Have you ever thought about the immortality of the crab? You have now. Thinking about the immortality of the crab (Spanish: "Pensar en la inmortalidad del cangrejo") is a Spanish idiom about daydreaming. The phrase is usually a humorous way of saying that one was not sitting idly, but engaged constructively ... Read More...
Europe
Must be fun living in the bit of Holland that's within the bit of Belgium that's within Holland, especially if you were in a police car chase. Despite that, here's another Wikipedia discovery that's not going to make it onto my holiday list... Baarle-Hertog is a municipality belonging to the Belgian ... Read More...
Toby Ash has just enjoyed a long weekend in Palermo. Just don’t mention the M word... From the moment you land, it’s pretty hard to avoid the mafia in Sicily. Palermo’s Falcone-Borsellino airport is named after two prominent judges slain in the early 1990s for successfully pursing the Cosa Nostra. On ... Read More...
Toby Ash makes an unexpected and bizarre discovery amongst the golf courses and white washed villas of Portugal’s Algarve.... The Algarve is not on most people’s cultural map. Lazing about in the sun, a round of golf, Cliff Richard-spotting perhaps, but it’s not a great place for museums or galleries. Well, that’s ... Read More...
Italy has given the world delicious food, beautiful people and boring football. But what has it gifted to slang? Jonathon Green investigates... I have been in Italy enjoying the kindness of friends. I, or such parts as were exposed, am now a pleasing light brown, patched pallid[1] only where shaded by ... Read More...
Arrogance, duplicitousness, treachery, sexual corruption and the tip-toeing gait of the flamenco dancer - Jonathon Green continues his series on English linguistic xenophobia with a visit to Spain... Sport being a locked room for which I have not the slightest interest in obtaining a key, my only comment vis-à-vis a recent ... Read More...
Jonathon Green continues his series on English linguistic xenophobia with a crack at the Germans - and finds that slang hasn't been quite as unkind to them as you might think... Has anyone seen a Germin band, Germin Band, Germin Band? I want my Fritz, What plays tiddley bits On the big trombone! Robert Tressell ... Read More...
Jonathon Green continues his series looking at how English slang has treated those funny foreigners. This week, 'frogs' - but it's not the French... Let us consider the frog. Not as an amphibian but in terms of nationality. This is not, however, the traditional frog, whose consumption by the eponymously nicknamed ... Read More...
Jonathon Green begins a new series looking at how English slang has treated those funny foreigners. First up, a crack at the Italians... Unlike the Spanish, the Dutch and the French, the Italians have never rejoiced in that ever-popular role; Britain’s National Enemy. There are doubtless reasons – no pre-20th century wars, perhaps – ... Read More...
Brit enjoys the opening episodes of the latest Danish drama import Borgen, but worries that it might have already jumped the shark... Borgen, being on BBC Four (Saturday 9pm), Danish, and set in the world of media and politics, has inevitably got the Twitterati excited but the challenge for the reviewer ... Read More...
