatic experience.
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a week is a long time in science

When I went to university, it was still obligatory for all students to have basic maths and English qualifications, whatever they were going to study. Even today, I’d be surprised if you could become “a scientist” (whatever that might mean) without knowing some simple arithmetic.

So how come the Madrid Science Week is scheduled to last from 8th to 21st of November? My calculations make that 13 nights/14 days, which is a lot longer than a week.

(Note that isnt really a ‘fortnight’, though, as that would be 14 nights, equivalent to the Spanish quincena which is 15 days.)