Which reminds me .
. . The gypsy crone who's cursed me several times over the years
appeared in Veggie Square yesterday for the first time in many
months. I caught sight of her giving a palm reading to a gullible (or
charitable) young woman and saw she was tapping her hand vigorously.
I thought for a second she was using an iPad app to peer into the
future. But, no, just lines in the skin. Happily she didn't offer me
insights into the yet-to-be.
Reader Perry has
provided this delightful run-through of the life of Mrs Thatcher,
ending with the, by now, tired cliché that the Iron Lady should rust
in peace. It hails from China and its depiction of her husband as a
alcoholic reminded me that Denis had once given me a lift to a lunch
we were having to discuss the genetic fingerprinting breakthrough.
Did he drink? Yes, he did. And he smoked, in a non-smoking
restaurant. But was he an alcoholic? No idea, Milud. But he was
certainly entertaining.
The
Spanish don't think much of their politicians, whom one observer
recently characterised as an 'extractive class'. And there's an awful
lot of them to despise. Thanks to the pyramid of national, regional,
provincial and local governments, there's reckoned to be one
political job holder for every 115 people in Spain, compared with 1
to 325 in France and 1 to 800 in German. And a surprisingly high
number of these are entitled to an official car. For a government in
search of savings, this would seem to be an obvious area for cuts but
I doubt anyone is betting on them. That said, under pressure from
Brussels, the government has said it might
do something about the high salaries earned throughout the system. So
it might just be worth making a punt.
After what many of
us would have thought was progress around abortions under the last
Socialist administration, the governing PP party - pressured by Guess
Who/What – is about to introduce regressive measures. See here for
more.
The Local
has produced a list of the 10 worst menu translations. I'm not
convinced any of them beats my own favourite discovery - Mussels
to the seaman's blouse. Based on a decision to pick the wrong
option for marinera.
I
always wondered . . . Some words that Brits regard as typically
American – including diaper, the fall and candy – were originally
British but dropped out of use in Britain between the mid 1850s and
the early 1900s. 'Trash' is another of these, of course, but it
may have fallen out of use earlier, though not before Shakespeare
used it.
Talking
of words . . . Can this be right? - Amanda
Thatcher, a US college student, appeared completely unphased.
Not long after the
Spanish king's extra-marital activities became the stuff of
headlines, an enterprising ad agency came up with the idea of using
the queen's plight (and image) to promote the services of its client.
Unfortunately, this was a dating agency for those wanting to indulge
in a spot of infidelity. And Sofía, like Victoria before her, was
not amused. But now she's won an apology from the agency for
'damaging her honour and dignity.' The king, it seems, has not
complained about the use of a foto of him draped in a couple of
bikinied bimbos.
Finally . . .
More
Mots Justes
[African
politician] If the West starts lecturing us on governance, we'll
say: 'Berlusconi'.
[Samuel
Johnson] No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.
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