And why doesn't
President Rajoy resign? Well, see here for one explanation.
The guy who's in
court accused of illegally paying senior members of the governing PP
party - Sr Bárcenas - has begun to give the interrogating judge more
details of the affair. We've now moved on from the question of how it
was all done to the methods employed by the party to stop things
coming to light. Bárcenas was, he claims, told that, if he kept mum,
the Justice minister would be fired and his case would be shelved -
presumably by a judge leant on by the party. But, if he continued to
sing, his wife would go to jail. Plus, If he kept his gob shut, the party
would also see their way to paying him 500,000 euros as a reward.
Tawdry carrot-and-stick- stuff but, as the above-cited article says, not necessarily
enough to bring down a Spanish government. Or even force an admission from the President.
Following the news that Pontevedra will soon have a new way of dealing with illegal parking - the multamovil - I decided to snap examples of this on my way into and out of town this morning. Let's say 30 minutes or so. The results:
Following the news that Pontevedra will soon have a new way of dealing with illegal parking - the multamovil - I decided to snap examples of this on my way into and out of town this morning. Let's say 30 minutes or so. The results:
Parked
at a bus-stop - 5
Parked entirely on the pavement - 4
Parked
half on the pavement and half on yellow line - 1
Parked
on yellow lines - 31
Double
parked in busy street - 2
What all of these drivers
rely on is that the single tow truck (la grúa) is so busy the
chances are it won't get round to them. Which is a reasonable bet.
Plus, the vast majority of them obey the basic rule of illegal
parking - don't park at the end of a line, where it's easiest for
the grúa to pick you up. God knows why it's taken so long
for the town to move to a more efficient (and high revenue) system but a more
relevant question is - Once the multamovil ('mobile-fine')
is operating, where are the hundreds of offenders going to park?
I
did actually take fotos of all these cars but decided against boring
you with all - or even some - of them. On
the other hand, here's one of the café owls referred to in the
recent article in the Diario
de Pontevedra.
And here's mine.
I'm sure you'll agree mine is the fiercer. Though
not necessarily the more effective. I should, perhaps, have bought
the one that swivels on its base.
My
quest for a new TV continues. Having chosen the size and make and
even identified a particular (2013) model, I set off today to find
the 3 distributors cited on the web page of the manufacturers. Two of
them had closed and the 3rd had never heard of the model and couldn't
find it on their computer. So, now that I've tried to do my bit for
local trade, it's back to the internet and amazon.es. Where the
price is 200 euros lower, I find. Raising the question of why I
didn't just go there in the first place.
Whenever
I read an article in a British newspaper and then want to return to
the main page, I'm taken back to where I was on the latter. So, how
come this never happens with El
País and
El Mundo,
where I'm always taken back to the headlines at the top of the page?
I'm tempted to answer that this is yet another failure to see things
from the eyes of the consumer.
Which reminds me .
. . My visiting elder daughter bought 20 euros worth of stuff in a
shop in Madrid last week and was, of course, asked not just to enter
her pin number but also to provide ID. When she said she didn't have
any and that the chip & pin system was supposed to obviate the
need for it, the checkout girl went to talk to her manager, came back
and said OK. So, there you are folks - Stand your ground if you've
given your pin number. Though I guess this won't do any good when
you're asked to give just an electronic signature and ID but no pin,
even if the machine looks as if it's designed for the latter. But
good luck!
Finally . . . .
Con la boca pequeña: Literally, 'with a small mouth'. 'Through
clenched teeth', I suppose, as 'It's used when someone says something
without intending to carry it out or when someone says something he
doesn't mean'. Like any Spanish politician making an apology, for
example. Should that ever happen.
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