So,
Gerníka was the first town in the world to suffer a devastating
aerial bombardment, yes? Well, no actually. This sad honour goes to
Chaouen in Morocco, which was reduced to rubble twelve years
earlier, by Spanish planes. I guess it's easy to understand why one
town is remembered and the other ignored in Spain. To be balanced, I
should stress that this article cites even earlier British urban
bombing expeditions.
Talking
of colonial heritages . . I accessed the webpage of the UK's National
Health Service (NHS) yesterday and was interested to note I could
also read the page in Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Czech, Farsi,
French, Kurdish, Mandarin, Polish, Punjabi, Tigrinya and Urdu. If,
like me, you'd like to know what Tigrinya is, here's the answer.
Getting
out of my car in Leeds, I noticed a host of bird droppings on my
bonnet(hood). Indeed, I could hardly miss them as they were large.
Very large. And thick, with the smallest being about 2 inches(5cm)
wide and the biggest around four inches(10cm). As far as I could
recall, I hadn't parked the car under any tree since leaving home. So
I concluded there must have been a gang of ostriches roosting in the
rafters of Deck 4 on the Pont Avon. So, now do we have something to
complain about!
Incidentally,
leaving Pontevedra I joined the motorway to Santiago. Or, rather, I
didn't. Being on autopilot, I joined it to Vigo. Happily, I realised
this after only a couple of minutes and came off it at the first
exit. But I don't think it was just this that caused my sister to
leave indentations in the grab-handle on her door, when she got out
in Santander. She's just not used to Spanish driving. Or mine.
Blimey,
no sooner do I say that we Europeans are still wrestling with the
problem of what Germany's role should be in the EU than our Ambrose -
not usually an optimist - comes along and says that the period of
German hegemony is over. Indeed, he even claims that "the
epicentre of Europe's political crisis may soon be Germany itself."
More here.
Meanwhile,
his colleague Jeremy Warner believes that the euro crisis just got
worse. I mentioned yesterday that Germany didn't follow others in
their strategy to deal with the Great Depression but went its own
(errant) way. Something very similar is happening now. But in reverse. As Mr Warner
points out - "The hair shirt prescribed for others is most
assuredly not being donned by austerity's cheerleader in chief,
Germany. In fact, German government consumption is continuing to rise
quite strongly, even in real terms, and the fiscal squeeze pencilled
in by Berlin for itself for the next three years is marginal compared
with virtually everyone else. Germany is requiring others to adopt
policies it has no intention of following itself." But, he adds,
"[Nothing] is going to be solved by austerity. For now, there is
no majority in any eurozone country for leaving the single currency,
but one thing is certain: nation states won't allow themselves to be
locked into permanent recession. Eventually, national solutions will
be sought. The whole thing is held together only by the fear that
leaving will induce something even worse than the current austerity.
This is not a formula for lasting monetary union." More here.
I guess an (awful?) lot depends on Sunday's elections in La Belle France.
Finally
. . . Click here for Alfie Mittington's recipe for a superior curry
dip.
Finally,
finally . . . This is a request to Moscow to re-send his Comment re
the British obsession with the past, particularly The War. It's
appeared in my email but not below the relevant blog post. So I can't
answer it.
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