Dawn

Dawn

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Little irritates me more than hearing reporters of terrorist atrocities saying that some organisation or other has claimed the credit. For God's sake, it's not 'claim' but 'admit' and it's not 'credit' but 'responsibility'. That aside, one question I had about the Boston explosions was how they'd affected those stooge-Irish Catholics who happily contributed to Noraid not so long ago, in the knowledge that their cash was funding IRA arms and bombs.

In Mercadona tonight, I thought I'd achieved a major breakthrough when the check out-machine accepted my card and I only had to put in the PIN. No signature. But then it asked me if I wanted the bill calculated in pounds or euros and I realised I'd used a UK card. So, back to the Spanish card-with-chip and the usual hassle with ID and signature. When on earth will they catch up?

My mail backlog contained not one but two letters from the traffic police telling me I'd committed two offences at the same time and at the same place on my drive down to Malaga on Feb. 13th. One was for entering ('invading') the lane of a priority vehicle and the other was for having headlights on full and 'endangering the vision of other drivers'. Both of them serious enough to merit the same 200 euro fine as driving while using a mobile phone. The 'priority vehicle' was a police car which had been in my blind spot when I started to move out. After it had made its presence known, I'd moved smartly back into the inside lane. But here's the thing – they didn't stop me to explain anything or to tell me my lights were on full beam, If, indeed they were. So, serious enough to justify a 200 euro fine but not serious enough to stop and tell me I was 'endangering the vision of other drivers'. Go figure, as out American cousins say. As I've said before, the Traffic Department is now an arm of the Tax Office, far more interested in slapping on fines than reducing risk. Or shooting fish in a barrel. I'll believe things have changed when I see them at the roundabout at the bottom of the hill, catching the dozens – if not hundreds – of drivers who negotiate it with a maximum of one hand every day. Meanwhile, here's what I wrote about driving in Spain 10 years ago. I doubt I'd change much.

Prostitution is an open sore in Spain. Or it would be if anyone took any notice of it. Not that you can miss it; there are salacious ads at the back of most newspapers and the outskirts of all Spanish towns have at least one garishly pink brothel ('Club') on its outskirts. Every year or so a critical article appears in one or other paper and others then pick up on the theme. Then nothing happens until a year or so later, when the cycle begins again. As it happens, the EU has just fingered Spain as the second worst country (after equally Catholic Italy) for human trafficking. Frankly, I can't see things improving. Prostitution and all its evils, along with corruption, are two features of society which Spaniards have long seen as permanent examples of human frailty born of Original Sin. And there's always Confession should your transgress.

Someone, at least, thinks that here in Poio we have possibly the best little restaurant in Spain. Having eaten there, I wouldn't agree but here's the review.

More on the Spanish predilection for noise, and the harm this can do.

Finally . . . A bit of vocab - Una habitación abuhardillada is literally a sloping room. Or an attic. My guess is it's Arabic in origin. Like so much of Spain . . . 

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