As
I was crossing the bridge from the city at 11.45 last night, I was
passed by one of the many inveterate young beggars from the old
quarter. Knowing he's wasting his voice and money, he normally
doesn't bother me at midday. Or any other time of the day or evening.
But he'd clearly not recognised me from behind and, as he - rather
rapidly - passed me, this is the not-unpleasant conversation that
took place:
- Señor. Can you give me 10 centimos to add to these coins I've got?
- No. You're clearly off to O Vao [the gypsy drug supermarket].
- Yes. I am.
- Why? [As if I didn't know]
- To get something to smoke
- What?
- Cocaine.
- Well, I'm not going to give you money to buy that. It's not good for you.
- I know?
Talking
of Pontevedra . . . Oddly for a purely middle-class, wealthy-ish
city, this has a mayor from the left-wing Galician National Block
(the BNG). And a popular chap he is, too. Largely because he's
pedestrianised(humanizado)
not just the old quarter but also the shopping streets that radiate
from it. This started just before I came, 15 years ago. And all that
time the mayor and his council have campaigned to get rid of the
smoke-and-smell-belching wood-pulp factory in our ría,
or estuary. The only major employer in the area. (Yes, I know large-scale redundancies is a strange objective for a left-wing consortium but there you go). Anyway, a month or so ago, Madrid announced it was giving a
60 year[!] lease renewal to the company, in total defiance of (some)
local wishes. As a result, there'll be vote of censure on President
Rajoy in Monday's council meeting, aimed at making him persona
non grata
in Pontevedra. I've no idea what this means in practice but it might
not be academic. For Rajoy is a son of the city and comes here
regularly to see his family and visit his old haunts. And to be
punched in the face in the street by his wife's teenage cousin.
Anyway, the question that arises is – Will he be officially banned
from his own birthplace? Vamos
a ver.
Meanwhile, we have the Lenten fancy-dress parade tonight, postponed
twice because of precipitation. And tomorrow, weather
permitting, we have the phoney cortege and immolation of our Lenten
symbol, Ravachol. Also twice postponed. Elsewhere
along our coast, the corpse is normally a huge sardine.
But
ours is a huge
parrot.
Use the Search box above to find an explanation of this in an earlier post.
Finally
. . . More criminally offended religious sensibilities from
the 15th century: A poetess is being prosecuted for
reading out in public an encomium to the vagina in the form of the
Lord's Prayer - starting with: Our
mother who art in heaven, hallowed be thy c***.
As one British paper reported the scandal. Needless to say,
those who've initiated the prosecution are members of the Association of
Christian Lawyers. An evidently humourless lot. Click here for the
full “prayer
to maternity” and the “ode aimed at dignifying the female body”.
Something which the Catholic Church is less than famous for, of course.
A view of the city from my window, one sunny dawn last September:
A view of the city from my window, one sunny dawn last September:
No comments:
Post a Comment