don't confuse the narrator

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:
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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.
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the fat of the land

A strange story from the BBC today, with the headline Peru arrests ‘human fat killers’. According to the report,

Four people have been arrested in Peru on suspicion of killing dozens of people in order to sell their fat and tissue for cosmetic uses in Europe.

I wonder what use the fat is put to. Particularly as, according to the Health First Europe website: “Europe has the highest number of overweight and obese people in the world.”
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purple pictures

I really do need that new camera if I am to stop taking pictures like the one on the left. Though what it will take to stop me writing purple prose is anybody’s guess.

I also need it so I can take better pictures than the one below (which comes from the same set as the previous one). After all, if the local area provides me with such wonderful subjects, it would be nice to be able to do them justice.

Not that getting a new camera will make me a better photographer, of course, but it shouldn’t make me any worse.

one last prayer

It seems awfully late in the season, but we still have lots of insects about. As soon as the sun comes out, the ivy is busy with honey bees and wasps, and I found this green bug-eyed monster on the verandah earlier on today: