Fat chance

Did you see him on the news?

14 stone of fat and gristle (nearly 90 kilos, or 98 kilos depending on where you read the story) at a mere eight years of age (or seven... depending on where you read the story).

Young Connor McCreadie could have a promising career as a sumo wrestler ahead of him if only he could manage to walk more than five minutes without getting out of breath.

Maybe he fact that the lad can't resist a fry-up could be partly to blame.

"But Britain is full of fat kids!" I hear you cry. Well, yes... but not so fat that the social services are called to see whether letting a child stuff himself with unhealthy food is tantamount to child abuse and therefore a case for withdrawal of parental custody (or putting the child into care).

Apparently he has already broken four beds and five bicycles!

Despite the outcry, Connor was given a second chance and spared the humiliation of being the first kid taken into care for being overweight... despite his mum refusing to put a lock on the fridge. She told the papers that she had tried to get him to eat "exotic fruit"...

...but apparently her son doesn't much care for bananas.

Here's what the papers said:

• The Northern Echo (before the decision)
• Daily Mirror
• Daily Mail
• The Guardian (after the decision)
• CBS News (US)

Or how about watching Connor and his mum try to talk their way out of it on:

• BBC News Video
• CNN Video (US) - not for weak stomachs!

Re: Volver

Listening to few of my students talk about Spain's most celebrated contemporary film director and Spain's most internationally successful actress you'd think that most people in Madrid were hoping that Penelope Cruz wouldn't be in the running for tonight's best actress Oscars.

Yet the fact that "Pe" was nominated at all is quite an achievement considering the lack of critical success garnered in the US for her American films (where she has played a Brazilian, a Greek, a Colombian, a Mexican and even a Frenchwoman - the last of those in Fanfan la Tulipe - but rarely a Spaniard) and for such a (*ahem*) typically Spanish role to boot.

Here's the British trailer, followed by the American one...

Did Almodovar include the scene of Penelope sitting on the toilet as a nod to Tom Cruise's other ex who did the same thing in Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut?

Did a jokey reference to whether Raimunda seemed to have a more generous chest than her mother remembered have its origin in scurrilous gossip about Ms. Cruz's own measurements?

And did the much commented "false rear" that added to the Penelope Cruz is this year's Sofia Loren comments really inspire Victoria Beckham in those poses for the "his and hers" Beckham perfume poster campaign?

Of course the smart money is on Helen Mirren to win for her portrayal of The Queen... but as we all know - unlike Nicole and Penelope - the Queen doesn't go to the toilet.

Some people reading this in Spain still may not realise, but in the English-speaking world dubbing films from one language into another is usually regarded as tacky, and is usually an option limited to pornography and old kung-fu films.

Therefore any Brits, Yanks, Aussies and the like who have seen Volver will have had to struggle with the subtitles. However, Penelope's command of English has enabled her to promote the film in a way that Santiago Segura was never able to do for Torrente (despite also notching up an impressive array of bit-parts in various American movies).

Here she is promoting Almodovar's flick on some American talk show... and unlike on a BBC radio interview (sadly offline!) she doesn't have a titter at the poor "Anglo" pronunciation of the film's title which sounds more like part of the female anatomy than the Spanish verb for coming back. "Volver" pronounced as in "Re-volver"? In English? Get it??

Okay.. just watch the film clip ...

Oh, and here are a handful of reviews in English:

• The Guardian
• BBC Movies
• Metro
• Time Out
• Rotten Tomatoes (a collection of US reviews)

...and finally, an amusing guide to all the things prudish Americans could find offence with in Almodovar's latest film, at screenit.com.

Eta, not eater

Juan Ignacio "Iñaki" de Juana Chaos is what most right-minded people would call "a nasty piece of work".

A key figure in the Basque separatist and - let's not beat around the bush here - terrorist organisation Eta, de Juana Chaos was found guilty of organising (or maybe actually carrying out) various bombings in which 25 innocent people died. 25 lives meant a sentence of 3,000 years for de Juana - whose parents were not Basque and whose father was a Francoist Guardia Civil - but thanks to some odd clause in Spanish law which points out that it would be impossible for a human being to see out 3,000 years behind bars the sentence was automatically cut to a more bearable 18 years.

Less than one year per victim.

Knowing that there would be an outcry when the "man" was let out of chokey after his 18 year sentence, the government scrambled to find something else to put off de Juana's release date and found a couple of inflammatory articles he'd written for a Basque paper that were promoting terrorism, which amazingly added up to another 12 years... probably by that time another government would have to deal with the problem.

25 deaths = 18 years, 2 newspaper articles = 12 years... hmmm.

Something sounds a bit off here.

Needless to say de Juana thought so too and went on hunger strike.

The ins and outs of all this are too lengthy to detail here, but whether de Juana lives, dies, remains in prison or is set free on whatever terms will be bad for the government and only exacerbate the so-called Basque problem. Another thing that has exacerbated this problem was The Times printing pictures of de Juana Chaos "shackled" to his bed with what looked like bandages and with the physique of Victoria Beckham without the implants.

I'm certainly not going back to Tony Roma's for some time.

Still, just as Becks' missus only has herself to blame for the shape she's in, should the emaciated de Juana really be blaming the "Spanish state" for his protruding ribcage? Or should the ridiculous state of a legal system where a 3,000 year sentence becomes an 18 year one really be the focus of our anger rather than that of a hard-done-by murderous terrorist who has already done his time for the crime?

Ah, and news just in... apparently following the appointment of a government-friendly judge, de Juana's extra 12 years have been reduced to three. Compromise, perhaps?

Here's how the story was reported:

• The Times (original story)
• The Independent
• BBC News (on new reduction of his sentence)
• The Guardian (on de Juana Chaos and the peace process)

...and here's how a couple of Spain-based English -speaking bloggers gauged the Spanish reaction:

• The Big Chorizo (on how the Spanish papers saw things)
• Lavengro in Spain (on the Guardian article!)
  
  

Tragedy and mystery

Everybody loves a good old-fashioned mystery.

Whether it is Agatha Christie or Perry Mason, Jessica Fletcher or Sherlock Holmes, there's nothing quite like finding out "whodunnit".

If you've studied your trusty list of Spanish/English false friends you should know that crimes are not restricted to murder (check felony, misdemeanour, petty crime, traffic violation and other American sub-divisions), but murder and death are often the focus of crime writers and tv and Hollywood scriptwriters.

Shoplifting She Wrote doesn't really sound like a hit series and if CSI were investigating tax evasion instead of cold-blooded killings I imagine it could have been cancelled after the first series.

Which leads me to Spain's two latest mysteries, the mysterious death of the Mayor of the mountain village of Fago, and the equally mysterious death of Crown Prince Felipe's sister-in-law Erika Ortiz.

Here's what the papers said (I'll leave the speculation to them):

Erika Ortiz:

• CBS News (US)
• Monsters and Critics
• International Herald Tribune (US)
• The Independent
• The Times
  
  Mayor of Fago:
• The Guardian
• Daily Mirror
• Daily Telegraph
• International Herald Tribune (US)
• Expatica (Holland)
• ThinkSpain
  
  

Spanish people speaking English: Aznar

It's always a bit of an eye-opener to many Spanish people to hear their fellow countrymen and women speaking English, especially if those fellow countrymen and women happen to be famous. Actors, sports stars, politicians, royalty... all have varying levels of English.

Fernando Alonso speaks better English than Rafa Nadal, but despite being based in the UK for some time Alonso's English is hardly proficiency level.

Antonio Banderas has an impressive level of fluency but still has quite a strong Spanish accent.

Penelope Cruz sometimes comes unstuck with prepositions despite all those years with Tom Cruise.

Let's not mention Ana Obregón.

Ooops.

But whose English has come in for most ridicule from his fellow Spaniards? None other than that of former Prime Minister (in English you can't be a president and have a king!) Jose María Aznar.

The man who instead of giving a Stateside speech in English gave it in (supposedly) Texan-accented Spanish. The man who went on to lecture - in English! - at Georgetown University.

The man who once had to ask King Juan Carlos to be his interpreter.

What follows is a fascinating interview - in English - that appeared on one of the BBC's international channels in July 2006. Unlike the sycophantic interviews Aznar conceded to PP-friendly channels in the past this interview pulls no punches.

His English seems to have improved since the early days of his friendship with Bush, and he seems to have less of a strong Spanish accent than in the past.

Pity that he has replaced it with a French one.

Also notable is the way that he has also used Bush as a model for his English... depite the BBC interviewer's referring to the Basque separatist terrorist organisation as ETA (a one-word acronym - pronounced as in Spanish), Aznar insists on calling it E.T.A. (as Bush did following the March 11th attacks). I wonder if he also refers to the former Spanish capital as To-leeee-doh when speaking English.

Watch the body language too!

Watch him squirm!!


(Part One)

(Part Two)

(Part Three)

Now let's see if I can find a clip of Zapatero trying to speak English!