not all’s fair in love and Warrington

I don’t think I’ve ever been to Warrington. And now I have less interest than ever in going there.

According to this story in the Telegraph, it appears that “No-kissing signs have appeared in the taxi rank at Warrington Bank Quay Station” and that lovers are being forced to use “designated areas only”.

It seems odd that a place in the UK should be adopting such measures when it’s only a couple of weeks since the BBC published a report beginning “A court in India has dismissed criminal proceedings against a married couple charged with obscenity for allegedly kissing in public in the capital.”

counting cars

In the previous post I said that back in 1964 there were a fraction of the number of cars in Spain that there are today. I’ve actually looked that up and figures cited this week in the newspapers claim that back then there were “dos millones de vehículos frente a los 30 millones de ahora y cuatro millones de conductores frente a los 25 millones que existen en la actualidad.“

Let’s look at that again, in English:

coches de choque

After three weeks of the grey-green UK “summer”, I returned to the dusty yellows of Spain and found the village in the throes of fiestas.

dodge 'em or bump 'em?

Las fiestas del veraneante, to be precise – the annual celebration during the last week of August which is put on for the benefit of those who spend summer in the pueblo. Veranear – “to summer”. Not a verb that exists in English, though we do talk of birds wintering in warmer climes.

mornington crescent

I get the impression that Google searches work in much the same way as the Mornington Crescent game: there you are, following links, jumping all over the place and never quite sure where you’ll end up next, and then, suddenly, you find you’ve landed up where you intended.

Well, ok, with Google you’re as likely to end up somewhere quite unintended but equally interesting, so perhaps the analogy breaks down a bit.

Madrid, de plano

Si has llegado aquí buscando un plano del metro, encontrarás algunos enlaces útiles aquí. – Añadido agosto 2008.

“Metro de Madrid se sale del mapa” dice el anuncio, y suena mucho mejor en castellano que en inglés. A mí me cuesta no interpretarlo como “los políticos se salen con la suya y el Metro de Madrid se ha perdido” pero en realidad es una referencia al nuevo diseño del plano del Metro. Después de tanta carrera para inaugurar el mayor número posible de estaciones antes de las elecciones, ahora han inaugurado un mapa nuevo para que quepan todas en la misma hoja.

Y, sinceramente, a mí no me gusta.