I
was surprised to read that the now infamous British paedophile – Jimmy Savile – was
a Catholic. But I guess the Pope bestowing a Catholic knighthood
should have been a clue. And not just a common or garden Catholic but
a Mass-every-day Catholic. One wonders why. Perhaps be combined Mass
attendance with Confession, in the hope that his sins would be
absolved and the gates of Paradise kept open for him. But my
recollection is that your contrition needs to be genuine and your
resolution to avoid future sin sincere for you to get absolution.
Absent these, the sins remain on your soul and it's the pits of Hell
which remain open for you. So, it's a nice irony to know that, if
Savile was right in his beliefs, then he's surely spending eternity
in an inferno. And if he wasn't, he isn't. And all that
mass-attending and confessing was a waste of time. Though it surely
means that at least one priest out there knew about his activities
for an awful long time. And presumably said nothing. Not even to the
Pope.
Strangely
enough, another branch of Christianity came up today, in a BBC
podcast. This was the Church of Unification, otherwise known as the
Moonies. I hadn't been aware that these people have the fascinating
belief that Jesus Christ failed to carry out his father's orders to
marry and to establish the Divine Family as a model for we Martian
and Venetian strugglers. (As an aside, you'd think God the Father
would have known in advance of Jesus's failure and so moved to Plan
B, but we'll ignore this for now.) Anyway,
after 2,000 years (nothing to God, one assumes) Jesus appeared to the
Rev Moon and asked him if he could make good the divine cock-up and
establish the Divine Family himself. Which the Rev Moon duly did,
amassing substantial sums of money in the process and, say some,
dealing in an expanded concept of 'family' by spreading his seed far
afield. And now he's dead and the Divine Family is proving only too
mortal in disputing the wealth that somehow always accrues to the
founders of religion. Each member is, of course, represented by very
mortal and venial lawyers who could well – à la Jarndyce &
Jarndyce – exhaust the family fortune in due course. And why not.
This could be God's Plan B.
Here
in Spain there are several figures floating around of the number of
empty properties in the country, with a range of 800,000 to
2,500,000. So, if one had to guess at how many properties are still
being built a year in Spain, it would probably be around nil. But,
no, it's 200,000, which were the annual sales before things went mad in the phoney boom (bum)
years and which are way above current levels of demand. Given the
long lead time on Spanish building projects, it's quite possible all
of these were started six years ago. But I rather doubt it. So are
they all being built to a very high standard in high-demand places
where (Russian?) buyers are likely to appear first? I rather doubt
that too. Does it make sense? Well, it must to someone, I guess.
Some
readers will recall my calvario
in getting the various local registries to recognise that I'd sold
my house in the hills in 2011 and, therefore, wasn't liable for the 2012 municipal taxes on it. But, frankly, I wasn't confident that
Peter would tell Paul and that the bill I'd been sent would be
withdrawn. And, of course, it hasn't. It's been re-sent to me, with a
10% surcharge for non-payment. So, now it's the appeal process. Which
I'm guessing won't be simple and quick. Maybe I should go to the
Consumo.
It worked for Yahoo.
I
mentioned Galician white elephants yesterday. Another of these is the
station for the AVE high-speed train up in Ourense, the manor of the political baron I mentioned a week or so ago. This was designed by no less an
architect than Norman Foster and is costing 67m euros. Mind you, the
budget for Vigo's beats that easily, at 95m. Suspiciously, this was
approved just a few days before the PSOE party left power. Rushed
through, one assumes.
Finally
. . . Here's a book I will be ordering and which may be of interest
to a reader or two - Sorry! The
English and their Manners by Henry
Hitchings,
Sorry
if it isn't.
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