translation – Page 21 – don't confuse the narrator

tall, taller, tallest

The rains have come, so we must get the windscreen wipers fixed on the car. That will probably entail a trip to the mechanic’s workshop – a trip to the taller mecánico.

Personally, I’ve always wondered who the shorter mechanic was, but perhaps you have to be over a certain height in Spain to be admitted into the secrets of the internal combustion engine.

Looking more closely at the photo, I see that this is not the competitive situation I had imagined at first: it’s not the taller mechanic and the even taller mechanic, just the same mecánico aiming his advertising at different levels. Perhaps he hopes that when Sultan Kosen does get a car that he can drive comfortably, he will take it to this workshop for repairs.

having a good time

The weather in Spain is very predictable. Not just what weather there will be, but when it will happen. Last year, on September 10th I wrote about the first torrential rains of the autumn. This year, I received an email on September 13th including the phrase, “Greetings from stormy Madrid.”

As you can infer from the photo, a lot of the rain in Spain has fallen in my back garden. Whether the rains will last long enough to do much good remains to be seen, but, for the moment at least, I don’t need to do any watering.
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‘tranquilo’

I went outside on Thursday morning before the sun was up, and what struck me most was how quiet it was. It felt like an autumn morning in the UK: chilly, with a slight blur to the air. In the UK, that would have been from bonfires; here, of course, it was from wildfire smoke.

The helicopters started again soon after 8am, and a walk to the village showed that all was not over: the polideportivo was ‘occupied’ by soldiers and firemen, and the fire was still the main topic of conversation everywhere.

firetrucks & military vehicles at the sports centre

weighty matters

I saw this sign in a designer shop escaparate in Madrid and wonder whether it sounds as odd in Spanish as it does to an English speaker. I guess ‘puff’ is an imported word and they just think it means some kind of small stool.

For me ‘puff’ should be associated with something as delicate and formless as smoke or clouds.

Definitely not with a solid lump of marble.

crooked houses

Potentially good news for all those Brits in Spain who are living in houses that were built without proper licences. The Reader (Almería-based English-language paper) tells us: Mayor of Zurgena and 24 more charged in urban corruption case.

An interesting language point from the story is the word prevaricación which although clearly connected to the English “prevarication” is not a direct translation.
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