Dawn

Dawn

Saturday, December 12, 2015

Sp. Habits; The Sp. Elections; The US Elections; & A Film to avoid?

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.

No comments: