topical – Page 15 – don't confuse the narrator

questions arising

I see from the BBC website that “CIA director David Petraeus has resigned from his post, admitting he had an extra-marital affair.”

“Unnamed officials” say the affair was with his biographer, who is described in the article as having spent months “embedded alongside the then-general in Afghanistan while researching her 2011 book, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus.”

Leaving aside that use of the verb “embed”, I think the story raises a few questions:

Did she include details of the affair in the biography? If not, can we trust the accuracy of anything else in the book?

Between a biographer and their subject, is there not a “power-relationship”? After all, she could make him look better or worse depending on how she expressed the information? Was he coerced?

She, too, was married. Is she going to resign as a biographer? (It seems to me that the affair impinges more directly on her work than on his.)

the RAE gets a round tuit

I’ve never really understood what the “urgente” refers to in the title of the “Manual de Español Urgente”. If it was a quick guide, surely it would be manual urgente? So, under what circumstances would we be writing “urgent Spanish” and need to check whether we had the details right?

That said, La Fundación del Español Urgente (Fundéu BBVA), have brought out a new Spanish language guide which was launched yesterday, with the title “Escribir en internet: guía para los nuevos medios y las redes sociales”.
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yet more mythical beasts

It’s half a lifetime ago that I first left the UK to live abroad, but barely a day goes by when I’m not in touch with someone there, and I still read the British news when I have time.

Usually, my friends and family keep me up to date when there are stories they think I’ll find interesting, so I was disappointed to realise that no one had told me that the hunt was on in Essex for a lion until it was practically all over.

I’ve always been fond of cats of all sizes, so, since the Essex lion has (probably) turned out to be a mythical beast, I thought I’d post some of the lions I have among my photos.
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the weight of the world

I suspect I’m one of the few women of my age group who has never been on a diet; I was a skinny child and my mother used to tell me I wouldn’t put on weight until I got “a contented mind”.

I’m not sure that’s what happened, but it’s becoming more and more difficult to ignore all the media hype about obesity and health: what used to be reserved for the pages of women’s magazines seems to have spilled over into the general press, and I’ve been aware for a while that my BMI is up at the top end of the acceptable range.

The latest article to catch my eye is on the BBC Health page, entitled “Where are you on the global fat scale?”.
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spring is sprung

Well, Google tells me that it’s the first day of spring today, although to be honest, the sky is more wintry than I’ve seen it in weeks, if not months. So the photos aren’t from today – and they aren’t all from my garden – although they were all taken during the last week: