Dawn

Dawn

Monday, March 21, 2016

Tidbits etc.

Spanish Tidbits:
  • The birth rate here – even though it includes more prolific foreigners from Rumania, Morocco and South America – is only 1.3. Behind just Portugal and Greece in Europe.
  • Sky News this morning is referring to the Fallas festival in Valencia as Spain's largest firework show. This is rather like calling Shakespeare a scribbler.
  • The newish political party, Podemos, is being investigated in respect of its financing. Well, why not? Every other party has been.
  • Think you can recognise all or most accents of those countries which speak Spanish? Click here and find out if you do. I got only 5 out of 20, I have to confess. My Spanish colleagues in the English Speaking Society managed 15, working as a (sort of) team.
Local Tidbits
  • The cost of reducing Pontevedra's dreadfully high speed bumps to a max of 10cm/4 inches is forecast to be between €1.2m and 2.1m. Which, of course, will be wrong. This is because all the adjacent kerbstones which led to the problem in the first place will have to be reduced to the same level. Madness? Probably.
  • Spring has arrived, rather sunnily. And along with the season comes the bane of city life – the beggars, drug addicts and street 'performers' that harass us. These categories overlap, of course. Anyway, I now have to go through the process of making the new arrivals aware they're wasting their time with me. Helped, I suppose, by the fact I'm always in the same place and, so, easier to remember. Should be achieved by summertime.
  • In Vigo, I read, there are now some turbo-glorietas (See Google Images).Or turbo-roundabouts/circles. And an awful lot of confusion. Or, rather, even more confusion that there normally is on these in Spain. A recent chat with a member of the Guardia Civil has thrown up the most important legal principles in facing this challenge: You can go through a roundabout in either lane but, if you hit someone on your right when doing so, you're at fault. Even if the driver is acting with a total lack of logic and common sense. For example: using the right hand lane to do a U-turn. So, now you know. If you're in the inner lane, always use your mirror. And don't expect a sensible signal from anyone.
  • For the first time ever, an olive plantation has been set up in the wine region near Pontevedra. I blame global warming. Or AGW, even.
  • The low-cost airlines airlines which decline to give us a winter service - Ryanair, Easyjet, Vueling and Air Nostrum – have all announced their spring-autumn schedules. Mostly to and from Santiago de Compostela. And 4 out of the 5 'London' airports.
British Politics: A branch of PR? Click here for an answer.


Finally . . . North KoreaHave you noticed how everyone there is slim? Except whatsisname. Who seems to be eating for millions.

Query: Did anyone else get yesterday's post in small text ?


Another posting of one of my favourite cartoons . . . 


Oh, fuck!

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