Dawn

Dawn

Sunday, October 17, 2010

This post is coming to you courtesy of Everton’s win against Liverpool today. And I am back to being sympathetic to the plight of the latter. May they win at least half of the rest of their games this season.

A propos 1 . . . In El País today, the excellent John Carlin addresses the question of why anyone sane would want to buy an English Premier League team. As he says, anyone who invests their money this way would have more chance of getting it back if they chucked it into the sea. Carlin concludes that the new American owners of Liverpool will bleed money in a vainful and vainglorious attempt to achieve what no one else yet has. And that, like their (also American) predecessors, they’ll end up being detested and turfed out by the all-powerful fans. And he’s surely right.

A propos 2 . . . Up in Barcelona, the fans who comprise the ownership of the football club there have voted to take legal action against a recent president. They’re comparing him with the infamous Jesús Gil, recently mentioned in despatches here as the possible model for all the crooks and fraudsters in the South and East currently being taken through the Spanish courts. Although based in Marbella, Gil was the owner of the Atlético Madrid team and I doubt I could do justice to all his criminal activities, even if I knew what they were.

As if all this football-related nonsense wasn’t enough, we’ve also had claims today of members of the FIFA committee demanding huge bribes for their votes on where a future competition will be held. Not hard to believe really, given the sums of money swilling around the game. Which reminds me . . . Wayne Rooney is said to be threatening to leave Manchester United unless he’s paid 170,000 pounds a week. Yes, a week. Perhaps he’s got a pushy wife. Or needs a Formula 1 car for his garage.

Talking of undeserved income . . . I wouldn’t usually put the words ‘austerity’ and ‘Brussels’ in the same sentence but am forced to now that we know that, in contrast to almost every government you can think of, the Eurocrats there are seeking approval for an increase in spending for next year. And who’d bet against them getting it? The national governments – or some of them at least – are said to be unhappy but we will see.

Finally  . . . If there’s one aspect of Spanish life I suspect I’ll never understand it’s the property market. The latest figures suggest a major uplift over the same month last year but this has been dismissed by some as a mini-bubble, brought about by changes in the law on tax allowances from the end of this year. And on the fact the banks are flooding the market with properties at knock-down prices. But who really knows? Time will tell. As ever.


Tailnote for new readers:  Exciting news. The first eight chapters of my daughter’s novel can now be read and/or downloaded in pdf form, for easy reading. It’s a “Fast-paced political thriller but, above all, a personal tale of pride and paranoia.” Set in a fictionalised Cuba, it’s being e-published at the rate of at least a couple of chapters a week. If this entices you, click here.

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