Who
knows why but the PP party is blocking all discussion in Congress on
the slush fund allegations made against it.This probably doesn't bode
well for the prospects of an entirely independent investigation into
these. The current strategy seems to be to get matters into the
hands of the snail's-pace courts, in the knowledge this will seem
like they're taking action, when they're really kicking the ball
into the long grass.
Against
the backcloth of what's happening here – corruption at senior
levels of the government – and what isn't happening –
resignations or an independent enquiry – the Spanish seem genuinely
astonished that a British minister should resign for the piddling
offence of perverting the course of justice by having his wife take
the rap for his speeding offence. Differing perspectives. Differing Rules of Law.
But
it's not as if there's absolutely nothing happening here; the on-line
petition seeking the resignation of President Rajoy has now garnered
more than a million signatures. Personally, I'm not sure there'll be
any substantive change in Spain without violence. And I'm prepared to
admit that, if I were 25 and unemployed, I'd probably be thinking of
how to initiate something. It's simply not true that nothing was ever
achieved by violence.
Reflecting
the fact there are few bums on seats, the Spanish rail
organisation – RENFE – has announced an across-the-board
reduction of 11% in prices for the AVE high-speed train. Plus
discounts of up to 75%. Of course, all this is academic to us here in
Galicia, where we suspect we'll never see the completion of
the Madrid to La Coruña line, with its offshoot down to Santiago,
Pontevedra and Vigo. Plans to extend this to Oporto were abandoned
long ago, when the Portuguese said they had far more sensible things
to spend billions on. So they are sticking with the old train that takes
more than 3 hours to do the 150km journey from Oporto to Vigo.
Art
Nouveau in Italy is known as Stilo Liberty, after the London store
which popularised it. Incidentally, the capital of Latvia, Riga, is
said to contain the finest collection of Art Nouveau buildings in
Europe. Who'd have thought it?
I'm
not over fond of cats at the best of times but never less so than
when the first thing I saw on returning from Madrid was a mangled
robin on my lawn. Still, under the same lawn was the en-trapped mole
which had been dotting it with hills. So you win some and you lose
some.
Or as Thomas Carlyle put it:- No
man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to
elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence. Especially on a Spanish pavement.
Finally
. . . For the first time in 12 years, I had a 4-bed compartment to
myself on Tuesday night. If anyone was snoring or coughing, I never
noticed it. More importantly, was this luxury a reflection of La
Crisis?
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