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.
Continue reading “plain speaking”
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.
Continue reading “political polemic”
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.)
The first time I heard the phrase Hoy por ti; mañana por mí I was amazed at the no-nonsense approach to helping others that it seemed to encapsulate.
The closest we seem to come to it in English is “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”, though I don’t think that’s quite the same, as the English idiom implies a real one-to-one reciprocity.
Continue reading “hoy por ti”
When the white clouds lifted, they left behind
a hint of snow along the mountain ridge. The sky
is blue as any summer’s day and I walk to the village
in unbroken sunshine. On the way back, a neighbour
eases his donkey from amble to pause and greets me.
He wants some windfall apples “pa’ el guarro”. I agree,
but would so much prefer to let the patient burro
mumble fruit from my palm, not help to fatten
the squealing pig for Martinmas.
(First draft – which means I’ve only rewritten it half a dozen times and juggled the line breaks back and forth and to and fro, but haven’t added in additional material or stepped back from it very far.)
Continue reading “winter approaches”
don't confuse the narrator 