Dawn

Dawn

Monday, February 27, 2012

My friend Dwight has sent me a Voz de Galicia report about the region's newest export - corpses. From famine to feast apparently and surplus cadavers are being sold to medical institutions down in Valencia. As to why there's now an excess of ex-people, there are two reasons proffered - firstly, religious beliefs are not what they were, and, secondly, in straitened times not everyone can afford the 2,000 euros average cost of a burial. I'm left wondering how the price of a corpse is determined and what factors impact on the issue. Age? Sex? Looks? I suppose I should have used 'gender' there, to avoid even the remotest possibility of a misunderstanding.

Staying with the macabre, my old friend Mike has sent me this rare footage of Hitler (or is it Charlie Chaplin?) singing in front of a large audience of adoring fans. This is obviously before he made his calamitous career change to megalomaniac. Though he did keep the nifty little moustache that was his hallmark when he was a Music Hall act.

Well, Judge Báltasar Garzón was finally cleared by Spain's Supreme Court on Monday of overstepping his authority in initiating an investigation into crimes committed during the Franco era. This is just more cold comfort, as he's already been debarred from the Bench for 11 years. But at least he's appealing against this.

The market for downloadable smartphone apps has been described as "an unregulated Wild West", with many of them amounting to little more than a front for gaining access to your personal data. Which is then sold to advertisers. This spying can include reading your phone's text messages. Apparently, 70% of us don't read the Terms and Conditions under which we agree to this being done. Frankly, I'm surprised it isn't 100%. I certainly never read them but, in this case, I wouldn't have the chance, being the proud owner of a dumbphone that can't handle apps.

Finally . . . A UK coach company advertised - 'tongue in cheek' - a tour of the M25. For those who don't know, this is London's many-laned, much-jammed ring road - regarded by many as the 10th circle of hell. Astonishingly, the tour was over-subscribed, presumably by some of the saddest people on the planet. 

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