Dawn

Dawn

Friday, March 13, 2015

Lottery luck; Perilous path; Dubious downloading; Political parrying; RT rubbish; Wordplay; & Property problems.

It's not unknown for Spanish businessmen and politicians to be fortunate in national lotteries. Some of them extraordinarily so. This is because buying the ticket from the real winner is one of the easiest way to launder dirty money. As well as being one of the most brazen. More on this here.

Spain boasts a 3km long path along the side of cliffs in the Desfiladero del los Gaitanes gorge in Malaga province. After 5 deaths in a year, it was closed in 2001 but now it's been replaced by a path just above it featuring a glass floor. This will be open from the end of March. You can get some idea of the experience here, here and here, including a video.

Politicians say it has to stop but the necessary political will may not be there in this election year: "A study on digital consumption habits in 2014 has revealed that 84% of Spaniards accessed illegal content online in 2013 while that figure rose to 88% in 2014." [I say 88% but the actual figure in this report was a nonsensical 87.94%.]

Talking of politicians . . . I've said before that a dialogue between them here in Spain consists largely of mutual accusations that "You're worse than we are!" ("Y tú más!). Or, as El País's cartoonist saw it yesterday, under the querulous heading - "This is politics?":-


Mr Putin may have caused rumours by going AWOL in Moscow but the Russian RT TV channel felt that today's most important news was the death of a man in a British immigrant detention centre. The second item was the Ferguson riots and the third was the ludicrous allegations of both US and EU politicians that RT is essentially Russian propaganda. All done in the customary strident and mocking tone of the channel. Incidentally, most of the ads on RT seem to come from just one company. More on this anon.

Words: Will it last? "After uproaring the community in Ferguson . . .

Finally . . . A while ago, I wrote that I'd attended a meeting about the houses in my barrio being illegal but had failed to recognise anyone there. A neighbour later told me this was because it didn't affect anyone in our street, only those below us. Well, now I read that 300(!) houses are felt by the Community of the Mountains to be illegal. The court has agreed with them, raising the prospect of demolition. Which would include the house of a prominent judge. However, I expect the legal process to go on for years and for it all to end in some sort of financial deal. And whoever the guilty party/parties is/are in this imbroglio will emerge unpunished. And still a lot richer. Así son las cosas. The same thing happened with the new houses above mine, which are now legal but remain largely unoccupied.

Incidentally, I don't know why my street is an oasis of legality. Maybe it's because the 2 architects of our community live in it.

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