Spanish NewsBites Blog

Unsporting - more Spanish sporting faux pas

This has been a great year for Spanish sport, but also for Spanish sporting faux pas. These photos, incredibly, feature recent photos of high-profile Spanish sportspeople pulling back the skin next to their eyes, playground style, in imitation of Chinese people. Both have appeared in official places. More here and here. Grow up, people, please. Perhaps you didn't mean to offend anyone with these pictures, but don't be surprised if people are offended. Article on fallout from the basketball faux pas, here. More opinions on the issue, not many of them in favour, here. The Spanish press, meanwhile, has a whole different attitude - some believe, incredibly, that the story is an attempt to derail Madrid's 2012 Olympic bid.

Be Ashamed, Maria Isabel Moreno

Well, her smile's gone now. A Spanish athlete has become the first to be sent home from the Olympics for being a drugs cheat. I wish they'd stop doing this. According to one Belgian paper, this kind of activity casts a shadow over the summer's other, presumably legitimate, sporting triumphs - soccer, Nadal, the Tour de France etc. One nice summarizing article, which also offers a couple of possible non-illegal reasons for Spain's recent sporting successes and which mentions drugs not at all, can be found here.

Glamour and Mystery

Glamour and mystery over at Spanish NewsBites over the last few days, as we see how an Italian fashion designer is getting involved in the world of bullfighting and we look at the mysterious disappearance of a man following a meal at Spain's best-known restaurant. Did you know that the use of the world "glamour" in English is largely the doing of Sir Walter Scott, and that the words "glamour" and "grammar" are etymologically related?

Ramón or Radovan?

Both men were poets, both went for that Bohemian look, and both took more than a passing interest in political matters. One, Ramón del Valle-Inclán (1866-1936), was a novelist and dramatist who wrote politically charged, linguistically barrier-breaking work attacking bourgeois hypocrisy. The other, Radovan Karadzic, seems to have had Ramón in mind as he sat in front of the bathroom mirror, pondering how to escape justice. With apologies to Ramón: any similarity is merely superficial.