Dawn

Dawn

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Nerja is a nice enough place, at least in winter, but I could never live here. There are so many people on sticks or with walking difficulties that one is permanently reminded of decay. This is no one's fault, of course, but I can do without it, preferring to be rejuvenated by youth. At least to some extent.

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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