spain – Page 75 – don't confuse the narrator

positively crackers

When there used to be an M&S in Madrid, you could buy hot cross buns at Christmas – I think they labelled them bollos de Pascuas – but I’ve always thought of them as an Easter speciality. On the other hand, I’d associate crackers with Christmas or birthdays, but it seems there are places in the UK where you can now buy crackers for Easter.

I wonder what they contain.

Christmas and birthdays are times for gifts, and the knick-knacks, fripperies and party favours seem totally appropriate.

Easter, though, has always struck me as more focused on the religious side of things. Which meant my first idea was that there should be no paper hats and plastic toys, but that an Easter cracker should burst open with a loud Hosanna and a dazzling manifestation of the Risen Christ.

Further thought made me decide that this was unrealistic and that a little more symbolism would probably be appropriate.

So I’ve reached the conclusion that you must pull the crackers on Easter Sunday, only to discover that, just like the tomb, they are empty!

(Thanks to MG for the photo.)

spanish dates

I enjoy the changed logos that Google offers to commemorate different occasions. They’re usually pretty much the same for the .com and .co.uk versions, but I notice that they don’t always appear if I’m using the Spanish version of the search (google.es).

This morning, however, I find a symbol on the .es version that is not on the English language pages:

The little red icon is so small that it’s hardly identifiable, but zooming in, it clarifies into a votive candle, and the mouse-over text reads “En recuerdo a las víctimas del 11M“.
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por un tubo

Some Spanish and English words, such as tubo and “tube” are clear and indisputable cognates, at least in some contexts. “A tube of toothpaste” is, indeed, un tubo.

But when we talk about the tubería in a season as wet as this winter has been, we’re probably not referring to the internet being a “series of tubes”, but about the waterpipes and whether they will cope with amount of rain that continues to fall.

water pipes overflowing — A series of tubes

possessed

Apostrophes almost always give Spaniards problems. But they – the Spaniards, not the apostrophes – do love the “genitivo sajón”, as they call it, and seldom miss an opportunity to use it, even when, as in the case of the club whose sign this is, it isn’t appropriate.

To be fair, it can be complicated trying to unravel who owns what.
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