Dawn

Dawn

Friday, January 04, 2013

The widespread – possibly universal - view is that 2013 will be another arduous year for Spain, and every bit as challenging for her President, Mariano Rajoy. Who probably won't be able to go on kicking the bail-out down the road for very much longer. Meanwhile, here's the take of Guy Hedgecoe of IberoSphere.

No sooner do I suggest that the Spanish government is acting crassly in its negotiations with the UK over Gibraltar than it decides to crank up the – utterly counterproductive – pressure by indicating Madrid will veto an EU airspace initiative and thus limit the number of flights to Gibraltar. As the Spanish government surely knows by now that London would love to get shut of the place and is constrained only by the attitudes of the inhabitants, one's forced to conclude the real motive is to be seen to be doing something when so much else is beyond Madrid's control.

Over in Argentina, Señora Fernández de Kirchner is also tub thumping, almost certainly for the same distractive purposes. The nationalist card is always a sound bet when you're not doing too well in the polls.

I'm still flummoxed by the Spanish health service's repeat prescription system. When I enquired this morning how my prescription pans out over the next 3 months, the pharmacist kindly gave me a print-out, showing what's in the computer and how they determine what I can and can't have. And when. Essentially, if I ask for medication as per the computer's schedule, I will consume (or at least get hold of) twice as much as I need. Which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The other thing that's funny is that no one asks for ID of any sort, normally a mania in Spain. OK, your health card has your name on it, but no picture. Seems open to abuse to me. Wanna buy some anti-depressives?

I had a coffee in my old Café Moderno haunt today. This used to be my oasis of calm, complete with all the daily papers. Nowadays, it's a question of timing. If you get there at 12, it's a bear-pit of the blue-rinse brigade - women in their 60s, shouting at each other simultaneously. I've a suspicion they started going there because it was quieter than anywhere else. Which would be an irony. Anyway, at 1 o'clock it reverts to its natural state. Before closing prematurely at 2.

The other thing I got to today was a book-signing. Well a books-signing really, as there were 4 authors. Plus 2 photographers and 2 shop staff. Altogether they easily outnumbered the readers who'd come to have their copies inscribed. A little embarrassing really. But I guess you have to get inured to such buffetings of fate, if you want to make it big. And get your foto in the Voz de Galicia and the Diario de Pontevedra.

Finally . . . I mentioned the spider I had in my car yesterday Right on cue comes a report shpwing just how dangerous they can be.


Publisher's Note: Hooray. The Members (ex-Followers) of this blog have finally made it to 90, after a long time in the 80s doldrums. I have no idea whether these overlap with the 165 good folk who access it via Google Reader but I do hope they're different. I believe there are other 'Readers' but I don't know what they are and would be pleased to have info on this.

No comments: