I
went this evening with my friend-in-fish, Jon, to see Pontevedra FC
play a team from Vilalbés. To say the least, there weren't many of
us. Maybe 10% of the total capacity of 12,000. And what we saw
provided a possible reason, with Pontevedra going down 0-1.
But
I did enjoy myself trying to figure out the words of the chants from
the local fans. Sad to say, though, the only ones I could make out
were Pontevedra, Arriba(Go!), Puta (Whore) and Hijo de Puta (Son of a
whore). One small aspect of the ground intrigued me and raised
the question of how they could design a clock and scoreboard which
couldn't fit the name of the team. Or, in this case, teams. The home
side was given as PONTEVED and the away team as VILALBÉ. I
was reminded of that piece of advice you used to see on office
walls:–
PLAN
AHEA
D
Talking
about fun . . . In early August, I mentioned the bullfight peñas which every year turn the old quarter into a drunken bacchanalia on
the four nights the corridas are held. Well, someone is very
unhappy about these, fingering them as the main reason why Pontevedra
hotel occupation in July and August was down on predictions. Frankly,
I'm not sure this is a true bill.
Changing
Spain 1: People are increasingly unhappy that the Primera
Liga matches are not known for very far ahead. And nor are the times
of those matches which are. They look with envy at the list of
matches and times for the Premier League games issued before the
start of the British season. Maybe next year.
Changing
Spain 2: There is talk of shops being allowed to open for an
extra hour a day. The astonishing thing (if you're not Spanish) it's suggested this will be at 10 to 11 at night. Not
between 2 and 3, or 3 and 4. I guess this is because the shops know
how hard it would be to get people to give up some of their
three-hour 'midday' break to do their shopping. So best to tack it on
to the end of the day.
A
couple of weeks ago, there was a fiesta in a small village not far
from here – Amil de Los Dos Milagros, I think. Anyway, the highlight of
this was the pinning of money to a statue of the Virgin. Which seemed
to me to be a lot taller than usual, thus maximising the space for
the pinning of notes to. Or is this too cynical?
Can
it really be true? There's an infamous airport at Castellón –
built when times were better – which has no commercial flights at
all. Nor any prospects of any. Nonetheless, five million euros a year
is being spent on advertising the place.
Judging
from the number of septuagenarians and octogenarians crushed by their
tractors in Galicia, farming must be a long and hard life here. There
seems to be one a week.
The
lovely Princess Letizia was 40 over this weekend and the papers
carried a great foto of her. It got me wondering whether, if she'd
been snapped topless on holiday, the Spanish papers would have
carried the pix. I'm guessing not.
Some
comparative data on NiNis- Young people between 15 and 29 who
are neither in work nor studying:-
OECD
average – 16%
Norway,
Holland, Luxembourg – 7%
Germany
– 12%
UK,
USA – 16%
Turkey,
Israel, Mexico, and Spain - 24%
Finally
. . . A Spanish film company has launched Holmes, Watson, Madrid Days. The only thing I know about it right now is that the
Spanish Sherlock smokes cigarettes, not a pipe.
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