After years of exposure, the stench of corruption
hovers every administration in Spain - at local, provincial, regional
and government level. Which is a tad unfair, as one or two might of
them be quite honest. Not so the Santiago municipal authority,
though, which seems to have been paralysed by the conviction of 7 of
its members for prevaricación. The mayor, though, is refusing
to resign. This not being standard procedure in Spain.
On the same theme . . . Sensitised by events down
in Andalucia, as I walked past a flashy new office of a training
organisation today, I wondered whether it really was a genuine
business or yet another scam designed to siphon off EU funds.
Like English, Spanish has both responsible
and irresponsible. But the latter doesn't mean 'reckless,
rash, careless', etc. but simply 'not responsible'. Much more
logical.
When I have nothing better to do - e. g. when I'm
washing the dishes or cooking - I listen to RT, the Russian
government's TV channel. Its slant on international news is, shall we
say, consistent. More or less what Mr Putin would want you to hear.
So, this evening, it was banging on about the absence of that
fundamental right - freedom of the press - in Ukraine. An emphasis
which would doubtless reduce Pussy Riot to tears.
I sometimes see the letter E on the list of floors
in a list. This stands for the mezzanine floor, called entresuelo
in Spanish. But the word that always springs to my mind is
entrepierna, or 'crotch'.
I feel very sorry for Spain's 17/18 year old's
this week. They had their end-of-college baccalaureate exams last
week and the coming week they have 3 intensive days of 6 Selectividad
exams. The grading seems remarkably complicated to me but you can make up your own mind after reading about here.
Finally . . . I'm off on my third (semi) camino
tomorrow morning, starting in Bilbao. Service may be a tad patchy.
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