Dawn

Dawn

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Today I did around 100 kilometres on a local motorway. Having decide to drive at a fuel-conserving 100kph, I thought it’d be a good idea to count the number of vehicles I had to overtake at this sedate speed. This turned out to be a handful of trucks labouring up hills and, would you believe, a funeral cortege. The latter was a twofold surprise. Firstly, I’d never seen one on a motorway before and, secondly, I would have predicted that even a fully-loaded hearse would exceed the speed limit in Spain.

Possibly an even bigger surprise was seeing 2 pilgrims on the hard shoulder of the motorway, en route to Santiago. Although the signs don’t specifically ban pilgrims, I feel sure they fall under the heading of pedestrians. Especially those not wearing the luminous jackets we drivers are now obliged to wear when we exit our cars. They’ll certainly need God’s blessing to survive the trek.

In what I suspect is a first for Spain, a major gas company has made a hostile takeover bid for an electric company. To my surprise, the Minister for Health also turns out to be the secret Minister for Consumers and she’s said their interests must not be damaged. Financial commentators appear to think this is the only thing about the affair that’s guaranteed. The added political dimension is that the attacker is Catalan and the victim isn’t. Perhaps this is why the Spanish government is talking about putting the problem in the EU’s court.

Which reminds me, Aragon is the latest region [or ‘Autonomous Community’] to demand that its ‘historical rights’ be included in a new statute of cohabitation with the Spanish state. At this rate, by the time the Gibraltarians are ready to join Spain, there won’t be much of it left.

Image of the Week

The growing power of the mass media enabled many of the evils of the age. Northcliffe emerges as a terrible megalomaniac who died raving on a rooftop, having tried to phone his newsdesk with the story that God was a homosexual.

Reviewer of a book on the first half of the 20th century.

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