Dawn

Dawn

Wednesday, January 04, 2012

An amateur British metal-detector has found what they believe to be a brothel token, the first ever unearthed there. On one side is a couple in a lewd act and on the other is the number XIIII, or 14. Which is believed to be the value of the token, possibly the the cost of the depicted act. What's odd to me is that I thought 14 was represented by XIV, not XIIII.

The Suárez-Evra saga bubbles on, with Suárez persisting in his scarcely credible claims that negro/nigger is not an insult in Uruguay, that it's even a term of affection there and that Evra's own team mates were in the habit of using it towards him. What he doesn't seem to get is that all of that is irrelevant to how the term is seen in the country in which he plays his football and by Evra himself. If he wants any evidence of its total unacceptability, all he needs to do is read the newspaper reports and note that they may spell out concha de tu mama but use six asterisks instead of nigger.

On to more important things . . . . The news about the EU economy in general - and the Spanish economy in particular - is dire. The columnist Bruce Anderson stresses that all David Cameron can do is talk about the need for a big bazooka, in which Germany underwrites the eurozone’s liabilities. This upsets the rest, for two reasons. They know that it is the only solution. They also know that it is not going to happen. That said, no one knows what is going to happen. Surrounded by the wreckage of their system, some Eurofanatics are still asking for more time. The Marxists used to do the same. It is now time for the federasts to follow the Inquisition, Apartheid and the Marxists – out of history. More here.

On the same theme, eurosceptic Daniel Hannan writes that while David Cameron struck an upbeat and patriotic note, the chanting from the palaces and chanceries of Europe was like some monkish threnody. Nicolas Sarkozy called for stoicism in the face of 'the worst economic crisis since the war'. Angela Merkel said that 2012 would 'without question be worse than 2011'. Mariano Rajoy announced the end of mid-week public holidays, telling his countrymen, 'this is no time for fiestas'. Such pronouncements beg the question. The reason that the eurozone faces such hard times is that its leaders have decided to keep the single currency together at any cost. The coming recession is not some inexorable force of nature; it is a consequence of the policies being pursued by Merkozy, Monti, Barroso and the rest. The Brussels elites are refusing to learn anything from their mistakes. They are applying the same policies that got Europe into this mess, only harder. Had they prepared for an orderly unbundling of the euro three years ago, a great deal of pain might have been avoided. Now, there are no easy options, but a restoration of at least some national currencies is plainly the least bad alternative. In refusing to countenance it, Eurozone leaders are showing a chilling disregard for the material well-being of their electorates.

Reader Moscow and I used to cross swords on this subject a year or two back but I haven't heard from him for a while. Perhaps he isn't reading any more. But, if he is, and if he'd like a platform from which to give an optimistic view of the euro's future, I'm happy to provide it here. Meanwhile, the Spanish unemployment figures - already appallingly high - continue to grow. While those in Germany continue to fall. Some say because the euro is too high for one country and too low for the other.

I was ruminating today on the way the statue of St James in Santiago cathedral was manipulated to obscure the slaughter of Moors beneath the horses' hooves. Specifically, I was trying to remember whether I'd seen any examples of Muslim sensitivity. All I could come up with was the large friezes on the palace walls in Persepolis in Iran. Where representatives of the many subject nations are paraded in neck halters behind their Persian masters. But I guess the latter were Zaroastrians as it's well before the Muslim invasion of Iran. And indeed before the destruction of Persepolis by Alexander the Great.

Finally . . . There exist web sites which will give you all the anagrams of your name. The first one thrown up for me was Sad evil icon. Which is nice. But there are many, many more.

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