Genuine fakes

Genuine fakes. Original forgery. 
Real counterfeits.

'Forgery' was a word introduced in 1574.

A counterfeit is a fake or a forgery.
For their term for forgery, the ancient Greeks drew on the root word “plasma,” meaning to form or mold, one sense of which was to form or mold deceitfully.

 As the practice apparently became more common, the Romans coined at least two words for it. One being “Falsum,” the legal term for fraud, referred to anything deceptive and was related to “fallere,” meaning to deceive.  ....

1 - Christoforus Colombus

“In fourteen-hundred-and-ninety-two/ 

Columbus sailed the ocean blue. 

To prove that the old maps were true.” 

The Vinland Map was, ipso facto, considered a fake, because Columbus was the first and only discoverer of America. It was bought by Yale University in 1957. But doubts existed nevertheless. Their position was assessed in 2009 by world-class experts in document authentication at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Results of the Danes’ exhaustive study at Copenhagen’s International Conference on the History of Cartography were announced by Rene Larsen, rector of the School of Conservation: "We have so far found no reason to believe that the Vinland Map is the result of a modern forgery. All the tests that we have done over the past five years — on the materials and other aspects — do not show any signs of fraud."

       Calendars and history 

In the year AD 499 the Hindu mathematician Aryabhata calculated pi as 3.1416 and the length of the solar year as 365.358 days.

 At much the same time he conceived the idea that the earth was a sphere spinning on its own axis and revolving around the sun. He thought that the shadows of the earth falling on the moon caused eclipses. 

One wonders what all the fuss was about when Copernicus ‘discovered’ some of the above nearly a thousand years later. Indian thought in the Middle Ages was in several areas far ahead of European ideas.  

(Ideas. A history by P Watson (2004)

• 2- Michaelangelo Buonarotti

That’s right, one of the most famous renaissance painters in history, painter of the Sistine Chapel and other priceless works, began his career by passing off an early marble sculpture as an ancient Roman statue in order to sell it for a higher price. He intentionally damaged and aged the sculpture, entitled “Sleeping Eros” by burying it in an art dealer’s yard, so that it could later be “discovered” as an ancient relic.

Article HERE

How a Forged Sculpture Boosted Michelangelo’s Early Career

1.  Despite his promising future, back in 1496 he was just another starving artist trying to find ways to fund his art. 
2.  At 21, he had the talent and the passion, but not the name necessary to sell his work at a profitable price. 
3.  Faced with this dilemma, Michelangelo opted for the seemingly logical solution: he forged a classical sculpture by artificially aging it.

3- Miguel de Cervantes 

29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616

stranger in hell

NOTES from a big country 

                      or a.k.a

  I'm a Stranger Here Myself         

      

       Quote

“In the United States, frozen cheese pizza is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Frozen pepperoni pizza, on the other hand, is regulated by the Department of Agriculture.”

― Bill Bryson, I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away

TASK 1. Read these 5 pieces and Get some ideas to express yourself in your article about the book 

TASK 2. Produce an article including what you learnt about American culture, surprises and Bryson's of language.

piece 1____

This book is really a great comfort to foreigners, because what Bill Bryson told the readers mostly resonates with what we've encountered in our daily lives in the U.S.
As foreigners, we usually assume that lack of proficiency in the language is the cause of ineffective communication and it puts us in a very awkward situation. However, in the chapter, "What's Cooking," we know that though a native speaker, Bryson is also bewildered by the complicated terminology the server uses to introduce the special dishes in a fancy restaurant. And in "How to Rent a Car," Bryson has a difficult time figuring out the complexly tiered options in the contract just as I did when I rented a car in the U.S. for the first time. Sometime it makes foreigners feel secure and relieved when realizing that a native speaker is in the same boat.
I am so glad that I got the chance to read this book. Not only did I understand more about American customs and culture, but I also benefited greatly from the author's funny expression and vivid description in English. For foreigners, making ourselves acquainted with American ways of thinking and speaking is crucial to dealing with daily events in a foreign country. In my opinion, Bill Bryson plays the role of a spokesperson for Americans as well as foreigners. In his sarcastic but intriguing tone, Bryson candidly points out some ridiculous phenomena in American society. Some may regard him as a grumpy man complaining a lot in his book, but I was fascinated by his unique humor. I sincerely suggest anyone who would like to travel to the U.S. read this book beforehand. This book is of great help to getting a broad outline of the life style in America.

piece 2____

 I started reading through the first few pages and am delighted to report that they were so entertaining and accessible that I ended up finishing the book very satified.This book is about America, about consumerism, hypocracy, politics, culture and everything else in between, such as motels and boring interstate highways and the condition of AT&T service these days. Why should all this be so interesting? Because Bill Bryson's voice shines throughout, dissecting normally more complex subjects into bite-sized articles which are eminently readable to the extent that it is at times impossible to stop. Of course, his trademark humour is present too. If you read this in public, there is the risk of embarrassment by your involuntary snorts of laughter.However, 'I'm a Stranger here Myself' isn't perfect. Much of the book is predictable, and 85% of the time, Bill appears to be complaining. Someone as talented as Bill Bryson should know not to engage in such indulgence because the end result is that the reader occassionally feels frustrated over the ostensible monotony. You also can't help but feel that an assemblage of brief columns is not enough to make a book.Although this book is not standard Bill Bryson fare, it still manages to excel. It really is exceptionally enlightening, to read what he has to say subsequent to spending 20 years in England. He compares the contrasts between the two nations and questioning so many aspects of life that Americans take for granted, such as driving from shop to shop when they are merely footsteps apart, or the blatant excesses of junk food. Each article (in my edition, Black Swan) covers only five pages so they are very easy to get into.If you are an American, perhaps you will enjoy this book more than anyone else as you will undoubtedly find it compelling to look into the views of an outsider in the process of 'assimilation'.'I'm a Strange here Myself' doesn't feel like a book, more like a colelction of columns binded together. If you are willing to accept this, it is an extremely rewarding, insightful and refreshingly diverting read. This is enough to gain a hearty recommendation.

piece 3____

Bryson is one of my favorite authors, and some pieces were classic, classic Bryson---so funny you really do laugh out loud for a good long while! I liked best the pieces on pop culture---diners, motels, TV, dieting, etc. However, a few pieces were about subjects you can read about in almost any newspaper editorial any day of the week---government waste and stupidity, how hard tax returns are to prepare, and the overactive legal system, to name some. I found those pieces were not really done as well---they could have been written by any skilled writer and did not have the distinctive Bryson voice. Maybe this is because they were not written for an American audience originally, and maybe those topics are not as overdone in England.

piece 4____

  On the way home, I opened the cover (akin to opening a bag of my favorite chips) and sampled a bite. And another. Soon, I was eight chapters into the thing, wiping tears from my eyes to the amusement of my wife and children. Then, the ultimate test: I read a page out loud to my wife. Now I'm not intimating that she has any laughter inhibitions--she'll laugh up a storm within the first minutes of a good comedy flick--but to subject her to oral readings is to watch her mood take a serious downswing. Must be the expectation levels I project. ("Come on, honey, don't you get it? Are you listening?")Test results: A+Next thing I knew, I was fighting my wife for moments to gobble down another chapter or two. No kidding. Bill Bryson, in his inimitable manner, adds punch and humor to subjects normally as tastless as...well, as week-old chips. He pinpoints the lunacies in our daily routine, the frustrations of red-tape, and the nostalgia of yesteryear. He makes me wonder why we Americans behave in such ways, then leaves me shaking my head at the idea of living anywhere else.We're all strangers, in one way or another, in this diverse land of ours.

piece 5____

The things you enjoyed and cherished might not even be part of your new experiences. The reverse culture shock that is part and parcel of moving back to a place after spending time away from it. Having gotten used to the British way of life and terminology, he struggles to remember/find out the American equivalent of things. His British wife and children, though, seem to love America while he seems to be the one having the most difficult time. Rediscovering America with it’s joys and it’s trials, all the while poking fun at himself and others around him, it was a fun read. I chuckled through the book.Some of the chapters, though did seem dated, after all , this book was written in 1999. Some chapters about computers for instance remind you that this book is of another time. But for most part, it is Bryson’s style of poking fun at the things he observes that stands out. The sentiments and the humour, I have to say, are timeless.

Qinghai-Tibet railway opening, green passageway for wild animals

(Hoaxes NEWS)   Photographer Liu Weiqing claimed he had to wait with his camera in a pit for eight days to capture this image of antelope galloping across the Tibetan landscape as a high-speed train passes overhead on the newly opened Qinghai-Tibet railway. "I wanted to capture the harmony among the Tibetan antelope, the train, men and nature," he said. The photo, widely disseminated by Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, eased concerns that the high-speed train (which started service in July 2006) would disturb Tibetan wildlife. CCTV, China's state-run television network, declared it a top 10 "photo of the year" in late 2006.

HONG KONG -- It turns out that train tracks in Tibet aren't where the antelope play.

Earlier this week, Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, issued an unusual public apology for publishing a doctored photograph of Tibetan wildlife frolicking near a high-speed train.

The deception -- uncovered by Chinese Internet users who sniffed out a Photoshop scam in the award-winning picture -- has brought on a big debate about:

•  media ethics, 
• China's troubled relationship with Tibet, and 
• how pregnant antelope react to noise.

China Eats Crow Over Faked Photo Of Rare Antelope

The antelope imbroglio began in the summer of 2006. The Chinese government was celebrating its latest engineering feat, and an enthusiastic wildlife photographer from the Daqing Evening News was camped out on the Tibetan plateau eating energy bars and waiting for antelope to pass.

(eat crow -idiom)

Photo of antelopes unperturbed by Tibet train exposed as fake

A photograph showing more than 20 Tibetan antelopes roaming calmly under a railway bridge as a high-speed train to Lhasa was passing would have been a perfect propaganda coup for the Chinese government. It would also, no doubt, have beggared credulity. Regarding its value on the propaganda side, China has been saying that these highly endangered animals and others had adapted well to the Qinghai-Tibet railway, thereby justifying the controversial project as environment friendly.

BILL BRYSON - Narrow margings, litlle splinter groups or the odd one or two in a BIG country

In this chapter 37, THE RISK FACTOR,  taken from in "Notes from a bog country", Bryson is comparing living in the United States as a dangerous place than living in The Great Britain. There are two factors of being killed: the untimely and the accidental. 

• The untimely death is the kind of death that happens normally such choking, heart attacks, and many more. 
• The accidental death is the death caused by car accidents, gun shots, etc. 
• Bryson labeled America as an outstandingly dangerous place. 

He supports this by saying, “Every year in New Hampshire a dozen or more people are killed crashing their cars into moose.” These deaths are cause by not paying attention on the roads, not wearing seat belts (40% of the people in this country don’t use a seat belt), and constantly busy with accessories such cell phones, food, etc. (...) Yet everybody that is living in this country is being alarmed by all the wrong things.

TASK. Enjoy the text and find 

22 interesting expressions where he deals with FIGURES!

     (37) THE RISK FACTOR by Bill Bryson 

Now here is something that seems awfully unfair to me. Because I am an American it appears that I am twice as likely as an English person to suffer an untimely and accidental death. I know this because I have just been reading something called The Book of Risks: Fascinating Facts About the Chances We Take Every Day by a statistical wonk named Larry Laudan.
It is full of interesting and useful charts, graphs, and factual analyses, mostly to do with coming irremediably a cropper in the United States. Thus, I know that if I happen to take up farm work this year I am three times more likely to lose a limb, and twice as likely to be fatally poisoned, than if I just sit here quietly. I now know that my chances of being murdered sometime in the next twelve months are 1 in
11,000; of choking to death 1 in 150,000; of being killed by a dam failure 1 in 10 million; and of being
35 fatally conked on the head by something falling from the sky about 1 in 250 million. Even if I stay indoors, away from the windows, it appears that there is a 1 in 450,000 chance that something will kill me before the day is out. I find that rather alarming.

 

However, nothing is more galling than the discovery that just by being an American, by standing to attention for "The Star-Spangled Banner" and having a baseball cap as a central component of my wardrobe, I am twice as likely to die in a mangled heap as, say, Prince Philip or Posh Spice. This is not a just way to decide mortality, if you ask me.
Mr. Laudan does not explain why Americans are twice as dangerous to themselves as Britons (too upset, I daresay), but I have been thinking about it a good deal, as you can imagine, and the answer-very obvious when you reflect for even a moment-is that America is an outstandingly dangerous place.
Consider this: Every year in New Hampshire a dozen or more people are killed crashing their cars into moose. Now correct me if I am wrong, but this is a fate unlikely to await anyone in the United Kingdom. 

Nor, we may safely assume, is anyone there likely to be eaten by a grizzly bear or mountain lion, butted senseless by bison, seized about the ankle by a seriously perturbed rattlesnake, or subjected to an abrupt and startling termination from tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, rock slides, avalanches, flash floods, or paralyzing blizzards-all occurrences that knock off scores, if not hundreds, of my fellow citizens each year.
Finally, and above all, there is the matter of guns. There are 200 million guns in the United StatesGenerated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
and we do rather like to pop them off. Each year, 40,000 Americans die from gunshot wounds, the great majority of them by accident. Just to put that in perspective for you, that's a rate of 6.8 gunshot deaths per 100,000 people in America, compared with a decidedly unambitious 0.4 per 100,000 in the United Kingdom. 

America is, in short, a pretty risky place. And yet, oddly, we get alarmed by all the wrong things. Eavesdrop on almost any conversation at Lou's Cafe here in Hanover and the talk will all be of cholesterol and sodium levels, mammograms and resting heart rates. Show most Americans an egg yolk and they will recoil in terror, but the most palpable and avoidable risks scarcely faze them.
Forty percent of the people in this country still don't use a seat belt, which I find simply amazing because it costs nothing to buckle up and clearly has the potential to save you from exiting through the windshield like Superman. (Vermont, which is one of the few states to keep careful track of these things, reported that in the first ten months of 1998, eighty-one people were killed on the state's roads-and 76 percent of those people were not wearing seat belts.) Even more remarkably, since a spate of recent newspaper reports about young children being killed by airbags in minor crashes, people have been rushing to get their airbags disconnected. Never mind that in every instance the children were killed because they were sitting in the front seat, where they should not have been in the first place, and in nearly all cases weren't wearing seat belts. Airbags save thousands of lives, yet many people are having them disabled on the bizarre assumption that they present a danger. 

Much the same sort of statistical illogic applies to guns. Forty percent of Americans keep guns in their homes, typically in a drawer beside the bed. The odds that one of those guns will ever be used to shoot a criminal are comfortably under one in a million. The odds that it will be used to shoot a member of the household-generally a child fooling around-are at least twenty times that figure. Yet over 100 million peo-ple resolutely ignore this fact, even sometimes threaten to pop you one themselves if you make too much noise about it.
Nothing, however, better captures the manifest irrationality of people toward risks as one of the liveliest issues of recent years: passive smoking. Four years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency released a report concluding that people who are over thirty-five and don't smoke but are regu larly exposed to the smoke of others stand a 1 in 30,000 risk of contracting lung cancer in a given year. The response was im-mediate and electrifying. All over the country smoking was banned at work and in restaurants, shopping malls, and other public places.
What was overlooked in all this was how microscopically small the risk from passive smoking actually is.

A rate of 1 in 30,000 sounds reasonably severe, but it doesn't actually amount to much. Eating one pork chop a week is statistically more likely to give you cancer than sitting routinely in a roomful of smokers.
So, too, is consuming a carrot every seven days, a glass of orange juice twice a month, or a head of lettuce every two years. You are five times more likely to contract lung cancer from your pet parakeet than you are from secondary smoke. 

Now I am all for banning smoking on the grounds that it is dirty and offensive, unhealthy for the user, and leaves unsightly burns in the carpet. All I am saying is that it seems a trifle odd to ban it on grounds of public safety when you are happy to let any old fool own a gun or drive around unbuckled.
But then logic seldom comes into these things. I remember some years ago watching my brother buy a lottery ticket (odds of winning: about 1 in 12 million), then get in his car and fail to buckle up
(odds of having a serious accident in any year: 1 in 40). When I pointed out the inconsistency of this, he looked at me for a moment and said: "And what are the odds, do you suppose, that I will drop you four miles short of home?" 

Since then, I have kept these thoughts pretty much to myself. Much less risky, you see.

The war to win fundamental rights - From Stone wall to Audre Lorde - NYC 2014

Many ferociously stubborn wills were neededFrom Stone wall -1969 to Audre Lorde - NYC 2014 

Any majority is basically a conglomerate of minorities. Each minority shows a variety of situations in which minorities live.

Some live together in well-defined areas, separated from the dominant part of the population. Others are scattered throughout the country.   

Some minorities have a strong sense of collective identity and recorded history; others retain only a fragmented notion of their common heritage.

A) Remember Harvey Milk?
Milk, among the first openly gay elected officials in the country, had a profound impact on national politics, and his rich afterlife in American culture has affirmed his status as pioneer and martyr.

       Sean Penn, center, portrays Harvey Milk, 

the San Francisco city supervisor who was murdered in 27 Nov 1978

The murderer, Dan White, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to a relatively brief jail term, sparking a demonstration and riot by gay supporters of the murdered men.

B) Begin at the beginning. Stonewall. The  NYC riots -1969 

June 28  marks every year the anniversary of the Stonewall riots, the event largely regarded as a catalyst for the LGBT movement for civil rights in the United States.  The riots inspired LGBT people throughout the country to organize in support of gay rights, and within two years after the riots, gay rights groups had been started in nearly every major city in the United States. At the time, there were not many places where people could be openly gay. New York had laws prohibiting homosexuality in public, and private businesses and gay establishments were regularly raided and shut down.

A police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York City in 1969 sparked a riot and became the genesis of the modern gay rights movement. Veterans of the riots, along with author David Carter, recount what happened the night history was made.

     Veterans Talk About the Night That Changed The World

C) The Boys in Blue: 

Women's Challenge to the Police

Christina Dunhill (Editor)

Published by Virago, London, 1989

Synopsis: 

 The British police force remains an overridingly white and male institution. Yet in times of crisis it is to this police force that women must look for protection or redress. This book takes a look at many areas of policing in relation to women in Britain and Northern Ireland today. 

It includes contributions from women personally affected and those working in a wide range of fields: feminist and anti-racist campaigns and support services, the peace movement, local government police monitoring, as well as lawyers and feminist researchers. What happens when girls and women seek police help in cases of rape, child abuse, domestic and racial violence? 

What about those who are subjected to unwanted police attention, which could often be labelled harassment - as political activists, lesbians, black women, Irish and Greenham women, as women coming up against the immigration law or the Mental Health Act, or women working as prostitutes? 

The final section examines closely who the police actually are and considers the changing balance of police powers in the light of recent legislation.



D) Audre Lorde (1934-1992)

The Black feminist, lesbian, poet, mother, warrior 

5 reasons why the Audre Lorde Project supports in 2014 the #Not1More Campaign 

to demand that President Obama grant the broadest administrative relief possible and implement an immediate halt to deportations!

1. We stand in solidarity with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans,
and Gender Non-Conforming People of Color migrants, undocumented people,
people in detention, low-wage workers, and all Indigenous-identified
people, and honor the sovereignty of the First Nations on whose land we now
see the US attempt to enforce arbitrary borders.


2. We oppose current systems of policing, surveillance, and immigration
enforcement that use racist, transphobic, homophobic, ageist, classist, and
ableist tactics to falsely accuse, terrorize, and target communities
perceived as threats in order to maintain and further build race and class
hierarchy in the United States.


3. We demand the abolition of all prisons and immigrant detention centers,
where transgender and gender-non conforming people are forced into solitary
confinement.


4. We oppose the Secure Communities program, the 287(g) program, the
Criminal Alien Program, and all ICE ACCESS agreements that allow local law
enforcement to act as agents of immigration. We oppose the use of ICE
holds, Operation Streamline, and any enforcement provisions that build more
walls and increase collaboration between local police and ICE.


5. We demand an end to the displacement of our communities and the
militarization of our lives, from the increased policing of communities of
color in the US to the current apartheid in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied
territories.


#Not1More

More about the campaign: On August 2nd, 2014 

Southerners On New Ground [SONG], Transgender Law Center [TLC] and many others are joined forces in Washington, DC, to amplify the national call to demand that President Obama grant the BROADEST ADMINISTRATIVE RELIEF possible and implement an immediate halt to deportations!

From La torre d'Oristà- a gentle stroll

La Torre d’Oristà - Lluçanes by Sara V. V.

There was a time when I used to live in such a quiet backwater village called: la Torre d’Oristà,  where  three hundred-odd inhabitants  dwell in currently.

I am tempted to admit, for some people it would be bored rigid living there, miles away from  a bustling center, whereas for me it is a rural idyll. I am fond of spending all my childhood  surrounded by  chirping birds and  oak trees, and indeed I enjoy it now when I visit my family every week. 

The village has been set up for three steep streets and some farmhauses around them. If I start  strolling through the main street called  Mossen Riba Pont, from the hillside to the south side, the first landmark space I come across is the Cemetery,  facing a small square where you can both enjoy and feel the solemnity of the snow-capped Pyrenees and the  peaceful life of the spot.

 By the center of the main street the main street, there is the principal area where dwellers socialise, therefore there stands a unique grocery’s shop, which has been there since 1926,  and till  a year ago there was a small bar... nowadays it remains closed.

Whether you keep on walking , a few meters ahead,  or you stay ahead the uphill lane,  you  catch a glimpse of the main square, with a tiny playground zone and the extraordinary Santa Maria’s church, which is definitely from the Romanesque period. 

On the east side of the square there is a stunning building, my appreciated  primary rural school ,  which  at present holds on the first floor the rural health center and on the second floor the cultural center of the village. Other  features of the village include a small industrial area, where you can find both an excellent restaurant, and also the theatre facilities.

And last, but not least, the marvelous landscape excites you into the experience of  the rural lifestyle,  booking some amazing rural home around the village, and moreover feeling the  Romanesque lifestyle visiting the site called Puigciutat.

If you have a Saturday to spare  ...

======

For a peaceful stroll,  visit this web here!

MY PLACE - Manresa invites to a gentle ramble

  I should have been born in the a cottage, not in the outskirts of my town. Any patch of green, a  flowered garden, a mere blade of grass was unknown in our neighbourhood. The waste is quite visible along the dull road in Manresa where I live. The street is made of building blocks, they’re tall and grey. No one here has  flower pots on their balconies. My sister used to ask Mom if we could do some window plantboxes with blossoming daisies and petunias among other types. “Not today, Montse,” she’d always say. It took such a long time before we understood that we didn’t have the money.   So we take long tours across Les Escodines district. We leave behind all the bakery shops and grocer shops of the Vilomara Road, and the great desolate-wall murals from the Balconada barracks. I cut across to St Josep Road where I sometimes I see  teens I went to school with. “What about you, Montse?” they say. “Today sucks.” I say. Ten minutes later I am at Vic road, the main entry to my town, I pass the rusty ironbridge, I cross Els Dolors giant roundabout.

   I negociate my promenade through residential streets, with some scattered residences located along the new boulevard all the appartment houses terraced, much nicer than ours. I end up at Les Bases with its large houses and wide panelled-windows from the  upper-middle classes. 

    Opposite is the Museum of the Technique, which hundred years ago housed the water reservoirs of the town. I adore all that wide open space and the room for skaters. I’d be embarrassed if anyone I know could see how happy I am to be strolling past the discreet flower balconies, happy as myself to be out for their walk.

   Beyond the park I turn right to go down over the old bus station feeling the transition of two neighbourhoods who would not meet halfway. I like to stare a while at Montserrat summit. 

   I keep up through the Passeig, so-called because the arboured avenue  have shop names like Garoina, Athena, Mima’t. Often there are small kids speaking languages I don’t recognise, throwing a ball to a passer-by. Up towards Puigterrà, I trespass the iron-wrought gates. On fine days, the gardens are full of retired couples, but I go there in all seasons. I stop to smell the tiny buds from the rosebush.

I spend ages in the wooden bench facing Collbaix, heading then to Vic street. It’s so peaceful and harmonious the descent that I was weary some local old lady would enquiry what I was doing away from my flat and send me back to La Balconada.

   There’s another gate that takes you into Baixada del Castell, all big houses and gardens. I reach the traffic jam and cross towards Caritat street, such a rich and massive building whose oppressive figure may be explain why I’ve never been inside. Next I’m stepping onto the Swimming pool, my permanent bliss because I go past the most magnificent memory from our industrial architecture: La Fabrica Nova (dated from 1895), reaching the hidden stairs that lift us to Flors Sirera centre, so that I completely forget that I’m in the city.

  I don’t even hear the hustle of traffic now, there’s just this narrow path with the cane margins on your side.  I end under Santa Clara’s cloister, on El Sol street, where the visitor receive smiles form dog-owners. You could walk all the way to Sant Pau, it’s 30 minutes away. My mother would walk it every week in her teens.   

(A. L.  based on a 2011 text from E. Yeates)

Eunice Yeates left Belfast in 1997 for one year, but forgot to come back until 2010. Following adventures and misadventures in three continents. To read it Before next Thursday click here       

on-Dahl_ Ten dull, unworthy stories

                       SAMPLE_ 005_  

Ten short stories, ten dull, unworthy stories  

 by Carlos O.

Almost everybody has read one book written by the world known British novelist Roald Dahl. Personally, I have read several books written by him, such as Matilda, The Witches and George’s Marvelous Medicine, all of them in English, but I feel disappointed at this compilation of non-sense short stories. 

As a start, I would say that I didn’t like the book because it was disconcerting and blurring to read although it is a rather short book. As far I am concerned, this compilation seems to have been written  by an amateur in the art of writing, it doesn’t seem a book written by Dahl that is why I am disappointed, I have grown up reading his books and I feel that this book doesn’t reflect the author’s witty and sarcastic humor. 

Secondly, from my point of view the stories were very plain and boring, many of them try to be funny but they fail badly trying to achieve some sense of humor, personally several times I didn’t catch the jokes at the ending of almost all of the stories. Even some stories have “black humor”, which I found a bit disrespectful and impolite considering the importance of the author. Moreover It seems as the author tried to make fun of English rural society stigmatizing them as rude, ultra-conservative and foolish. American characters are also portrayed as rude, vain and disingenuous. 

Thirdly, I think that the “lessons” that each story tries to teach us at the end of each chapter are no longer in vogue, many of the situations explained at the stories were partially outdated nowadays because the main plot of every story happened during the 50s (even before ... Elvis Presley). 

Finally,  a warning to anybody who has thought of buying this book candidly, don’t do it unless you want to be disappointed with the author if you have grown up with his books as it was my case, you might found reading this volume boring, dumb ... and heavy as well.

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