Dawn

Dawn

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Little Fran; Rubber stamping; Frauds; Flying from Ponters; The EU; & Spanish Romans.

If you saw a 20 year old sitting next to David Cameron on the dais at a press conference, or shaking the queen's hand, you'd surely want to know who the hell he was. Especially if he looked 15. Apparently not here in Spain, where a young tyro called Little Fran managed to, first, fool the establishment and, then, con it out of tens of thousands of euros. Inevitably he grew too ambitious and tripped himself up. Details of his escapades here. I hear Penelope Cruz will play his mother in the film.

In a stationery store today, I caught sight of rubber stamps labelled URGENTE, COBRADO, PAGADO, etc. The thought struck me that, given the endless stream of corruption cases, courts throughout the land could usefully be furnished with stamps reading; IMPLICADO, IMPUTADO, INCULPADO and ARESTADO. Not to mention INDULTADO for all the politicians processed through to early release.

Which reminds me . . . The latest twist in the Undeclared Black Cards case is that 8 chauffeurs were also give credit cards with which to buy whatever they were ordered to buy by senior execs in Caja Madrid. The range of purchases was every bit as exotic (and erotic) as that of their superiors.

Another thought I had today is that, so widespread now is the phoney training company scam, there must surely be scope for a Fraud Consultancy business, to show budding cheats exactly how to do it. False invoices, etc. Actually, I believe you can already buy lists of ghost students and all their personal details. Small fleas on bigger fleas.And so on ad infinitum.

As I've said, there are 4 international airports available to Pontevedrans, within a range of 35 to 170km. When I came here 14 years ago, none of these had a direct public transport link from the city. Not even the nearest, near Vigo. Now, just one of them does. And this is the furthest away, in Oporto, North Portugal. Go figure, as our cousins say.

Proving yet again that there's one rule for the big and another for the not-so-big, France is again defying Brussels over her deficit levels. In France's case, this is always a win-win situation as either there's no price or Paris refuses to pay it. Well, why not, if you can get away with it? There are some, though, who think it's indicative of the imminent collapse of the dysfunctional EU. One can but dream.

Seneca, Quintillian, Lucian and Martial are famous Romans born in Spain. Click here for details from The Olive Press

Finally . . . Has anyone else noticed how rotund all the clerics were who attended the recent Vatican synod on the family? And I used to think I led a good life. Without the rotundness, I should stress.

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