Dawn

Dawn

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

I guess this isn't going to be much of a question to some Londoners but what on earth is Pontevedra coming to when the tapa I get with my wine in the city's only Basque bar is a bowl of cheap crisps? This crisis really is beginning to bite.

And where have all the sparrows gone from my garden? All forty of them? And the ceaselessly cooing collared doves? Have they all migrated north? Or do I have to cull the cats again?

Anyway, talking of Pontevedra, here's Pontevedra: The Movie. Almost. A collage skilfully mounted in HD by my friend Norman from Portugal North. Enjoy.

And talking of movies, here's a description of Pedro Almodóvar's latest production:- “A giddying psycho-sexual revenge saga based on a pulp novel.That's the good news. The bad news is that this “puckish, bawdy thriller invites us to throw off our clothes, shuck off our skin and dance around in our bones.” You've been warned.

Back to Pontevedra . . . Here's our latest tourist attraction.

And here's a site showing our lovely old museum buildings and their appalling single replacement, built of sheets of granite and glass. It's so ugly, I thought it must have been designed by our leading architect, Cesar Portela. But, no, it wasn't. So here's a page giving several other monstrosities for which he carries a heavy responsibility.

Hard to get away from Pontevedra tonight . . . As I may have mentioned, this weekend saw the first two of the bacchanalia which coincide with the bullfights. This is when kids from 12 upwards take over the old quarter and drink, vomit and piss the long night away. Much to the annoyance of the residents, of course. Swimming up a slope of urine is not pleasant. But what we never have is the violence associated with booze in the UK. Or, at least, we hadn't until Saturday night, when a group of youths took to fisticuffs not far from the place where we were taking tapas. By British standards, it was pathetic but the locals were truly scandalised and called out the police. Who came in two van-loads. Together with an ambulance to deal with a bloody nose. I found it hard to get excited about. Now, if the old quarter goes up in flames tonight . . .

Finally . . . Europe: What to say next? Essentially, perhaps, that the next eleventh-hour step will have to be the nuclear option and that there is:- 1. not much appetite for taking it - in Germany at least, and 2. fear of what the consequences will be if and when it is taken. So, I thought I'd leave you with this quote from the British economist, Peter Jay. Who hates two things violently:- 1. The EU, and 2. Rupert Murdoch. Here's his take on the former . . . “My euro-hate is simple. I see it as an evident device to impose such designer dysfunctionality on the euro-land economies as to generate successive crises which then justify demands for ever greater centralisation of power and money in the EU, until eventually a Bonapartist third empire rules on the continent as Greater France.” Sounds about right to me. In fact, I think The News of the World has got a tape of Sarkozy admitting as much to Carla on the phone.

I also agree with him on Murdoch, of course.

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