Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spanish Politics- I've mentioned that, on your tax return here, you can tick a box indicating you'd like a small portion of your tax to go to the Catholic Church. No other 'confession' is allowed this, of course, though attempts - undoubtedly futile - have been made recently to change this. Anyway, the Church raked in €284m this way last year, even though the percentage of taxpayers obliging has fallen consistently over the years. Under a 1975 Concordat, this state-financing of the Church was supposed to stop decades ago but hasn't and, in fact, the percentage of your tax going to it, if you tick the box, has recently risen from 0.5% to 0.7%. As with monopoly suppliers, easy money. Even God might smile at all this. More than anyone, if the Catholics have got him right, I guess.
- A Bank of Spain report has it that Spain has seen a boom in both house sales and rental prices in recent years, with the latter soaring by 50% in the 5 years to last August. But, asks The Local, have the country's realtors been using algorithms on their web pages to fix prices to their advantage. Probably, answer I.
- An interesting article on Madrid's barrios here. Now that I'm spending a week a month in Madrid, I plan to check them out.
- So, the pre-Lenten Carnaval began last night, meaning - as one of our several local daily papers advised yesterday - that we have 8 days of fiestas ahead of us - as used to be the case in the UK before the Reformation. (See here on this).
- There's a big parade in the city tonight and costumes were already on display throughout yesterday. Hence this amusing story.
- The Local reports that: As this is Spain, anything goes - whether it's dressing up as giant sex toy, imitating one of the political elite or the royal family, or making a mockery of the Church.
- Talking of disguises . . . I confess to being a tad disturbed yesterday afternoon by having three 12 year olds come towards me dressed as pink Satisyers. Or that's what I thought at the time, but - having seen white versions of the same or similar costume - I later wondered if they'd actually been rabbits. No pun intended.
- Our mayor has announced that the maximum speed for all powered vehicles in our 'priority pedestrian' areas will be reduced from 10kph to 6kph. Good news for out sign-writers. But, anyway, I have this vision - possibly shared by the good mayor - that in 10 years time no cars at all will be allowed in the city but will be exiled to vast parking areas on the edge of the city. Time to buy shares in e-scooters and those mobile chairs that old folk use. Was it a coincidence that the first ad I saw when I opened the Faro de Vigo yesterday was for these?
- Meanwhile, I can't say I've noticed much fidelity to the current law of a limit of 10kph.
- An interesting observation re the security on Pontevedra station last week. If, like me, you arrived at 12.29 there was no one manning(personning?) the X-ray machine and you could just walk straight through. But, if you arrived just 2 minutes later, you couldn't. Doesn't smack of seriousness to me.
- It's always good when things go wrong in the house on a Friday night . . . Noticing very late last night that there was a permanently running overflow pipe on an outside wall, I turned off the water at the mains and let the large underground reservoir tank drain away via the overflow pipe during the night. This duly stopped the overflow. When I switched the water back on this morning, the tank re-filled and the overflow problem returned. Having now switched off the water again, I've waited for over an hour for the tank to re-empty - in the process filling 3 baths and every single container I can find in the house, the garage and outside. Including 5 wine bottles and 3 very large buckets. And a lot of pans, jars andglasses. But the bloody water is still coming and I've got nothing left but earth to let it run into. Big tank.
- Words of the Day: Tubería de rebose: Overflow pipe.
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