English in Madrid

Image created with Chat GPT Italy wins claim over name of Spanish restaurant chain The Mafia Sits at the Table After years of court action and complaints , trademark office in Spain rules name is counter to ‘public order and morality’ A Spanish restaurant chain called The Mafia Sits at the Table may soon have to change its name after the country’s patent and trademark office * heeded objections from the Italian government and ruled that the brand ’s nomenclature ran counter to “both public order and morality”. Italy has pursued its claim against the chain – known in Spanish as La Mafia se sienta a la mesa – through various courts and official bodies over the past few years , alleging that the name trivialises both organised crime and efforts to fight it. In 2018, the EU Intellectual Property Office ruled that the name was invalid as it conveyed a “globally positive image” of the mafia. It added that the brand was “ therefore likely to shock or offend not only the victims of...

Image created with Chat GPT Italian cooking awarded Unesco cultural heritage status Italian cooking has been awarded special cultural heritage status by the United Nations' cultural agency Unesco. National favourites including pizza are already on Unesco's list of "intangible cultural heritage", but now Italian cooking traditions and the way they are practised and transmitted have been awarded. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has been pushing for her country's cuisine to be recognised since her election, said: "For us Italians, cuisine is not just food or a collection of rec ipes . It is so much more: it is culture, tradition, work, wealth." For millions of fans the news confirms what they already believed - from Sicilian Cannoli to Calabrian 'Nduja - Italian is the best. The announcement was made during a Unesco assembly meeting in the Indian capital Delhi on Wednesday. The cultural agency described Italian cuisine as a "means of connec...

Image Source: Wikipiedia (Andy Scott) Carlo Acutis: From a baptism in London to the first millennial saint A London-born boy has become the first millennial saint, in a ceremony steeped in an ancient ritual presided over by Pope Leo on Sunday. In his short life, Carlo Acutis created websites documenting "miracles" as a means of spreading Catholic teaching, leading some to nickname him God's influencer. His canonisation had been due in late April, but was postponed following the death of Pope Francis. More than a million people are estimated to have made a pilgrimage to the Italian hilltop town of Assisi where Carlo's body lies , preserved in wax . But there is another pilgrimage site associated with Carlo Acutis that has seen an increase in visitors since it was announced that he was to be made a saint - Our Lady of Dolours Church in London. The font at the back of the Roman Catholic church in the Chelsea area was where Carlo was baptised as a baby in 1991. T...

Silvio Berlusconi’s memorable quotes and quips Silvio Berlusconi, the outspoken four-time Italian prime minister and billionaire media mogul who died on Monday at the age of 86, had a sense of humour that often landed him in trouble . Here are some of his memorable quotes and quips: DEC 2022: Berlusconi tells players of his Monza soccer team he would bring "a bus of whores into the locker room " if they managed to beat a top Serie A rival. OCT 2022: Despite anger in the West over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Berlusconi stood resolutely by his old friend , President Vladimir Putin: "Putin for my birthday sent me 20 bottles of vodka and a very sweet letter. I replied with bottles of Lambrusco and an equally sweet letter." NOV 2010: "As always, I work without interruption and if occasionally I happen to look a beautiful girl in the face, it's better to like beautiful girls than to be gay," he tells a meeting at a motorcycle industry show in M...

Source:  Mauricio Artieda on Unsplash Plastic-for-tickets: Free travel for recycling in Rome Under the scheme, passengers accrue credit for every plastic bottle they recycle which can be used to purchase metro tickets. Travellers in Rome are being offered free metro tickets in exchange for plastic bottles as part of a scheme to make the city more environmentally friendly .  The plastic-for-tickets venture, launched by the Italian capital's public transport company ATAC, is currently running at three stations. But transport chiefs have said because the public response to the initiative has been positive, the plan is to extend it across the whole metro network until July 2020. Under the scheme, passengers can deposit plastic bottles at stations in exchange for a €0.05 credit that can be spent to purchase online tickets. They need to download an app onto their mobile phones which registers the number of tickets they have earned on the basis of the number of ...

Source:  Maxime Steckle on Unsplash Florence tourists face fines of up to €500 if they are caught snack ing on the pavement Florence has fired a fresh salvo in its perpetual battle against the effects of mass tourism by banning visitors from eat ing panini, pizza and focaccia on the pavement and on shop doorsteps . Tourists who find themselves on the wrong side of the law , which comes into effect today, face fines of between €150-€500 (£135-£450). The ban applies to streets and piazzas around a particularly popular delicatessen in the city centre - All’ Antico Vinaio, the Old Wine Merchant – which is situated between the Uffizi Galleries and Palazzo Vecchio, Florence’s medieval town hall . Described by one food and travel magazine as “home of the world’s best sandwiches”, it has enjoyed a surge   in popularity after being favourably reviewed on TripAdvisor, where it is related “excellent” by 79 per cent of contributors. Like many Italian cities, Flor...

Source: Kyle Head on Unsplash   Italian teenagers to receive €500 'cultural bonus' from government Italian school leavers may face the dismal prospect of 40 per cent youth unemployment , but at least they have one thing to look forward to – a €500 “culture bonus”, courtesy of the government. From next month, every 18-year-old will be entitled to claim the money and spend it on culturally enriching pursuits such as going to theatres, concerts and museums, visiting archaeological sites, and buying books. The scheme, which starts on Sept 15, will benefit 575,000 teenagers, at a cost to the government of €290 million (£250 million). Young people who turn 18 this year will be able to register online and then spend the money through a special app, called 18app.it, which can be downloaded on a smart phone, tablet or computer. They will have until the end of next year to spend all the credit. They will be spoilt for choice – the country that gave the world Mich...

Source:  Blaz Erzetic en Unsplash Stolen Columbus letter about discovery of new world returned to Italy Original copy of explorer’s 1493 letter was found in US Library of Congress, with the one held in Florence proved to be a forgery A rare copy of a letter   written by Christopher Columbus in 1493 that was stolen from a library in Florence has been returned to Italy after US investigators discovered it was in the collection of the Library of Congress. The return of the letter, which had been sent to the king and queen of Spain, describing the Italian explorer’s first impressions of the new world, was hailed by US and Italian officials. But the mystery of how it ended up in the Library of Congress after be ing sold at auction at Christie’s in the early 90s is still being investigated by the US Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. The letter had been stolen from Florence’s Riccardiana library and replaced with a forgery that n...

Two questions that arose from our MOJ class were: Why are spaghetti westerns so called? Was Phantom of the Opera based on a true story? What Are Spaghetti Westerns and Where Did The Name Come From By the second half of the twentieth century, spaghetti had become so well known throughout the world as an Italian food, that the word spaghetti itself came to be a sort of metaphor for anything Italian. So it is not surprising that when Italian film companies began to produce western movies in the 1960’s, they quickly came to be referred to as spaghetti westerns . Source: allaboutspaghetti.com     Vocabulary :   a put-down -   lone (adj) -   alongside -   vastly superior -   broadly recognised -   highly acclaimed -   achievement (n) -   so much so -   a label -   endearment -   rather than -   to tend to -   fare (n) -   first an...

Pasta firm Barilla boycotted over 'classic family' remarks Chairman Guido Barilla causes outrage in Italy after say ing he would not consider using a gay family to advertise his products Gay rights activists in Italy have launched a boycott of the world's leading pasta maker after its chairman said he would only portray the "classic family" in his advertisements and, if people objected to that, they should feel free to eat a different kind of pasta. Guido Barilla, who controls the fourth-generation Barilla Group family business with his two brothers, sparked outrage among activists, consumers and some politicians when he said he would not consider us ing a gay family to advertise Barilla pasta.  "For us the concept of the sacred family remains one of the basic values of the company," he told Italian radio on Wednesday evening. "I would not do it but not out of a lack of respect for homosexuals who have the right to do what they want w...

Source: Wikipedia (Zeynel Cebeci) Statue commemorates wartime lovers separated for 60 years Italian prisoner of war and Ukrainian forced labourer were separated after falling in love during the second world war It may go down as one of the longest love affairs in history – and certainly one with the most inauspicious beginnings, starting as it did in a concentration camp more than 70 years ago in Austria. It was there that Luigi Pedutto met Mokryna Yurzuk. He was an Italian prisoner of war, she was a Ukrainian forced labourer with a young daughter born in the Nazi camp near the town of Sankt Pölten, northeastern Austria. She brought him food, he sewed hats and clothes to impress her in return. They fell in love, but when the camp was liberated in 1945, Yurzuk was sent back to Ukraine. Pedutto was not allowed to join her. Decades passed. Pedutto worked as a financier in Italy and Yurzuk as a collective farmer in Ukraine. Both married and had children, but never forgot their wart...

Image source : Roberto Vongher @ wikipedia Costa Concordia: Italians buy t-shirts with 'Get back on board, for ----’s sake!' logo Italians show anger at the Costa Concordia cruise ship captain, Francesco Schettino, with t-shirts screaming "Get back on board, for ----’s sake!" and the creation of Facebook pages and Twitter hashtags. It has come to symbolise the entire disaster – the furious command barked down a phone line by a Coast Guard official to the captain of the Costa Concordia to get back on the ship and take command of the mass evacuation. “Get back on board, for ----’s sake,” screamed the official, Gregorio De Falco – a phrase that has now gone viral among Italians on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites. Source: Daily Telegraph I don't have access to the full article now so Chat GPT has produced a text using the vocabulary from the article; The order to return was not merely spoken but seemed almost to scream through the phon...