There's
a trio of cafés in the centre of old town, flanked by two bank
branches. Strangely, these both belong to Banco Sabadell. One wonders
why. And whether they're connected by a corridor behind the cafés.
The
favourite fish down here seems to be rosada. I enjoyed a few
plates of it before reading in an English menu that it's the (pink) hake
that's so bloody ubiquitous in Galicia! Though I suspect it isn't.
I
haven't watched the Pistorius circus with any great interest but I
noted that his defence lawyer had today shredded the senior police
officer during a bail hearing. So, perhaps Oscar does now have a leg
to stand on.
I'm
halfway through Antony Beevor's
Berlín: La Caida. 1945. It has
a cover picture of the city in ruins and it struck me today that it
possibly wasn't the best thing to have on the table when surrounded
by Germans. Still, they'd never catch me, even if they made good use
of their sticks.
Just
before the Russians advanced on Berlin in April 1945, the
Philharmonic Orchestra gave its last performance there. One of the
pieces was the signal for the musicians to leave the city with all
due dispatch. On an overcrowded train the next day, there was a great
deal of 'defeatist' moaning about the city's terrifying predicament.
Until a much-decorated soldier gave everyone pause for thought with
the comment that they had to win the war since, if the Russians only
did a fraction of what German troops had done in Russia, there'd be
no one left alive in the city.
Like
being the birthplace of Columbus, the honour of having been the first
place in Spain to have had a football team is much fought over. The
claimants are Villagarcia(Galicia) 1873; Minas de Riotinto 1878: and
Sevilla 1873. Each, of course, insists that the claims of others are
fraudulent and at least one pseudo academic thesis had been written
on this serious subject. In which the Villagarcia claim is dismissed
as a fraud. Of course.
I
talked about Santander's approach to its customers yesterday.
Sometimes one can hardly believe the accounts of evictions here in
Spain, especially against the backcloth of the suicides – three one
day last week – which follow in their wake. The latest to be
reported is that of an 85 year old woman, said be evicted after
defaulting on only one month's payment. Though in this case execution
of the sentence was prevented by her neighbours. The government has
said it will be doing something. If so, I'm sure there several
process models available from countries in which capitalism is less
red in tooth and claw than it sometimes is here in Spain.
Finally
. . . The company which organises the Miss Spain competition has gone
into receivership. Things are now really serious. Let's hope this is
the nadir from which Spain will begin to bounce back.
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