Thoughts from Galicia, Spain: 24.2.18

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.

Catluña

• The independence movement is said to belosing support. Hardly surprising really.

Spain

• Spain's national anthem is one of the few which doesn't have any words. And, in this, centrefugal country which is de facto federal, any attempt to add them is, to say the least, controversial. As a singer recently (re)discovered. Here's The Local on this theme.
• I mentioned yesterday a book called Fariña, about the drug business here in Galicia. Lenox Napier of Business of Tapas had written that the latest edition of it had been embargoed after a law suit from an ex-mayor of our coastal town, O Grove. Possibly the chap who was re-elected when he was in prison- Here's a (Spanish) article on the book, addressing the links with our local politicians of all parties. Google machine translation below.
• I'm confused re pensions here. A short while ago I was noting that they're among the highest in the EU, at least as a percentage of final salary. But then there was a Don Quijone' article on the inadequacy of government provision. And now comes reports of nationwide protests against Spain's 'shameful' pensions. Can anyone enlighten me/us? Do the protests relate to those folk who don't have a pension based on a salary?

Life in Spain.

1. The notary: Two working days have passed. No call received
2. Honda: When I arrived yesterday morning it was to be told, firstly, that they didn't have a replacement part (a little switch costing, say, €1.50 to make), so would have to order it; secondly, that it was part of a sealed unit and the repair would cost over €400. Shocked and (very) annoyed, I asked the service manager what was the point of them having an email address if they ignored not only customers' messages but also the foto of the part I'd attached to both of mine. And I pointed out they'd wasted my time and money in coming 30km pointlessly. I did get a sort of apology. And a suggestion that I should try a car-breaker's yard for the relevant part. Plus a print-out of a diagram of it and its reference number. Which, of course, I'd already noted from underneath it.

The net result of all this nonsense is that both the notary and the Honda dealer have lost my future custom. But I doubt either of them will care. Or even notice. It seems very much a part of the Spanish business scene for providers not to worry about wasting the time of actual or prospective customers. Maybe this is the consequence of a different concept of time from that of we pesky Anglo Saxons who keep criticising them. Or maybe it's a Galician thing. To be fair, my British friend David insists I'd have had the same problem with a UK dealer. More usefully, he suggested that the Bosch chain of workshops provides a service for half the price of at least Audi. Which I will check out, of course.

On cue, my elder daughter has sent me this:-

The USA

• We already know that Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is a climate change denier. Pruitt believes God commands us to take care of the environment and that also means to use what He has provided. “The biblical world view with respect to these issues is that we have a responsibility to manage and cultivate, harvest the natural resources that we’ve been blessed with to truly bless our fellow mankind.” In other words, God gave us this planet, so Scott Pruitt thinks we can destroy it. It’s what Jesus wanted. . . . It's totally impossible to imagine a UK politician talking like this, even if (s)he is an AGW denier.
• As for Fart's ludicrous suggestion about arming teachers, increasing the number of guns in the country and lining the pockets of weapons manufacturers, including Russia's Kalashnikov:-

The English Language

• Two shocks for old-fashioned me last night:-

1. An ad for computer manufacturer Hewlett Packard pronound HP as haitch pee. The battle is lost.
2. A Sky TV reporter said 'fewer guns', not 'less guns'.

Nutters Corner

• See the USA section above

Galicia/Pontevedra

• Here's an account of an odd shadow on the wall of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. In this city of laughable myths about St James, it's hardly surprising that some believe it's of a priest disguised as a pilgrim on his way to echar un polvo with a nun of the nearby convent of San Paio.

Finally

• Some wine expert has produced a list of 40 decent wines available for under £10 (say €11.50) in the UK. Here are the 7 Iberian ones, shorn of all the wine buff's guff. I've left in the prices for the benefit of any UK reader(s). No albarinño or gordello, I notice.

Reds

- 3C Cariñena 2016, Spain. (The Wine Society, £5.75)
- Aldonia Vendimia 2015 Rioja, Spain. (Tanners, £8.95)
- Viña Eguía Rioja Crianza 2015. (Majestic; £8.99)
- Taste the Difference Douro 2015, Portugal. (Sainsbury’s, £9)
- Ego Bodegas Talento 2015/16 Jumilla, Spain. (Lea & Sandeman; £10.50)

Whites
- Vilacetinho Vinho Verde 2016, Portugal. (Cambridge Wine Merchants, £7.99; The Sampler, £8.90; The Stroud Wine Company, £8.95)
- Torres Viña Esmeralda 2017, Spain. (Waitrose, £6.89) 

• Talking of what you choose to throw down your throat . . . If you take homeopathic medicines, you might want to watch this video. But not if you don't value reason and logic. Not to mention common sense.

THE ARTICLE

Rajoy, Fariña and Pablo Iglesias: The story of a congratulation

A court order has embargoed the latest edition of Fariña, the book on Galician drug trafficking that must be removed from the bookstores until the suit of a former mayor of O Grove, José Alfredo Bea Gondar, is resolved.

Censorship has caused the opposite effect to that desired, as usually happens. Ten books per minute have been sold on Amazon and what was left in the bookstores is flying off the shelves.

In addition to giving even more publicity to the book, thanks to the trial an official note of the presidency of the Government, signed by Mariano Rajoy, came out of the drawers, with a "Thank You" handwritten and addressed to the author.

Thank you very much for Fariña. I have already read it. It is very documented. I imagine it will have taken your time and it is a good contribution. I hope you do not have to write about it ever again. It would be good news. A hug.

The little story behind that card - now converted into judicial material as proof of the reliability of the book - and how Rajoy ended up reading Fariña, is curious.

On July 12, 2016, the publishers of Libros del KO scored a success in the Fariña promotion: Pablo Iglesias interviewed its author, Nacho Carretero, in his program of La Tuerka. Iglesias had received a copy of the book in June and was reading at times, in the middle of the political storm of the moment. It was the summer of 2016, the least summer-like in decades for Spanish politics, plunged without government into an eternal debate on investiture pacts between several groups. Iglesias invited Carretero to his program. For once, the political leader asked and the journalist responded.

Fariña happened at the perfect moment: without a doubt, the content was relevant for readers who love story-telling, politics or both. But there was an extra: the television series Narcos about Pablo Escobar had just made fashionable the intrigues of drug trafficking and made the promotional message of Fariña easy: do you like Narcos? Well, this is Narcos a la española.

On the day of the interview with Pablo Iglesias, one of the members of Libros del KO, Alberto Sáez, took to the set another copy of Fariña, which was given to Pablo Iglesias. There an idea was conceived: "We have to give it to Rajoy". It was not a sudden idea. Iglesias had already sent Rajoy a recommendation that Fariña be read. Nacho Carretero improvised a dedication for the President of the Government. Faced with the image of handing Rajoy a book about drug trafficking in his native Galicia, in which connivance and political cowardice have been denounced for decades, Pablo Iglesias could only salivate.

"All Galician parties have been financed by drug trafficking," says one of the judges cited in the book. Fariña explains the plots of power that were born with smuggling between Galicia and Portugal and that were getting fatter until the Galician coast became the gateway in Europe for Colombian cocaine. In fact, for lovers of Narcos it is even exciting to find in Fariña common characters like the Ochoa brothers or the head of the Cali cartel, Gilberto Rodríguez. Even more interesting is to see in the pages of Fariña the rolesNúñez Feijoo or Manuel Fraga parallel to the growth of the big bosses.

However, Mariano Rajoy appears little in the book and in fact if you look at him with complacency does not go wrong: it is like the young politician who in the 80s knows what is happening with the relationship between politics and the narco, but who wants to distance himself without making a noise. In fact, it is explained that it is because of that attitude of resistance that Fraga issued a phrase that later transpired: "Mariano, go to Madrid, learn Galician, marry and have children".

Pablo Iglesias was not slow in fulfilling his mission, although finally with a low profile. A few days later, on July 18, he took advantage of a meeting with Rajoy as part of the round of contacts for the investiture and handed the book to the president of the Government. But there was no foto of the moment. The political climate did not make for much sarcasm and Iglesias tried to accentuate his more serene profile, this time without the sarcasm of other gifts as poisoned as were that pack of DVDs of Game of Thrones for the king or Juan de Mairena by Antonio Machado at a 2015 meeting with Rajoy. The Fariña copy in the hands of Rajoy remained as a somewhat unsuccessful opportunity for the publisher. Or so it seemed then.

Almost two years later, today we know that a few days after receiving the book from Iglesias, Rajoy thanked the author for the gift and congratulated him on its content. The letter arrived at his house, without warning. "I've already read it. It's very well documented," said the President of the Government about a book which deals with drug trafficking in his region and which is now censored.