Lo mismo de siempre: Gibraltar y la corrupción

GIBRALTAR (y Opinión) Este pasado verano volvía Gibraltar a las noticias internacionales una vez más. ¿Noticias? La disputa sobre las aguas territoriales tiene unos 300 años; lo de la pesca, otro tanto; el argumento medioambiental tiene al menos un ano o dos, cuando el Peñón comenzó echando al mar unos bloques de cemento que impiden la pesca tradicional en aguas de la bahía y que pronto se echaron al argumento político. La amenaza de cerrar la verja en la frontera que separa la colonia del resto de España ha existido en mayor o menor medida durante años, pero la amenaza de cobrar por entrar a España, es decir al espacio Schengen, es relativamente nuevo - ¿recuerda el lector al anterior alcalde de La Línea?

Much ado about the same stupid things: Gibraltar vs corruption

GIBRALTAR (+Opinion) -- Gibraltar was in the news again over the summer. And now again, though less so, while La Línea builds a new entrance to the Rock – construction for which is likely to take a while and never be quite finished, more for political than practical reasons. Anything so long as it gets on the nerves of Gibraltarians, say some of the more truculent.

Minister resigns over abortion law

MADRID – Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, now ex-Minister of Justice and well on the right wing of the Partido Popular (PP), resigned last week in an effort by Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, and party leader, to place the party nearer the centre. Gallardón’s resignation was caused by Rajoy’s decision to remove a reformed abortion law and return to minimal changes in its current version. Gallardón’s place will be taken temporarily by Vice-President Soraya Sáenz de Santa María and later by Rafael Catalá, at present the Secretary of State for Infrastructure, Transport and Housing, whose appointment was announced on Wednesday.

Language curiosity: a friendly foot will hold up your house

JIMENA (Cádiz) My house needs a pie de amigo with some urgency, or I might wake up in the chicken run next door one morning…  Yes, it needs a ‘friendly foot’, or ‘the foot of a friend’. You won’t find it easily in an ordinary dictionary (not even in my technical one, which had thus far never failed me), unless you know to look it up under contrafuerte, which translates to ‘abutment’, ‘buttress’ and even ‘stiffener’. On consultation, Jimena’s Town Architect, Juan Luis Callejo, said that pie de amigo has long been used with ‘lay people’ as an easy way to explain the thing. I like the idea of a friendly foot holding me up. 

Tax agency brings down Spain’s largest illegal tobacco factory

VITORIA (Álava, Galicia) 09/09/14 -- A warehouse within an industrial estate in Vitoria was the headquarters of a gang that possessed everything needed to manufacture 1.5 million packs of cigarettes every week. Eighteen people were arrested,  in various places (Álava, Guipúzcoa, Navarre and Seville) used by the gang to store and/or to further process their illegal brands, most of Lithuanian or Latvian citizens, as well as Spanish nationals.  Operation Unicornio was four times larger than a similar operation uncovered last year in Guadalajara.
The agents confiscated the machinery used to make the cigarettes, as well as 240,000 packs of popular Spanish brands such as Austin, Goal ready for sale, plus over one million cigarettes not yet packaged, also of Austin and Goal, but also of American Legend, Ibiza and Palermo. These brands belong to the ‘cheaper’ end of the market. At Vitoria and the other warehouses, some 35 tons of tobacco leaf were ready for production.

EDITORIAL: about a new website

Since I re-started things with New CampoPulse, there is a semi-new name for a new website that may even surprise you (Sorry, it’s none of the suggestions we've had, which were a little too Alberto-centric – I can do that quite well all by myself.). It is one I and others had been working on when I became ill but has been in abeyance for well over a year and is being revived, probably as a weekly. Subject matter will be announced, as will subscription rates (I hope!), but it will be covering all of Spain, with an emphasis on the South and the Eastern coastline, plus Madrid. Under discussion at present is whether it will also be put out in Spanish.

King’s ex-Secretary General is richest high office holder

Spain's wealthiest politician

MADRID – The Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE, the nation’s official bulletin) this week published the personal assets of 250 high office holders in Spain. This novelty is thanks to the Transparency Law approved by the Executive recently. The law obliges not only Ministers and Secretaries of State to declare their assets, and their debts, but all those holding high office in the Administración General del Estado (AGE) as well. These include directors and general secretaries of public entities, ambassadors and presidents of state institutions. The declarations must also include assets and rights arising from family inheritances. 

Brigitte Bardot is 80 and feisty as ever

PARIS –For those of us of a certain generation and a continental bent such as me (watch it!), Brigitte Bardot was the hot sex symbol of the 60s. She turns 80 on Sunday, and is as feisty as she became when she gave up making (generally bad B) movies. She has arrived at the ripe old age without a computer or even a mobile phone. According to another report, she is also unsocial and eschews any mention of the fame and beauty that turned her into a synonym of luxury and seduction – much of that effect in Spain, where curvy actresses willing to drop their clothes at the approach of a camera, though never every item where a rarity. She lives in the South of France, in a house full of animals and she still fights for the rights of such species as foxes, seals and elephants, which fight became her raison d’etre (reason for living, darling) after a youth of being persecuted by paparazzi everywhere. She uses no make-up and doesn’t visit a hairdresser, apparently, but behind the wrinkles of age and the intensity of those eyes is the blonde (never found out if it was natural) that shone brightly in the time of Marilyn Monroe, Diana Dors and The Beatles. Joyeux Anniversaire, Madame!

Do you know any of these?

JIMENA (Cádiz) These are some of the cacti (there are more below) I've been collecting over the years, plus a very invasive creeper (I call it Creepy) that, while providing shade in the summer, has to be kept well under control and is now cut back to make room for a less invasive jasmine, which has less character but is easier to manage.  Still, tourists come by to take a good look at it, or a photo – and they always ask me what it is. I have no idea. I don’t know any of their names, so I wondered if you might be able to help. Some were bought in; others are some of the only survivors of my lengthy hospitalisations. Well, we all need a bit of TLC, don’t we? And yes, I do speak to them – well, I say good morning anyway. Begin to worry when I tell you they’re answering back. Seriously, though, they and their many mates on both my patios have provided healthy entertainment and a lot of willing work. [ANYBODY INTERESTED IN RUNNING A GARDENING SECTION IN OUR COMING-SOON WEBSITE?]

DNA tests to be allowed only in presence of attorney

MADRID – The Supreme Court has clarified the criteria that allow DNA tests as evidence in trials. However, if such a test is taken by the police in the absence of the detainee’s legal representative, it will not be valid as evidence, even when the accused has given his or her consent. The only alternative will be a court order. The detainee may impugn comparisons with his own samples taken previously and are registered in the police’s data bank.

Roll-ups are unhealthier than ordinary cigarettes

MADRID – It is no news that sales of roll-up tobacco have experienced a boom during the present financial crisis. A recent report doesn't mention sales in the rest of Europe, where it’s easy to conclude that something similar has occurred as a way to make the habit cheaper for smokers or as a step towards giving it up. Spain’s National Commission for the Tobacco Market recently issued a report confirming the fact. This week the Commission issued another report on roll-ups (tabaco de liar in Spanish), which said that the reason for the upsurge in sales may not be entirely due to financial constraints but also because there is a widespread belief that roll-ups are ‘healthier’ than ordinary cigarettes . They’d be wrong: various studies have concluded that although he or she may be smoking less (down from an average of 27.9 per day to 18.5 in Spain), they are nevertheless breathing a heavier concentration of carbon monoxide, which damages the arteries and is often the cause of heart disease, heart attacks, aneurysms, and more.

Spanish scientists win prize for their proposal: making sausages out of baby poo

Delicious!

Raquel Rubio, Anna Jofré, Belén Martín, Teresa Aymerich and Margarita Garriga were awarded the 2014 IgNobel prize, in its 24^th edition, for their study titled ‘Characterisation of the isolated lactic acid bacterium from babies’ excrement as a potential cultivation medium for pro-biotic foodstuff in the form of sausages’.

Found handwritten words on my desk, and made it into this.
Not very well, but I like the sentiments... (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

All stressed out

What is the difference between por qué and porque? Again, notice the accent on the e in the first word. The accent (or tilde) is to show the letter that is stressed. It is only applicable to an article (a, e, i, o, u). By the way, one of the reasons Spanish is easier to learn to speak than, say, English or French, is that there is only one way to pronounce those letters, no matter what letter comes before or after, with only a few exceptions. On the old JimenaPulse we had a series that taught you how to correctly pronounce each letter in the Spanish alphabet. (Yes it’s only slightly different, but it is different.) We will be reviving it for the new site and/or NewCampoPulse. Okay, so what's the difference? The first example means WHY and the second, BECAUSE. Why? Don´t ask, it´s just because...