One
of the films which garnered a lot of plaudits at the recent San
Sebastian festival was "Vivir es fácil con los ojos cerrados"
(Living is easy with your eyes closed). Set in Spain in the iconic
year of '66, its central character is a teacher who uses the Beatles'
songs to teach English and who sets off for Almería when he hers
Lennon is filming down there. Trailer here.
The
governing PP party has said it's shocked at the extent of the fall of
its popularity in recent polls. I can only say I'm shocked the PP is
shocked. I'm just guessing that it didn't do them much good stopping
a parliamentary ban of the annual Toro de la Vega bull-lancing
'fiesta' a week or two back. One of those events which makes you
wonder just how much in hock to the far right the party is.
One
of the backers of the proposed changes to both the Spanish clock and
the daily timetable has said "We work like the 3rd World here"
and asked "What sense does it make starting a football match at
10pm?" Quite. Though I have an inkling there've been some which
started even later than this. As he says, madness.
The
Galician Xunta has said it's not going to continue playing the
subsidy game with Ryanair and the like. Rather, it's going to leave
it to the 3 municipalities of Vigo, Santiago and La Coruña to do
this individually. And it recommends that they agree on one single
negotiator representing them all. A greater recipe for dissension and
continued decline, I cannot imagine. They must be holding their sides
down in Oporto.
Talking
of airports . . . There's a new one down in Corvera, in Murcia. It
cost €200m to build but no one seems to know who owns it and who's
entitled to run it.The regional government and a company called
Aeromuc are contending the issue in the courts. The bigger question,
though, is whether it will ever open its doors, as it appears to lack
any commercial rationale whatsoever. Corvera, by the way, boasts only
2,000 citizens. I wonder if it was the birthplace of whoever took the
decision to build the 'Murcia International Airport' there. But,
anyway, thanks to the dry Murcian weather, the airport should survive
many years of non-use before it crumbles and is re-named 'Ozymandias
Airport'.
Spain
now has the most expensive electricity in Europe. Scandalously,
prices are twice as high as in France and they're about to go up yet
again. It would be nice to have some explanation - even a mendacious
one - as to why but this ain't the way things happen here. I feel
even more angry about my internet line, which is high cost and low
efficacy. But, as the girl in the shop said, I've no option but to
wait until Movistar(Telefónica) decides to put in a new exchange. Or
until someone runs underground cables up the hill.
Finally
. . . I read that, if I typed "do a barrel roll" into my
Google search box, something amazing would happen. Well, it didn't.
Thrice. Perhaps because I use Safari. Maybe someone could tell me
what I should have seen.
And
finally, finally . . . A rundown of the major corruption cases
currently going through Spain's courts:-
Corruption
0: Tougher penalties: Under Spain's new criminal code,
politicos will face up to 12 years in prison for financial
skullduggery. This is aimed at improving confidence in the people who
run the country. Fine, except that it's the minnows who tend to stay
in gaol, while the big fish get pardoned and released. Until this
stops, the goal of confidence looks a forlorn hope.
Corruption
1: The Bárcenas case: Illegal corporate donations to the
governing PP party; illegal and untaxed payments to leading PP
politicos, including the President: The Spanish Tax Office (Hacienda)
has pronounced that, even assuming payments were made, no offences of
any kind were committed, for one (convenient) reason or another. I
can't help feeling they'd take a different view if it were you or me.
Details here and here. The very latest development in this case is
that the judge has said it looks like the . . . of the PP HQ in
Madrid were financed by black cash.
Corruption
2: The ERE case. Payments (€136m) into non-existent
redundancy and pension funds. The several ex-Presidents of Andalucia
(among many others) are implicated in this scam. The existing (new)
Presidenta may not be.
Corruption
3: The NÓOS case: This involves the husband of one of the
King's daughters. It centres on the diversion of €6m of public
funds meant for charities. The princess was also implicated but,
either because she was innocent or because the Public 'Prosecutor'
intervened on her behalf, she was allowed to go off and live in
Geneva. Her husband, though, is still in the dock. And is persona
non grata at the palace. Details here. Incidentally, the princess
must be doing a great job for the bank she works for as her salary
has increased almost 3-fold over the last 10 years. You sometimes
wonder whether Spain's royal family isn't running out of feet to
shoot.
Corruption
4: The Pokemon Case: Involves the mayor of Ourense and 181
other politicos and officials in both Galicia and Asturias - in the
cities of Ourense, Lugo and Santiago. But no one from Pontevedra. It
may or may not involve the running of a brothel by the mayor of Lugo. The
details get lost in a miasma.
Corruption
5: The Ourense-EU funds case: If this has its own name, I
don't know it yet. The President of the Ourense province (we have a
lot of presidents) is accused of misspending €10m funds. Partly by
dishing out contracts without wasting time with a tendering process.
The EU has said it would like the money back, please. They may find
much of it has gone on the ex-President's truly vast collection of
vintage cars.
That's quite enough of all that.
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