Moving to the macro level - The mood music from
both Madrid and Brussels continues to be that Spain has turned the
corner and growth is imminent. Let's hope so but, so far,
there's little real evidence of this. Especially if you're unemployed
and your 2 years of benefit have run out.
Times have, of course, been austere for a while
now and cuts have been made in various government services. But it
was surprising - shocking even - to read that the biggest cuts to 2014
expenditure will be in healthcare, at 36%. This compares with just a
5% cut in total government expenditure. The Ministry of Industry, on
the other hand, will see expenditure increase by 32%. I guess it
makes sense to someone.
The ruling PP party, like all modern parties, is a
broad church. Being right-of-centre in Spain, this means it must
accommodate not only the Catholic Church but also the uber-Catholic
organisation Opus Dei. And so it is that some of the reforms of the
last PSOE 'socialist' government are being rolled back, most obviously in
the highly emotional area of abortion. It was always inevitable
that the Church would seek to (re)strengthen its hold on education and to
see Religion given what it sees as its rightful place
in the curriculum. And so it is that the government has, firstly,
abolished the ('atheistic/communist') subject of Citizenship and
Human rights from school syllabuses and, secondly, has restored
Religion to full academic status. Having said that the PP party is a
broad church, one does wonder whether, in fact it has any members who are
centrist. Or even just-right-of-centrist. If so, they appear to be voice-less.
I've mentioned that we have major roadworks on our
side of the river and that the town planners are trying to divert
traffic over a new bridge and away from them. The day before they
started a spokesman said the works were scheduled for 2 months but
admitted there'd be problems. Sure enough, Day 1 was pretty
chaotic because - in this rainy part of Green Spain - no one thought
that leaving the painting of signs until the last moment would risk
not having them ready in time. The second problem was even bigger;
during Days 1 and 2 there were plenty of police from different forces
on hand to stop drivers using an objective-busting rat run up
through my barrio. But they gave up on Day 3 and now this is
the equivalent of an autopista. And the new bridge remains as
unused as ever. Which is fine by me, as it's my own personal rat run. The best laid schemes of mice and men . . .
This is a must-see video of someone's worst
nightmare. As Maria João Pires prepares to play a Mozart piano
concerto with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, she hears the orchestra
start playing a different concerto. She panics a little but then,
encouraged by a conductor who can hardly stop the music and let her
get off, she calls on her phenomenal memory and ability to play the
concerto she was totally unprepared for. What a work of art is
(wo)man.
Talking about
music . . . This is someone's idea of the best violin
concerto. I googled this because my impression was that most, if not all, violin concertos were in a minor key. It turns
out that 70% of these are. But the first 3 positions are taken by
works in a major key. Actually all in D major. Does anyone
know why the minor keys predominate?
1. Beethoven Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61
2. Brahms Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77
3. Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
4. Saint Saëns Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor,
Op. 61
5. Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 64
6. Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26
7. Wieniawski Violin Concerto No. 1 in F# minor,
Op. 14
8. Sibelius Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47
9. Dvorak Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 53
10. Wieniawski Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor,
Op. 22
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