With
all sorts of mystifying things happening around my new car, hob and
bathroom scales, I decided to start simple and read the slim guide
for the latter. Bad choice. Naturally, it was made in China and the
instructions are in Chinglish. For example – Fat% is an index of
% fat content in human body. The fat content of a body is of a
certain level, overabundance of fat will bring bad effects on
metabolism, thereby, various illnesses may invade. Here goes an old
saying “Obesity is hotbed of illness”. So, I think
I'll leave the scales for now – especially as they give me one more
kilo than my existing set – and start on the car manual. Tomorrow.
Talking
of indecipherability . . . I see my electricity bills are now in a
revised form. I wouldn't have thought it possible but it's even more
difficult to interpret than before. And I don't believe that's an
accident. I have set aside a day next week to try to make sense of
it.
Doubtless
with a view to generating more revenue, the Pontevedra council has
conducted an initial survey of properties in the town and identified
several hundred which are illegal. Specifically, they're registered
in the land registry (the Registro) but not in the town
register (the Catastro). This means they've been avoiding the
annual property tax, the IBI. Some of them for 25 years. And one of
these is an office block owned by the provincial government. Another
is an old folks' home of many years standing. And one of the town's
health centres is on the books as an empty plot. The council says it
expects to find many more delinquent properties. I'm sure it will but
what I can't understand is how it all happened in the first place.
The staff of the Pontevedra Catastro and the Registro
occupy the same building. In fact, they're on the same floor, facing
each other on either side of the waiting area. I guess we'll never
know whether it was all conscious fraud or just a normal bureaucratic
cock up.
I've
mentioned that Pontevedra has four different tourist offices, each of
which acts independently of the others. And now they're to be joined
by a fifth. This one will be dedicated to international tourism and
will be charged initially with bringing more Russians here. Spain as
a whole saw a 38% increase in Russian tourists this year but here in
Galicia the total must still be around nil. I wish them well despite
knowing that real success in bringing foreign tourists here will ruin
the place for us residents. For example by upping tips from 0-5% to
10% or more. I'll feel better if reader Moscow assures me Russians
are poor tippers.
It
was good to see the right-of-centre El Mundo laying into the
court which found the pharmacist not guilty of sexual harassment,
despite his indulging in practices against his two staff which any
sensible person would regard as harassment.
In
Vigo a while back, a piece of a balustrade fell into the street,
severely injuring a baby in a stroller. Legal action against council
employees and maintenance contractors has just begun, a mere four
years after the incident took place. If this is typical of Spanish
justice, it's no wonder that Spaniards have little respect for it. I
guess it's possible the child will be in secondary school before the
process is complete.
Changing
Spain: In Lugo last week, a magistrate ruled that fairground
stall-holders should lower their bawling volume after the
early-for-Spain hour of 10pm. Especially the guys on the jamón
tombola stall. Who really do make a racket
Finally
. . . When we went up to see the 7-a-side match last Sunday, we
noticed the ground was in United Kingdom Street and that
we approached it via Ireland St. So, I wonder if there's a
Bosnia and Herzegovina St. And even a Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia St. I must check.
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