A wonderful cartoon on
the front of the latest edition of Private Eye: It's a foto of all
the politicos who attended the Paris rally in honour of Charlie
Hebdo. They're carrying a banner which reads: Je suis charlatan. Or
Nous sommes tous charlatans. Can't find it right now.
Spain's new
left-of-centre political party - Podemos - is currently ahead in the
polls. This is despite - or because of - not having any policies,
only 'proposals' that will be refined. Meanwhile, the established
parties are doing their utmost to tar Podemos with the same
corruption brush with which they've been besmirched. That's Spanish
politics for you. 'Whatever we're guilty of, you're worse'. Y tú más!
What thick black files they must have on each others. And on their
own people, of course.
The Spanish phrase for
'unfair competition' is competición desleal, usually alleged when
some guild is being dragged out of the Middle Ages. But this
week I've read of administración desleal, which seems to be a crime.
And must mean more than disagreeing with your boss. Though some would
say that many Spanish bosses certainly would like to see this as a
crime. And probably your doctor as well. But, anyway, my research
suggests desleal here means 'abusive' or 'fraudulent'.
Talking of corruption .
. . The president of the Galician government has said there'll be
50 new measures under 3 new laws. I can't help wondering whether all
the abuses to date weren't already criminal under one or other pre-existing law. The problem has not been a shortage of laws but the
complete lack of political will - at regional and national level - to
do anything about the corruption. Until such time as it began to
concern the voters. Which might or might not turn out to be now. We'll find out later this year, at the elections.
As I've mentioned, one
of my challenges of the last 14 years has been to answer the
question: "So, what do you do here?". As I've said, I've
recently taken to saying I'm training to become a dilettante. But
I've hit on a good alternative - viz. I've been practising
mindfulness since I came to Spain. As you may know, this is A state
of active, open attention on the present. Or The intentional,
accepting and non-judgemental focus of one's attention on the
emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment.
And it's taken over from crude cognitive behaviour as the latest
wonder response to (some) depressions. But, anyway, for me it just
means doing what I enjoy doing every day. A privileged position, I
admit. But 'mindfulness' sounds a lot better than 'self-indulgence'.
So, there was a
challenge to Mr Blatter after all. Luis Figo threw his hat into the
FIFA ring only minutes from the deadline. And garnered nil support.
So, onwards and upwards for Sepp. What an organisation. Is it too
much to hope that fans will stay away from Qatar? And will it make
any difference if they do?
I was at first pleased
to read that, in next door Marín, they'll be spending €13,000 on
the control of pigeons and seagulls. And then I realised where these
pests would flee to if the measures are successful. Time to resurrect
my plans for a salt-gun. Or even an electric bird prod. So, far,
though, I've only been able to find prods for cows, and wielding a
90cm stick in Veggie Square might just get me noticed by the
imbeciles who feed the blasted birds. And who might get desleal.
Finally . . . Although
Spain's efforts at sorting waste seem impressive - we have 4
different bins - less effort seems to go into reducing the quantity
of waste. I bought a greetings card yesterday. It came wrapped in
cellophane. But, before I could stop her, the shop assistant had further wrapped it in paper, sealed it with sellotape and put it in a small
plastic bag. Everything gets wrapped like this in Spain. A box of
tablets in the pharmacy, a single screw in the ironmongers and 6 eggs
in a plastic box, for example. Much the same wasteful attitude is
displayed towards water. Which might be forgivable in the Green Third
of Spain but not south of that. This cannot go on. Where is Spain's Green Party?
No comments:
Post a Comment