It was reported recently that 17% of
all electricity meters in Spain are fraudulent. I thought this meant
on the part of the suppliers but it turned out to be the customers
who were tampering with the meters. The reason why I thought it had
been the companies was because I'd just read something by Lenox about
accusations of fraud against Endesa. And their outrageous attempts to
silence a whistleblower. But I guess that's not unique to Spain.
In
search of a gate-stop, I've been to ten ironmongers(ferreterías)
in Pontevedra. The only good to come out of this fruitless
exercise was two of them saying Sorry alongside No, and
one of them not only saying Sorry, no but
also suggesting somewhere else. Which was a first. But,
anyway, my Ferrol friend Richard solved the problem for me and found
what I needed in the first ferretería he tried in that city. By the way, I
can never avoid the image of a small mammal when I see or hear the
Spanish for ironmonger. Even though I know the mammal in question is
called un hurón is Spanish.
Up
in the coastal town of Foz last week – not really a place to visit
in winter – I thought I heard the hotel receptionist use the word
gira for 'change', instead of the normal vuelto/a. The
dictionary doesn't endorse this perception. So, anyone familiar with
it at all?
Second
question - Is there anyone out there who hasn't yet heard of Alicia
Young? This is a woman who's achieved fame overnight more for what
she's not revealing than for what she is revealing.
Three times a day, I'm told.
After the Flamenco flash mob in a Bankia office, we now have a charming rendition of Here Comes the Sun in a Madrid office of the (Un)Employment Service.
After the Flamenco flash mob in a Bankia office, we now have a charming rendition of Here Comes the Sun in a Madrid office of the (Un)Employment Service.
Finally
. . . The always excellent John Carlin had a piece in today's El
País on the Premier League. If you're interested, here's my
tarted up Google translation of the original. If you're not, feel
free to log off now:-
"All
I ask is the opportunity
to
demonstrate that money
does
not make me happy "
-
Spike Milligan, Irish comedian
Perhaps
the dark clouds of the economic crisis obscure all, or perhaps people
have become accustomed to thinking that this is normal, but it feels
not installed entirely in the Spanish the undeniable truth that
football in this country is living a golden age of overwhelming
global dominance. The one, two, three Golden Ball and FIFA ideal
eleven are all players of the Spanish League: the best coach in the
world, the Spanish coach: the reference team in world football,
Barcelona: on Planet Football who is considered the main rival
to Barcelona in the Champions League this season? - Real Madrid.
Etc.
To
help appreciate the scale of what has been achieved it's worth taking
a look at English football, still the richest and most followed on
earth and, up to three or four years ago, just as powerful, or more,
than Spanish football.
First,
we make a comparative analysis of the data they collected in the
global vote for the Ballon d'Or. According to The Times of London,
Spanish League players accumulated 89.3% of the vote, players of the
Premier, 2.97. Devastating statistics, and especially for Englishmen,
and alarming when you take into account what has been its dramatic
fall from 2008-2009, when five of the players in FIFA's eleven came
from this country.
Second,
even if the rest of the world continues to be willing to pay a lot
more to see the Premier League on television than La Primera, within
England we are already seeing a disturbing rumour. Curiously, it is
at Arsenal, the team which at its best displays the most attractive
game in England, where the first signs of mutiny have been detected.
Reading newspapers and talking to fans of the team in London I noted
that many are beginning to consider themselves victims of a scam. The
cheapest tickets to the stadium, the Emirates, cost 62 pounds, or 75
euros, and there is a growing perception that in terms of value (the
Arsenal is sixth in the league, 18 points behind Manchester United)
what's on offer has become insulting.
Third,
Arsenal's London neighbour, Chelsea, is the naked emperor of the
Premier, the image of the evil that corrodes the top of English
football. The discrepancy is colossal between the amounts of money
squandered on football players and the football which is deployed on
the pitch. Chelsea's Russian owner Roman Abramovich has spent €1,000
million on players and has a staff payroll costing 200 million
annually. However, the team is, at best, unstable and, at worst, a
disaster. On the one hand, yesterday it won by four goals at the
difficult ground of Stoke City; on the other, it lost 1-0 to bottom
club Queens Park Rangers at home on January 2; and Wednesday 2-0,
also at home, against Swansea in the semifinals of the League Cup.
Yesterday's
victory is a good example of the bewildering unpredictability of
Chelsea, but is unlikely to be enough to appease the fans. Defeat
against Swansea was, for many, the last straw. Coach Rafa Benitez was
booed throughout the match, with growing fury. Although the Spaniard
continues to be a symptom of the ills of the club, he's the one
against whom the fans vent their spleen. Against him and now also
against Fernando Torres, who was on the bench yesterday. The heroic
patience of the fans of Chelsea with Torres is exhausted. Seen as
Benítez's number one accomplice, who was transferred in part to try
to restore the demoralised Spanish striker, in Wednesday's loss he
was the subject of persistent whistling from the fans for the first
time since joining the club two years ago. The presence on the pitch
of the bargain of the season, the Spanish Michu, left Torres's
failure inescapably evident. Michu cost 25 times less than Torres but
so far he has proved 15 times more profitable than the ex-Atlético
man as regards goals scored. There's no more revealing example of the
grotesque waste that Chelsea has incurred.
The
British press reported this week that Abramovich has offered Pep
Guardiola 22 million a year to come in the summer to fix the mess. If
he agreed, he would be taking a poisoned chalice. Chelsea is the best
example of how English football is. That, regardless of how much
money it has, it is overrated. Especially compared to Spanish
football.
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