Direct action

In all the years (how many?) this blog has existed only one repentant offender has ever got in touch, so it’s time for sterner measures. Here’s a positive way of coping with those gifts of faux-Anglo clothing that you can’t wear out of the front door because the slogan is so shamefully illiterate: Who said…

Blog translated entirely using Google Translate?

For El País user blogs’ sole function is to drum up page views for its paid-for content, and not all of them are to be taken entirely seriously. This was rather like listening to a person with dementia who may have something interesting to say but has lost control of words and syntax: This afternoon…

New directors of Instituto Cervantes in New York and Dublin “can’t speak English”

Javier Rioyo Jambrina and Rosa León will apparently struggle to make themselves understood to their target audience in their new jobs. But then their boss, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, has spent the last 7 years demonstrating that you don’t need English (or even particularly elegant Spanish) to triumph in the international arena. It surely can’t…

Gardening glove liner = transatlántico

Here. Forro might have been a better choice. Unfortunately, to be able to demand a sea-going 747 on the basis of trade descriptions legislation I think you might have to demonstrate some intent to deceive.

These wines are aimed at prescribers

Somewhere over the rainbow (p18 to be exact), there’s a country where the health system allows doctors to write prescriptions for alcoholic beverages, and where Torres can openly corrupt them with gifts of the same. Either that or Origin Spain is two redundancies in one: a web magazine, written in Spanglish.

Rubalcaba and the German electoral system

Josu discusses what the PSOE candidate might have meant and the possible consequences. Key para: De hecho, sii trasladáramos a España el sistema alemán “entero”, con reparto nacional, umbral del 5%, y con sus excepciones, resultaría que suponiendo unos resultados como los de 2008 (supuesto imaginario, porque la gente vota distinto con reglas distintas) ni…