topical – Page 28 – don't confuse the narrator

broken bridges

One of the things inherent in Spanish culture is the idea of fiestas. Yesterday, December 6th, was el Día de la Constitución, and tomorrow is La Inmaculada Concepción. Both are usually bank holidays, and, depending how they fall, there is often a ‘puente’ linking the two.

I’d expected today to be declared a national holiday to compensate for the fact that the Day of the Constitution fell on a Sunday. No such luck.

It occurs to me that the refusal to link la Constitución with la Inmaculada could be an affirmation of the separation of church and state. And I think we should be having a bank holiday to celebrate that.

Westminster sunset

St Paul's cathedral — Sneak view from the rear

As a follow up to the pictures of pigs post, another story from the BBC:

BBC News photographer Jeff Overs was stopped and questioned for taking photographs in Westminster.

(I took the photo to the right on a trip to London earlier this year. Nobody tried to stop me, although, with hindsight, my choice of perspective of the monument seems far more suspect than the usual tourist might choose.)
Continue reading “Westminster sunset”

“back to common sense”

From the BBC news website yesterday:

Every school pupil in England is to be taught that domestic violence against women and girls is unacceptable, as part of a new government strategy.

Which is all very well – and I’m glad they got that comma right – but what about domestic violence against men and boys? And what about violence in general?
Continue reading ““back to common sense””

dust up

There’s nothing funny about a story of Turkish workers dying from silicosis after working in factories where sand is used to pre-age jeans. Nor is there anything funny about the Night Stalker who allegedly attacked 108 old people in the Croydon area over a period of 17 years.

Sadly, the juxtaposition of two reports in a newspaper can add an inappropriately humorous twist. Which is what happened in Sunday’s El Mundo, Crónica section, where, in the printed edition, the two stories occupied full pages opposite each other:

"El Mundo" double page spread, 22 November 2009

It’s not the double page spread that’s the problem, it’s the photo captions:
Continue reading

alien affairs

In today’s El Mundo there’s a report entitled Los borrosos rostros de la nueva Unión – “the vague faces of the new Union”. (It’s in the print edition, but it seems you need a subscription to read the article online.) In it, they talk about the new president of the European Union and the “superministra”, Catherine Ashton.

Oops. I nearly typed Catherine Tate.

There are two possible reasons for that slip, I think: one, going back to the Eighties when I first learned about databases with dBase II, an Ashton-Tate product; and two, the fact that the article is accompanied by a photo of a dalek.
Continue reading “alien affairs”