The
International Monetary Fund, it seems, is not as bullish about the
future of the Spanish economy as our government is. But, then, the IMF
doesn't have an election coming up and isn't in Even Bigger Lies Than
Usual mode.
In his The
Spanish Temper, written in 1953, V. S. Pritchett makes some nice
observations on this society. I'll be returning to these but, for
now, here's one of his comments on Spain's ubiquitous brothels and
prostitutes: The classic Spanish attitude to love is maintained only
by the preservation of the brothel and a very large population of
prostitutes. Spaniards are not indignant about this. Passive,
fatalistic, they accept the brothel and the prostitute as an
ineluctable part of life, accept them with charity, pleasure and
indulgence. Putting aside for now, the question of whether this is as
true now as it was 60 years ago, I wonder whether this is the same
point as mine that Spanish wives prefer their husbands resorting to
the brothel than running off with their secretary. Younger wives
strenuously deny this and say they'd divorce an errant husband. But
I wonder about those of their mothers' generation. And even some of
theirs, to be honest.
Here's a
non-news news headline: Corruption casts shadow over Spanish
politics. More here.
Our fiesta
week is coming to an end and there'll be a second bout of fireworks
at midnight tonight. One of the features of the festivities has been
the usual colourful host of stalls alongside the Alameda and in the
adjoining park. Before these were set up there were accusations in
the press that the process for getting one had been a
stitch-up(amaño). Rigged by those in a position to profit from the
licences. No one would be surprised, of course. Either by the
allegation or by the fact of it being true. Or both, of course.
Which
reminds me . . . Here's a truncated version of the video of Galician
dancing I couldn't upload yesterday. Just 6 seconds, which has taken 12 hours to place in this post . .
Do you
have words that you can never type correctly? I certainly do. And one
of them is intersting.
Finally .
. . Here's a foto of a graduation ceremony for female doctors in
Saudi Arabia. My ex-wife is 4th from the left, top row. And reader
Azra is in there somewhere. I'm lost for a reason as to why any one
of the 18 ladies would want of a copy of this:-
Finally,
finally . . . My apologies to reader Cossue for calling him something else yesterday. Not my week.
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