Paralipomena Ispanika

Despite or as a belated consequence of having Spanish skills in the lowest quartile of mi nacimiento, I ended up spending most of my Christmas Holiday time immersing myself in Hispanic culture, working my way through poems of Borges and plays of Lope de Vega and listening to a lot of Andean pop music.

I also changed my 'Twitter trends' thingy to follow 'Hermosillo' because the Australian Twitter trends, like most Twitter things, were irritating me.

#ResumeTuAñoEnTresPalabras No es ley

No es ley la que no alcanza del plebeyo al principal.

That is a Polonius-style bit of good advice from a bad character in El laberinto de creta.

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My mum has pointed out that '2016' looks like 'dIOS' spelled backwards. Our new car is an 'ix35', which of course looks like 'SEx!' when you look at the name printed on the inside of the doorframe upside down.

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From time to time - though less since I wrote and asked them to stop sending me dead tree mail - theagressive proselytising efforts of the American Chemical Society have prompted me, in my contrary fashion as a native of occupied Sonora Norte, to look up what it takes to join the Mexican Chemical Society. They have exactly the opposite tack and demand proof that applicants practice, or intend to practice, a chemical profession in Mexico.

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I've thought for a long time that the United States makes most sense as a Latin American country where most people happen to speak English, and this has never seemed truer to me than this Presidential Election cycle. The blancos have a mendacious Cristina Kirchner riding her husband's coat-tails, with a spittle-flecked Hugo Chavez in the wings; meanwhile the colorados have an El Presidente type from central casting, complete with cult of personality, who would fit perfectly well in a line up with Somoza, Stroessner, Trujillo, etc.; as for the viable candidates with some remaining commitment to the ideals of the republic, they have Spanish names and Cuban parents.