Spain in the Guardian

Thank God ours are of a different kind; they say Sí, por favor!!! instead of No, Gracias!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/29/europe-news

TSUNAMI RAVAGES JAPAN

Today I have seen some pictures of the recent tsunami on Japan's shores.
Those pictures really impressed me. You can check how hard it has hit by moving the pictures back and forward and then you will notice the disastrous changes. It is heartbreaking.



This is the link to the photos posted on ABC News.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/beforeafter.htm


Some time ago I read about Lisbonn's hearthquake on Wikipedia.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1755_Lisbon_earthquake


...... let's hope we will never experience anything like that.

La SuperLuna y las Mareas Históricas

Tenemos la suerte de vivir en la costa y poder disfrutar al aire libre de algunas experiencias impresionantes...


http://www.meteored.com/ram/13879/cadiz-vivira-unas-mareas-historicas-el-19-y-20-de-marzo-de-2011/

http://www.meteored.com/ram/13927/la-super-luna-del-19-marzo-de-2011-y-las-mareas-astronomicas-historicas/

¡Hay una abubilla en mi jardín!

CONCIERTO MEZCLA CASUAL 25 MARZO

Explosión de la Primavera, llega la nueva temporada.

Nuevo repertorio, muchas horas de ensayo...Todo para sonar como verdaderos profesionales, que es lo que son.

Habrá un encuentro previo(actividades de las que informaré un poco más adelante) a celebrarse a las 19.00 h entre las comunidades de extranjeros residentes, (o visitantes, o invitados: todo el mundo es bienvenido) y españoles. Pediremos un poco de colaboración, ¿nos echáis un cable? Para que todo salga redondo.

Y como broche de oro ¡¡El Concierto!! A partir de las 21.30 h.

Una noche de Viernes diferente y divertida, reuniendo a todas las Chiclanas en una, ¡¡si te animas!!

(Iré informando)

¿Atracadores de bancos?

Un colectivo sevillano asalta los bancos con cantes y baile. Protestan por la usura de los banqueros y les recriminan su avaricia con mucho arte...

http://www.flo6x8.com/acciones/15-flo6x8-en-el-telediario-de-la-sexta

Leave the libraries alone. You don’t understand their value. (Philip Pullman)

Las Bibliotecas, las librerías, los libros...mal asunto si son también "los mercados" quienes deciden sobre estos temas.

Un speech muy interesante y sentido.

http://falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/save-oxfordshire-libraries-speech-philip-pullman

Un extracto para quienes lo encuentren demasiado largo:

In the world I know about, the world of books and publishing and bookselling, it used to be the case that a publisher would read a book and like it and publish it. They’d back their judgement on the quality of the book and their feeling about whether the author had more books in him or in her, and sometimes the book would sell lots of copies and sometimes it wouldn’t, but that didn’t much matter because they knew it took three or four books before an author really found his or her voice and got the attention of the public. And there were several successful publishers who knew that some of their authors would never sell a lot of copies, but they kept publishing them because they liked their work. It was a human occupation run by human beings. It was about books, and people were in publishing or bookselling because they believed that books were the expression of the human spirit, vessels of delight or of consolation or enlightenment.

Not any more, because the greedy ghost of market madness has got into the controlling heights of publishing. Publishers are run by money people now, not book people. The greedy ghost whispers into their ears: Why are you publishing that man? He doesn’t sell enough. Stop publishing him. Look at this list of last year’s books: over half of them weren’t bestsellers. This year you must only publish bestsellers. Why are you publishing this woman? She’ll only appeal to a small minority. Minorities are no good to us. We want to double the return we get on each book we publish.

So decisions are made for the wrong reasons. The human joy and pleasure goes out of it; books are published not because they’re good books but because they’re just like the books that are in the bestseller lists now, because the only measure is profit.

Sid Low's opinion on the Ballon d'Or award last night

"...And, in fact, Spain – and here it's worth reminding many in this country that there was no candidate called Spain – may have been a victim of its own success, its very nature. Of the fact that its collective nature meant there was not one, single stand-out candidate for everyone to get behind. The vote was split: Messi won with 22.65%, Iniesta had 17.47% and Xavi 16.48%...."

I agree. It is a pity, in a way. The solid group makes difficult to highlight one's performance over the rest. Messi is incredible, no doubt he is the very best player and deserves every award every year until he leaves football. But he has to accept that the only reason why he doesn't play the same when he plays for Argentina is because he hasn't Xavi beside him. Congratulations for the three of them; short, intelligent, talented players.

If you want to practice your reading; http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/jan/11/lionel-messi-xavi-ballon-dor