Every breath you take, every move you make, they'll be watching you...

US senator Eugene McCarthy (best known for inspiring a band who went on to spawn cult heroes Stereolab... or was that Joseph McCarthy?) once said:

"Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it’s important."  

The parallels between football and politics are endless. 

In Spanish, the word for a political party and a football match are exactly the same. Curiously (and curiously appropriately in the case of the current UK administration!), the same word can be translated back into English as "split", "broken" or "cut into two".

Any Spanish-based readers who are remotely interested in the beautiful game and with spare cash to invest in satellite dishes and digiboxes will be more than familiar with the Monday-evening Canal + prog "El Día Despues".

Not to be confused with the 1980s post-nuclear TV movie "The Day After", this is a several-hour long dissection of the weekend's football - formerly featuring my "homeboy" Michael Robinson, no less - where, in addition to analysis of goals, fouls, penalties, near-misses and saves, every detail of a number of important matches are scrutinised in detail with the help of various pundits, some very, very long telephoto lenses and a crack team of lipreaders.

Profanities directed at the referees, bench talk, crowd gurning and on-pitch asides are filmed and occasionally subtitled, leaving little to the imagination.

Now it seems that British journalists have deemed this a good way of dissecting the spanking-new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition that is intended to govern the country for the next five years.

The Guardian - Britain's finest newspaper (IMHO) - started by taking an exclusive snap of Nick Clegg's scrawled notes  for his clinch meeting with David Cameron, and then proceeded to try and interpret it. Now the Guardian journos have sent a body language expert to analyse the... er... body language between the new PM and his deputy. 

This is what he found out.

It's a game of two halves, innit?

It's that time of the year again...

Once again, Spain - like the USA - is gripped by election fever.

Just as the Americans are being whipped up into a frenzy by the likes of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Oven Chip Magnate John McCain (and remember, their elections aren't happening till November or something) , so here in Madrid the electorate are starting to froth at the mouth with anticipation of a close-run battle between incumbent Socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (known as "Thetta-pé" to friends and enemies alike) and conservative PP main man Mariano Rajoy (known as... er... "Rajoy" to friends and enemies alike).

Or are they?

Fully aware of the fact that an unbiased report on a political issue from a Spanish newspaper is probably less likely than Lewis Hamilton being invited to Fernando Alonso's birthday party, we present a selection of English-language links on the subject.

• BBC News on the "heated" first debate
• BBC News on the "angry" second debate
• The Financial Times on the second "showdown"
• Typically Spanish: No More Mariano Mr. Nice Guy
  
• The Financial Times on "Spain's Choice"
• Newsweek on "Zapatero: Spain's Dud"
• The Washington Post on a "testy" debate
• Bloomberg on Zapatero's "lead over Rajoy"
• The Times on how Zapatero is struggling "to stay in office"
• Canada's Globe & Mail on "Spain's Big Question"
  
• BBC News Euroblog on Rajoy's "imaginary friend"
• Bloomberg on how Rajoy's attacks on Zapatero may backfire
  
• The San Diego Tribune on how Rajoy is trying to compensate for a blunder
• The Guardian on how "bad economic news" is "heating up" the campaign

UPDATE:

• The New York Times on the murder of Isias Carrasco
• BBC News Euroblog: Were politicians right to stop campaigning?
• The Observer: Vote to foil ETA, victim's family pleads

FURTHER UPDATE:

• The Guardian on Spain's "unconvincing choice"
• The Times on how Spain is voting in the shadow of terrorism
• 5Spaniards.com: A brief analysis at poll-closing time
• BBC News: Socialists win Spanish elections
  
• Bloomberg: Zapatero reelected, gains seats
• ITN News (UK): Socialists win, close to absolute majority
• The Washington Post: Socialists win, but short of absolute majority

Espe speaking English

Unlike most of her "Popular" contemporaries past and present, in both local and central government, Community of Madrid President Esperanza Aguirre - "La Espe" - is genuinely able to speak English, as she proved on Richard "Mr. Ubiquitous" Vaughan's TV station recently. Her fluency is very impressive, her accent is not too bad (though occasionally - and bizarrely - reminiscent of Björk's English accent), but she does make the unforgivable mistake of using responsible as a noun, as well as using a few unnecessary definite articles.

That's what happens if you don't practice, Espe!

The price of a cup of coffee

Poor old Zapatero.

After agreeing to appear on a revolutionary live television Q&A (an idea cribbed from the French, we hear) where 100 ordinary people were to due to quiz the Spanish Prime Minister on whatever took their fancy, he didn't see it coming.

The obvious questions about the obvious subjects close to the hearts of Spaniards were asked - ETA, house prices, corruption, the beetroot industry etc. - and "thetta-pé" (as he is affectionately known to supporters and detractors alike) answered in the usual stiff, statistical way that politicians often do.

No-one could have accused the PM of not doing his homework, it was obvious that he had spent night after night swotting up on facts and figures (and watching videos of Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal struggling to answer questions in the same situation), but what he hadn't banked on was a question about the price of a cup of coffee, which Zapatero imagined cost "between 70 and 80 cents".

Obviously not a Starbucks double choc chip decaf capuccino frappé fan then.

This is how the English language papers saw it:

• Monsters and Critics
• Expatica (Holland)
• Typical Spanish (Spain)
• EiTB (Basque Country, Spain)
• International Herald Tribune (USA)
• Taipei Times (Taiwan)

Plus a great little observation on the great Thetta-pé coffee blunder is to be found on an ex-pat blog called The Spanish Cockpit. It's simply entitled "D'oh!"

...and those of you curious to see whether Zapatero's views have changed since he was elected in 2004 might like to peruse this TIME magazine article with the man himself in... er... 2004.

No mention of coffee though!

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!