To
Liverpool today, to do my annual – and 100% successful! – annual
clothes shop. It's always a pleasure to walk through the city centre
and to listen to the thick Scouse accents that contrast so much with
the posh Scouse of my family. This is easiest done by walking behind
young mothers with kids in strollers, as each of them is relieving
the boredom by chatting on her mobile phone.
I
had the impression that fewer of the young women were smoking than
would be the case in Pontevedra. And that they were, shall we say,
less slim. Though this could be pure coincidence.
My
Ferrol friend Richard has sent me a video of a Galician man risking
his life to harvest percebes from sea-tossed rocks. For those
who don't know, percebes are goose-barnacles. All you need to
appreciate about them is that, within living memory, they were used only
for animal feed. Now they're an expensive gourmet luxury. And, of
course, an aphrodisiac. I have never budged from my initial reaction,
i. e. that they taste like a bit of rubber dipped in salty water. In the
video, you'll see the intrepid percebero/ percebeiro say
that people like them because they taste of the sea. Well, so does a
mug of sea-water but this doesn't sell for 300 euros a kilo. As they
say, there's no accounting for taste.
I
and my friend and fellow-blogger - Alfie B. Mittington – don't
always see eye to eye but it seems that on the EU rape of Cyprus we
really do. Here's Alfie's nice piece on this today and you could do
worse than backtrack to yesterday's post, when he first got the
bit between his teeth. By the way,
for the confused among you, I don't know what the title of his blog
means either. And I think he once told me.
It'll be interesting to see if the recent tax developments in Spain
and the shocking cash hijacking in Cyprus have any real impact on the
number of foreigners buying property in Spain. Last year the number
rose by 28% and is now almost up to the pre-Crisis level. One
informed observer comments that “Foreign buyers are being lured
back to Spain by lower house prices and fewer town-planning and
property related scandals that so blighted Spain’s reputation at
the tail end of the boom.” Can their memories really be so short?
Are they still blithely using the notary rather than a lawyer, in the
mistaken belief that he's looking after their interests? I fear so.
How
topical to come across Popes Head Alley in Shapiro's book
about Shakespeare, 1599. And how sad to find it no longer
exists in London. But there are at least 5 roads/streets going by
this name in the USA. All of them in Virginia. So possibly originating
from some settler, late of London. Wouldn't it be nice to know.
I've
used 'nice' at least twice in this post, despite my primary school
teacher telling me never to use it, as it meant nothing at all.
Probably his hobby-horse.
Finally
. . . Facebook's latest ruse is to somehow link me into Dating
with Friends and to send me offers to join bloody Chirpme.This
wouldn't be so bad if all the women they keep telling me about
weren't 10 years older than me. And I'm beyond my toyboy phase now.
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