Soy una Osa

The city of Madrid’s emblem is ‘El Oso y el Madroño’ (The Bear and the Strawberry tree). The most famous representation of it is a statue in Puerta de Sol, pictured. Today, a group of ‘activists’ were in the plaza distributing flyers and scratch cards contending that ‘el oso’ is, in fact ‘una osa’ – i.e. it’s a female bear. Television cameras were out to record the fun and did a series of vox-pops about what the locals thought about this assault on their treasured symbol. Probably the best response recorded by TV Cuatro was a very wry fifty’ish bloke who, when asked: “So, do you think it’s an Osa, not an Oso?”, replied, “Why, of course it’s a female. If not, where’s its willy?” There are a number of theories as to how Madrid got a bear and a tree as its city emblem. For a selection of the best answers we recommend this page on Yahoo! Spain .