Dawn

Dawn

Sunday, November 05, 2006

The good news for Spain this week is that at least one of its 17 regions – Andalucia – is proving capable of revising its constitution on the basis of all-party support, both local and national. Here in Galicia, though, the attitude ahead of our own negotiation appears to be that nothing less than what was granted to Catalunia will be acceptable. But then we have a ‘nationalist’ party in the governing coalition, wagging the tail of the socialist dog.

Meanwhile, up in said Catalunia, the unedifying ‘dance’ of the local politicians continues, as they each manoeuvre for maximum political leverage in whatever form of coalition government emerges from the post-election miasma. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this but it seems the most-courted man in Barcelona today is the president of ERC, a left-wing, nationalist party. As he was considered something of a loose cannon in the last (tripartite) government, one is reminded once again of how politics ‘makes for strange bedfellows’.

Talking of dancing, I chanced again tonight on the Spanish version of the BBC’s Celebrity Come Dancing. As before, I was struck at just how much talking and showboating goes on, in contrast to the small amount of [rather poor quality] dancing. No wonder the show lasts for hours. One of the contestants in this series is the granddaughter of Franco, who years ago married into French nobility. Claiming that, through her well-paid antics, she has besmirched the family name[!], her son, the Duke of Anjou, has disowned her. You couldn’t make it up.

Galicia Facts

The residents of Ferrol and Ourense are the biggest consumers of water in the region, at 177 and 166 litres a day, respectively. The national average – in this dry country - is 171, compared with around 145 in the UK. The lowest consumers are the good people of Santiago, who only get through 100 litres a day.

It’s good to see the ‘farming’ of horses in the mountains of Galicia is on the increase. It’s less good to know most of these creatures are destined for the tables of restaurants in France and Italy. It seems their diet of gorse gives their meat the edge over grass eaters. The positive news is that, en route to the kitchen, the horses devour the undergrowth that is such a factor in the rapid spread of forest fires. Bring on the empty horses!

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