Good news: Spain's jobless total fell in
February, albeit by only a fraction. But, after 6 years of misery for
non-bankers and non-politicians, anything that isn't bad news ranks
as good news.
Bad news: These are the corruption cases
currently going through the Galician courts, all of them involving
civil servants. Accused numbers in brackets:- Pokemón (105);
Campeón(40); Orquesta (26); Muralla (10); Patos
(5). One wonders how they get their names. A competition in the
police HQ? Throwing darts at a dictionary? As I may have said, the Galician President has said the Pokemón case is shocking but there isn't going to be any sort of investigation. Possibly because both major parties are equally implicated and so have made a Devils' pact.
I was a bit surprised to find yesterday that the
film, Philomena, starring Judie Dench and Steve Coogan, has been given the title Philomena in Spanish. This exactitude is
not a common occurrence here and someone will be out of a job if
things continue like this.
This is the time of year when I have to introduce
the character Ravachol. This is a parrot. A 19th century
parrot, to be exact. And it's the large effigy which is paraded
around town in a mock funeral cortege and then immolated in the main square on the
evening of the first Saturday in Lent. Next Saturday, in other
words. Between now and then, sorrowing mourners can register their
names in a book of condolences in a specially constructed kiosk in
the Plaza de la Peregrina. Come the Saturday (Health-&-Safety-free) incineration, there'll be hundreds of these mourners, dressed
in a wide array of costumes, many of them irreligious. And there'll
be a great deal of cross-dressing, something which Spanish males seem
to enjoy more than you'd expect. Anyway, all the details are here.
Incidentally, the most common
effigy along this coast is a sardine but here in my barrio
of Poio and also in the next-door barrio
of Samieira
they favour cockerels called O Bruxo and Fodorico,
respectively. No idea why they've both turned away from the sardine
tradition. But, so long as everyone has - rain permitting - a great
deal of fun, it hardly matters. Actually, Fun, Come What May could well be Spain's national motto. Can anyone put it into Latin?
On the same subject but going wider afield, The Local here provides details of Spain's weirdest Carnival celebrations. Something for everyone.
On the same subject but going wider afield, The Local here provides details of Spain's weirdest Carnival celebrations. Something for everyone.
The ladies who serve in my regular midday bar are
all very pleasant and hard-working, as is true of all Spain. And they
alway take care to ask me whether I want the tapa of tripe or
something else instead. Yesterday, though, the service was exceptional.
First, my glass of shandy was taken away and replenished, on the
grounds the foam had been excessive. Then I was given 4 chunks of
tortilla, followed 10 minutes later by another 4 pieces. Followed
another 10 minutes later by a bowl of cocido, or pork, cabbage
and potatoes. I suspect I was afforded this exemplary treatment
because I'd told the waitress last week she looked elegantisima
and had jocularly asked whether she had a new boyfriend. She'd
replied that she didn't have either a new one or an old one. I wish
I'd known years ago how easy it is to deal with women. My life would
have been so very different.
Finally . . . Here's the BBC News' text on the
recent Chinese New Year: Welcome to the Year of the Whores.
Author's Note: A Galician reader recently
took me to task, gently, for writing of feismo (ugliness) here
in Galicia. So, here's something from yesterday's Voz de Galicia
which is very much to the point.
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