Dawn

Dawn

Friday, February 18, 2005

Gerry Adams has now met with the President of Catalunia and shared with him a vision of ‘a Europe of small states’. Except in the case of Ireland, I suppose, as he would like this to get bigger by absorbing Ulster. Mr Adams took the opportunity to admit it’s possible he was wrong about the recent huge bank robbery in Northern Ireland and that the IRA perhaps lied to him about their non-involvement. I couldn’t help noticing that this complete volte-face came just the day before the Irish police arrested 6 people, at least one of whom is an IRA member. But who expects honesty in terrorists? Or politicians.

Here in Galicia a man was arrested this week and charged with being a member of GRAPA, which turned out to the local equivalent of ETA. You can tell how active and effective they are from the fact that, after more than 4 years here, I'd never even heard of the organisation.

Yesterday, I added this to the Property section of my web page on Galicia - Always remember that business in Spain is very local, very oral and very personal. Right on cue, a local paper has reported that “20% of young Galicians have to emigrate to get work.” What this turns out to mean is that they go to the extraordinary extreme of leaving the province. This, of course, is a drastic step as it means you have to leave your parents’ home and rely on your own income. In Spain, this is not usually done until one marries. Or even later.

I’m relieved that no one has written to tell me that it should have been umble pie and not humble pie yesterday. I did know this but decided to ignore it. Needless to say, Word’s Spellcheck doesn’t recognise umble. Or spellcheck.

In case you’re interested in my web page on Galicia, it is colindavies.net

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