No
sooner do I suggest that the Spanish government is acting crassly in
its negotiations with the UK over Gibraltar than it decides to crank
up the – utterly counterproductive – pressure by indicating
Madrid will veto an EU airspace initiative and thus limit the number
of flights to Gibraltar. As the Spanish government surely knows by
now that London would love to get shut of the place and is constrained only by the attitudes of the inhabitants, one's forced to
conclude the real motive is to be seen to be doing something when so
much else is beyond Madrid's control.
Over
in Argentina, Señora Fernández de Kirchner is also tub thumping,
almost certainly for the same distractive purposes. The nationalist
card is always a sound bet when you're not doing too well in the
polls.
I'm still flummoxed by the Spanish health service's repeat
prescription system. When I enquired this morning how my prescription
pans out over the next 3 months, the pharmacist kindly gave me a
print-out, showing what's in the computer and how they determine what I can and can't have. And when. Essentially, if I ask for medication as per the computer's schedule,
I will consume (or at least get hold of) twice as much as I need.
Which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The other thing that's funny
is that no one asks for ID of any sort, normally a mania in Spain.
OK, your health card has your name on it, but no picture. Seems open
to abuse to me. Wanna buy some anti-depressives?
I
had a coffee in my old Café Moderno haunt today. This used to be my
oasis of calm, complete with all the daily papers. Nowadays, it's a
question of timing. If you get there at 12, it's a bear-pit of the
blue-rinse brigade - women in their 60s, shouting at each
other simultaneously. I've a suspicion they started going there
because it was quieter than anywhere else. Which would be an irony.
Anyway, at 1 o'clock it reverts to its natural state. Before closing prematurely at 2.
The
other thing I got to today was a book-signing. Well a books-signing
really, as there were 4 authors. Plus 2 photographers and 2 shop
staff. Altogether they easily outnumbered the readers who'd come to
have their copies inscribed. A little embarrassing really. But I
guess you have to get inured to such buffetings of fate, if you want
to make it big. And get your foto in the Voz
de Galicia
and the Diario de Pontevedra.
Finally
. . . I mentioned the spider I had in my car yesterday Right on cue
comes a report shpwing just how dangerous they can be.
Publisher's
Note: Hooray. The Members (ex-Followers) of this blog have finally
made it to 90, after a long time in the 80s doldrums. I have no idea
whether these overlap with the 165 good folk who access it via Google
Reader but I do hope they're different. I believe there are other
'Readers' but I don't know what they are and would be pleased to have
info on this.
No comments:
Post a Comment