Here's
news of a wonderful way to satirise Spain's endemic corruption.
Noise:
Even the locals can get upset by this here in Spain. After the
late-night concert in nearby Sanxenxo ('The Marbella of Galicia')
last night, thousands of both residents and attendees complained
about the decibel levels. Those of you unfamiliar with Spain might
find it difficult to conceive just how loud these must have been to
get this reaction. But the same comment applies to the first concert
of our our fiesta week last Saturday. This was so deafening we had to take a
detour to bypass the square in which it was being held on the way
home from dinner. Hard rock, I believe. I couldn't believe it when a
friend told me later how musical the group had been. But he plays bass
guitar, so he should know. Perhaps.
What
are the most disappointing tourist spots in the world? Well, one of
them is certainly Gibraltar, especially if you've waited 4 hours on
the Spanish side of the border to get into it. As someone has written
of the place: This British Overseas Territory isn't quite
British and it's not quite Spanish, either. You might say it's the
worst of both. It packs in a ton of tourists and charges them
accordingly. There's not much to see besides a boring rock, some fake
British pubs, and gaggles of wild macaque monkeys that like to prey
on tourists. That was certainly my experience a couple of decades
or so ago. But perhaps things have improved since then. Hopefully it
will be Spanish one day and gain some character. I do hope the Gib
Tourist Board isn't reading this . . .
My visitors and I went
to a nearby tourist trap for dinner the other night. Needless to say,
the food was a disappointment and the service pushy. "You'd
better order quickly as there will be a lot of customers" and
"Here's your [unrequested] bill". But there were amusing
moments. One of the young diners couldn't stand to see the eyes of
the fish. Hence this expedient:-
And here are some pilgrim octopi awaiting carving:-
The local newspaper had
this headline above fotos of the debs of last Saturday's ball:
Flashes and Smiles in the Liceo Casino. 'Flashes' was given in
English, by the way.
I mentioned that I'd
bought a new-fangled fly-swat, called (as I recall) the Buzz-Swat. So
fed up am I with the legion of beggars assaulting us this summer, I'm
now working on a scaled-up version, to be called the Beggar-Swat.
More data soon.
Finally .
. . I saw a reference yesterday to "the greatest US short story ever -
Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and wondered whether this was
the origin of an (obviously) memorable film I saw way 'back in the
day'. And so it turned out to be. Here's the film. I hope you enjoy
it as much as did.
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