Thoughts from Galicia, Spain: 30.3.18

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.

Cataluña

• The latest developments here.
• Asked for an opinion, the United Nations human rights committee has agreed that the Spanish government has “violated Carles Puigdemont’s right to participate in political life by forcing him to be in exile” and has asked Spain to respond on this. Is anyone holding their breath?
• In an editorial, The Times has opined: Madrid’s heavy handed attempts to jail Catalan independence leaders surrender its moral authority to an undeserving cause. The Spanish government has consistently handled the thorny issue of Catalonian separatism with recklessness, heavy handedness and an apparent desire to make a difficult situation far worse. . . . In seeking to portray strength, Mr Rajoy’s government instead looks panicky. Worse, it is surrendering moral authority to a flippant political movement that more often than not does not deserve it. Madrid needs to start speaking to its opponents and stop seeking to put them in jail. Not a view likely to do down well with most Spaniards, I regret to say.
• I couldn't help wondering how I'd feel if I were a Gibraltarian watching all this. It's surely not calculated to make me feel any more comfortable with the prospect of Spanish sovereignty over The Rock.

Spain

• Reverting again to the issue of Spain's negatives . . . Right on cue, these 5 unflattering items all crossed my screen yesterday morning, largely because they featured in Lenox Napier's Business Over Tapas:-

1. This is an interview with British historian of Spain, Paul Preston, with whom I shared some nasty Christian Brother teachers in our respective grammar schools on Merseyside a few years ago. He echoes here reader Maria's comment on why Spaniards are how they are: It is known that practically everyone is accused sooner or later. There are new cases of corruption discovered almost daily, and even so the people continue to vote for the PP or, if it is corruption in Catalonia, they continue to vote for Convergència, PdeCat or whatever they are called now. . . . I think it's amazing that people are voting for corrupt parties. Why are they doing it? It's because they're so used to it. I think that the Spanish, because of their history, are a cynical people. And that's not a criticism. It seems to me to be an act of intelligence. Because after centuries of bad governance, social injustice, totally corrupt politicians or incompetents or both, I am not surprised that they are cynical. The Spanish view is: “If all or many of them are corrupt, well, it doesn't matter, we vote for them anyway”
2. This is an article in El Diario on the deterioration in Spain's image around the world. It's in Spanish but Google or Deepl will readily translate it for you. It begins with the scandal of the false CV of the Presidenta of the Madrid region and its implications for her (utterly corrupt) PP party. Then it moves on to the repressive measures of said PP party and the limits on freedom of expression in Spain. Then the Catalan mess and the UN action cited above. The tone then darkens further, with talk of sewers and stenches. Finally, the writer asks whether it isn't time to eliminate the filth. “To aerate, clean, and (re)build Spain.” To which, I guess, the answer is crystal clear.
3. This is a cri-de-coeur from someone in Almería, complaining about a French article giving 15 reasons why no one should buy Spanish tomatoes. It's dismissed, of course, as la fakenews but I doubt that it is. At the very least, someone in Almería/Spain should be asking why people outside Spain would find it credible. Like being told that Trump was screwing half a dozen White House employees.
4. Here's an article from El Público, the headline of which reads: I'm working 12 hours a day for €700 a month and now they're going to cut off my electricity. But I'm proud to be Spanish because we've detained Puidgdemont.
5. Finally . . . Here's Don Quijones with an article on how the usual suspects - entirely in their own short-term financial interests – are trying to start another construction boom here. Hardly credible but, as they say, Spain is different. So, once again, very believable.

So . . . standing back, do you get the impression that something is rotten in the state of Denmark? And that Werner was more right than wrong?

• Reader SP has pointed out that Werner doesn't seemed to have fingered Spain's civil service exams (las oposiciones) as a major factor in Spain's problems. I checked and he/she is right. I also searched the words merit, meritocracy, endogamy, endogamous and cronyism. He doesn't use any of them but at least the last one can be considered synonymous with amiguismo.

Life in Spain

• Foreigners here will be very familiar with the problem described in this El País article, also in Spanish. Viz. having only one surname when Spaniards have – and really believe everyone in the world has – 2 surnames. I disagree that things are getting better. Though it's true that the problem is slightly less if you have 2 forenames and your second is taken to be your first surname. The challenge then – met only by trial and error – is to determine what word order has been used in the computer and, so, which of your 3 names is regarded as your first surname. In my time, I have been called Sr David, Sr Davies and, most frequently, Sr Colin. But never Sr Notengo.
• Below are extracts from Tim Parfitt's book A Load of Bull, about his time with Conde Nast in Madrid in the late 1980 and early 1990s. Parfitt is now a serious journalist and commentator – see here – but, back than, was a Jack The Lad, let loose in a Madrid which seems to have still been living la vida loca of the Movida. That said, some things don't seem to have changed much.

Russia

• There will be referees from 46 countries at the World Cup in Russsia this summer but, for the first time in 80 years, none from Britiain. In contrast, the country sending the most will be the USA, where football ('soccer') is not exactly a big thing. Odd or what?

Nutters Corner

• Televangelist Frank Amedia, who unofficially serves as Donald Trump‘s “liaison for Christian policy" has announced that God has given him permission to tell the world that Fart will be re-elected president in 2020. Amedia, of course, in no fool; he makes a lot of money from spouting arrant nonsense like this. But what can one say about the people who believe him?

Spanish:

• I learned 2 new slang words yesterday – caballo (horse) and jaco, both meaning heroin. No one except the waiter in my bar knew what the second one meant. When I asked him how come he did, he gave the wonderful reply that he'd once been young and lived through 'turbulent times'.

Galicia/Pontevedra

• Strange things happen in the crazy world inhabited by nationalists. Reader Sierra had told me of someone formally complaining that the driver of a night bus announced the arrival in Pedrafita do/del Cebreiro only in Gallego. Bizarrely, the complainant was Galician and so not a Spanish nationalist. Or not exactly. 
• Our drug clans might, I'm told, have been left out of the article I cited yesterday because they don't do heroin. Only Colombian cocaine. So, good guys really.

Finally

• The John Hooper book I ordered 2 days ago was despatched from somewhere in Spain yesterday but will take 2 weeks to arrive. I'm put in mind of the comment made by Tim Parfitt below about the 'piss poor' Correos service . . .

© David Colin Davies, Pontevedra: 30.3.18

EXTRACTS FROM "A LOAD OF BULL": Tim Parfitt Published 2007

Adjusting to the Spanish pace of life was to become a recurrent problem for me: knowing how to pace myself and go slow – then knowing when it was the right time to party and go fast.

Cake shops have adopted the slowest and most complex form of packaging and payment methods known to man.

The Casa de Correos in Madrid – the Post Office, an imposing, extravagant building for such a piss poor postal service

“Welcome to Madrid”, said Francisco. “Where 8 o'clock means 10 o'clock.”

In Madrid, if you're not careful, it's quite easy hold your hand out on being introduced to a complete stranger only to find yourself in a bear-hug, followed by the kiss-of-life.

Most tapas are accompanied by bread, as most Spaniards would rather go without food altogether than eat it without bread.

Luis often came out with statements like “The biggest problem in Spain is the excess of oil in the food” and he would then explain that such excess was typical of the Spanish problem of extreme, excessive or exaggerated behaviour.

In Madrid nothing was done ever done half-heartedly.

From the last hour of doing things, the feverish football supporting, to over-eating, expressing emotions, even an instance of dressing kids in tiny sailor outfits for First Communions – everything in Spain was a bit over the top.

In Spain, there was simply no room for anything that might fall between the piece of shit and the dog's bollocks.

The Spanish didn't like to finish anything, as though any sign of closure was to be mistrusted. Take the simple task of saying goodbye, 'adios'. Easy, no? Well, not for your average Spaniard. It was never just 'adios'. It was 'adios' to the power of 3. You can see this at any airport.

All 'final decisions' and 'closures' were extremely rare in Spain. I'd endlessly read reports in newspapers of high-profile crooks being sentenced to 20 years or so in a prison for major fraud but then, a minute later, it was never absolutely certain that they'd be jailed at all.

The best example of Spanish excess, though, had to be the number of national holidays.

Even Spanish proverbs were overblown. While for the English, for example, it was better to have a bird in the hand than two in the bush, The Spanish would think it was far better to have one in the hand than hundreds flying.

Madrid's most exuberant month is May, when the city comes spectacularly into its own.

San Isidro is a celebration for one day extended, for no apparent reason than the sheer fun of it, into thirty days.

In Madrid, the long, hot, dry summer brings endless, glorious daylight, all-night marcha, regular days lived at 40 degrees, a number of dazzling bullfights and, the summer 'intensive work hour' – la hora intensiva'. Working from 8 to 3 without a break.

During July and August I knew some people who would start at 8 and work until 3, taking coffee breaks but never lunch. They'd start lunch at 3.30 and finish at 5. Then they'd go home and sleep until 10 and then go out to dinner. Then they'd go to a couple of terrace bars until 2.30 and then to the first night-club until 5. Then on to a second night-club which didn't even open until 5, where they'd stay until 7, before going straight to the office, where they'd shower, shave, change and start work again at 8.

There it was again – the whole taking-years-to-come-up-with-a-final-decision thing.

The family unit was far more important than material gain in Spain. So much so that moving away from comfort and security was regarded as a failure rather than an achievement.

Spaniards never hurried to finish anything and the fact that most appointments were not adhered to was etiquette.

The Mayte Commodore was an old established luncheon club usually packed with hundred of gold-rinsed yapping Spanish grannies.

It's difficult to overestimate what 1992 was to all Spaniards, to the whole national psyche. The country that had been isolated for over 30 years under Franco looked for any excuse to celebrate – so much so that even winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1968 had been a big deal. So 1992 was going to be massively important. Not that it meant getting things done on time.

The obsession with buena familias was an echo of the old Spanish obsession with the thoroughbred pure race - pura raza - and pure blood - pura sangre.

The 'heart press' – la prensa del corazón – was [is] a phenomenon in Spain. Some said its origins could be traced back to the harsh repression that followed the civil war, which left few families unscathed, and thus considerable vigilance was required as people avoided giving anything away that might betray them. So a love of harmless gossip – cotilleo – was born, whereby Spaniards gossiped about the rich and famous as they sought escapism from daily life. In a nation that read, per capita, less than one book a year the 'heart press' comprised the staple diet of a high proportion of Spain's population.