Dawn

Dawn

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Well, the euro-euphoria over the Greek deal didn't last long. The IMF is making demands in respect of the eurozone 'financial firewall' that are unacceptable to Germany and threatening to scupper the deal if they're not met. More here.

As expected. Brussels has rejected Spain's request for a softer deficit target for this year. Worse, it has asked for (demanded?) an explanation as to why last year's deficit of 8% was so far off the target of 6%. That said, the target will be reviewed after the publication of the government's budget at the end of March.

Still on economics - The EU has issued its latest growth (or decline) forecasts for its 27 members. As expected, Spain's projection for 2012 has been reduced by one percentage point. Which won't help in the achievement of the 4.4% deficit. Or whatever this is agreed to be in April.

Three sites that will be of interest to Spain-watchers:-

- Police brutality in Valencia - Guy Hedgecoe's take.

- The PP party's labour reforms.

- A very Spanish protest against capitalism from my fellow-blogger Graeme at South of Watford.

In England, times of difficulty always bring stories of copper and lead disappearing from church roofs. Fighting back, many of these are to be fitted with special movement sensors which will trigger a booming voice telling thieves they've been detected and security guards are on the way. I like the fact these are known as 'Voice of God alarms'.

I was reminded today of something I heard recently - possibly from Alfie Mittington - viz. that Austria's main achievement of the last century was to convince the world that Beethoven was Austrian, when he was German; and that Hitler was German, when he was Austrian. Which may well be a hoary old (German?) joke.

Finally . . . I invented a new dish today. As with the last one - Krispy Kipper - it resulted from mis-use of the microwave . . . After Tuesday night's pancakes, I left enough mix in the fridge for one lunchtime pancake on Wednesday. And then forgot about it until today. I'd also left enough molten butter for greasing the pan but this had congealed. So I put it in the microwave and took it out once it began to 'spark'. I then decided to do the same for the pancake mix, only to find that it had cooked itself, leaving a pathetically small offering at the bottom of the bowl. But, as I'm member of the Waste Not generation, I threw a bit of sugar on it, squeezed some lemon on it and ate it. What I thought of it you can probably tell from the name of my new dish - Crap Crêpes.

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