Dawn

Dawn

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

One gets rather used to reports of financial skulduggery on the part of Spanish politicians but a couple of ‘above average’ items caught my eye today. Firstly, the chap in charge of Planning for the city of Madrid resigned immediately after El Pais told him of plans to expose how he and a few friends had niftily converted an investment of 87,000 euros into 4.3 million. Secondly, the president of the Andalucia region turned up two hours late for a censure debate around the amount of money flowing to his family businesses. One has ambivalent reactions to all this. On the one hand, there is shock that so much of it still goes on. But, on the other, one is impressed that so many people are prosecuted. Overall, I guess things are heading in the right direction.

It’s reported 28% of the population of Portugal would support fusion of their state with Spain so as to form a single Iberian unit. I find this extremely hard to believe but, if it really is true, it possibly means more people are trying to get into Spain than out. All depends on the percentage of Basques and Catalans who are of a secessionist stamp.

The Ana Obregón program I mentioned the other day has been scrapped after only 3 episodes. Viewing figures were disastrously low. In response to this, La Obregón pouted that she had been ‘seeking quality, rather than viewer numbers’. Pretty ironic, then, that she was a million miles from achieving either.

Ya.com are doing their level best to replace Telefonica as number one hate figure in this household. I received a text message this evening saying they’re ‘proceeding with the despatch’ of my replacement router. So, if I’m lucky, I will get it in 2 weeks instead of the 2 or 3 days promised. Plus I’ve just discovered they’re not only charging me even more than Telefonica for calls to mobile phones but that they make it impossible for me to find out their tariff. Is it any wonder that complaints about telecom companies dwarf all others to the Spanish ombudsman?

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