Endings. Words. Clothes.

So, another Sanxenxo chess tournament draws to a close. We have eaten the "cena especial" and thoroughly enjoyed it. We have made a few new friends and been reunited with some old ones. Phil has masochistically sweated over the chessboard while I have swum in leisurely fashion up and down the pool and walked, Spanish fashion, up and down the tideline on the beach. This morning I paid the bill while Phil played his last game, fortified with the occasional cafe cortado, transported by yours truly to the playing area. 

Here are some odd words I have culled from items in the local papers. El disyoquei - this is the Spanish for disc jockey. The word has been hispanified in the good traditional way, missing sounds out and adjusting others to match the Spanish tongue, not to mention Spanish spelling. Disyoquei is the profession of Calvin Harris, boyfriend of the singer Taylor Swift. The couple are known collectively as Tayvin. Kanye West and Kin Kardashian are known as Kimye. This might seem like a new trend but decades ago Phil and I were known to friends as Phil'n'Anth. We never knew we were trend setters way back then. 

Yesterday the much talked about wedding took place in the hotel. Paula and Daniel (perhaps now known collectively as Pauda - you never know) were married with much cheering and shouting. This was the noisiest wedding I have ever heard but perhaps this is normal for Spain. Later in the afternoon there was also a baptism party for a little Rodrigo, also a very noisy affair and which was still going strong at 11.30 when we returned from eating out with one of our new friends. 

Another word I found is "el bum" - the boom, as in, "El bum de los pazos y las fincas entre los novios comenzó en torno al 2008". Not so much a "boom" as a "trend" or "fashion" - the fashion for getting married in stately homes began around 2008. 

The Spanish, and he French for that matter, have long had the habit of inventing would-be English words ending in "ing". In some cases they are novel uses of a word that does actually exist: "el camping" for a camp sight and "el parking" for a car park are the oldest examples I can remember. Then came "el footing" for jogging, a silly word if ever there was one. 

Now I have come across "el scrapbooking", which seems to mean anything from making your own greeting cards to the kind of craft projects where you make cardboard holders for letters or fancy photo frames with a personalised look. All have something to do with cutting and sticking but not a lot to do with scrapbooks. Holiday-related stuff gives us "el vacacioning" and "el crucering", the latter based on the word "crucero" which means cruise. As far as I am concerned these all beat the false Spanish of "no problemo" used by loads of English people, probably originating in some cartoon series on the television. Oddly enough, I heard a small Spanish girl say it down by the pool the other day. Drives me mad! 

Second hand clothes feature in the news as well. This comes from one of those society magazines that abound in hairdressing salons and on the bar in the cafeteria here in the Hotel Carlos I Silgar. Somewhere in the USA they are auctioning, among other things, the dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in her last film and a Versace dress specially designed for Princes Diana. The former is expected to fetch between $300,000 and $500,000 and the latter between $60,000 and $80,000. Hollywood royalty trumps British royalty! 

But in the end, they are still second hand clothes.