What price fame?

This advertisement has been on several very large banners around the Diagonal Mar Shopping Centre here in Barcelona for the past few weeks. It offers people the chance to take part in a competition and win modelling prizes. Which is great, despite the fact that yours truly will not be taking part for humanitarian reasons.

Unfortunately, the people that wrote the copy may wish they had consulted their dictionaries first of all.

Whereas a SHOOTING is:

Noun 1. shooting – the act of firing a projectile; “his shooting was slow but accurate”
2. shooting – killing someone by gunfire; “when the shooting stopped there were three dead bodies”

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/shooting

the word they were probably looking for is SHOOT, which is defined, among other things, as:

Noun. [...]
6. A session in which something is photographed, filmed, or videotaped

.

So if someone approaches you in a shopping centre for a shooting opportunity, just decline politely!

Strange Random Shopping Centre Quote:
We used to build civilizations. Now we build shopping malls. – Bill Bryson

Related articles

• Investors’ appetite for shopping centres grows (independent.co.uk)
• Store giants battle to be best online mall (news.theage.com.au)

The view from a broad: how to marry a billionaire

Image by TW Collins via Flickr

It is not often that one is delivered a press release quite so dispiriting as last week’s little number for a flight comparison site that had thoughtfully “mapped out exactly where to find the world’s richest people in order for women to know where to bag a billionaire”. If you can hear a distant thud, don’t worry, it is only me bashing my head against my desk. Said website apparently pooled the recent Forbes Billionaire List and a map, to produce every woman’s indispensable guide to hunting down a rich husband if that’s not attractive, I don’t know what is.

via The view from a broad: how to marry a billionaire | Life and style | The Guardian.

Strange Random Money Quote:

Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to shop. — Bo Derek

Related articles

• Richest People (socyberty.com)
• BRIC countries gain more billionaires -Forbes (reuters.com)
• Here’s How Long It Will Take For You to Hit the Forbes Billionaire List (businessinsider.com)
• President Trump? Billionaire considering 2012 run (ctv.ca)
• The Billionaire Factory: Roaring Markets, Sudden Fortunes (forbes.com)
• China, Russia drive growth in world’s billionaires (facebeyond.wordpress.com)

There will be no posts today.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Today is a General Strike in Spain and so, in the spirit of the occasion, we are not going to post anything on the blog.

Tomorrow we’ll be back with another interesting article, cool site, video and maybe even a game.

But not today.

Thank You.

Strange Random Strike Quote:

“When you are an anvil be patient; when a hammer, strike” - Arabian Proverb

Related articles by Zemanta

• Strikes hit flights in Spain and Belgium (telegraph.co.uk)
• European day of action against cuts: live updates (guardian.co.uk)
• Spanish flight chaos as general strike takes hold (independent.co.uk)
• Huge anti-austerity protest to descend on Brussels (newstatesman.com)
• European unions stage day of action over spending cuts (cnn.com)
• Special report: Is there power in Europe’s unions? (reuters.com)
• Spain braced for travel chaos, protests in general strike (newsinfo.inquirer.net)

Iron Man Revisited

Iron = Plancha

Man = Hombre

Iron Man = Hombre Plancha

Ahh, the wonderful world of translation … Here’s a great example of what could have happened with the character Iron Man. Many thanks to Míquel for making us laugh with this one yesterday!

Strange Random Superhero Quote:

“About Superman and Batman: the former is how America views itself, the latter, darker character is how the rest of the world views America.” — Michael Caine

Related articles by Zemanta

• Favreau Says Yes To Mandarin In Iron Man 3 (cinemablend.com)
• Leonardo DiCaprio as a Superhero? Who Should He Play? (cinematical.com)
• Is A Wave of Marvel Mini-Movies On The Way?? (aintitcool.com)
• Chris Nolan Talks Superman; No Joker in Batman 3 (screenrant.com)
• ‘Iron Man 2′ Director Jon Favreau Wants The Mandarin For Third Movie (mtv.com)

Cameron ad to avoid “Hung Parliament”

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

In the run-up to Thursday’s general Election in the UK, the Conservative Party, many would say favourites to win, have launched a fake TV ad on behalf of the Hung Parliament Party. The aim is to show voters what might happen if none of the parties receives a majority and of course, get them all to vote Conservative! Although rare in the UK, a Hung Parliament has happened before, as this article points out. The reason for the rope in the picture is the double meaning of hang – hanged – hanged for people and hang – hung – hung for things …

Strange Random Politics Quote:

Politics, n:  [Poly "many" + tics "blood-sucking parasites"]   – Larry Hardiman

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• Votes or seats? Why Nick Clegg won’t, can’t and shouldn’t answer that hung Parliament question (libdemvoice.org)
• Latest polls indicate hung parliament is still most likely (newstatesman.com)
• Osborne ramps up fear of a hung parliament (leftfootforward.org)
• Tories Fight For Swing Districts (online.wsj.com)
• Q&A: The UK political system explained (cnn.com)
• U.K Election: Why Winning Could Feel a Lot Like Losing (time.com)