The CAP; FU; Life in Spain; & Photobombing.

It's well known that France gets a humungous EU subsidy via the Common Agricultural Policy but I was intrigued to see this described today as 'war reparations' that Germany (and the rest of us) will eventually tire of making. Actually, the Brits have been tired of it for years, especially after seeing the EU destroy its fishing industry.

HT to my blogging colleague, Lenox Napier, who cited this week in Business Over Tapas the strange case of the €20,000 prize to the son of the advertising agency who offered it. As on numerous other occasions - especially with politicians - one gets the impression that the attitude is: We know you know we're stealing from you but we don't care. Fuck you. What will stop it?

Life in Spain: Sometimes in Spain - as with the draft return you get from the tax office and the ability to change it on line - you feel you're well into the 21st century. At other times - perhaps more often - you feel you've regressed well into the 20th century. So it was today, when I asked my gestor to cancel my insurance policy before the 2 month threshold is passed. "Oh, no", he said. "You have to come into the office with your ID so that we can copy it and send it with a registered letter signed by you to the insurance company.". Given that I could do all this by phone or on the net in the UK, you can imagine my irritation. But needs must. The gestor, by the way, is quite possibly a 19th century creature, instituted so that those with more money than time could find a way through the Spanish bureaucracy.

Life in Spain 2: The ugly Hotel Algarrobico down south has, after 10 years, been found by the Andalucian Supreme Court to have a legal building licence. But that's not the end of things; it has yet to be decided whether it was built on 'edificable' land. If any anyone can explain this, please do. How can there be a legal licence to build on land on which it's illegal to build? Obviously I'm missing something.

I mentioned recently a road in town which has a semi-operative roundabout at each end. Another thought struck me today as I walked down it: I hardly ever see a car in it. Just as I thought this a car appeared, ignoring the one-way system.

Finally . . . I executed my first photobomb today, behind a family of about 10 adults and kids, who are going to find they've got a panama-hatted guiri at the back of them. Don't know whether to feel proud or ashamed.