English in Madrid

'Why I queued for almost 24 hours for a jacket potato' On a grey and wet November morning, a queue of more than 150 people - which will later swell to over 400 - is stretching down Fargate in Sheffield city centre. Amelia Sorby, 33, stands proudly at the front of the queue after arriving at 18:30 the previous evening, armed only with a camping chair and a thick winter coat. The hordes of people have braved the weather for the official opening of Spud Bros – a jacket potato business started in Preston which has grown to become a TikTok sensation. Ms Sorby is one of about 4.8 million social media followers of the company's founders , brothers Jacob and Harley Nelson, but, for her, being part of the queue in rainy Sheffield is less about the spuds and more about the "great vibes ". "I didn't sleep last night. I was so excited, I just walked around," she explains. She describes the Nelson brothers as "great people" who " give some...

  Image created by Chat GPT This is Bessie. She literally fell into my life. I noticed her from my flat as I was feeding the pigeons. The only way that she could have got into the garden is from the roof of one of the surrounding buildings - and it's a big drop . She had her hiding place that was impossible for me to reach. It took me ten days before I could catch her. I fed her every day and night, hoping that she would trust me a bit more. I sat in the dark, occasionally with the torch of my mobile phone to see her and talked to her so that she would gain my trust. Eventually , I was successful. I took her to the vet to see if she had a chip so we could discover who her owner was. But she didn't have one. So she has ended up with me. She is only about a year old so she is very playful . She  follows me around like a dog and she is very affectionate . 🐾 Bessie in the Garden She watched me from the ivy ’s shade , Eyes like lanterns, half afraid. I left her food, and wh...

Valencia leader resigns over handling of deadly floods The president of Spain's Valencia region, Carlos Mazón, has resigned after months of pressure over his handling of flash floods last year. A total of 229 people died in towns in the Valencia region on 29 October 2024, with a further eight dying in neighbouring regions , in Spain's worst natural disaster for decades. Many in Valencia blamed   Mazón for the scale of the tragedy because of how he and his government responded that day. It emerged that the regional president had spent nearly four hours in a restaurant with a journalist, Maribel Vilaplana, while the floodwater was wreaking havoc  and he did not attend emergency meetings during much of the day. Mazón's government also failed to  issue an emergency alert to the phones of Valencia residents warning them of the floods and providing advice until after 20:00, by which time dozens of people had already died. "I can't go on anymore... I know that I...