Dawn

Dawn

Thursday, November 28, 2013

The Spanish legal system; Bloody Gib yet again; Castellón capers; and Women

The Spanish legal system 1: Three men convicted of (accurately) chucking cream pies at a regional politician have been given 2-year jail sentences - rather less that the 6-9 years demanded by the prosecution but still tough. The offence is reported to be the one I asked about the other day "attacking authority". In modern Spain it seems, you'll pay a lot more for this than, say, embezzling millions of taxpayers' money. Whatever happened to the Transition from dictatorship to democracy? Is it not yet complete?

The Spanish legal system 2: I mentioned denuncias the other day. A prominent one has just been through the courts, in which a woman accused her piano-playing neighbour of destroying her tranquility and mental health by practising 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Sometimes into the hours when the community rules forbade noise. Again, the prosecution demanded a lengthy jail sentence of 7 years but the judge turfed out the complaint, saying - in echo of my question about weak/frivolous cases - that this one should never have got so far, that the jail demands were out of all proportion and that he could find no evidence of a link between the piano-playing and the psychological complaints of the neighbour. In brief, the court said the allegations were "absolutely devoid of a basis." Which rather endorses the questions of why the proceedings were ever started and who was in a position to stop them.

The latest UK-Spain Gibraltar spat is over the opening of a British diplomatic bag at the border. The British government claims to be furious (but probably isn't) and the Spanish response has been a classic:- The was no offence because:-
1. The bag wasn't properly marked.
2. Even if it had been, it was OK to open it (to search for cigarettes) because it was only from the Governor of Gibraltar to the UK government and he doesn't constitute a diplomatic mission.
3. Therefore, technically it wasn't a diplomatic bag as far as Spain is concerned, regardless of what the UK thinks.
This brilliant argument is on a par with that given whenever Spanish crowds make monkey chants at black players in visiting English teams - "They were noises of encouragement and so technically weren't monkey chants. And, anyway, no one intended to upset anyone. So they couldn't have been." The British response to this nonsense was:- "We disagree with the Spanish position and we are puzzled and saddened that Spain should now question whether the bags were diplomatic when they have been treated by the Spanish authorities as such for many years". That old British mistake vis-a-vis Spain - expecting logic and consistency. These count for nothing when you have a neo-fascist right wing to appease. So, onwards and upwards to the next cavalier and pathetic Spanish flea-bite. And subsequent denial.

Sr Fabra - the PP politician who's just been convicted of defrauding the Tax Office of €500,000 - has resigned from the party but not from 2 senior jobs in the Castellón municipality. He doesn't appear to see any incongruence between his conviction and keeping these positions. So, it'll be interesting to see whether he's pushed out.

I took my watch to a jewellers yesterday, to ask them to fix the bracelet. When I returned, they asked me for the grand total of 2 euros. And my ID. This left me with 2 questions:- 1. Wouldn't it have been better to charge me either nothing or something sensible like 5 or 10 euros?, and 2. Am I now going to be reported to the Tax Office for possessing an Omega watch, bought when I was 19, after months of saving from my income?

Finally . . . Years ago, I read a book by a (female) feminist whose message to her readers was "Yes, ladies, you can indeed have everything - a wonderful husband, a great career and well-balanced kids. But not all at the same time." I thought of this when reading an Alison Pearson article on Nigella Lawson, the discredited 'Domestic Goddess' who is/was "the most admired and envied woman of my generation." Another victim, perhaps, of those who gave women understandable but unrealistic goals. And I say this as the father of two women who were brought up to believe they're as capable as any man. Which they certainly are. With hormones.

I will now stand back.

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