Dawn

Dawn

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

The usual.

Belated Head Rolling: The woman labelled Spain's Iron Lady, and once seen as a potential Presidenta, has suddenly resigned from her position as head of the PP party, just ahead of a corruption investigation centred on the Madrid office. "I'm guilty of nothing", she insists, "but must carry the can as the top honcho. Like any Brit worth her salt”. She has no British genes, in fact, but is certainly an anglophile, having been educated in a British school. Spaniards are bewildered by this new tactic of accepting responsibility in advance. Or ever. And we're all now wondering if President Rajoy will follow her – not only because he's even more implicated in endemic national corruption but because, if he stays, this will surely affect the PP Party's chances of further 'success' (in vote terms) at the next elections. Whenever they are.

The Interim Political Void: The leader of the PSOE party says there'll be a parliamentary vote on his proposed government in early March. Well, vamos a ver. He still has to persuade other warring minority parties to join his centre-left coalition. Right now, they're all still at the public-insult phase of negotiations.

A Spaniard on British Food: Not every Spaniard holds the standard view that this is crap. This chap, another anglophile, cites several products he thinks at least some of his knowledgable compatriots really love. Commentators to the article take issue with him and suggest another reason for rising exports of Marmite and Cathedral cheese, for example.

Names: I wonder how the list of famous Spaniards would look if we anglos adopted their habit of changing proper names into local versions. Prince Charles into Principe Carlos, for example. The lady mentioned in the first paragraph would then become Hope(Esperanza) Aguirre. There's a big prize for the funniest reader suggestion.

Abusive Priests: You'd think by now the RC Church would've got its act together around these. But, no. We now read that bishops have no obligation to report upwards about such heinous offenders. Perhaps they think it's enough that they might fail to repent and so go straight to Hell. After all, the next life has always been more important to the church than the only one we really know we live. And always will be. By the way, if you read the linked article, didn't you just love the suggestion that a perspective must be kept on developments. By which I presume the church means its own. Oy ve!

Finally . . . Orphan Socks. I realised yesterday that a disproportionate percentage of mine were of the striped variety:-



I wonder why this is. Are they particularly susceptible to washing-machine shredding? If anyone has matching M&S solteros size 7, perhaps we can do a deal. I should add that, though these may all look the same, the stripes are of different colours.

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