If you've got any spare
cash lying around, consider investing in shares of electricity and
shredder companies. Shocked by their losses in the recent regional
and local elections and fearing a complete loss of power later this year, PP party members are quickly dealing with the
archival evidence of their vast corruption of the last 5 years or
more. As in the case of the mayor of Valladolid who ignored for 5
years a court order for the destruction of illegal 'attics' in the
city.
As for Spain as a
whole, Don Quijones of the Wolf Street Report says things are getting ugly. Not before time. Sampler: After game-changing municipal
and regional elections in Spain, panic and fear are beginning to take
root in the hallowed halls of government power and corporate HQs.
FIFA: Beyond parody, of
course. But I, for one, have total confidence that Blatter will
deliver on his heartfelt promise to do now what he's utterly failed
to do over the last 16 years. Meanwhile, while it's easy to see why
Russia voted him, one wonders why Spain did. Can the link really be
corruption? Are things here really that bad?
Which reminds me . . .
What could be worse than a committee designing a horse and coming up
with a camel? Why, a committee of self-serving politicians and
bureaucrats designing a functional supra-state and coming up with the
EU, of course. At least a camel works.
As someone handsomely
fined for listening to BBC podcasts on my iPod, I was amused to read the Canadian police had fined a guy for using a Google watch.
And impressed that he's appealing on the grounds it's not a 'hand-held
device'.
A couple of train
guards in Valencia beat up a youth who refused to pull
up his trousers over his underpants. As is the norm in this sort of
case in Spain, the guards have filed a complaint that they were injured in the scuffle with the passenger. Old habits die hard.
Finally . . . For all
of the week of my recent camino, I carried in my bag a large letter I
really wanted to post quite urgently. But I didn't. So, I went to the
Pontevedra post office yesterday, to find it strangely quiet. Using tape
I'd brought with me, I fixed up the torn envelope and then went to find which of the 4 desks I needed to go to. But
there was a notice on the machine: "Due to a breakdown in the
numbering system, we can't take any letters or packets or do anything
other than make money transfers." So I went to one of the 4
clerks and asked if this really meant I couldn't post the letter.
Yes, she said. So I told the 4 of them they had my permission to go
home. Which they thought was funny. So did I, but not in quite the
same way. Was it really true that they couldn't revert to an
alternative queueing system? Or did the notice mean that nothing
electronic was working? If so, why hadn't they closed the post office
or sent at least 3 of the 4 staff home? Perhaps they were waiting for
the system to spontaneously fix itself. We'll never know. Spanish
practices?
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