British rudeness; The rich get . . . ; Friendship; RT TV; & Daft British taps.

A Spanish reader has written (possibly 3 times) to aver that Brits are ruder than the Spanish. His/her main contention seems to be that the British are colder and less friendly than the Spanish. With which I would wholeheartedly agree. The Spanish certainly are more sociable and I love them for it. But to accuse the Brits of being deliberately rude when they're conforming to a cultural norm, is to misunderstand them. Yes, it is behaviour that would be rude in Spain but isn't considered so in Britain. In the same way, what the Spanish do may seem rude to foreigners but isn't considered so here in Spain. Which is why I said the answer to the question Are the Spanish Rude? is Yes and No.

But, anyway, here's an amusing list of examples of the Brits being stupid in their over-politeness.

I was saying to a Spanish friend the other day that it seemed to me that, while low-end and middle-level shops continued to close in Pontevedra, high-end shops seemed to be increasing in number. So, I wasn't too surprised to read last night that an OECD study shows that "Spain's rich have been left virtually unaffected by the crisis while the poor have seen their incomes seriously dented". Specifically - "The income of Spain's richest 10% fell by only 1% a year from 2007 to 2010. But Spain's poorest 10% saw their income plummet by 14% a year in the same period." This alone would be enough to justify a revolution.

The head of the Environment Agency down in Andalucia has been forced to resign after being accused of illegally connecting his (illegally built) home to water and electricity supplies. In a demonstration of the importance of friendships here, the relevant minister initially refused to do anything about the allegations, saying "I can hardly be expected to ask a friend to show me his utility bills."

RT TV Watch:
What I admire about this Russian channel is that it makes not the slightest attempt to be objective and is vitriolic in its presentation of Moscow's point of view. And it clearly doesn't care who knows this. I wonder who their target audience is. But, anyway, here's a few more recent developments.

- This channel regularly points out that "the West" approved the secession of Kosovo, and asks why it can't, then, do the same for Crimea. What the channel never says is that Russia regards the creation of Kosovo as illegal and has never accepted it. (Nor Spain, for that matter).

- The channel has been caught out using the same actress to play 5 different roles in on-the-street interviews. What's really odd about this is that she's said to be pretty well known. Did they not care about being rumbled?

- More worryingly, the channel has quickly moved its emphasis from how deliriously happy the Crimeans are to how terrified the Russians in East Ukraine are about being maltreated by the "fascist" government in Kiev. While, at the same time, stressing that Mr Putin has said he has no more ambitions for further land-grabs. Actually, there's now a triad of adjectives for the Ukraine government - right wing, fascist and anti-semitic. Occasionally, the phrase Nazi-supporting or neo-Nazi is thrown in as well.

- The poor frightened souls in East Crimea, the channel says, want to imitate the Crimeans and leave Ukraine. And who's to say this won't happen, under the aegis of the astonishingly well-equipped 'self defence units'. By whom the first fatal shots have now been fired.

- Finally, now that Crimea is Russian (again) these self-defence units have become members of the Russian army. Which probably won't come as a surprise to them.

As to whose fault all this is, here's a viewpoint which I share.

Finally . . . One of the things about Britain that Spaniards find very amusing is that there are few 'mixer' taps. The hot and cold taps are separate. But there are public health reasons for this. It's not just an affection for ancient plumbing. For the technically minded - The regulations call for the hot and cold water to be mixed only at the actual point of delivery, not at a valve further back on the water lines. This is because water pressure is lower in the UK than in other countries and there is a greater risk of backflow of (contaminated) water from the hot water supply getting into the cold water supply.