SPANISH
HABITS: The Local thinks you'll pick up the following if you live
here for a while:
- Kissing people - even strangers
- Swooning over random kids
- Eating late
- Swearing
- Barely tipping
- Treating everyone else on your birthday.
- Cancelling if it's raining [Doesn't apply in the northern third of Spain. It's not called Green Spain for nothing]
- Following seasonal rules
- Being direct
- Eating standing up
All of
which I think are pretty accurate. But I'd add the following:-
- Looking people in the eye;
- Telling white lies
- Becoming instant friends with people you talk to in a bar
- Being more tactile
- Not misconstruing the tactility of others, especially women
- Speaking more loudly
- Being less prompt
- Calling every woman 'guapa', even if she's ugly.
- Enjoying life
BTW . . .
I love kids – especially my own – but I don't think I've
developed the swooning habit yet. Certainly not in respect of
rug-rats who career around cafés and restaurants screaming or
kicking a football. Unless 'swooning' also means 'wanting to shoot
with a high-powered rifle'.
THE
SPANISH ELECTIONS – THE DAY AFTER: There's a nice editorial from El
País here, albeit in Spanish. I'll post it in English if it appears
in the translated edition. You can access this via their Facebook page, by the way. Highly recommended.
THE US
ELECTIONS: I mentioned Donald Trump's orange face yesterday. I later
read this nice comment about him: It is as if there were a prophecy
in the Bible: A pink-faced fool will rise in the west, wearing a
crown of tumble-dryer lint and riding upon a Fox, and lo! The seas
will boil, the stars will fall and time will be no more. Later I read
that, although he's seen as a highly successful businessman who's now
got a net worth of USD2.9 billion, if he'd merely invested the USD40
million he inherited from his father 40 years ago in an S&P 500
mutual fund and then done nothing more, he'd now be worth USD 3
billion. Possibly even more.
FINALLY .
. . A FILM TO AVOID?: By the Sea is a film produced and directed by
Angelina Jolie and starring herself and her husband, Brad Pitt. If
you're thinking of seeing it, you might want to reflect on this
comment from the critic of The Times: If only 'By the Sea' were
hilariously bad, I could recommend it for star power alone. But this
is a film stuck in the doldrums, with Angelina Jolie Pitt’s
albatross of pretension hanging round its neck. Not even faint
praise, then.
Don't
overlook my other blog here.
Today's compulsory Facebook page:
Oh, fuckin' hell. |
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