As a follow up to the pictures of pigs post, another story from the BBC:
BBC News photographer Jeff Overs was stopped and questioned for taking photographs in Westminster.
(I took the photo to the right on a trip to London earlier this year. Nobody tried to stop me, although, with hindsight, my choice of perspective of the monument seems far more suspect than the usual tourist might choose.)
Continue reading “Westminster sunset”
Every school pupil in England is to be taught that domestic violence against women and girls is unacceptable, as part of a new government strategy.
Which is all very well – and I’m glad they got that comma right – but what about domestic violence against men and boys? And what about violence in general?
Continue reading ““back to common sense””
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:
It’s not the double page spread that’s the problem, it’s the photo captions:
Continue reading “dust up”
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.
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.
Continue reading “alien affairs”
I should probably start this post by saying that I know my grammar and punctuation aren’t perfect. However, I’m not usually writing about politically and emotionally delicate matters; and I’m not writing on an international news site which is read by millions worldwide.
It bothers me when I see phrases like this on the BBC website:
“I absolutely condemn sexual tourism [and] I condemn paedophilia in which I have never in any way participated, and all the people who accuse me of that type of thing should be ashamed,” Mr Mitterrand said.
don't confuse the narrator 