SpiritOfTheForest

Here's one I encountered on a hiking trail outside the Andalusian town I'm living in. Translation: "Francisco is single and is 47 years old, looking for a single girl that is 37 or 38 that has a car. For the reason call this number".

I had so many questions! Would have called the number to find out if my Spanish was good enough. 

Glad I'm not alone on not liking Nikki Cross. I was chuffed to hear she'd been promoted as I loved the idea of a Scottish woman's wrestler getting to the main roster but I'm quite a casual fan these days and I'd never actually seen her perform since ICW. Like a lot of people, I first saw her act at the Rumble and I found it excruciating to watch. The sort of act that would make you embarrassed if you were watching with somebody else and she came on. I hear she's good in the ring, but her execution of that gimmick is just abysmal. 

Well then.

 Fortunately, I got Eleven Sports for La Liga (they show every game apart from the one's at 3pm on a Saturday) and the coverage is excellent with hours of analysis each week. They've even started doing a weekly Segunda highlights show which is good as I love following that league. I only checked out the Serie A and Eredivise games on a few occasions but I did enjoy their highlights shows. I'd be furious if I was paying a subscription for those leagues and then they pull it halfway through the season.

While they still have La Liga, I can't see it being for much longer. Which is bullshit considering their coverage is far better than Sky's was. I.e you can actually watch all the teams and not just Real and Barca. Guess I'll have to enjoy it while it lasts. 

56 minutes ago, Fog Dude said:

speaking it with a Russian accent.

Funnily enough, I finally decided to google this only last week to what all this is about. It turns out it's because both Portuguese and Russian have a different way of dealing with the stress placed on syllables than other European languages. Because Portuguese uses the "sh" sound regularly, with the stress they put on it, it comes out sounding very similar to Russian to us. It's strange how similar Portuguese and Spanish are in many ways in their written forms but they sound totally different when spoken - language is something which I simply find fascinating. 

Mr Facesitter, I'd recommend you get on Memrise as well as Duolingo. It's also free and you'll soon find that Duolingo will start teaching you a lot of nonsense sentences (presumably to help get you to grips with sentence structure and tenses) while Memrise teaches a lot more practical stuff. That is of course assuming their Portuguese courses are like the Spanish. Another thing to bear in mind, as mentioned above, Duolingo teaches Brazilian Portuguese. I have never studied the language myself so I'm purely speculating but I'd recommend making sure there are no major differences between the tongue spoken in Brazil to that of Portugal. Latin American Spanish for example has no You (plural) pronoun while in Spain they do have one (Vosotros) and it's widely used. Would have been baffling reading/speaking to Castillan speakers had I not known this.

I've been trying to teach myself Spanish for the last year or so - I'm far too proud of my Duolingo streak which currently sits at 387 consecutive days!

Duolingo is a great way to get started in a language, mostly because it's free and the way it presents itself as a game can be good for getting you to keep coming back. It's certainly not enough on its own though - it's useful for vocabulary and giving you some decent elementary reading skills but it totally fails to explain any grammar to you. This leads to a hell of a lot of confusion when nasty things like the imperfect subjunctive or the differences between past preterite and past imperfect are introduced - there's absolutely no explanation as to why things are happening.

It is great as a tool though, just one I'd strongly advise you to use along with others. I also use Memrise which is very good in a quite different way to Duolingo. Why Duolingo is teaching you things like "the bear is reading a book" or "the woman is in the fridge", Memrise is teaching things like "to get drunk (verb) and "this is bullshit!". So it's much better for teaching conversational set phrases you might actually be likely to use. They also have hundreds of very short video clips of real Spaniards speak sentences or phrases which is infinitely more useful/realistic than the robot voice Duo exclusively relies on. Again though, there's no grammar explanation at all which is a serious drawback.

Apps will only get you so far - to better your understanding, I highly recommend you buy a couple of good grammar books. These are great either for picking up and reading to get your head round something or as a handy reference guide. 

One other quick point about Duolingo - it teaches Latin American Spanish. It's still perfectly functional if you want to learn Castillan but you should be aware that the complete lack of "vosotros" (you plural) will definitely throw you when you see how often Spaniards use it. 

Having totally taught myself so far, I would say that my reading ability is pretty good but that my speaking is absolutely appalling - simply because as ridiculous as it sounds, I've never actually spoken Spanish! The other day, I reached a personal milestone by reading an article in Spanish for Spanish speakers about politics and history and was able to understand the vast majority of it. That contrasts pretty sharply with the fact that if I actually tried to start a conversation in the language, I'd probably have the ability of a primary school child! I'm hoping to move to Spain in the near future to give the whole TEFL thing a go, so I'm already cringing at/looking forward to the baptism by fire I'll be undergoing when trying to interact in Spanish!

Language learning is great though and I highly recommend everyone does it. Not just because I think everybody should speak a second language but also because of how challenging and rewarding it can be. Language learning is generally simply good for you. 

There was that awkward moment in the away fixture when Kieran Tierney, occasional Celtic captain, scored the winner for Israel. (OG).

It getting postponed was a pisser as I had talked my father into watching it all Saturday and in the end he'd bought into it and got quite excited about the hype and so we were looking forward to watching it together. We watched Atletico Vs Athletic though which was a 3-2 belter. Also kept an eye on Dortmund-Bayern and that seemed pretty great too. Dortmund now 7 points clear! I know absolutely nothing of either teams in the Copa Libertadores but I immediately favoured River Plate purely due to them having by far the more appealing name. Vamos River!

I've been familiar with much of the UKFF folklore down the years but this Bensons For Beds one had somehow passed me by. Googled it last night and good lord that's wonderful. "YES BENSONS FOR BEDS THE BED SHOP" is still making me smirk this morning.

Last week I learned that port, as in the type of wine, is so called because it originates from the city of Porto in Portugal. Seems staggeringly obvious now but I'd never twigged and figured it was just a name for no real reason.

When I'm out walking somewhere listening to music and I arrive at my destination at the same instant a song I'm thoroughly enjoying finishes. Wish I could bottle that feeling of pure satisfaction. 

And apologies for bringing a relatively wholesome conversation to the UKFF's favourite subject, (perhaps inevitably), but when you have a very pleasant poo which you then discover magically requires no wiping. I'm not entirely sure why that happens very occasionally but I do know it makes me feel like a King. 

The smell of burning leaves. I've always loved that aroma and it's the perfect time of year to get a whiff of it walking through the more residential streets around here.

Scoring a 93rd minute equaliser/winner on FIFA. 

I'm one of those weirdos who adores bizarre horror movies and especially those of the classic Italian variety. City of the Living Dead is an outstanding watch and gets the atmosphere down to a T. Fulci was a god. If you haven't seen it and you enjoyed City, definitely check out The Beyond. It takes the suffocatingly evil atmosphere even further. 

Watched another Spanish movie, The Fury of a Patient Man the other night. This was really good. It's a thriller with a central theme of vengeance but the second half almost has the feel of a road trip film at some points. It's a bit of a slow burn but once things really kick into gear, it's brilliant with a couple of scenes in particular that are unrelenting in both their raw outbursts of brutality and their tension. A special mention goes to a chap named Manolo Solo who hits his portrayal of a small-scale crime boss out the park. I'm crap at describing films and making them sound good without giving too much away, but aye definitely give it a watch on Netflix.

I don't have any photographs but there are two places I'll always remember experiencing pretty phenomenal sunsets. The first was in Cadiz. To the North West of the city, there's a fortress built about a mile out to sea, connected to the mainland by a long walkway. The last time I was there, I decided to cross it as the sun was about to set for a perfect view. Walking out there with the waves crashing all around me and watching the sun sink behind that foreboding fortress was a wonderful experience. While walking there and back, I passed by happy families, old couples, teenage lovebirds, seemingly all locals out for an evening stroll. At one part, I passed a newly married husband and wife getting some official wedding photographs taken. It was all very idyllic and I don't think I've ever felt as content. Cadiz is a wonderful little city and I highly recommend it.

The other place is Cape St Vincent bang on the South West corner of Portugal. It is the most Southwesterly point that one can get to in mainland Europe and that's what made seeing the sunset there so memorable for me. There was something quite spectacular I found about watching the sun creeping below the horizon knowing that you stood right at the precipice of a continent. Over that way there was nothing but open sea between us and the Americas? And that way, that smaller stretch of water would carry you to Africa. I've always enjoyed thinking such things. 

Now even though I don't have pictures of either of those, it'd be a shame to make a post in this sort of thread just a couple of paragraphs of bland text. So here's two entirely unrelated sunsets I actually do have. The first is from the top of Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh and the second is from a wee cove near North Berwick beach at a summer university camping trip/piss up.

Watched El Bar on Netflix last night and found I rather enjoyed it. I went into the film knowing nothing about it apart from the line or 2 in the description on Netflix and it all turned out rather different to that  snapshot of a first impression of what sort of film this would be. I was expecting a tense crime thriller and instead El Bar turned out to rather remind me more of the scenario in REC which is no bad thing as I adore that movie, only without the horror or hand-held camera elements and with some genuinely very funny moments (I swear this comparison does make some semblance of sense). I found it petered out slightly towards the end with the specifics of the situation perhaps being a little too vague for its own good but the premise led to some really quite interesting characterisations, with you managing to feel sympathetic to some extent to most of the characters at various points through despite pretty much everyone also having prevalent moments of utter shitecuntery. 

Personal highlights were Jaime Ordóñez's Israel, a deranged, grizzled but not always unsympathetic homeless man with a penchant for quoting streams of bible verse and being introduced to the very lovely Blanca Suárez. I originally decided on El Bar as I've been trying to teach myself Spanish for a while and felt it was time to check out Netflix's Spanish cinema offerings for some much-needed listening practice but it was a very enjoyable watch in its own right. I would recommend.

Never got the hate Sabaton seem to get from some folk. I think they're ace and I don''t even really like power metal at all. First few albums were terrific. It's not like they're knuckle-dragging Neanderthal shite like Five Finger Death Punch or Slipknot or the likes either. As a man to whom heavy metal and and military history are two of his greatest passions, they're great fun. 

I mind seeing them in 2008 or thereabouts in Glasgow in front of about 14 people and now they're headlining festivals. Madness. 

Ever see a foodstuff that looks so spectacularly dreadful you feel compelled to buy it?

In Tesco the other day I picked up a "Breakfast wrap" from the frozen section. You get 2 in a packet. According to the packaging, this consists of "pieces of cooked pork sausagemeat and egg omelette with hash browns, crispy bacon and processed cheese slices served in a white tortilla wrap". All of this for £1. £1! Imagine the quality of the ingredients? But I simply had to buy this both out of morbid curiosity and the interest of science and also because it just screamed "EATCLEAN!" at me. 

Cheese is perhaps the godliest thing in this universe but if I had to pick one, it'd be Manchego. I adore that stuff. Best served with some olives and sliced chorizo and Iberian ham....perfection.

Highlight of Raw for me was Corey Graves mentioning Rob Halford only for Michael Cole to immediately incredulously go "Whoooo???". Can't really get a more minor happening, but it gave me a kick to see two of my world collide in a small way like that. 

The Trish and Elias segment was great though. Trish is just brilliant and I'm not sure if she's ever looked better. It was also quite heartwarming to see Nattie pick up the win in her homeland given the couple of weeks she must have had. 

Yeah it doesn't look nearly as impressive in the photo but it was delicious - lathered in tons of salt and vinegar so it wasn't too dry. The town also has an award winning chippy which is apparently one of the best in Scotland so I'll try to go there after payday and post the results. I mean, for the interests of science and this thread obviously. 

Had the cravings after reading this thread so picked up a chippy tonight. Sausage supper from The Palace in Helensburgh.

I once met a chap through work called Innes McInnes which I thought was outstanding. 

Crank That by Soulja Boy, a song so demonstrably dreadful and so utterly bereft of any redeeming features that it's making me angry even typing its name. 

From WWF Magazine presumably. God I love Steve Blackman.

Special mention to Dave Hedgehog and Spudgun. Those two had me cracking up in pretty much every scene they were in.

"So what brings you around here?"

"....the bus"

Totally agree with the general consensus that it's a work of genius. I love that show and oh so very quotable. A friend of mine's also a big fan and every time it's his birthday I make sure to include "from all the lads on the Ark Royal" on any birthday message to him.

Rik really was the King of ridiculous facial expressions wasn't he? Could make you fall about laughing without saying a word.