Life in Spain; Sky News; & Sin Pagando

Life in Spain

• There were 8 assisted suicides of Spaniards in Switzerland between 2008 and 2012. This compares with 126 Brits and 268 Germans, for example.
• As a Brit in Spain, one has to contend with the extreme views of Spaniards on one's compatriots - the decorous Royals at one end, and the Magaluf trash at the other. They both get more attention than they merit.
• Following the sudden and drastic reduction of subventions to the wind-farm industry last year, only one turbine has been erected in Spain in the last 6 months. Fortunately it wasn't on my horizon, where I can already see 70 of the bloody things.
• The ability of Spanish testators is severely limited by the Spanish Civil Code of 1989, which obliges them to leave certain amounts to spouse(s) and children. But there are signs that judges are allowing more flexibility, against a background of calls for it from all parties involved - notaries, lawyers and families. Whether there'll ever be the Anglo ability to leave everything to a pet hamster remains to be seen.
• To widespread acknowledgment, the Prosecutor General has said that "Not everyone is interested in swift and efficient justice." The entire corporate-political nexus for one.
• Spain's interior minister has said the government will consider banning burqas under the planned new security legislation. These, by the way, are referred to by Madrid as "Citizen Protection Laws", as against the more correct term - "Government Repression Laws". Or "Franco Light Laws".
• EU figures show that Spain has suffered more from brain drainage during La Crisis than many other Western European countries. 5,500 professionals have come here from elsewhere (mainly Germany and Italy) but 18,400 have emigrated. Which is worrying.

On Sky News tonight, the lead item is the poor kid going to Prague for medical treatment, not the most important British political event in 300 years, the imminent break-up of the United Kingdom. What does that tell you? As The Times puts it: This is the biggest event in British politics in living memory; the No campaign needs to wake up to the Scottish play’s tragic ending. It is a play all about those who would “wrongly win”. It ends in the death of a dear thing thrown away, as it were a careless trifle. [Macbeth]

Finally . . . Just in case you ever need it - Doing a (restaurant) runner in Spain is called a simpa - from sin pagar, 'without paying'. Despite the spelling, the pronunciation appears to be the logical sinpa.

Stop-press: I've just had a call from "The Windows Department", in the form of a Chinese woman wanting to fix my computer. Which is odd as I don't use Windows. I should have strung her along but I elected to say goodbye with 2 popular words and hung up before we could get into discussion of my passwords and bank account.