Someone
once said something like “Whenever two or more businessmen get
together, it can be safely assumed their purpose is to cheat their
customers.” I thought about this today when reading an account of
the arrest of six people for some fraud involving the restoration of
a retablo
in one of Galicia's churches. Four of these were politicians and two
of them civil servants. And the suggestion was they'd been involved
in widespread duplicity in respect of restoration of stone and wood
artefacts. Not only that; the article hinted at the involvement of a
priest or four. But, anyway, I've checked and confirmed my suspicion
that the quotation was by Adam Smith, writing in The
Wealth of Nations.
He didn't put it quite as succinctly as me but here it is
nonetheless- “People
of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and
diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the
public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
Seeing
the praise heaped on Victoria Beckham's latest fashion offerings, the
thought struck me if must stick in the craw of 'real' fashion
designers that she should have acquired so much acclaim so easily.
Specifically, Stella McCartney must find it more than a tad galling.
OK, she's the daughter of the man with the most famous hair on the
planet but at least she went to Art/Design College. I think. On the
other hand, I'm pretty sure Mrs Beckham didn't. Maybe she's just a
natural.
Earlier
this year, the Spanish
Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, postponed publication of his budget
until after some local elections. Whatever the plan was, it didn't
work. And now he seems to be about to repeat the mistake. He has
regional elections coming up in late October in Galicia and the
Basque Country and seems hellbent on delaying his (demeaning?)
bailout request to the ECB until these are out of the way. Which
should stretch out the brinkmanship that's being indulged in by both
German and Spanish politicians. Click
here for an overview of Sr Rajoy's dilemmas.
The
Spanish, by the way, like to refer to key events by their dates, as
the US does with 9/11. So the upcoming October elections are referred
to as 21/0. Why it isn't 21/10, I don't know but there we are.
I
have to smile whenever I see the word 'solidarity' used by a Spanish
politician - whether this is the President of the Catalan government
addressing Sr Rajoy or whether it's Sr Rajoy addressing the ECB. What
it always means is “Give us some of your money, no questions asked
and no strings attached.”
Back
to the Catastro
office today, to hand over the copy of the escritura
obtained from the notary's clerk. This was to find that the game of
round-the-houses/offices had mutated into one of round-the-desks.
When I got to the woman I'd dealt with a week ago, she gave me a form
to fill out and to take to a colleague in a different department on
the other side of the room. The latter asked me several pointless
questions, stamped the form and said nothing else was necessary. One
of these questions was “Can I see your identity card?”. So I
showed it to her and, of course, she didn't notice it'd expired
eighteen months ago. Hey, ho.
OK,
if I were to ask you what were the most and least expensive fish on
the market here in Galicia last Friday, what would you say? Well, the
most expensive was palometa
(at 34 euros a kilo), followed by sole (30) and halibut (25). I've
never heard of palometa
but the dictionary gives – 'harvestfish'. Ever-popular hake was at
12 and at the bottom of the pile was, of course, mackerel, at only 3
euros a kilo. As I said the other day, this fish is practically
shunned by the Galicians as having 'too much' taste. Bugger the
healthy oils.
Finally
. . I said the other day that the lady councillor caught on a
bedside camera needed support. Here's someone who agrees with me,
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