Vodafone
has been finding out first-hand about corruption in Spain. Several
executives of a company it bought, Ono, appear to have helped
themselves to more than €60m in bonuses after the sale of a company
whose accounts neglected to mention off-balance sheet transactions
that jacked up the profits. Oddly, it seems Vodafone weren't
advised of an ongoing Spanish investigation into these when they
bought Ono.
President
Rajoy spoke out on corruption at the weekend, stressing that cases were confined to
only a few folk and that this didn't mean 46m Spaniards were corrupt.
The fatuity of his comment was highlighted by the announcement today that more than 50 people around the country had been arrested
on corruption charges. Plus the First Secretary of the PP governing
party. There must be quite a few worried people around Spain right now. Or possibly visiting their money in Andorra and elsewhere.
Which
reminds me . . . A prominent leader if the Asturian miners, accused of
corruption, has said his just-revealed offshore fortune of €1.4m is
an inheritance from his parents. One that he just forgot to mention
to the tax authorities. This is the same implausible explanation
proffered by the disgraced doyen of Catalan politics, Sr Pujol. I
suspect this has now become the defence du jour. Meanwhile,
Comrade Villa has been expelled from both his Union and the Socialist
Party. Which might just be the very least they could do.
The
Spanish economy:-
1.
Between 2008 and 2012, around 700,000 Spaniards left the country to
seek employment elsewhere. Followed by a further 547,890 people in
2013 including 79,306 more Spaniards. I assume the unemployment numbers are
reduced accordingly.
2.
There was a time - not long ago - when Spanish teachers enjoyed not only a relatively easy life but also the best salaries in Europe. Now,
after 6 years of salary cuts, they're reduced to merely the former.
And it's possibly no longer true that everyone wants to be a teacher.
Phrase
of the month: Montar
un pollo. 'To mount a cock(erel)'. This
is translated as: To kick up a row with someone; To make an
exaggerated fuss/scene; and To cause a scandal. Take your pick
In
some languages the letters F and P are pronounced similarly. So in
Persian telephone is telepon. And, reading a bit of Chaucer today, I
saw that 'flat' used to be 'plat', as in French. But has since transmogrified.
I
really would hate to be a woman. For the latest invented complaint
I'd have to worry about is a 'sensitive bladder'. Whatever that is.
One that easily takes offence? Or just one that leaks.
Finally
. . . Nostalgia - as the Galicians well know - can be a powerful emotion.
And it's possibly most frequently provoked by songs. I was hit by a
brief bout of it today when hearing a song that reminded me of
leaving a girlfriend behind in the Seychelles when I was 19. But this
was nothing compared to the truly debilitating nostalgia for the
islands that regularly hit me when studying in London over the next year.
Made worse by the fact it took me all that time to figure out what
was going on.
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