Dawn

Dawn

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Ponters Pensées 16.4.16

Spanish Politicians:
  • After a week of pointless denials, the Minister for Industry, Energy and Tourism has finally admitted he had a Panamanian offshore company and – astonishingly – resigned. There must be another election coming up. He was also the President of the Canaries. As it were.
  • The mayor of Granada has been arrested for the usual mix of financial skulduggery.

Myths about Spain: I mentioned the siesta yesterday. Here's The Local's verdicts on other global perceptions of this fine country. On:-
  • Leaving the nest
  • Laziness
  • Bloodthirstiness
  • All sun, sea and sangria
  • Lateness
  • Loudness
  • Nothing but tourism
  • Corrupt.
More here. Incidentally, I disagree with them on bloodthirstiness. It is prevalent. The rest are pretty accurate.

Spanish Non Government: The king will bang heads together for the final time in a week or so. No one expects this to be successful and the PP party is preparing to spend vast amounts on a second round of elections in June. More here, if you can bear it.

Amazon Spain: You'll all be asking whether they've followed up on my query of 2(3?) weeks ago about the free e-book I was charged for. Well, you know the answer to that. I'd have told you if they had.

You Couldn't Make It Up Dept.: Another nice one from Lenox of Business Over Tapas. "Manos Limpias is a sort of far-right association that is frequently in court suing those it doesn't approve of - often bringing silly, time-wasting cases, but also part of the complaint against Urdangarín and Princess Cristina. On Friday, they were closed down by the anti-fraud police and their director was arrested for 'extortion and operating a criminal organisation'". BTW - Manos Limpias means Clean Hands . . .

Talking of Tapas . . . : Spain is seeking the UNESCO designation (and protection) of the status of Intangible Cultural Heritage for this wonderful national invention. What will this mean? No expensive (alleged) tapas restaurants in the UK, for example? Got my support.

Refugees: I see the Pope is visiting these on Lesbos. And am compelled to ask whether the Vatican has taken in at least a handful of these poor souls? Whether it has or not, Frankie's legions continue to spam my Google+ page. In the person of one Tommy Adams.

Which reminds me . ..

Religions: I've asked what really constitutes 'a religion', with all its consequences - in the UK at least - for tax relief. I still don't know but there's at least one faith – Pastafarianism – which has yet to be given this accolade. See here on this. Incidentally, there are inevitably ex-members of this religion. These are known – wait for it – as Spagnostics.

Finally . . . You know it's going to be a bad day when you go to warm up your coffee in the microwave and find you've opened the fridge door.


Another cartoon . . .





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