big kids

Nine years old and 81.5 kilos in weight. That’s nearly 13 stone for those of us who still think in “old money”, and it’s the weight reached by a child con obesidad mórbida in the north of Spain.

It seems the authorities have been aware of problems since 2004 and the parents haven’t been obeying the legal conditions that had been laid down. So, recently, a judge ordered the child to be ingresado en un centro de menores where diet and exercise routines would, presumably, be strictly adhered to.

it rings a bell

This headline has caught my attention:

...with bells on

Whether it was in any way connected with Global Handwashing Day, which fell a few days ago, I don’t know.

It was of course the use of the verb “ring” that caught my eye. I’m pretty sure that even in American English that should be “wring”.

Actually, there was far more to set me thinking in the article, which started off:

moving experiences II

bound books

 
Books play a large part in my life.

When the bulk of my possessions arrived in Spain, some fifteen years ago, there were fifteen boxes of books. I’d already acquired a lot in the time I’d been living here, and, since then, the collection has expanded still further.

Now, many of these need to be moved.

We’ve decided that the easiest way to transport them – at least the yards and yards of cheap paperbacks – is to tie them into piles, as it’s a lot easier to hold onto strings than to carry boxes.

The poor things look most uncomfortable, though,

panics and pandemics

Last week I received a writers’ newsletter with yet another warning of a new phishing scam. This scam asks for your bank details so tax owed to you can be paid in directly. One of the recipients responded saying that she didn’t see how people could still be fooled; hadn’t we had enough warnings?

Of course people will continue to be fooled by such things because they want to believe that they are going to get a windfall.

But why people fall for a story like this one about swine ‘flu and zombism, is a bit more complex. It’s a brilliantly done hoax, but there are any number of clues that let a careful reader identify it as just that: a hoax.

lying swine

Well, no, of course, it isn’t the pigs themselves who are lying, and I should probably feel guilty about adding to their bad press, but pigs have had plenty of air-time already on this blog and at least this time the post is about humans dying, not – at least not directly – about pigs being slaughtered.

Looking around the web, swine ‘flu is causing all sorts of reactions, from panic, to ridicule. It’s clearly thought to be important by many, as this screen shot from the BBC site indicates:

from the BBC website 1st May 2009