Dawn

Dawn

Thursday, August 02, 2012


There was another celebration at Nice-but-Noisy Toni's house last night and I suspect it was for the younger boy's birthday. Why? Because when I finished reading at 1am, the kids were still running around the house screaming. Thank Whatever for – doubled-up – ear plugs.

With the aid of a bit of time and distance, I can now hazard an overview of the Olympics Opening Ceremony. And the major question has to be – How, in a era of Health & Safety mania, did they get away with so much that would have been stamped on in another context? You only have to think of all the flames. Perhaps all Britain's laws were suspended for the duration.

As for the future, I think I can predict without much fear of contradiction that within 20 years China will be winning all the medals in all sports except, perhaps, fox hunting and dressage.

Well, I finally got to see the local Christopher Columbus museum today, with my house-guest, Ian. Except I didn't, as it was closed. It should have been open but it wasn't. Seeing a chap coming out of a nearby bar – and not knowing he was the village idiot – I asked him if he knew who might have the key. He told us – eventually – that the girl who ran the museum lived somewhere else and came to and fro, as necessary. Someone else advised us that she worked in the Poio Turismo offices. So off we went to their offices. To find them closed too. On the door, alongside the fallacious hours of opening, was a flier for guided tours round a nearby fishing village. So our suspicion – to be checked tomorrow – is that the young lady moves between three responsibilities, making a mockery of the official horarios. And turning the challenge of getting into the museum and/or the Turismo into a hit and miss exercise.

Ian, of course, now has a better understanding of why my strike rate for getting things done down in town is around 50%. On a good day.

More seriously, it's increasingly seemed to me over recent months that the Winners and Losers from the mayhem of the last four or five years can be listed:-
Winners: Bankers, Financiers, Politicians and Brussels Bureaucrats.
Losers: All the rest of us.
In endorsement of this, I cite this recent article from the estimable Simon Jenkins, entitled:- The Eurozone Crisis: The Bankers are happy to play Nero while Europe burns.

Spain has two 'enclaves' in North Africa, Melilla and Ceuta. These, of course, are not colonies or ex-colonies and so are completely different from Gibraltar. You may not know this but Ceuta was captured in 1415 by the Portuguese, who later lost it to the Spanish. There is, then, a neat solution to the endless nonsense between Britain and Spain over sovereignty of The Rock. Spain should return Ceuta to Portugal, upon which Britain should give Gibraltar back to Spain. Sorted.

Finally . . . Last night I heard that Spain's President, Mariano Rajoy, was ill. Given the rumours about his sexuality, I expected to be told he was suffering from AIDS. But, no, it's Alzheimer's. If this turns out to be true, you heard it here first. If it turns out to be a scurrilous calumny, I was the first person you know to laugh at it. And to ask that you don't breath air into the rumour by passing it on. Especially as someone is almost certainly reading your emails.

Finally, finally . . . Here's a bit more on Galicia's vanity projects.

No comments: