This paradoxical headline comes from today’s ¡Qué!, one of Madrid’s free newspapers:
Twenty-four-hour gas stations can’t close at night: if they do, they won’t be 24-hour gas stations.
Who checks the headlines before the papers go to press? Don’t they have sub editors anymore?
Continue reading “headline news”
The Topka editor has lined up another reading for the T-Tales collection, including Bubbles.
This time we will be reading in Moralzarzal, just north of Madrid. It’s their feria del libro next weekend – following close on the heels of Thursday 23rd, Cervantes’ and Shakespeare’s birthdays, St. George’s Day and el día del libro – and there are cuentacuentos, book signings and other activities.
Sadly, there was a slight scheduling mix up, so Bubbles is to be read in the library rather than the feria precinct, but never mind.
Continue reading “weekend reading”
Half the people in the village this morning were carrying bunches of flowers and greenery, which reminds me that it must be Domingo de Ramos – Palm Sunday.
Ramo and rama are words I can never get straight. Checking today in the on-line Diccionario de la Real Academia, I see that rama is a branch emerging from the tunk or main stem of a plant. Ramo, on the other hand, is a secondary level branch that emerges from the rama madre, or, perhaps, a rama cortada del árbol. If branches change sex the further they get from the trunk or once they’ve been cut from the tree, no wonder I’m confused.
Continue reading “of branches and bunches”
I’ve always found typical Spanish names a problem: who’d call their daughter Dolores, for example, given that it means “pains”? Or Sagrario, which, according to your reading, may be “shrine” or “monstrance”. Or Purificación or Inmaculada Concepción?
Of course these are traditional Catholic names which are also reflected in dedications of churches and church schools around the country.
Continue reading “inconceivable”
The BBC have apologised for broadcasting, on BBC1’s Breakfast programme, an unbleeped version of an audio tape where – allegedly – Christian Bale berates a colleague for ruining a shot on the set of Terminator Salvation. A spokeswoman is quoted as saying, “A technical error led to us broadcasting an unacceptable swear word.” Which seems a bit of an understatement if it’s true that the outburst includes the use of the F-word 35 times in just over four minutes.
The incident (the ‘berating’, rather than the BBC apology) has caught my attention as it comes hot on the heels of a scandal in Spain Continue reading “set-tos on set”
don't confuse the narrator 