Another excellent article in El País today, this time on the Spanish labour market and the need for substantive reform. As the paper is the mouthpiece of the government, I’m beginning to suspect these articles are no coincidence. Possibly part of a softening-up process ahead of some long-overdue initiatives. Or is this too optimistic as regards Mr Zapatero’s administration?
Our friend Ambrose meanwhile takes issue with the Germans both for ensuring that nothing but confusion came out of this week’s meeting of EU finance ministers and for ploughing/plowing a hard-line furrow which he thinks is both “demented” and “destructive” for Europe as a whole.
I see there's an an ad in the papers today for a watch which will “release us from the tyranny of batteries”. Needless to say, it’s marketed as Eco-Drive. As it happens, I have on my wrist an Omega chronometer which I bought forty four years ago and which - being self-winding - has never subjected me to the “slavery of the battery”. Though this was not regarded as eco-friendly back then. Just sensible. It seems that some people are condemned, through ignorance, not merely to re-live history but also to re-invent it..
Finally . . . I see that the Spanish for fait accompli is hechos consumados. Which reads a little strangely when you translate it into English. But, then, as least Spanish has the equivalent phrase and doesn’t have to fall back on the French.
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