Dawn

Dawn

Monday, March 01, 2010

Xynthia or Xinthia?; Raking the P; Adieu, Lionel; and Galician Erotica.

I'm a tad confused about the name of the storm which passed east of us (I think) but hit the northern coast and then France rather hard. I assumed it was spelt the Galician way (Xinthia) in honour of the fact it was going to hit us first. But then I noticed it was called Xynthia, not Xinthia. And there’s no letter ‘y; in Gallego. Anyone got a clue?

Some belated signs of austerity here in Spain - The Ministress of the Economy has announced there’ll be expenditure cuts in public companies. Though this doesn’t seem much compared with what’s described in this article about belt-tightening elsewhere around the world. A straw in the cold wind?

Changing Spain: Or just tough times? The Noia council here in Galicia (‘Noya’ in Castellano, you'll have guessed) has announced that the fine for relieving yourself in their streets will now range from 50 to 750 euros, depending on the importance of the building you do it against, not the volume of your gift to the town. This has apparently been an offence since 1898 (a great year for many things), when the fine was one peseta. Since then it had risen to all of 6 euros but the council felt this was possibly not working as a deterrent. Possibly for olfactory reasons.

So, Lionel Jeffries – one of the unsung heroes of British comedy - has moved on to a more celestial stage. Hard as it may be to believe, I know this because of an obituary in El País. Which ended with the rather sad sentence – “Aged 93, he retired to his property in Essex, from where he submitted comedy scripts that were systematically rejected by the industry.” Let’s hope he’d forgotten he sent them. Or that God is a bit more Christian.

Finally . . . Putting titles on my posts does seem to be working for Google Alerts. But, if you’re going to be in the region this week, their item on Galicia Eros 2010 may be of interest, if that’s your bag. Happily for Galician adolescents, the site is available in both Castellano and Gallego. But pornografía takes an ‘i’ in both languages, I believe.


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