The Spanish are
inordinately fond of gin. There's a wide range of international,
national and regional varieties on offer here and there are even bars
which serve no other drinks. I was reminded of this when I was today
given 3 free samples of "tea tonics" sold by Tanqueray. These
seem to be herbal infusions which you chuck into your glass of
(copious) gin. Along with some tonic. I guess I'll get round to
trying it one day.
The ex-president of the
León provincial government left prison yesterday to the applause of his
supporters. He'd been there a while, pending trial for alleged
corruption. Try as I might, I can't see this happening in the UK. Ken
Livingstone?? Is it an example of the picaresque mentality cited
yesterday?
Against the background
of very lengthy trials in a slow judicial system, the Spanish
government is trying to cap the time the initial investigative phase ('instruction') lasts. It wants a mere 18 months for the
'macro' cases, which may just be the ones most likely to involve
corrupt politicians. The judges are resisting, saying the limit will
benefit serious criminals. As it probably will. My money is on the
government.
The Spanish lower house
of parliament has finally passed the "Citizen Security"
Bill. This mis-named piece of legislation will make it easier for the
government to stop the protests it doesn't like and to hit would-be
protesters with huge fines. Including for nasty things said to
Policemen. More here.
If you get the
impression from the last 2 paragraphs that Spain is drifting
rightwards, then you're right, of course. The opposition PSOE party
has vowed to take things back leftwards when they next get into
power. But vamos a ver.
There are now
widespread calls for constitutional change in Spain, reflecting the
problems with Cataluña and the excessive cost of the country's many
levels of government. Madrid, though, rejects the view that the
constitution is unfit for purpose and insists it's not "a toy to
be played with". We can assume it does fit the purpose of
the central government. At least for now.
The English/British
tend to be seen in Spain as ooligans. This is because of the football
hooliganism of 10-15 years ago and TV programs about lascivious life
in the Balearic Islands. Now, though, Spain has its own football
hooliganism problem and there's been a couple of deaths in the last
few weeks. Grounds, it seems, are not equipped to deal with the
violence and it'll be interesting to see how things develop.
On University Challenge
tonight, one team knew none of the required lines from four WW1
anti-war poems but all the relevant names from the Harry Potter
books. At least I was even-handed, not knowing any of the answers.
Moscow's RT propaganda
TV channel is managing to report on plummeting oil prices without even mentioning the devastating impact on Russia. Impressive.
Finally . . . Ain't
life odd at times. Pontevedra is a small city in a relatively unknown
region of Spain and yet both my daughter and a close friend at
university ended up regular visitors to it. My daughter because I
live here and her friend because her Portuguese partner has business
here. Who would have predicted it?
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