Dawn

Dawn

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

The number of deaths in the Spanish workplace fell by 11% in 2007, the largest reduction in ten years. This is said to be due to an increase in safety inspections. Not before time, obviously.

Another interesting piece of recent news is that rural tourism in Spain has increased by 93% over the past five years. This will be welcome to those Brits who’ve bought properties in the hills of Galicia with the intention of setting up a B&B/casa rural. Which, as far as I can tell, is just about all of them.

Several Pakistanis have been arrested in Barcelona, in connection with a planned terrorist atrocity there. Spain is said to be at the top of al-Qa'eda’s hit list and one wonders why. Is it the Andalus factor? Or do they just think the police are less efficient here? I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.

I read last night that Another knock-on effect of the fall in the construction sector is the loss of jobs among electricians and plumbers across the country. I wonder if this means the one I’ve been waiting three months for will now turn up. Or whether he’s still too busy working on the numerous sites I can see from my windows. Where’s the bloody slowdown when you need it?

Election Special

The PP party says every child in Spain will be bilingual within 10 years if they get in. Or trilingual in the case of those who have Gallego, Basque or Catalan as well as Spanish and English.

The PSOE Socialist party says it will raise pensions wholesale.

And the Galician Nationalist Party says we’ll have the AVE high-speed connection with Madrid within a week of it being put in power.

I only made one of these up.

Galicia Facts

Although the region’s depopulation is taking place primarily in the rural hinterland, there’s one spot on the coast where things are pretty bad. Here, only 25% of the population has work. Appropriately, it’s called the Costa del Muerte, or the Coast of Death. Or Costa do Morte, if you prefer Gallego. It’s a Celtic tradition to have one of these.

The Pontevedra town council has an approach to urban development which is probably best described as a mix of modernist and traditionalist. What this means is that they sometimes get it very right and sometimes very wrong. An example of the former is the way they’re landscaping the area around a new archaeological site they’re keeping open to view down by the river. Examples of the latter include the monstrous new museum in sheet granite and glass and the repulsive street furniture made of what I think is galvanised zinc. To be added to these must be the world’s largest and ugliest zebra crossing. This is massively wide and rises six inches above the road on either side of it. As if this weren’t enough, it’s flanked by eight metal poles about three feet [90cm] in height, the tops of which flash red and green in sync with the traffic lights. Of course, our council is a coalition of socialists and nationalists so it’s possible the split personality of urban development is down to this. Though I can only guess which is modernist and which traditionalist. The nationalist-controlled town of Allariz possibly provides a clue. Anyway, if and when my digital camera recovers from Sudden Death Syndrome, I will post a picture or two of at least the zebra crossing that thinks it’s a Christmas decoration.

No comments: