As in the UK, politics
in Spain are confusing right now. Some polls give the new leftist
party, Podemos, a clear lead over the PP and the fading PSOE. Others,
however, don't. There's even talk of the PP and the PSOE, the
traditional beneficiaries of Spain's two-party system, forging a
coalition in the event of a hung parliament. They've recently got together to
knock out a united policy on terrorism, though they've shown no
ability to do this in respect of the corruption which is even more of a
concern to the electorate. The good news is that the UK elections
will be over in May. Here in Spain we have to wait until November, I
think. Will Sr Rajoy debate with his peers in PSOE and Podemos?
I doubt it, in view of his charisma bypass. Televisual he ain't,
while the other 2 certainly are. Indeed, the PSOE leader appears to
have been chosen specifically with this in mind, as other talents are
yet to emerge.
I alluded to
pseudo-Francoist utterings from the PP party the other day. Here's a
good example from one of their parliamentary deputies:- 'If Podemos
wins, they could be the last democratic elections in Spain'.
Translation: 'Don't let in the Trotskyist Communists who'll slaughter
the priests and rape the nuns.'
The word 'affair', to
my knowledge, has always implied that at least one of the parties was
married. But today I've seen it used of a couple in which both were single
and merely 'dating'. So, is this a new usage? Or just a mistake?
Perhaps it was felt appropriate because both of them are French - albeit
one a gendarme and the other a suspected terrorist.
Talking to my cleaner
the other evening about her daughter, I learned that the latter may
just be in line for a job, if she does well in her Maestro oposición
exams. If she's successful, she'll be sent off to a primary school
anywhere in Galicia. She has no say in the matter. But the odds are
not good. Because of cuts in recruitment, there've been no oposición exams for the
last 4 or 5 years and it's not unknown for the results to be fiddled
to favour candidates known to the examiners. So, can she work elsewhere in Spain? Sort of. She can't work in the Basque Country,
Cataluña or Valencia regions because each of these has a local language
requirement. By the same token, of course, no one from anywhere else
in Spain can work here in Galicia unless they speak Gallego. Which is
probably unlikely. Not much of a meritocracy.
Here's a foto of some
steps I passed yesterday. They don't go anywhere and just stop in mid
air. Presumably they used to go somewhere but are now seen as a waste
of money to dismantle.
Finally . . . I cited
a while ago the songs we used to sing in my primary school, at a time
- they say - when at least one teacher in every school could play the
piano. Now, alerted by reader Perry, I've recalled that we also used
to learn poetry off by heart. Lines that spring to mind are:
Is there anyone there said the traveller,
knocking at the moonlit door,
as his
horse in silence chomped the grass
of the forest's fearny floor.
and
close bosom friend to the
maturing sun,
conspiring with him how to load and bless with fruit
the vines that round the thatched eaves run.
But the one I recall
with most affection is Chesterton's wonderful peon of praise to
English drinking and eccentricity, beginning:
Before the Roman came
to Rye
or out to Severn strode,
the rolling English drunkard
made the
rolling English road.
I've often quoted these lines to myself when
driving over England's hills and dales. What I didn't know is that it
was aimed - in 1913 - at preventing in the UK the sort of Prohibition
laws recently enacted in the USA. But, anyway, here's the whole
poem, with its tremendous last line. Best read out loud.
Before the Roman came
to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English
drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a
rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the
parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy
road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to
Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.
I knew no harm of
Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the
Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their
baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the
crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went
down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to
Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.
His sins they were
forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the
hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went
from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was
above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor
harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to
Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.
My friends, we will not
go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of
our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer
eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in
evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news
yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to
Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
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