Thoughts from Galicia, Spain: 5.7.18

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. Garish but informative.

As usual on a Thursday morning, I'm indebted to Lenox Napier of the comprehensive Business over Tapas for some of the following items.

Spain

• There's a severe shortage of IT staff in Spain. This seems remarkable in a country with a 16% unemployment rate.
• What would I do without The Local? Here and here are their lists of great clubs around the country and the best events at Madrid's Gay Pride extravaganza.
• The AVE high speed train and that recent report about significant mis-spend . . . Says Preferente here: Nobody should be mistaken. The problem is not the AVE, but corrupt management in the decision-making on many of the routes and priorities.
• Talking of corruption . . . More than 40 people around the country are being investigated for almost every offence in the book around the (mis)management of traffic control contracts. Once responsibility for these was devolved to the town halls, all hell broke out, involving a company called Gespol, a subsidiary of Sacyr Vallehermoso. Included in these investigations are 16 mayors or municipal officers.
• I'm reminded of the time a friend told me that the local mayor had installed so many traffic lights in Barrantes that it looked like Las Vegas there. We now know why. The chap later became president of the Pontevedra provincial government and was arraigned for corruption.
•  Por Lenox . . . As always happens after an election here: The government has approved new directors for the national RTVE, swinging the TV and radio away from its previous right-wing tilt.

The EU

• Here's the NY Times with a useful idiot's guide to the EU/German borders crisis.
• In case you're not up with the terms now being used around waht to do with the would-be migrants, I've added a glossary below.

Spanglish/Spanish

• I guess it was inevitable I'd come across this word. Chut. 'Shoot'.
• Lenox Napier advises that here in Spain chambermaids are known Las Kellys. No idea why.

Galicia/Pontevedra

• I've mentioned a few times that Galicia - with a population of 2.8m - has up to fifteen DAILY newspapers. Here's details of 11 of them, or 12 if you count the 2 editions of the Faro de Vigo. It remains a mystery to me how they can all stay in business but I guess there's skulduggery somewhere.
• You'll probably be as unsurprised as I was to see the name of O Grove in the list of corrupt municipalities implicated in the investigation cited above. This is the coastal town which re-elected its mayor when he was in clink for drug-related offences. The chap who tried to stop publication of Farriña because it mentioned him.
• In Vigo yesterday, I noted this new and very upmarket Tabacos, complete with 2 very attractive ladies behind the counter. And plants. These used to be tiny kiosks, managed by unshaven men who never smiled. How Spain has changed.

• A local cartoonist has captured one of my daily irritations. Another is the incessant parade of beggars. Oh, and the bloody accordianists.

WE KNOW WHERE YOU'VE PARKED YOUR CAR

The World Cup

• You have to laugh. Diego Maradona – the most famous cheat in the history of football - has branded England’s win over Colombia “a monumental theft” and accused the English players of diving. He's even demanded an apology from Fifa for appointing an American to referee the match.
• So, what to do about the game's increased theatricals aimed at fooling the referee into awarding free kicks and penalties? You'd have thought the fear of VAR would have reduced - or even stopped – these but clearly not. As the writer of this article has written: Play-acting has been commonplace at this World Cup. It’s become a cancer in the game, not just a stain on it, and Fifa needs to find a cure. . .  Does there not come a point when the only way to iron out blatant cheating is to extend the remit of video technology to stray beyond correcting “clear and obvious errors” in “game-changing situations” and intervene in cases of play-acting, too? That said, it has to be admitted that: The difficulty, of course, is that interpreting some of the incidents – whether at the time or even retrospectively the following day – can be highly subjective and there are occasions when only the player knows whether they are feigning. . . Either way, something has to be done. Fifa, at the very least, needs to show a determination to tackle the disease. Officials have to be stronger. And here’s a revolutionary thought: how about the players take a bit of responsibility for their actions, too.
• So . . . England v Colombia: Not a great match. The South Americans are a talented but sadly theatrical troupe but it has to be admitted that the English players also indulged in a bit of gamesmanship. Here's some comments on this aspect from Henry Winter in The Times:-

- England’s discipline was undeniably admirable against the Colombians but this was no easily defined contest between the forces of darkness and light,
- England have discovered how to be streetwise. They cannot claim total ownership of the moral high ground.
- The search for a balance between gamesmanship and sportsmanship is increasingly vexed in the modern, high-stakes era.
- England do not want a reputation for constant unsportsmanlike conduct of the sort of which Colombia were guilty. They cannot stoop to the embarrassing excesses of the Colombians but also they cannot allow them to get away with it.
- Somehow England need to keep walking the line, not crossing it. 
- England can be a class act, with a touch of added cunning. 

• In effect, indulging in a degree of guile far more discreet than than of the counter-productively emotional Colombians. At least until all the cheating is rooted out of the game. Or most of it, at least.

Finally . . .

• The thought occurred to me as I was driving to town yesterday. The poem I cited should probably have had a last line as here:-

THERE WAS A YOUNG MOUSE FROM JEREZ

WHO DRANK HIMSELF SLOWLY TO DEATH

AS HE EXPIRED WITH A SIGH

HE ASKED HIMSELF WHY

HE HADN'T DRUNK WATER INTEATH

Not HE HADN'T DRUNK WATER INTSEATH

You need to know a bit about Andaluz to get this . . .

© David Colin Davies, Pontevedra: 5.7.18

MIGRANTS: THE GLOSSARY

Transit centres

Proposed as part of efforts to save Angela Merkel’s divided government, these centres, on the German border with Austria, would process migrants already registered in other EU countries. They would be held for a few days and sent back, provided they had arrived from countries with which Germany had signed return deals. The migrants would be subject to accelerated processing and swift deportation, and they would be fenced in. The idea was first aired at the height of the refugee influx in 2015 but the Social Democrats, junior partners in Mrs Merkel’s government, rejected them as “mass camps”.

Controlled centres
An idea put forward at an EU summit last week was for secure processing camps to be set up on a voluntary basis in EU states. Migrants whose claims were rejected would be “returned” to their place of origin. Refugees could be resettled in EU states which agreed to take them.

Diplomats said the centres would be improved versions of the “hot spots”, five of which were set up in Italy and five in Greece with EU assistance in 2015. The term hot spot is now being avoided because it has been tainted by criticism of living conditions and rights violations.

Regional disembarkation platforms
Situated outside the EU, these centres would take in people rescued while crossing the Mediterranean. Those whose asylum requests were then rejected would be held at the platforms before being sent back. They could be run by UN agencies, but several north African countries have refused to host them.