Spanish life
is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
-
Christopher Howse: A
Pilgrim in Spain.
If you've arrived here because of an interest in Galicia or Pontevedra, see my web page here.
Cataluña
- Sr P is still on the attack.
- Local reaction to the Spanish 'coup'.
- The Basque view of things there.
- A sceptical view of Catalan nationalism. Extracts: Most analyses lack understanding of the movement behind the Catalan drive for independence, namely Catalan nationalism. . . . It’s not right to present that debate as being one of freedom versus oppression, when there is clearly so much more to the picture. True.
Life
in Spain
- A new book says that folk who curse and swear are more content with their lives than those who don't. I guess this helps to explain why Spaniards are, generally speaking, happy campers.
- Here's something on driving in Spain. If the site is back up . . .
- The Spanish judiciary rejects the accusation that it's regularly politically influenced. Well, it would, wouldn't it?
- Valencia: Is well placed to benefit from the crisis in Catalonia, where political turmoil is turning foreign investors off Barcelona, at least for the time being. Like Barcelona, Valencia is a stylish, safe city with a good climate, great quality of life, lots of culture, and long white beaches, yet house prices are significantly lower than Barcelona. Catalan banks and some companies are moving their registered offices to Valencia, and jobs will follow. It's time to pay closer attention to Valencia City.
The USA:
- Would Donald Fart be re-elected? Click here for some views on this. Meanwhile . . .
- Republican candidates were defeated in state-level elections across America as voters delivered a scathing verdict on the Fart administration one year after the president was elected.
The
UK:
- The country is going through one of its periodic fits of madness around sex among its politicians. Several female columnists have railed against all the trials by media, especially those for which evidence of wrongdoing is rather lacking so far. The article at the end of this post is as good as any.
- Here's the verdict of the prolific pro-Brexit blogger, Richard North, on the overall scene in the UK: Politics are getting to the point where events are so surreal that, if you put them altogether under a fiction wrapper, no one would actually believe them. . . Given these circumstances, it is not only hard to write anything rational – one is constantly asking oneself why one should bother. What really is the point of trying to inject clinical analysis into this maelstrom of insanity? Where we would disagree with the media and the legions of politicians who infest Westminster, is in their sense of priorities. For this country, there is nothing more important than Brexit, yet they are treating the issue like a game, tossed around as a party-political plaything with no progress ever being made. Full blog post here.
Greece:
The
history of art has been rewritten after archeologists unearthed an
astonishing 3,500 year old carving of an ancient Greek battle,
depicting human bodies in anatomical detail which was thought way
beyond the skill of Bronze Age artisans.
Saudi
Arabia:
The local robot equivalent of Amazon's Alexa is called Sophia. She's been given citizenship and doesn't need to cloak her face and
body. As has been pointed out, this gives her more rights than female
residents of that benighted country.
Galicia:
- Our police motorcyclists will have mobile radar machines next year. All the better to fine us with. While ignoringlaw-breaking by the owners of dangerous dogs, it seems.
- A happy foreign resident has provided 25(!) reasons why the local village of Bueu is a great place to live in. Please don't all rush.
- A few topical aspects of the battle in Scotland I cited yesterday:-
- The Spanish troops were largely from Galicia. They fought more bravely than their Scottish hosts – who ran away – and were treated with respect at the end of the battle, eventually being repatriated.
- As is customary, Spanish ships containing invading troops were hit by a major storm – this time along the Galician Finisterra coast. Known, of course, as The Coast of Death.
- The immediate British response to being irritated by the Spanish was the capture of the Galician city of Vigo. Not to mention attacks on both Pontevedra and the town of Redondela which lies between here and Vigo.
Today's
Cartoon:-
THE
ARTICLE
This
sorry 'Pestminster' scandal risks bringing our gender into disrepute:
Alison Pearson
Pardon
me for asking, but what exactly is it that Damian Green has done? I realise that demanding proof of wrongdoing before a man’s reputation is hung drawn and quartered and his head becomes a GIF on Twitter marks me out as a bit 20th century, but still, I’m genuinely curious.
Over
the past week, the de facto Deputy Prime Minister has gone from being
somebody who seemed likeable and pragmatic while doing a good job in
tough times to the single word I heard in the queue at the Coop
yesterday when I mentioned Green’s name. “Porn?” said one woman
seeking confirmation from her friend, “Isn’t he the porn one?”
Actually,
it’s not clear that Damian Green had anything whatsoever to do with
the pornography which police apparently found on a computer in his
Parliamentary office during a leaks inquiry back in 2008.
Mr
Green denies any knowledge of the material which even the police
admitted was perfectly legal. Never mind. There is no one quite as
friendless as the man whose name has been muddied in the middle of a
moral panic.
His
allies dare not speak out lest they be called apologists for sexual
harassment. The man’s political enemies, meanwhile, revel in his
discomfort and throw another log on the fire which is licking at his
shins.
As
for his wife and children, well, we can probably guess how they feel,
but we don’t pause to extend imaginative moral sympathy to Mrs
Green and the kids because that would spoil the fun, wouldn’t it?
Well
the fun or, at least, the borderline unhinged spate of accusations
and counter-accusations will temporarily have to stop. For, even as I
write, there comes the tragic news of the death of Carl Sargeant.
The
48-year-old Welsh Government minister, husband to Bernie and father
of Lucy and Jack, is believed to have taken his own life after he was
suspended by Labour on Friday following allegations of sexual
misconduct from at least three women. In his last tweet, Mr Sergeant
said that he found the accusations “shocking and distressing”.
The
details had yet to be disclosed to him. (The same thing happened
to Tory MP Charlie Elphicke who
took to Twitter to say, “The party tipped off the press before
telling me of my suspension”.) We don’t know whether there was
any truth in the women’s complaints, nor how serious they were.
What
we do know is that Carl Sergeant is the first fatality in the
witch-hunt that has consumed Westminster and the media, a pursuit
characterised by a dismaying lack of proportion and a gutless
response from our cowering political classes.
Jeremy corbyn said
that Carl Sergeant’s death was “terrible and deeply shocking
news”. It’s not really that shocking a thing for a human being to
do, is it? Not if the party to which you have belonged your whole
adult life treats you like a criminal without telling you your crime,
expels you, shames you before your family and your constituents,
confiscates your respect and your livelihood, then throws you to the
wolves so it can look morally superior to the opposition.
But
let’s go back to the allegations against Damian Green to see how
the witch-hunt gathered momentum. The story which landed the First
Secretary of State in trouble came from Kate Maltby, a “scholar,
critic and journalist”. Green was a friend of Maltby’s parents
from Oxford days.
While
she was still in her teens, Maltby used the connection to secure an
interview with him for her school magazine. When she became a Tory
activist in her twenties, she contacted him again to “ask for
advice on internal matters”. In 2014, they met for a coffee to
discuss a collection of political essays and Green was “helpful and
avuncular”.
Early
the following year, Green invited Maltby for a drink and they
discussed her pursuing a political career. Then, according to Maltby,
Green steered the conversation to the number of affairs MPs had and
mentioned that his own wife was very understanding.
“I
felt a fleeting hand against my knee — so brief, it was almost
deniable,” she wrote, “I moved my legs away, and tried to end the
drink on friendly terms. I then dropped all contact for a year. I
wanted nothing to do with him. For a while I wondered if I’d
imagined the incident. I had no proof… But I was angry.
"I
had felt a meaningful political relationship was developing —
suddenly, I’d been made aware that there might be a price I was not
prepared to pay.”
The
key sentence here is “I had no proof”. Any decent editor would
stop Maltby at that point and say, “Sorry, Kate, you’re going to
need more than this.”
A
“fleeting hand” does not a Harvey Weinstein of Westminster make.
But the story didn’t end there. In May last year, Maltby posed in a
corset to illustrate a piece about the history of corsets. She got a
text from Green admiring the picture and asking if she was free for a
drink.
Maltby
ignored it but, six weeks later, when Damian Green was suddenly one
of the most important men in the country, Maltby texted him. “Many
congratulations on joining the cabinet….. I’ll look forward
to seeing what you achieve in government.”
Overnight,
the alarming “sex pest” had become someone Maltby was happy to
cultivate. I would go to the wall for any woman who has been hurt or
threatened by an abusive male, but this is a travesty. By turning
what was, at worst, rather timid and failed attempt at flirtation
into a career-besmirching blunder, Kate Maltby has risked bringing
her gender into disrepute.
Not
to mention undermining the genuine trauma of women like Bex Bailey,
who claims she was raped by a senior Labour colleague and whose
headlines were soon eclipsed by Maltby’s.
And
what about those women on zero-hours contracts who really are
defenceless in the face of predatory male management? When a
highly-educated, confident female like Maltby behaves like a
Victorian virgin with a fit of the vapours why would businesses take
the risk of employing young women who won’t say boo to a goose, let
alone “Bugger off” to a gander?
Look,
there is absolutely no doubt that Westminster is a time warp which is
rank with bullying and misogyny. Remember Labour’s deputy leader,
John McDonnell, who recounted a comment calling for Esther McVey, now
a Tory Whip, to be lynched? Certain Labour brethren are every bit as
neolithic as those dysfunctional Tories who regard young female (and
often male) staff as an all-you-can-eat buffet.
And
how about that saintly Liberal Democrat who sources tell me is
Parliament’s most prolific bottom pincher? Dismantling the boys’
club on both sides of the House and holding all members, honourable
and otherwise, to the standards of the modern workplace is long
overdue.
What
should trouble us, particularly following the death of Carl Sargeant,
is trial by media before there are any formal charges. So unhinged
did the level of spite become that there were gleeful predictions
that the Sunday papers would be packed with the names of yet more
offenders. Pitchforks at the ready! Let those tumbrils roll!
In
the event, there were slim pickings to be thrown to the mob in this
prudish Inquisition. Beyond Westminster and the media village, I
suspect millions of normal Britons are watching these antics, rolling
their eyes and wondering, “What are they doing about Brexit?” On
ITV’s Peston on Sunday, they have a “map” of words which people
used most frequently in the past seven days. Parliament’s sex pests
hardly featured.
What
we desperately need is strong leadership. Theresa May appears
helpless, buffeted about by each new gust of outrage and bowing to
fashionable cries of “Inappropriate!” instead of speaking sternly
and restoring a sense of proportion. That would be most welcome,
Prime Minister.
The
wheels of justice turn slow, but the wheels of social media spin
uncontrollably fast and society is ever more driven by the latter.
Not all misdemeanours are crimes, but you wouldn’t know that
nowadays. A man is dead today because what began as a legitimate
concern spiralled into a kind of mania.
I
don’t know about you, but I find that far more distressing than a
fleeting hand against the knee.
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