Dawn

Dawn

Saturday, February 18, 2017

Pontevedra Pensées: 18.2.17

So, after 6 years of investigation and trial, Spain's Royal Brother-in-Law has been jailed for 6 years for robbing the public purse. In contrast, the court was clearly – but genuinely? – convinced by the very-well-educated-but-really-a-very-dumb-little-wife act of his wife, Princess Cristina. And it never got round to considering the ex-king's role in the frauds. The princess, it's reported in the Guardian article at the end of this post responded with “I don’t know” 188 times and “I don’t remember” on 55 occasions during the 6 hours of questioning to which she was subjected. It's rumoured she'll be up for an award in the upcoming Oscars.

Talking of Spanish frauds . . . . HT to Lenox of Business Over Tapas for this: The Audiencia Nacional, Spain's central court, has started hearing its first-ever case of presumed timeshare fraud. The two accused in this long-running case are Antonio González and Paul Van Zill, heads of the Mundo Mágico travel agency, based in Málaga, which closed in 2003.

So, the huge Unilever company is under attack from the even larger US company, Kraft Heinz. I'd guess that most Brits don't know just how many famous brands are sold by the former. Click here if you're inquisitive. By the way, I erred in saying they own Costa Coffee. It belongs to the pub group, Whitbread.

It seems that even the Russians are confused and worried by President Trump. And who could blame them? Click here for the article from which this extract comes: The search for a key to Trump’s mind-boggling and miscellaneous gusher of policy directives has tended to focus on his disturbingly erratic, vindictive, simplistic, narcissistic, insecure, and occasionally delusional personality, due exception being made for those conspiracy theorists who treat him as a kind of Manchurian candidate or sock puppet of the Kremlin. What most observers have been late to recognize is the extent to which, behind his mask as a showman, Trump views himself as a revolutionary insurgent with a mission to dismantle America’s “old regime.”

Last words on Trump: The man who tells you truth does not exist is asking you not to believe him, said the philosopher Sir Roger Scruton. So don’t. Incidentally . . . The three most prominent instances of people declaring the news to be fake last week were Donald Trump, Bashar Assad and Vladimir Putin. What they want is not “real” news, but silence. Nice company.


Finally . . . According to 'La Voz de Galicia': The Spanish Government is convinced that Brexit is a golden opportunity to convince Gibraltar to accept Spanish co-sovereignty over the Rock. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs plans to gain the support of the Gibraltarians via persuasion. A detailed road map mixes the traditional promises of self-government, if Gibraltar accepts the Spanish flag, with the guarantee that the government would make multi-million investments in infrastructure to turn the colony and its surroundings into one of the biggest development areas of the Spanish Peninsula...’ Good luck to them with that. Especially for a PP administration which, until very recently, had Motormouth Margallo as its (antipathetic) spokesman on Gibraltar. There isn't anyone in Spain who believes their government's promises. And even fewer in Gibraltar, of course. Farcical. Like Madrid taking over from the City of London post Brexit.

A random cartoon: From my all-time favourite cartoonist, Bill Tidy. This one, from Google Images, is actually in my collection from many years back:-

Is there any news of the iceberg?
I think I will feature more of Tidy's work on a daily basis. You lucky people!

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