I've
been a tad confused by evidence of growth in the Spanish economy,
given there's no evidence around me of things improving. To the
contrary, shops continue to close even in the very centre of town. So
I wasn't surprised to read this article on what lies behind the
stats. And to see the suggestion it's all another "illusionary
mini-bubble", with the jury still out on whether competitiveness
has truly returned. But we will see. I hope so.
Talking
of economies . . . A French chappy - Felix Marquardt - has had some
harsh things to say (in both the Spanish and British press) about his
country and its governments. For example: France has oscillated
for 35 years now between powerless, irresponsible and incompetent
governments without ever experiencing a truly reformist one.
Three-and-a-half decades of cowardice and populism across the
political spectrum have led to the country’s current democratic
crisis and the ascent of the Front National. You can read him in
full here.
Talking
of the French - Britain's traditional enemies, of course - here's a
little song written a few hundred years ago by the chap who put music
to God Save the Queen. It demonstrates what most of us already
knew - that binge drinking by Brits is not exactly a recent phenomenon:-
THE
BEER-DRINKING BRITON
Ye
true, honest Britons, who love your own land,
Whose
sires were so brave, so victorious, so free,
Who
always beat France when they took her in hand,
Come
join, honest Britons, in chorus with me.
Chorus
Let
us sing our own treasures, old England's good cheer.
The
profits and pleasures of stout British beer.
Your
wine-tippling, dram-sipping fellows retreat,
But
your beer-drinking Britons can never be beat.
The
French, with their vineyards, are meagre and pale.
They drink of the squeezings of half-ripened fruit;
But
we, who have hop-grounds to mellow our ale,
Are
rosy and plump and have freedom to boot.
Should
the French dare invade us, thus armed with our poles,
We'll
bang their bare ribs, make their lantern-jaws ring,
For
your beef-eating Britons are valiant souls
Who
will shed their last drop for their country and king.
The Diario de Pontevedra has a little exhibition of its front pages right now, celebrating its 125 years of existence. The most obvious difference between then and now is fotos. Back in 1889 there were none. Whereas now there's nothing but fotos, with a couple of lines of print and page references. Plus ads. An improvement? Not for me. One other noticeable change is that clerics no longer appear on the front page. Nor dictators, of course. And an example of the sort of story we no longer see is the announcement, under Franco, that train tickets would have to be stamped - with the image of St James.
Finally
. . . We've had a truly glorious week of unseasonably fine weather
and today was no exception. It seems, though, to have brought out a
new breed of beggars - men in their 60s. Is it all a racket or is
Spain's benefits safety net so inadequate that these men are
compelled to humiliate themselves? I suspect it's the latter. If
you've no family to support you, you're deep in the doodoo. No
Pension Credit for you. Possibly no pension at all if you've worked
on the black all your life
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