Some years ago there was a great fuss about whether Spain was to be allowed to keep on producing and using computer keyboards with the ‘ñ’ character. I think it was around the same time that the alphabet was reformed and, although the eñe retained its independence, the ‘ch’ and ‘ll’ ceased to be treated as separate letters in dictionaries. (I was reminded of this on my last UK visit, when I had fun trying to find things in my sister’s old Collins dictionary published decades before the reform.)
Continue reading “of eñes and Elvis”
Tag: Madrid
veranos de la villa
I’m not that surprised by names like Burt Bacharach and Jerry Lee Lewis: I sort of expect those guys to go on for ever. But George Benson, Kool and the Gang, Jeff Beck, James Taylor…
In August, I’ll be attending the Writers’ Summer School in Swanwick. There’s a ‘Retro Revival’ disco planned for the Tuesday night, and I’m pretty sure the music will overlap with what’s on in Madrid this summer.
Incidentally, for the Spanish readers among you, this ‘noticia’ about the Veranos logo might be amusing. (If your Spanish isn’t quite up to scratch, remember: don’t believe everything you read on the web.)
three men went to mow
Some years ago, it was decided to ‘bury’ the M30 Madrid motorway-ringroad. The stretch just south of Puerta de Toledo coincides with the River Manzanares, and the works involved bull-dozing huge stretches of urban park and felling hundreds of trees. An awful lot of rubble was just dumped into the already sluggish river.
Continue reading “three men went to mow”
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.
a purple cow
The Madrid Cow Parade cows were auctioned last night.
I have many pictures of the stampede as they were lined up in the street outside the Westin Palace Hotel, but no time to pick, choose and process, so will settle for this one for the moment:
Mi Sueño (“my dream”) by Carlos A González, sponsored by alimentacion.es.
And a few brief words from Gelett Burgess (1866–1951):
I never saw a purple cow;
I never hope to see one;
but I can tell you anyhow;
I’d rather see than be one!
don't confuse the narrator 