As
for these cuts . . . I don't have a full understanding but there
seems to have a been a wide range of reductions in benefits -
something perhaps totally unthinkable in France. Or even the UK.
These have included a cut in payments to the disabled (in those
regions where these were actually implemented), in healthcare
provision and in assistance for poor kids in the payment of school
meals and text books. Reports of harsh evictions regularly appear in
the papers and each time they do one wonders how many bankers,
politicians and senior businessmen have been turfed out of their
homes. Or even forced to 'downsize'. As I've said, there are
countrywide protests against the cuts this weekend but I can't be
alone in believing these will have no effect whatsoever. What's
really needed is a revolution.
Meanwhile
- to no one's great surprise, I'm sure - the judge in the trial of
the ex Treasurer of the ruling PP party has said there's evidence the party used illegal donations to pay the architect of its HQ
renovation in black. This is despite the insistence that all the
accusations are "Lies, lies and more lies". Being of the
right, the PP sadly can't avail itself of the the other standard
Spanish defence: "You're a fascist to say that."
The
murder trial in Santiago: A journalist on our Voz
de Galicia
has insisted that the parents of the child aren't yet on trial and
expressed the fear that "we have ahead of us a
long parallel trial by media.” Given that we've had this for months
already, this is a pretty safe bet. The question is - What is anyone
going to do about it? My guess is nothing.
At
dinner with friends last night, there was discussion of the drug
smuggling along our coast and the devastation it caused when the
drugs leaked into the local community when kids were paid partly in
heroin for help in bringing shipments ashore. Particularly affecting
was the story of the all-conquering Vilanova 1982 football team, who all got
involved in this, leading to the early deaths of 7 of them.
On
a happier Galician note, here's a TurGalicia video issued in the USA
I
regularly say the Spanish are a very pragmatic people. Another
example occurred in a shop yesterday, when I was third
in the queue and the person whom the owner was dealing with went off
to look at something on the shelves. In Britain, I doubt whether the
woman in front of me would've said anything but would've waited for
the owner to ask what she wanted. Not here. The woman seized the
opportunity to tell him what she wanted and he started to
(efficiently) deal with 2 customers at the same time. Mind you, this
can be taken to extremes, when someone comes from the back of a long
queue and asks a shop assistant a question while you're talking to
him/her. Possibly annoying but still pragmatic and, from the point of
view of the enquirer, efficient.
Finally
. . . While I detest the pigeons that crowd round my table and
attempt to steal peanuts, I take a far more benevolent view of the
sparrows who sit at the edge of the table and wait for me to give
them something. Best of all, just before they take half a peanut,
they each give a squeak, as if of gratitude. Here's one of them.
By
the by, we've had a new development this week. Magpies, while
aggressive and even murderous, are normally cautious birds. But a young
one has taken to competing with the pigeons and it seems a lot
smarter than them. Though this shouldn't come as a surprise, given
that a pigeon will keep coming even when I'm smacking it with the
menu each time it gets within reach. Bird-brained, I guess. Or bloody
hungry.
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