Looking at the RAE gives a single meaning for redactar:
1. tr. Poner por escrito algo sucedido, acordado o pensado con anterioridad.
This doesn’t help me much, so I checked with a Spanish friend from the world of publishing who told me that redactar is not the same as escribir as it involves drawing together ideas and editing them into a coherent form. One example he gave was “you can’t redactar a shopping list.”
Continue reading “write – edit – censor”
I complained, or at least commented, recently, about the temptations and distractions involved in dusting bookshelves. At the moment a similar temptation confronts me every time I clean the log stove and re-lay the fire.
No, I’m not using books for fuel, but I do tend to start each fire off with a fir cone or two and a few sheets of paper; I’ve tried using some of my old drafts of poetry, but I fear my writing will never set the world alight and newspaper is definitely better.
Continue reading “of love poetry and distractions”
I wrote recently about the automatic responses from WordPress when you publish a blog post, and how one of my posts was greeted with:
In the comments to that post, it was suggested that perhaps this was intended as an imperative, but I assure you I am not responsible for the story that prompted this blog post.
The original headline that is referred to comes from hoy.es and reads: Una poesía provoca una alerta por bomba – ‘poem causes bomb alert’ – a news story from Badajoz earlier this week. If your Spanish is up to it, please go and read the post on quadernodenotas, if not, you’ll have to make do with my hurried – and somewhat ‘creative’ – summary.
Continue reading “poems not bombs”
I suppose it’s difficult for journalists to maintain the momentum of a story that continues for months without very much actually happening. Which presumably accounts for the Evening Standard story headlined:
Assange ‘acts like a moody teenager and is hunted by women’
I thought teenagers were mostly moody due to a lack of attention from the opposite sex, but I guess it’s been a long time since my adolescence.
Continue reading “it’s not unusual”
I guess most readers know I’m based in Spain and although I try and keep this blog politically neutral, I suspect some might be wondering why I haven’t commented on the “No les votes” protests, which have been going on since last Sunday.
I’ve had a look at the Guardian website and the news page for Spain seems to be stuck several days ago and make no mention whatsoever of the protests.
I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad. But it’s got me wondering again about the world of modern communications.
Continue reading “mod comms”
don't confuse the narrator 