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.
Spain
- Good news: This is excellent news about unemployment levels. Even, I guess, if you ignore the seasonal factor and the length and nature of the vast majority of the contracts. When applicable.
- Bad news: Click here for info on Spain's massive exposure to the failing Turkish economy – something Don Quijones has been warning about for 2 years.
Life in Spain
- Yesterday I had a classic example of the common Spanish attitude towards strangers, viz. Risk offending; Apologise if you happen to. I followed a car up to my street, indeed to my house. There was space enough for 4 cars in front of this but the driver chose to park right in front of my garage. I parked my car a little further on, got out, walked back and entered my gate. As I did so, the driver wound down the window and both she and her partner asked whether it was OK to block my garage. It later occurred to me that this was also an example of another aspect of Spanish life – Living in the moment. If the owner of a garage can't be seen right there and then, he/she doesn't exist. And so is owed no duty of care. In this case, as soon as I appeared, everything changed. The stimulus to - you might say - looking ahead and considering others had been applied. Hence the apology-cum-request.
The EU
- Readers Eamon and Sierra have kindly supplied these fotos of not-so-simple roundabouts in Colchester and Swindon. Putting my local challenge in perspective, I guess. I wonder what the accident statistics on them are:-
Social Media
- Should you quite Facebook? See here for reasons for doing or not doing this. More so here, maybe.
Galicia and Pontevedra
- The writer of this article in the Voz de Galicia is less than impressed with the national train company, Renfe. Can't say I blame her:- Renfe announced that the trains from Madrid to Galicia would go by bus from Madrid by bus from 3 to 6 August because of AVE high-speed train works. I changed my ticket for the 7th and I confirmed the day before that there would be no incidents. I was ready to enjoy the Galician language. This didn't prove easy. At Chamartín station, the few members of Customer Service were overwhelmed by rushing passengers, who didn't respect the priority given to people with disabilities. Travellers were running to find a place for their luggage, as in post-war times. It was just the beginning. Two minutes after departure, the reviewer announced: From Zamora you will continue by bus to your destination. This was more than a botched job, it was a manifest deception. The passengers, dismayed, asked: "Also from Lugo?" Yes, everyone. At Zamora's modern station, dozens of people with heavy luggage caused a jam on a narrow elevator that they had to take us to the buses. A member of Customer Services abandoned the luggage cart and said: "You'll have to push this yourselves". There was a 95 year old man with respiratory insufficiency, a doctor's wife in a wheelchair, me with my injured shoulder and my friend Adriana, also in rehabilitation, who vigourously pushed a trolley with 6 suitcases and 3 backpacks on it to get to the bus. About the journey itself, it's best I say nothing. It was a good thing that Mauro, with his impeccable taxi, was waiting for us when we arrived in Lugo, for a calm and friendly drive. At last, in spite of Renfe, we began to enjoy our Galician summer.
Finally . . .
- That pain in the backside, Alfred T. Mittington, has pointed out that a single kilo of coca leaves doesn't make much usable cocaine. A few days go, there was a table in one of the local papers detailing the transformation process and the values at each point but I can't find it. So, here's some info I found on the web this morning. Prices in dollars, not euros:-
- A coca farmer might harvest 750ko of leaves a year, which gives 5 kilos of pasta, at around 150ko of leaves per kilo of pasta. After deducting costs, the farmer makes c. $5,000 a year. Or $6.67 a kilo of leaves.
- After refining the pasta to obtain powder, the price is c. $4,000 a kilo. Or $4 a gram.
- A kilo of "pure" Colombian goes from this $4,000 to $60-70,000 once taken 4,800km to the USA, or 8,000km to Europe. Or $60-70 a gram.
- The buyer then "cuts" (adulterates) the kilo to get 6 or 7 times its volume and weight without lowering the price per gram.
- So, consumers pay c. $70,000 for the kilo that was worth $4,000 when it left Colombia.
© David Colin Davies, Pontevedra: 13.8.18
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