Dawn

Dawn

Friday, May 29, 2009

A survey by the Spanish consumers’ group OCU reveals - if that’s the right word - that the most expensive supermarket in the country is that of the department store El Corte Ingles. And that the Pope is a Catholic. I await astonishing revelations about Telefonica.

Over the years, I’ve touched on the motley groups of beggars who brighten our lives down in Pontevedra. The oddest fraternity is that of apparently middle-class, middle-aged men who sit on shop doorsteps with a cardboard placard in front of them saying they have a family but no income. Unlike several of the other groups, they don’t go in for any form of importuning, beyond a hang-dog air of sad down-at-heelness. I’ve never been too sure of their bona fides, as it were, but suspicions of professionalism were awakened on seeing them in both Pontevedra and Vigo on different days. And this week, I noticed at least two - and possibly three - of them were working Pontevedra on the same morning. Not conclusive evidence of a cooperative, I appreciate, but it helps me feel better about giving them no more than I give the Rumanian women who plaintively scream “Ajudame, senor!” every time I pass. Now, the street buskers are something else. By which I mean the talented ones, of course. Not the ragged youths with exhausted-looking dogs who murder tunes on a penny whistle or toss a pathetic diablo into the air and get their faux-smiling girlfriends to shove a filthy cap under your nose.

It was announced today that the AVE high-speed train between Barcelona and France will be running by 2012. Depending of whom you believe, this will be 2, 4, 6 or even 8 years before we here in Galicia are connected with Madrid. Which says it all really.

Talking of trains, the existing line between Vigo and La Coruna passes over a low bridge in a nearby barrio where the town’s slaughter house is situated. After yet another disruption brought about by a truck hitting the bridge, this week the local council erected a sort of frame with dangly bits, designed to warn drivers they couldn’t pass under it. Yesterday, they took this down again so that a truck full of pigs could get to its destination. The pigs were reported to be more than disappointed.

Which reminds me - The Spanish for a botched job is ‘chapuza’. And ‘chapuzar’ is to duck, and ‘una chapuzon’ a dip in the sea. The latter were very much in the news today as, after a pretty cold Monday, temperatures have soared this week, reaching the mid 30s in Pontevedra today. It being almost June, the hidebound-by-convention Spanish feel it’s now permissible to go to the beach in droves, even though it’s technically still only spring and not summer. When I mentioned to some Spanish friends last night I’d actually been to the beach several times during the surprise heatwave of February and March, they seemed dumbfounded by my solecism. It’s just not done, apparently. Not in Galicia anyway.

Finally, an apposite comment from a British columnist on the continuing scandal of MPs expense claims . . . ”The willingness of MPs from all parties to fabricate excuses, blame the system and dodge accountability reflects a wider British malaise, one which has become much worse after 12 years of Labour nannying: the replacement of personal responsibility with a culture of entitlement and grievance.” I blame Mrs Thatcher. Though I never used to.

Apologies for the lack of accents. My daughter’s Mac is a mystery to me. My own laptop is still in intensive care. And my car in the mortuary.

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