It
all reminds me of the time I took my half-Spanish stepsons into a
forest near my house in England and showed them a tree from which
they could hang a rope to swing from. "Why on earth would we
want to do that?" they asked. Or words to that effect. And then scoffed at my answer.
I don't think they ever went into the forest again.
Relatedly,
I see that Facebook membership is stagnating and it's even being suggested its day may be over. Can't say I'm surprised; it's been
irritating me for a long time. Especially since it was floated on the stock market.
The
Brussels mandarins are upset with the UK and with Spain and are taking legal action against both of them. The former because it's
proposing to make it harder for immigrants to claim benefits and the
latter because it's already allowing its hospitals to deny free treatment to tourists with valid EU health cards. Hard times. And
savings have to be made. Except in Brussels, of course, where the
budget rises inexorably, year on unrestrained year.
The
Spanish king is said to be suffering from depression. Which isn't
terribly surprising. Only this week boos and whistles were directed
not only at Prince Felipe and the lovely Princess Letizia but also at Queen
Sofía, who's never put a foot wrong as far I can see. What next? The
tumbrils?
The
president of Spain’s Securities Commission had admitted that the
economic crisis “revealed weaknesses in the system of corporate
governance.” This gross understatement is code for "Everyone
in business and politics was on the take." Reading a Vigo paper
today, I acquired more details of our local example of this, Pescanova.
The new auditors, it seems, have found even more subsidiary companies
around the world in which the directors hid debts and distorted the
company's P/L and balance sheet. To their own advantage, of course. Staying in their jobs, for one thing.
Finally
. . . I knew that Wellington had benefited from French error in
winning the Battle of Salamanca in 1812 but I hadn't known this happened
again at Waterloo, when Marshall Ney made the same mistake as Marmont had in Salamanca and wrongly assumed the British
were retreating. Whereupon he sent the cavalry up a muddy hill, to
see them cut to pieces by artillery and then (hidden) infantry squares.
Understandably, Napoleon was not too impressed when he came back from
a (still unexplained) two-hour break. Mind you, it wasn't very smart
of Boney to later send his Old Guard up the same hill, with much
the same effect. Incidentally, in both of these battles Wellington
took great advantage of the land contours, very effectively hiding
some of his forces from French view. Until it was rather too late. Napoleon, of course, abdicated. Which we may yet see the Spanish king do, I guess.
No comments:
Post a Comment