Well, in the absence of both myself and a government, Spain has
survived the last month.
Now in Madrid for a few days, I was taken aback at 7 this morning to
be woken by the sound of a muezzin, calling muslims to prayer. This
turned out to come from the radio in the room next to mine, where the
decorators are in. Which was sort of a relief.
Needless to say, one of the headlines of the day is that there's
another huge corruption scandal down in Valencia, involving the
outgoing PP party. Another is the imminent acquittal of some defendants
in a large corruption trial, merely because things have taken so long
the court has run out of time under the statute of limitations. A not
uncommon occurrence here - unless you're a resident with undeclared
overseas assets. In which case, the tax office can go back to the
dawn of time in order to calculate your fine. And then declare you
guilty of a fiscal crime. Which reminds me, the ex presidenta of the
Valencian government is going to escape prosecution for financial
shenanigans simply because she's now in the Congress and, as an
aforado(a) is immune from judicial process. By the by . . . Spain has
just achieved its worst ever rating on the Transparency International
annual survey of corruption around the world. Hardly a surprise.
The strangest headline concerns 3 nuns who were taken from India 17
years ago and effectively imprisoned in a convent in Galicia. But one
of them escaped and blew the gaffe. There's a shortage of nuns in
Spain, it seems. Both in numbers and size. The name of the order is
the Mothers of Mercy. A label which apparently can't be attached to
the Mother Superior of the Santiago de Compostela convent in which
they were imprisoned for so long, against threats of a severe
reaction if they tried to escape. Well, the Lord needs his brides, I guess
I sang the praises of Amsterdam airport the other day. Liverpool's,
sadly, is towards the other end of the scale. Not in all respects but
the signage is poor and the security system is the 7th. circle of Hell. Only 3 of the 6 belts were operative and one of these
seemed to be reserved for non-existent 'Fast Trackers'. The result
was a long initial queue which took at least 20 minutes to get
through, as against about 2 minutes in Schiphol. As the sheep finally reached the end
of the line, they were directed into one of the holding pens for 5 or
6 of them behind the 2 operating belts. But, yesterday - on the
basis of criteria it was impossible to discern - one or two lucky
ones were sent to the empty third belt. Happily, I was one these and could only assume I was perceived to be important because I was
carrying a Burberry mac. I even had a pleasant chat with one of the
security people over one of my items. They recognise quality in
Liverpool.
Finally . . . I had the pleasure of watching Benedict Cumberbatch in
Hamlet last night. A terrific production brought to a cinema screen
in Madrid by NT Live, a tremendous initiative. Needless to say, my
elder daughter and I then had something to eat at well past midnight.
Good to be home.
Postscript: If booking.com says your choice is full, try direct
contact. My impression is I'm the only person in this 'fully-booked'
place. Apart from the decorators, of course.
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