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The Slow Route Home: Best Read by Moonlight

10/28/2012

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Miguel has sold his truck and bought a mule. Everyone in the village believes he is crazy, but Miguel follows a wisdom far greater than those that mock him. Miguel's dog, his neighbours and the stranger with the burnt trees are about to learn the benefits of going slow and living the change you wish to see in the world.

The Slow Route Home is FREE right now. Tell everyone to get a copy now.  It will shortly be available on Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks, Nook, Kobo, etc in the meantime grab your FREE epub copy. (Or pick another format from here).
Oh...and you won´t want to miss the intro video? Catch it below....

Don't Miss the video:

Slow Route Home: ePub

Miguel's story is a fable for the modern age. His desire to live the way he thinks the world should be may confound his neighbours, but his simple philosophy and way of life demonstrate that there are other paths to take. 

Taking place amongst the Olive Groves of Andalusia in Spain, Miguel's path comes to symbolise how to live the change you wish to see in the world.

Download your free ePub here or choose another format here. 
And find out why.....The Slow Route Home is best read by Moonlight.
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Mobile Dictionaries for Language Learners   

10/19/2012

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As many of you will know, I have been a follower of developments in the mobile phone platform for some years, and on this blog I started a series some time back on Apps for an Easy Life. Today I don't want to focus on a single app, but rather an application that works system wide: the new multi lingual dictionary.

Since IOS6 (the operating system used by Apple mobile devices) was released earlier this month there have been a number of improvements for International Users, including Siri - the speech recognition engine now in Spanish as well as one update that I have been awaiting for years: different language dictionaries accessible from all applications.

Like many people who live abroad, speak something of the language of the country but prefer to have technical instructions in my native language, my mobile devices have always been a mixed bag of preferences and settings. I want the vocabulary of a Spanish Operating System, but when I want to access my English side, I want to be able to switch quickly and effortlessly. 

Never has this difficulty been so obvious than in the iBooks application for reading books and PDFs on an iPhone or iPad. With previous versions of the operating system, it assumed that it your operating system language was set to English, then you would want the dictionary to accompany your reading material to be english, even if the book you were reading was in Spanish.

All of that has at last changed with IOS6. Now you can download the appropriate dictionary and tap on a word and find an immediate definition according to the language you are reading. Fantastic! 

I even received an email yesterday from someone in Spanish who was describing the state of a commercial  building I was to be inspecting using the word Basto. I tapped on the word and up jumped the dictionary, detecting the language of the email and offering me a series of definitions.

So I thought Id try it in another applications to see how far this access would go: Facebook was a no no. Dropbox worked fine, Safari works but depending on the text formatting, and so I concluded that this really was the key -  for it all depended on the formatting of the text. If the letters could be identified as letters, then it will work. But if they cannot, for example with images or some PDF documents, then the availability is not so good. For example, Foursquare will work, but only when you dig down to the actual text entry, not before. 

Now I just need the digital keyboard to recognise the language i'm typing and for Siri to understand my Spanish spoken with an English accent! I can hope.....

You can read the other Apps for a Peaceful life abroad here.


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A Place in the Sun: Interview with Granada Hoy Newspaper

10/14/2012

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Granada Hoy interview
What do Granadinos know of the wave of British Immigrants into their province over the last 20 years? 

When a reporter from the newspaper Granada Hoy came to Loja this week in search of answers, she met up with the AAPL and a small selection of individuals, (including the Gazpachomonk) who spoke about their origins, their aims and their goals.

If you want to try out your Spanish, follow this link to read the The Interview on line. 
If you can´t make head or tail out of it, and would like a translation, then let me know and I´ll see what I can do. 

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The Turning of the Tortilla: Four Days that Shook the World 

10/3/2012

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I'm sorry, but I can´t confine my blog posts to tourist updates, wine tastings and the delights of sunbathing or skiing in the Granada province. Then again, why should I as there are plenty more blogs out there that do it far better than I. You see... (lean closer I'm going to whisper this in your ear)...I didn't move to Spain for the climate!! 

Nor for the price of alcohol (20 years ago, believe me there was a difference!), nor for the opportunity to spend my remaining days roasting on a sun-bed. 

I came because something drew me here, something about the history of this country. A history that showed a population that was capable of the most extraordinary acts when necessary. Yes, at times they can also be complacent and docile, but there have been plenty of examples in history when the tortilla finally does turn: 
"Pronto llegará la hora, 
que la tortilla se vuelva.
 Los pobres comerán pan,
 y los ricos mierda, mierda."

Im reminded in particular of the moment a Vet sparked off a popular revolution in Granada in the 1860's (See Beards and Hunger in Andalusia) or (The Bread and Cheese Revolution video).  
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I'm reminded of Seventy years later when the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera ended, euphoria ran high and so out too went the King of Spain, and he was sent packing on a train to London with his royal whiskers in an humiliating twist.  (See Chapter on "How to Start a Republic" in Inside the Tortilla) .

And of course there was the infamous electoral victory when the Popular front (No relation to the Partido Popular) won the 1936 General Elections. Such moments released a wave of collective energy that surprised everyone, particularly the establishment that quickly found itself without a base, without support and without a mandate.

Perhaps Im wrong and all will quieten down, austerity measures will produce the benefits that are claimed, Spain (ie.us) will payback the extortionate loans to cover the debts of the banks, and the unemployed, hungry and the poor will content themselves with the crumbs under the table. Perhaps.

Others though, think different. One of which is an independant filmaker and journalist Brandon Jourdan. Catch his short video below for another perspective than that of the BBC or TVE. 


Madrid On The Brink: S25 → S29 from brandon jourdan on Vimeo.

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