Dawn

Dawn

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Daft denuncias; Shitty Spanish; Spanish shrinkage; Covetous Catholics; Spanish smokers; & Dead birds.

If you take offence at a neighbour's activity here in Spain, you can take him/her to court via a denuncia. My impression is the concept of a frivolous action doesn't exist here. And that, although you have to go through them, the police don't act as any sort of gatekeeper, able and willing to say something like "Don't you think this is a bit trivial for the courts?" Or "We don't get involved in 'domestics'". And so anything goes. Or seems to. For yesterday I was told of a case of a woman who made a denuncia against her husband for spending too much time with his ex-wife when visiting their kids. The obvious questions are - Can any of this really be true? And, if so, does this help to explain why Spanish courts are overwhelmed and why justice is so slow here?

As I've said, there's a lot of rude words and phrases (palabrotas) in Spanish. Perhaps one of the more versatile is Cago en . . . Or I shit on . . . Basically, the object can be modified to cause maximum irritation to your listener. I shit on your mother, or I shit on the Pope, as the case may be. And then there's the blasphemous I shit on God. As I say, very versatile. And possibly shocking, if you're not Spanish. The Catalans, by the way, appear to have something of an obsession with defecation. Their Xmas cribs are adorned by various squatting celebrities, one of which this year will be Gareth Bale, the footballer who went from Tottenham to Madrid at possibly a record price.

Interesting to note that, if current trends continue, then Spain could:
1. have a declining population by 2017, and
2. overtake Italy as the EU's second largest exporter of food and drink by 2020.
Yes, Spain's birth rate is expected to fall below its death rate in 2017 and by 2023 the population is forecast to have fallen by 6% to 44.1m. MInd you, it rose by 10% during the boom years, which came to an end in 2007/8.

There was a column in yesterday's El País bemoaning the fact that Spain had hardly moved on from the 70s in respect of the still-powerful Catholic Church. Also in the paper was a report on a legal spat between a leading Archbishop and an association which had inherited some valuable tapestries. The association wanted to sell them and to use the ample proceeds to help the needy. The cleric wanted them to adorn a cathedral in Madrid. Is it any wonder that the vast majority of Spaniards are antipathetic to the Church? And what is the new riches-averse Pope going to do about this emblematic struggle? Or indeed about the obscene wealth already in the hands of his prelates. Not to mention the Vatican itself. A second Reformation, but this time top-down?

Carlos Fabra, the man responsible for Castellón's (non)airport has been sentenced to 4 years in gaol for money laundering/tax evasion. However, he was found innocent of influence peddling and bribery. Now comes the appeal. And then quite possibly a pardon. Will he ever languish in gaol? I suspect not. My bet is the sentence will be reduced to 2 years on appeal, meaning he'll never have to serve it. Ya veremos.

Since it fitted with my own sad observations, I wasn't surprised to read that young Spanish women smoke more than their male counterparts. Or indeed than anyone in Spain. Or all of the EU and OECD countries for that matter. As if that weren't bad enough, Spain has the highest percentage of 15+ smokers in the entire world. That, of course, is the Spanish circle of Hell - a small room where all the women and many of the men are smoking their lungs out and everyone is - between drags - shouting at each other simultaneously, by way of conversation. That's why I always carry a cyanide pill. Por si acaso.

Finally . . . The redstart in my garden the other day was on its way to Africa for the winter but is unlikely to make it. Millions of the feathered voyagers are brought down by Spanish hunters every autumn. The rest of the year they presumably enjoy themselves by shooting fish in barrels.

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