If you dropped into Spain from Mars - or, say,
Bulgaria - you'd think it had all the trappings of a thoroughly
modern democracy. But this is what they'd be - trappings. For Spain
isn't such a democracy; it's a very young democracy that will need a
long time to catch up with many of its colleagues in the EU.
Incidentally,grasping this, also makes you realise how futile it is
trying to lay democracy on, say, Iraq or Afghanistan, however
admirable the aspiration. But back to Spain . . . One of the
indications of just how shallow-rooted democracy here is the recent
sacking of the editor of the leading rightist newspaper, El Mundo.
Another is the astonishing (and stupid) introduction of an abortion
Bill that attempts to take Spain 30 years backwards, at the dictate
of the Catholic Church. And a third is the obvious contempt in which
the people are held by the privileged and hyper-corrupt political and
business classes - as now chronicled by El Espia en el Congreso.
On the sacking of the El Mundo editor
(Pedro Jota), HT to David Jackson for pointing us to an article the former
wrote in the New York Times about his dismissal. When you read it,
bear in mind that the government, as I mentioned yesterday, has now
moved on to a TV commentator who rips into them nightly on La
Sexta. An extract from Pedro's piece:- [President Rajoy]
exhibited hostility toward uncomfortable truths and indifference to
public opinion. . . Mr. Rajoy’s
governing party lacks internal democracy. The independence of the
judiciary has been weakened. The monarchy has been tarnished by a
spending scandal. Add in the attack on the press, and it seems clear
to me that democracy might be more fragile now than at any point
since Franco died in 1975. See it all here.
I should think everyone in the world knows by now
that the noughties decade in Spain saw a rich combination of easy
money, vast corruption and personal vanity that resulted in a large
number of projects which have been, shall we say, rather less
successful than Bilbao's Guggenheim. One such is A Cidade da Cultura on Mount Gaia on the edge of Santiago here in Galicia. This vastly
ambitious and costly project has now been officially stopped, after
10 years of construction, huge overspend, several corruption cases
and few visitors. Just a couple of facts: The plan included a library
for a million books and for an opera house. By the date of its
closure, no one had read any of the couple of hundred books there and
neither had anyone staged an opera. The architect of this madness -
Manuel Fraga - died before this denouement. And before he could be
hung up by his heels. The abiding memory of him is that when people
told him it couldn't be afforded, he replied "That's none of
your business." Anyway, we have most of it finished, even if it is empty
and rotting in the rain of Santiago. A couple of years ago, the Voz
de Galicia labelled it "A Monument to Incoherence". You
might be able to think of a better label.
Spanish, like most (all?) other languages, doesn't have quite as many words as English and
this causes problems at times. Witness:-
1. Genio - A genius
2. Ser genio - To be a genius
3. Tener genio - To be temperamental
3. Tener genio - To be temperamental
4. Estar de mal genio - To be bad tempered.
5. Tener mal genio - Ditto
When I complained to a Spanish friend that this
was confusing and that I thought genio/genius had a positive
connotation, she replied: "It does. Up to a point."
And then there's Buscar - To look for.
Buscar tus llaves - To look for your keys
Buscar tu coche - To pick up your car after a
service
Buscar alguien - To pick up somebody in your car
Buscar alguien - To pick up somebody in your car
Buscar tu bolsa en tu coche - To go and get your
bag from the car
Finally . . .
The Environment
January: 31 days. On which it rained: 30 - 97%
February: 6 days. On which it has rained: 6 - 100%
The Environment
January: 31 days. On which it rained: 30 - 97%
February: 6 days. On which it has rained: 6 - 100%
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