The
plan to hold a referendum on Catalan Independence on Nov. 9 continues
apace. And the Spanish government has finally come out of the long
grass and said it'll take the issue to the Constitutional Court on 2
counts. Chances are high (100%?) it'll get the judgments it wants but
whether this will bring a halt to proceedings is anyone's guess.
Quite possibly not. Meanwhile, the leader of the main opposition
party has said that this 'serious problem' needs to be addressed by a
major revision of the post-Franco 1978 Constitution. Who'd argue with
that? Well, the government, I suspect.
Speaking of Constitutions . . . In
the UK, confusion still surrounds the issues of what extra powers
Scotland will get and whether devolution to England will mean a
federal state. One things's for sure, these questions can't really be
answered in the time-frame set by David Cameron. Which primarily reflects the fact of a general election in 8 months time. The
political commentator Timothy Gorton Ash (The Guardian and
El País) has suggested a Constitutional
Convention would take 4 years, not 4 or 5 months, and has asked "How
on earth can we talk about a
federal settlement for Britain without discussing the powers that
belong to Europe?". Which is surely valid.
Some
years ago I invented the word grimper, as the name for the
claw-like tool with which you remove staples. Sad to relate, it
hasn't yet made Webster's dictionary. And isn't known by my visiting
daughter. So, fortune still beckons.
Talking
of words . . . One way of referring
to your in-laws in Spain is los
suegros. Last night I
heard another: la familia
política. Which rather
says it all.
Finally
. . . My visiting daughter this morning saw a very black rat shine up
a narrow metal pole to get at the bird seed tray. Taking a leaf out
of the book of horreo construction, I solved this problem with
a circle of cardboard below the tray. And then put out both a humane trap
and a less-than-humane trap. Neither have succeeded. Worse, the
latter has been sprung and the bait purloined. But we have
caught 5 more hornets in the fireplace. So much for the fire I lit a
week ago to smoke them out.
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