Dawn

Dawn

Saturday, August 15, 2015

The economy again; Whores and things; Fiesta fiddling; Galician dancing; Words; & Saudi doctoras;

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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