Dawn

Dawn

Friday, May 27, 2016

Ponters Pensées 27.5.16

Spanish (non)Government: The writer of this article suspects the current uncertainty is here to stay for some time. Probably with due cause.

Spanish Government: There are 4 administrative layers here - national, regional, provincial and municipal. This naturally increases complexity, costs, inefficiency and - above all corruption. In comparison, the UK has 3 – national, county and municipal. But above all these is, of course, the EU and its overarching bureaucracy and parliament of unknown gravey-trainers. It's said to be felt in Brussels that the UK will need to lose one of its 3, the obvious candidate being the national government at Westminster. So . . . Does Spain have 2 superfluous layers? If so, which is the second one? For me, it would have to be the provincial one and its millionaire presidents.

Spanish Politicians: Is there an analogy between their (nil to short) prison sentences and the Catholic institution of Confession, which only ever involves the mere parrot-like repetition of short prayers? I'd say Yes, if the former involved any sort of admission of guilt plus a sincere 'Act of Contrition'. I smile just thinking of that (im)possibility.

Francoism: It's taking a while but Spain is gradually getting shot of the vestiges of this. That said, there are at least 2 escudos on Pontevedra walls with Francoist elements. This is possibly one of them:


But, anyway, the Catalan town of Tortosa has decided - forty years after the dictator’s death - to strip Franco of his honorary mayorship. He must be revolving in his grave. Unless he's been burnt to a crisp.

Pontevedra Cyclists: So few of these actually use the road that I regularly feel like stepping off the pavement/sidewalk to give them a medal. Except for the gypsies who ride home from the city at night without so much as a reflector. Members of the 3 or 4 police forces do nothing about any of this, of course. They prefer to pursue easy-to-fine motorists who are 'distracting themselves' from driving properly. Possibly by blinking from time to time.

Poio Wifi: After 15 years of 0.5megas('Up to 6megas') and 1 year of 0.5-2.0megas ('Up to 3megas'), I now have cable-supplied capacity of 'Up to 30megas. Or, in practice, a pathetic 2.5megas at 7 this morning. By 8, this had risen to a magnificent 2.8 megas. Is every one of my neighbours (illegally) downloading a film overnight? Or does nothing improve until someone at Telefónica gets to the office? Around 10am. I'll let you know.

Pontevedra Customer Service: Changing back to Telefónica for both my fixed line and mobile phone naturally took 4 trips to the (franchise) shop. The last centred on my question: Why has my fixed line number been changed? The answer was that this was necessary and unavoidable. To which I replied that it obviously wasn't for the neighbours on both sides of me. Cue the first (laughable) lie that came into the young woman's head. Which is when I realised it wasn't worth pursuing further, especially as I get very few calls.

Finally . . . Spain's Queen. The lovely Letizia is widely felt to be a sufferer from anorexia. But she looks positively fat against recent fotos of the once-very-beautiful Angelina Jolie. Sad. For all sufferers, of course.



Technical Note: Google Stats tells me there where was a record number of page views yesterday – at 1,525. But Google Analytics offers me an analysis of a much smaller number. Can anyone account for this difference, assuming it's not just a reflection of hundreds of bots 'viewing' my page? Incidentally, most of the Google Stats readers come from Russia(43%), followed by the USA(28%). Odd. Perhaps the Kremlin regard me as important enough to track. Perhaps I'll appear on RT News one of these days . . . .

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