Spanish
life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
-
Christopher Howse: A
Pilgrim in Spain.
Tour Notes
- Assuming my car hasn't been stolen or broken into, I'm heading back to Pontevedra today. Where I'll start the odyssey of obtaining at least 7 new bits of plastic. The first task on my agenda is, therefore, to make 10 copies of every single piece of paper that I think might just be relevant to my challenge. And I will hope and pray I don't have to get any of them notarised.
- Walking towards my daughter's office to get the keys to her flat, I decided to re-visit the Sorolla museum I was passing. This time I got better treatment at the ticket desk and was (eventually) allowed in free of charge, even though I was seeking only a discount. Made me feel a bit better.
- It was unusually cool in Madrid yesterday, for which I was grateful. The entire country, it seems, has been experiencing the thunder storms which kept me awake in Buitrago de Lozoya on Sunday night. See here for more info on this. The Deep South may have escaped the rains so far but can expect the thunder and lightning in a day or two, they say.
- Cataluña. Below this post is a comment from Matthew Bennett on the disgraceful exhibition of the region's nationalists during the recent visit of the king, to participate in commemoration of those killed in the recent terrorist attacks in Cataluña. In recent months, the leader of the Scottish nationalists has been trying to convince us that their brand of nationalism is different from the nasty sort demonstrated by all other nationalists. In truth, they're always the same - They define themselves against their enemies, being obsessed by them
- The traditional concept of customer service in the Spanish banking industry was to have a number of desks in the bank at which you could poll up any time and have a face-to-face chat. If you were really important, you could go to a higher class of desk. This was good for the customer but obviously expensive and it had to go, especially after La Crisis. These days, the concept of customer service is a combination of machine recordings, phone numbers and, if you're lucky, a human being who, naturally, speaks in rapid Spanish. So, virtually from one extreme to the other. Much cheaper for the banks, I'm sure, but not yet a patch on phone-banking in the UK, which I've been extremely happy with for at least 25 years. However, I'm sure things here in Spain will improve over time. And I might even live to see it.
In the USA, the Whitehouse spokesperson - the ineffable Kellyanne Conway - has come up with her funniest one-liner yet: Donald
Trump‘s most notable characteristic is his humility. Just imagine what he'd be like without that!
Up in Galicia, warmer than usual weather this summer has brought forward grape-harvesting by as much as 4 weeks, making it the earliest for at least 30 years. More on this here.
Finally . . . A favourite Sorolla painting:-
THE ARTICLE
The dangerous
separatist indecency: Matthew Bennett
I can't believe it,
really. It really does not fit in my head that the Catalan
separatists who appeared in that strategic location behind Rajoy and
the King on Saturday afternoon could not shut up and put away their
flags for an hour. Not for the dead. Nor against terrorism. Not with
the world watching and with all the tourists who had died or who the
killers had left wounded.
Where was the decency? Where is the
respectful memory of our fragile and common earthly existence,
threatened by vile Jihadists? Why did they decide to ruin it for the
tens of thousands of people - most, I suppose, Catalans - who had
come to march without flags?
From 6 to 7 in the
afternoon, on Saturday, nothing was going to be fixed; Madrid would
not invade La Diagonal with tanks, nor would Puigdemont declare
unilateral independence in the face of the King. Sixty minutes was
everything. Silence, applause, candles, photos for covers, sad faces,
a sense of common commitment, shared humanity, and home, or the beach
bar. There was no need. And from eight o'clock, we could continue
fighting all that you want. Like before. If you didn't like
"Spanish", then how about "European" or
"Democrat" or "human being".
But no. It had to be
[the Catalan flag], and conspiratorial banners, and whistles and
shouts and booing and rage. What a show. Because the King was coming
and he had to be educated. And that was more important than the
victims and their loved ones. They valued the odious protest against
the Spanish above any shared value or sentiment. They acted, and
reacted, in that sense, in accordance with their true beliefs and
values. To what they want. Selfishly.
Given this indecency
the independistas and this lack of shared values, even for those
killed after a terrorist attack, I think that Spain and the
Government of Rajoy have a more obvious problem than they had 10 days
ago. The country, it seems, has changed a lot since the attacks of
11-M when there were, if I remember correctly, demonstrations of pain
in all major cities, including Barcelona. Without flags.
So far, my main
complaint on the issue of Catalan independence was something
eminently practical: a lack of eggs, of course. Years and years and
years of rhetoric and debate and neo-language, and media
manipulation, framing concepts and distorting the law, and "cunning"
politicians, but did not advance beyond the local Parliament, TV3 and
the annual romería. Yes, utopian plans to tale control of the Ebro
delta Ebro or the power grid or military bases, or powerful
interviews with suggestive statements in the international media. But
it was all about talking for the sake of talking, mostly. But, at the
end of the day, they knew that the Spanish state existed and that it
was very real. They would not bite that hook.
Well, at the level of
vital evidence, at the level of external events that compel a
reaction, of those which leave no time for further training or
contemplation, the Islamic State has arrived before the Spanish
State. 16 dead, 100 wounded, terror and violence in the streets of
the Catalan capital and a beautiful coastal town. And how has it been
seen by the separatists? As fantastic, it seems. Reading and hearing
their statements, they are already prepared, they see themselves as
already capable, they have already acted as would have done the
independent Catalan republic that they have in their heads.
Puigdemont has already admitted to the Financial Times and to El
Nacional that it has bought 6,000 voting urns somewhere, but he is
obviously not going to give details. Why? Because Maza warned
in July that, if so, funds for this had been improperly spent.
On Sunday, the day
after the alleged "unitary" march by the victims, VilaWeb's
editorial was titled "No tenim por de res". They have
already misrepresented the phrase directed towards the terrorists "I
have no fear" (actually a lie), turning this into: "We are
not afraid of anything", neither of the Islamic State nor of the
Spanish State. Look at the nuance, the subtle twist between one
concept and another. And all in 10 days.
If previously
everything was rhetoric, now there has been something, an event in
the real world, and they have acted in line with their parochial
interests. Above consideration of the dead. They have taken advantage
of a terrorist attack to reinforce the separatist position ahead of
the new referendum because it proves, according to thems, that they
are already prepared and that they are not afraid of anything. How
will the government of Rajoy react? How does he intend to defend
Catalan Spaniards who are not secessionists? What is the solution to
this problem?
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