Staying in the UK with no internet connection for a week was a strange experience for someone who spends as many hours on-line as I usually do. Sadly, it didn’t result in vast quantities of poems being written long-hand in notebooks or anything very creative like that.
It did, however leave me a few photos that I intended for the blog and haven’t yet posted. Like this ‘co-operative lamb shank in gravy’.
The local cinema is showing Polanski’s The Ghost Writer and this is the poster advertising the film: 
You’ll notice that the title has been translated into Spanish as El Escritor – The Writer. I wonder whether that’s because the word used for a “ghost writer” is negro.
Continue reading “pc or not pc”
I’ve already commented on how fond the Spanish are of the genitivo sajón so I suppose the strange and entirely inappropriate little green leaf in the logo of this packet of “snatt’s” isn’t really surprising.
Still, it does make me wonder once again who does the copy writing and design for Spanish advertising agencies.
I imagine the brand name “snatt’s” is someone’s interpretation of the sound of the English word “snacks”. But what purpose does the leaf serve?
If it’s purely a design element, surely it could have been put somewhere where it wasn’t likely to be mistaken for an apostrophe? Or did the company chairman think that an apostrophe added a sophisticated English twist to the name?
Continue reading “sinful snacking”
No, I’m afraid it’s not a post about problems with abstractions in poetry, although that’s a subject dear to my heart. This is literally about images and concrete. Or, to be more precise, images and cement.
I imagined that the packaging was designed to appeal to no-nonsense men who deal in practical information like quality codes or weights and measures. A bit like the empty sack in the photo.
But then I caught sight of un saco de cemento with the slogan:
Tu salud está en tus manos.
Este cemento no provoca dermatitis alérgica.
and realised the subject was rather more complex.
How would you illustrate the packaging of a hypoallergenic cement?
Continue reading “concrete imagery”
don't confuse the narrator 