Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain- In his book Slow Travel in Unsung Spain, Brett Heatherington naturally makes all the observations all we foreigners make, along with some new to me and, therefore, more interesting. Here's some from the first 13 pages. More anon:-
o (On a train, listening to 2 young siblings pointlessly arguing): This verbal tennis went on for a full 5 minutes. It was loud enough to be difficult to ignore but, as was standard for this country, the other passengers just half looked on with indulgent smiles. Not a word of complaint was uttered, although some of them were clearly watching this little Abbot and Costello routine more closely.
o The truth is that Spain would virtually fall apart without the abuela, the grandmother. . . . These often dominating matriarchs and bastions of society seem to sense their own importance. They are generally the worst at pushing into queues in shops, often interjecting with Una preguntita . . . meaning "I just have a little question". Or they will pretend not to even notice a line of people waiting for a service, in a bank for example.
o Also long-established in Spain is the practice where both the mother and mother-in-law have the well-accepted right to constantly meddle in the affairs of their grown up children. [I suspect, by the way, that is is one of the main causes of cultural clashes and a major factor behind divorces and my formation of VOGA. Much as I admire Spanish women, I'm pleased I never married one.]
- I met a NZ guy last night who'd been seriously injured falling off his mountain bike last week and had to stay behind for at least a week. He asked me if there were still scars from the Civil War. I now wish I could have referred him to this article. If you can read it without shedding a tear or two, I suspect you are unusual.
- And here's another Civil War echo.
- Lightening the tone . . . Lenox Napier treats us to a lovely article here.
- Here's The Local again with 10 Spanish dishes to die for. I'd go with 7 of them but tripe and octopus a la Gallega/Feira leave me cold. Though not as much as the dreadful, overhyped percebes. But chacun à son goût, of course. You are very welcome to them.
- If you're a Remainer or Brexit sceptic and can't understand what objections to the EU a non-stupid, non-bigoted, non-racist, non-xenophobic individual could have, then you really do need to read Richard North today. Though you're not obliged to agree with him, of course. Just understand his point of view. Tasters: Not in any possible way is this a functioning democracy. . . As it stands, and unavoidably, the demos - somewhat imperfectly – is defined by national boundaries, the sovereign area in which a single population can exert its power and demand accountability from its government. A body which is dedicated to abolishing such boundaries, unavoidably, is equally dedicated to demolishing democracy as we know it. . . . In time, the EU could possibly build a new sense of national identity within its newly-defined external borders, and thus create a new demos. But there is no sign of that happening yet, and no indication that it could ever happen. In the meantime, the EU will just have to keep pretending it is supporting democracy, while it continues to do exactly the opposite.
- This is a long article from a well-known, europhilic commentator and Remainer. His basic view is that one needs to know European history in order to understand why History is on the side of the EU. My contrary view, based on my own knowledge of history, is that History isn't on the side of a commendable vision that was implemented both far too quickly and too ruthlessly. Actually, the writer gets close too accepting this ("liberal over-reach"), while still believing that all mistakes can be corrected. I am not so optimistic.
- All that said, I still believe that - given today's realities - the UK should stay in the EU for now and join/lead the drive to reform it into something that History might allow to survive. After all, even this most optimistic of believers admits that: I myself think more gradualist recipes for EU reform are more realistic. Shame this wasn't done from the outset, with much greater emphasis on achieving and maintaining democratic accountability.
- Below is an interesting article from a Brexiteer on a BBC program aired this week. A pertinent bit: Any dispirited Brexiteer who needs reminding why they voted 3 years ago to leave the EU should watch it. I suggest that my Remainer friends should watch it too and then try telling me, with a straight face, that our future lies in an organisation as ghastly as this.
- You have to laugh. Or cry. How can a country maintain in such power, a man of Fart's . . . everything.
- Word of the Day: Fiesta. It took its time arriving . . .
- As I made the short walk to this café from my car this morning, I was passed by 25 'pilgrims'. It reminds me that I once said that doing the Camino Francés was like walking on a conveyor belt these days.
- BTW . . . 2 of the pilgrims were on bikes, on the pavement because the road is up. Like all foreigners, they were moving slowly in consideration of the pedestrians. I was also passed by a young Spanish woman on her bike. Like (nearly) all locals, she was riding far too fast and weaving in and out of the pedestrians, without any consideration for them. But no one seemed to take any offence. Which is quite normal. Me, I just glowered at her. To nil effect. It wouldn't even strike her that I was doing so. Just culturally-based instinct on my part.
- I told my daughter in Madrid she could probably get a fortune for her 2 bedrooms for the nights of 31 May and 1 June. Then I realised that fans can't fly to Madrid and have to try for other airports around Spain. And that I live close to 4 airports. And that would have 4 spaces in my car if I drove down on May 31. So . . . A Dutch auction on the net??
Eurocrats remind us why we voted for Brexit: Iain Martin, The Times
A BBC documentary about life behind the scenes in Brussels shows how right we are to want to get out of the EU
If Nigel Farage had commissioned a party political broadcast to expose the arrogance of the European Union elite he couldn’t have come up with anything as damning as a documentary shown this week.
At one point in Brexit: Behind Closed Doors, made by a Belgian filmmaker for the BBC, the prattling of Eurocrats as they moved from dining room to dining room was so self-satisfied I had to check who was behind it. Surely only a Brexiteer would want this stuff broadcast? No, it turns out to have been a European co-production made with support of the Flanders Audio Visual Fund and the Belgium (I’m not making this up) Tax Shelter.
The star of the show is Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s floppy-haired Brexit coordinator, who was followed by TV cameras during the period in which British negotiators tried, and failed, to get Britain out of the EU. Any dispirited Brexiteer who needs reminding why they voted three years ago to leave the EU should watch it. I suggest that my Remainer friends should watch it too and then try telling me, with a straight face, that our future lies in an organisation as ghastly as this.
The documentary captures many revealing moments. The British side is repeatedly insulted and patronised. “We finally turned them into a colony,” one grinning Verhofstadt aide says of Britain, “and that was our plan from the first moment.” Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, compares France’s biggest military and security and intelligence ally, Britain, to a clapped-out old car.
What really stands out, though, amid all the David Brentish tomfoolery and Eurobanter, is the calm cockiness. And no wonder. Eurocrats have hit the jackpot. As a cadre, they’re immovable, unlike poor national politicians who get beaten up by their electorates at regular intervals. Even if national leaders disagree — and they do — about the future direction of the EU, it barely counts. No matter what happens in the European parliament elections this month, the same small group of unelected people at the heart of the project still hold the power. Everything that has happened— from the euro and migration crises to Brexit and the rise of populism on the Continent — only reinforces their belief that more transnational, sovereignty-sapping EU integration is what’s needed.
We are about to be treated to another of these stitch-ups after the European elections, when the successor to Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, is chosen.
Juncker was named European leader of the year by the Euronews TV network — which is a bit like winning plumber’s plumber at the plumber of the year awards. At the ceremony this week, Eurocrats merrily congratulated each other as if it was the most tremendous joke. Among those hoping to replace him, the German candidate Manfred Weber looks doomed. The French veteran Barnier will probably have a go. The compromise choice will no doubt emerge over dinner later this year and take his or her place as one of the most powerful people in Europe. And so the game goes on.
Distaste for such antics was a big factor in the British decision to leave the EU, of course. Scepticism about EU integration has been growing for decades. It was just waiting to be tapped.
Today that discontent has been supercharged by the sense of betrayal many Leave voters feel towards Theresa May and the Tories. In the European elections, the insurgent and cleverly designed Brexit Party is perfectly placed to exploit such feelings and to drive the Conservatives to below 10 per cent of the vote. “We are toast,” says one gloomy minister. “Even I don’t like us.”
But no amount of righteous anger, over the EU’s behaviour or over recent party political game-playing at Westminster can disguise a fundamental truth that should trouble Leavers.
Much of the focus at the moment is on splits and disorganisation on the Remain side, between the Liberal anti-democrats shouting “Bollocks to Brexit”, the self-destructive vanity of Change UK, and assorted other parties.
But Eurosceptics have a profound problem too. After the elections it will become apparent that they are split too.
The Brexit Party has a clear message and blunt branding. Yet the base for the Leave vote is not the 52 per cent it polled in 2016. Around a third of the electorate is very Brexity: leave at all costs, by any means necessary. They are angry and engaged, but they are not a majority.
Then there are the moderate Leavers who want a deal. They might contemplate a no-deal exit, but only in an emergency. They are deeply uncomfortable about being led there by Mr Farage, or by a new Tory leader, screaming like a Brexiteer banshee. Some of them would rather not be associated with the Brexit Party leader or his friends.
This opens up the possibility of a permanent electoral split, with a populist, angry Brexit Party on about 20 per cent of the national vote, and weak coalition governments in perpetuity unable to deliver anything remotely like Brexit. Rage about Brussels is not enough.
Unless Eurosceptics can find a way through this, to leave in an orderly fashion that takes close to half the country with them, the people laughing at the end of saga will be Remainers, Guy Verhofstadt and the Eurocrats.
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