Dawn

Dawn

Friday, May 25, 2012


How petty and counter productive of Madrid to veto the attendance of Queen Sofia at Liz's grand lunch, especially as they're cousins. This is because of some piddling dispute over the attendance of William and Kate at celebrations of the jubilee in Gib. And this from a government whose first act in coming to power was to end the tripartite negotiations which had gone well for a few years. Pathetic posturing fools.

Which reminds me . . . The Falkland Islands changed hands many times before they became British in 1713. The British took them from the Spanish, who'd nicked them from the French. In the process, the name changed from Îles Malouines to Las Malvinas and then to The Falklands. Needless to say, Argentina has never owned them, despite various attempts to plant a flag.

I've mentioned Spain's vanity projects and hugely expensive under- and unused airports. Well, now comes the news that the government is to partially close at least 30 of the country's 47 state-run airports. Hard to believe but some of these are fully staffed despite not having any flights. Only in Spain? I know it's hard to sack civil servants. But impossible?

And here's news that may or may not be a joke. Spain's Eurovision entry has been ordered to 'not win'. On the grounds that Madrid couldn't afford to host next year's event. I would have thought that, given Spain's record in this competition, this instruction was utterly superfluous.

And now some very local news - A worker at a branch of the La Caixa bank in Vilagarcía de Arousa, Pontevedra, has fled after taking a million euros. The man worked in the debt collecting department, chasing late payers. Perhaps he's run off to buy an airport. Or 30 of them

Some time this summer - you don't need to know when - London's Hayward gallery will host Britain's "first exhibition of art that explores invisibility and emptiness, with around 50 [interchangeable, I guess] works by artists including Yves Klein, Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono and Maurizio Cattelan." "This" insists the director, "is not a joke." Obviously not, as there'll be the piece of [blank] paper that an artist stared at for 1,000 hours over a period of five years, as well as evidence of the movie that was shot without film in the camera. Sounds like a must-see; though you won't be able to buy the tickets with invisible banknotes. Damien Hirst is not exhibiting as his blank canvases were found to have been produced by one of this factory workers. More here.
Finally . . . On Sky News yesterday, they were discussing how to stop the supermarkets diddling you with their special offers. After the four Sky folks had all had their say, the only male there introduced an expert with the comment:- " I have lady here with big tips." Which brought proceedings to a momentary halt.

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