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.
England
- There's news this morning of drones causing the complete closure of a UK airport. Needless to say, there were TV interviews with disgruntled (non)travellers. One woman, understandably upset that she and her family couldn't get to Tenerife for the 7th year in a row, bemoaned the fact there was nothing they could do. Adding, wistfully but quite wrongly: “It's all up in the air” . . .
- A TV reporter, commenting on the mayhem caused by the imbecile controlling the drones, opined that flights had been 'majorly disrupted'. A Fartesque addition to the English Language, on par with 'bigly'? The wonder of the English language.
- Talking of the TV . . . Among all the stomach-turning ads of this time of year, there's one which strikes an odd note - for a company called Simplicity. Which does cremations. Is there a higher incidence of death at Xmas? Or is it a traditional time for people to ponder their future? Or, rather, the end of it. Or perhaps it's about saving money so that you can spend more on yourself on having a good time.
- BTW . . . The by-line of Simplicity's ad is: Less of an undertaking. Which is quite nice.
- Sometimes you just have to suspend belief . . . The headline news in all the UK media last night and this morning is not that all knowledgable parties are warning in detail of a disaster if there's no Brexit deal but that Mr Corbyn might well have called Mrs May 'a stupid woman' during the daily pantomime that is PM's Question Time in parliament. As Richard North puts it this morning: The fourth estate is no longer in the business of doing news. We are in the world of panto journalism to match the politics of the madhouse. We are headed for the most important vote of the century and the memory of the moment when the EU set out its stall will be of whether the leader of the opposition called the prime minister a "stupid woman". When future historians come to write this up, will anyone believe them?
Spain
- Time for the traditional Catalan Xmas news.
- Rather more shocking news.
- To my not very great surprise I read recently that, while smoking in Spain has reduced for men, it's increasing for women. Here's the logical but depressing consequence: The cancer that causes most deaths among women is breast cancer, while lung cancer climbed to second place for the first time last year.
The UK and Brexit
- There's an interesting article below from one of the very few people who've changed their mind on Brexit. Or at least on the merits of Mrs May's deal.
Spanish
- Word of the Day: Chaval
English
- The new buzz word: Have you pivoted recently? I only ask because if media reporting is to be believed, everyone in politics is pivoting madly. We’re witnessing a lexicographic explosion in the use of the term. Theresa May is refusing to pivot to a referendum on Brexit but cabinet colleagues are whispered to be pivoting in that direction. Labour, meanwhile, may pivot to a proposal for a half-customs union. On Monday Jacob Rees-Mogg pivoted from last Thursday’s demand that Mrs May resign to a pledge of support. Others may pivot to Norway. Such gymnastics! You don’t switch position, you pivot. Switching position implies admitting defeat but to say “I’m pivoting!” sounds bold, adventurous. I’m waiting now to hear, not of a failed marriage, but of pivoting to a new partner.
Finally . . .
- The wife of a couple I know well told me of this conversation with her husband(H) yesterday:-
H: I have a terrible problem!
W: Yes??
H. I'm serious, it’s very important!
W: OK, what is it?
H: I can't remember where I've hidden your birthday gift
W: That's easy; it’s in your secret hiding place
H: Well, where's that?
W: In the dinning room, second book shelf on the right and behind the third book along.
H: Right.
© [David] Colin Davies
THE ARTICLE
Why I’ve changed my mind about Theresa May’s deal: Alison Pearson
Did you see that letter in the Telegraph yesterday from the Great and the Good calling on the Prime Minister to “take her deal to the British people”. Ah, yes, a second referendum in which people who were too stupid to tell the difference between Stay and Go will now be required to understand a 500-page Withdrawal Agreement.
Anyone spot the logical flaw there?
It goes without saying that the signatories to that letter (some 53 City bosses and business leaders) despise Leave voters, or “extremists” as the Chancellor of the Exchequer charmingly called us last week. What these ‘We Know Betters’ want is a People’s Vote which, or so they blithely assume, will keep us in the EU because “it’s good for enterprise and good for jobs”.
Never mind how shatteringly awful it would be for trust in the democratic process. Never mind that seven out of 10 Conservative MPs represent constituencies that voted for Brexit, as do six out of 10 Labour MPs. Never mind that a second referendum would be like peritonitis in the body politic, spreading poison throughout the system with unknown, possibly fatal, consequences. At least we would stay in the EU, see off those ghastly proles and continue to employ cheap foreign labour which is jolly good for business… oops, sorry, jobs!
Do not be deceived, dear reader, by the sweetly reasonable tone of all those blue-chip Remainers who only want to be helpful and “unblock the logjam in the House of Commons”. Of course they do. Like the orthodontist picking up his drill, they murmur: “Won’t feel a thing…”
Funnily enough, one of the main reasons I voted for the UK to leave the European Union is because I had read up a lot on previous referendums in which a member state had dared to vote against the treaties. In each case, Brussels managed to get them to vote again until they came up with the correct answer. Ireland, Denmark, even France; I could see how they might be manoeuvred into a second referendum, but Britain? Our country would never tolerate such a thing; too proud, too bloody-minded.
Yet, here we are. Powerful forces within and without Parliament, ministers close to the Prime Minister herself, are plotting to follow the self-same ignominious EU script and re-run the referendum.
Well, I’ve done a lot of reading and thinking over the past few days and I’ve changed my mind. Not about Brexit. I still think that unprecedented vote, that primal roar from the people, sensing their country was being swallowed whole and wanting to claim her back, was right in a way we can scarcely begin to understand yet. But I don’t want it at any price. Thanks to a blundering negotiation, in which more was conceded in the first month than the EU could have hoped for in a year, the perfect purist’s Brexit is no longer within reach.
Theresa May warns us: “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Well, I don’t think you could call the PM’s deal good, but it has several key elements that Leavers voted for. No more financial contributions, an end to freedom of movement, outside the jurisdiction of the ECJ, the ability to start forging our own trade deals.
I can already hear the machine-gun rattle of the below-the-line commenters shooting me down. Sorry to disappoint you, chaps. But what are we going to do when there’s no majority in the Commons for No Deal and no majority for Norway Plus (or Turkey Minus Minus)?
I know exactly what hardcore Remainers are going to do. They’re going to leverage all their mighty mates who will present a People’s Vote as the only way out of the conundrum. Then some “independent” johnny will rig the ballot paper so the Leave vote is split. Then Brexit really will be dead and buried.
Not only that, the bad blood which has set husband against wife, child against parent, which has made enemies of friends, will be even more toxic. There will be no closure, as they claim. There will be wounds and recriminations without end.
If we are as serious as we finally seem to be about at least pretending to prepare for no deal, then small tweaks to Mrs May’s deal may yet be won from the EU. Enough, maybe, to give some assurance on the backstop and satisfy the DUP. Enough to inch the WA through Parliament. Enough to get us to a shoddy, halfway house from which experienced, resolute negotiators can at least have the chance to make a decent trade deal. Then, the PM can step aside with some dignity.
If Tory MPs allow it (and they’d better, if they know what’s good for them), a true Brexiteer will be put to party members for a leadership vote, followed by certain victory. We may have conceded Round One, but this gives us a fighting chance in Round Two. And if that doesn’t work, we can always do what the Italians do: sign up to everything, then ignore it. Che bello!
You know, I would dearly love to stick with the “No deal? Bring it on!” crowd. But the risk of a second referendum outweighs everything else for me now.
Britain cannot and must not join the list of countries that the EU has humiliated into another vote. We’re better than that. One day they will find out how much better we are. Just you wait.
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