Spanish life is not always
likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
-
Christopher Howse: A
Pilgrim in Spain.
Spain
- I've mentioned the truly remarkable 'personal ads' that one sees at the back of Spanish papers, right after the 'tombstones' religiously commemorating someone's death. Only in Spain, one's compelled to say. I raise the topic again only because I was flabbergasted to read this yesterday in Lenox Napier's Business Over Tapas:- The Junta de Andalucía and the regional press have agreed to put an immediate end to ‘contact’ (prostitution) adverts in the press. The Junta has also said that it would not allow juicy ‘institutional advertising’ in any media that continued with the practice. Given the huge income generated, this smells fishy to me. How are the papers going to be compensated? Even more 'ghost subscriptions'? Greater 'institutional advertising' by the local government? In return for what?
Life in Spain
- Next week is Semana Santa, Holy Week. Talking to the guy running the shop where my car is about to be repaired, I wasn't terribly surprised to hear that 'Not much work will take place then'. Even though there might only be one day official holiday. “What a country!” exclaimed my neighbour when I told her, as she gave me a lift home.
- Yesterday, was International Water Day, I think. The Spanish are remarkably profligate with water. So, I wonder if consumption fell yesterday. I rather doubt it.
- The 'royal-son-in-law' – Sr Urdangarin – has asked the court to let him off jail because he has “already been condemned by society”. I have a bit of sympathy for this. As I noted last week, coverage of investigations and trials here, set against a presumption of innocence, is little short of scandalous. Last week, we were given the details of the (alleged) confession of a woman accused of killing her partner's young son here in Galicia. Presumably sold to the media.
- Catholicism is dying here in Spain, where there's now a very low percentage of young folk with religious beliefs. See here, here, and here. Nonetheless, the Catholic church still gets hundreds of millions of euros a year from the state, nearly 45 years after Madrid told it become self-financing. And many of the PP government ministers are members of the (very) right-wing Opus Dei. The good news is that patronising and moralising priests, bishops and archbishops don't appear on TV these days anywhere near as much as they used to.
The USA
- Interesting . . . Donald Trump’s top personal lawyer resigned yesterday as the focus of Washington’s Russia inquiry shifted to the question of whether the president had sought to obstruct justice. He's said to fear that President Fart might just indulge in a few porkies, under oath. Smart chap. Though he'd previously (and contentiously) argued that the president stood above the law and could not be guilty of this crime. But that was back when 2 people thought Fart was God. Now there's only one, it seems.
France
- Can't say I was aware of this: Corruption was long a central feature of the French political landscape without generating much more than a resigned shrug from voters. Jacques Chirac remains hugely popular despite the former president’s two-year suspended sentence for embezzlement, for example. Alain Juppé, the Bordeaux mayor, is widely perceived as an eminently respectable figure even though he was given a 14-month suspended sentence for illegal use of public funds. Nor were they alone. For decades, parties from across the political spectrum - Gaullists, but also Socialists - accepted vast sums from rulers in France’s former African colonies, notably the oil-rich Gabon. Few voters cared. It was treated like adultery: bad luck if you were caught, but nothing to get worked up about since everyone knows that it goes on all the time.
- But . . . Nicolas Sarkozy may not benefit from such indulgence. The accusations he faces are on a different scale to what has gone before and are explosive enough to scandalise even France’s weary electorate. Perhaps he should have a chat with Mariano Rajoy. Though this might be a waste of time as, unlike here in Spain, attitudes towards corruption are said to be hardening in France.
Galicia/Pontevedra
- The Pope has declared next year to be Un Año Jacobeo. One consequence – would you believe – is that, if you visit the monastery here in Poio and say prayers for the Pope, all the sins that would normally condemn you to a spell in Purgatory will be washed away. The good news is that this doesn't cost you a small fortune in cash these days.
- Work has begun on the final bit of the autovia between Santiago de Compostela and Lugo – the A54. The forecast for completion is 2022, meaning – if it happens - that this 95km motorway will have taken 22 years to construct. Santiago's vast white elephant, A Cidade da Cultura – took a lot less. But this, of course, was President Fraga's vanity project, and so far more important than effective road communications.
- Our local police are very interested in buying the súperlanchas (very large launches) available for purchase from the assets of convicted narcotraficantes. Well, if you can't beat them . . .
- Which reminds me . . . A gang comprising Galicians, Portuguese and Bulgarians has just been busted. Strange bedfellows. One wonders if they trust each other much.
- I've mentioned that my neighbour, the lovely Ester, has no concept of time whatsoever. She lives in a parallel universe, where 5pm could mean 10pm. This morning I asked her to come and help me with something. She said she was rushing around – as if she ever does anything else – and that she would come in 'an hour and a half approx.'. I fell off the sofa laughing at the qualification of her estimate. It could well be tonight. Or even tomorrow.
- I've complained a couple of times to my neighbour who shares a wall that putting on stilettos at 6 in the morning is not good for me. If you see what I mean. I'm pondering sending her this cartoon but fear a bad reaction. She didn't respond well to the Xmas gift of slippers I gave her . . .
© Colin Davies: Pontevedra, 23.3.18
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