Abortion; Tippy tops; Amazon Spain; Fun at the Post Office; & Humanity?

The Spanish Minister of Justice has averred that finding out her unborn child will be handicapped, however severely, will never allow a woman to terminate her pregnancy unless this is shown to have seriously damaging effects on her mental or physical health. More explicitly - "Physical or mental handicap is no reason for a person to enjoy fewer rights, either before or after they are born. We will never allow citizens to be considered first-class or second-class. I will not allow a system to be set up whereby, merely by dint of a person lacking in something, they have fewer rights than a person who is not. I do not believe in this." So, the law is to be based on his personal belief and the people can go hang. Could this be because he's a member of Opus Dei and believes deformities are God-ordained and that all the suffering to come for family members is to be accepted as a way of proving their entitlement to eternal joy?

The cruel irony of this approach is that government help for the disabled here in Spain is well below that of other societies. Worse, the same right-of-centre government has reduced them in the last few years. Meaning the burden will fall more than ever on the families.

Moving to the trivial . . . I saw a demonstration of a tippy top on UK TV and checked on the price on Amazon. The first page that came up was the US one and the price there was 7.16 pounds. Inexplicably, the UK page quoted 56.70 pounds, stressing this was a reduction from 63 pounds. Can anyone explain this 7-fold difference? Decimal point error?

Which reminds me . . . Internet buying, at least in Spain, isn't all it's cracked up to be. I ordered an Apple part a week ago from Amazon Spain and it's yet to arrive. It would have taken me less time and money to get the train to Vigo and buy the part in Apple's shop there. I've just checked Amazon's order confirmation and seen they promised delivery in 10 days. Presumably on the back of a tortoise.

Which reminds me . . . I've been trying for a month to get hold of some books sent to me from Canada by a kind aunt. They're in the Customs in Madrid and no one there responds to emails or picks up the phone. So last night and today I went to the Post Office to see if they could help. Pleasantly but firmly they told me they couldn't, as they were the Post Office and the letter was from the Customs. I didn't bother to point out said letter had Post Office written across the top of it. I'm well aware that people work in capsules here and that Madrid could just as well be on another planet.

Finally . . . I do my best to believe in the innate goodness of humanity and to demonstrate it myself. But then along comes a report that a bank manager in Valencia has cheated a blind old man out of €27,000 euros by getting him to sign a withdrawal slip. With the collusion of some of her staff. Bring back the public stocks. And stoning.