Picking
up a brochure for Cuidad Real in my Valdepeñas hotel yesterday, I
noticed the cover sketch included a Concorde taking off from the
city's airport. The latter, of course, is the infamous billion dollar
ghost facility, which has never seen any plane take off from
it, never mind a Concorde. It seemed rather appropriate in its
grandiosity.
Which
reminds me . . . I was invited by some good friends to join them for
lunch in Madrid yesterday and to meet a large-breasted Galician bird.
This turned out to be a pularda - a female chicken - or, to
give it its technical name, a hen - which has been sterilised to
promote growth. And very tasty she was too.
The
only rationale I've heard from the Spanish government for taking the
abortion law back 30 years is that it will "Take back the moral
high ground from the Left". And the only defence there's been of
something opposed by the majority of the electorate has been that the
measure was promised in the party's manifesto. The best response to
this nonsense is that so were a wide range other things that haven't
been delivered. Witness this extract from a recent letter to El
País: I read the argument that the new abortion law will be
enforced to comply with the PP party's election manifesto. This zeal
to fulfil what was promised is commendable - so rare when it should
be normal - but I'd like to see this commitment extended to the
lowering of taxes, to economic growth, to job creation, to government
transparency, to reconciliation, to equality, to combating
corruption, to a credible and effective foreign policy, to more
social policies designed to improve education and health care, and to
nil interference with the independence of the judiciary. Chance
would be a fine thing.
Finally
. . . A couple of years ago I suggested the traffic police could do
worse than equip me with a buttonhole camera so I could snap all the
drivers I saw every day on their phones, inter alia. Well, someone
has come up with an idea which not only does something similar but
also helps to reduce Spain's huge unemployment figures. Enjoy.
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