There's no place like home?

A late night, slightly drunken telephone conversation in the early hours of the morning, offered me a safe haven in Cardiff if the situation in Catalonia descended into chaos as a result of from the referendum for independence.  While much appreciated, I felt the offer was unnecessary and made me think about early warfare.

In history going back, say, to the Middle Ages, battles could take place and, unless you were in the immediate vicinity, you probably wouldn’t know about them.  If you were living in another part of the country, you might never find out about them.  Royal houses might rise and fall and, unless you were near the centre of activity or could read, it would always be something going on beyond your imagination - and have nothing to do with the quotidian duties of your daily life.

Today with television, radio and social media there is a (grainy) immediacy to important events as everyone with a functioning telephone uses it to take pictures or film of what they can see.  The Spanish national police brutality during the referendum in Catalonia on the first of October was captured in a horrific gallery of professional and amateur images that flashed around the world.  A friend of mine held an umbrella over a television company’s camera to capture the full violence of the Spanish police trying to stop voting in her local school - one of the focal points of trouble in Barcelona and the site of many injuries to citizens trying to vote.  No sooner had we seen one image of unprovoked barbarity than another succeeded it.  But, and this is my point, the violence was ‘over there’ in Barcelona, not ‘here’ in Castelldefels.

The scenes at our polling station (in fact my medical centre) were cheerfully chaotic.  Yes there were police there, but they did nothing to impede the vote.  Yes, when Toni came to vote there was a delay as the polling staff retrieved the hidden ballot boxes that had been put in a place of safety because of the threat of a police raid, but he was able to vote and had his photograph taken to prove that he had done so.  Yet 19 kilometres away from us Spanish police were swinging batons, dragging people by the hair, breaking fingers, firing rubber bullets and bloodying faces.

The next day there were demonstrations throughout Catalonia to protest against the police brutality.  Our demonstration was in front of the city hall.  It was well mannered and polite: kids were playing and people were sitting in the cafes drinking coffee.  It’s a week from the day of the referendum.  It’s sunny and Saturday.  The paseo next to the beach is filled with promenading visitors.  I can hear the sound of the sea as I type and not the rumble of encroaching tanks!  Life goes on.

And even if the representative of the Spanish government’s ‘apology’ for the brutality was on the we’re-sorry-anyone-was-hurt-but-you-Catalan-people-are-to blame level, it does at least admit that the publicity was the most disastrous own goal since the last corruption scandal of this scandal-prone minority government.

Having seen how badly Spain has been presented throughout Europe, surely the reasoning goes, they will do virtually anything to stop a repeat of what they did.

The key word in that last paragraph is ‘reasoning’ and the key part of that word is ‘reason’.  Unfortunately that is not something that seems to guide PP in their approach to anything, least of all Catalonia.

Even if politicians in Spain seem incapable of finding a solution to what could be a fatal problem in the modern history of this country, there have been no shortages of advice from commentators from around the world.

As a dyed-in-the-wool Guardian reader I have to admit that I have taken most of my information from that newspaper, together with a judicious seasoning from the BBC and my final position is I suppose based on a hopeful fudge.

Although I think that the present situation is largely the fault of PP and President Rajoy, that is in the past and recriminations (no matter how necessary for one’s state of mind) do nothing to help the present position.  Both sides in recent days have conceded something by toning down their rhetoric and, although a realistic settlement seems as far away as ever, there are signs that both sides are looking for some sort of compromise.  I hope.

Let’s face it, even though the fact that the referendum took place in spite of the paranoid opposition of the government is something to be admired, the real facts of the situation are that only 42% of the electorate voted and, even though 90% of the votes case were for independence, that means that something like 36% voted for it.  Realistically, how can a country where only just over a third of the electorate voted for independence expect to be taken seriously?

But you also have to consider that in a country where the whole might of the government (with police brutality to the forefront) was unable to stop an ‘illegal’ referendum, the fact that over a third of the electorate voted to become independent suggests that there is something seriously wrong with the way that government is being implemented at the moment!

The unity of Spain is a concept that is worthwhile and positive, but that cannot be used as something to nullify any discussion about why such a sizeable and vocal minority of a constituent autonomous region is so deeply dissatisfied.

Perhaps it is too late for the German model to be used for Spain to reform Catalonia as a republic of federal state, but it does seem to me to be the best way forward.

But before that, there will have to be meaningful discussions and negotiations where everything is on the table and nothing (including another binding referendum) is excluded.

Next week could see the proclamation of UDI.  If that happens then Rajoy has not ruled out the imposition of rule from Madrid.  I shudder to think of the extent of civil disobedience if that is his chosen option.  The police, whose reputation was wiped out on October 1^st, are still here as a shadow army for possible occupation.  And there are of course, the armed forces themselves.  Rajoy has said that he has ruled out nothing to support his adamant assertion that UDI will not take place.

Reality is about to get a little sharper.  By Tuesday we should know what route our politicians have taken.

Keep watching Catalonia.

A Rant!

The Trouble with present day Spain is that there is not enough politics.

That statement may appear on the surface to be a little strange.  We are governed by one of the most corrupt political parties in Western Europe; the number of officials, associates, patrons and general moneyed riff-raff connected to PP that have been, are being or are going to be tried is astonishing.  The Prime Minister has just given evidence in a corruption scandal involving the finance of his party (in which all previous treasurers have been indicted); a previous PP associate and head of a bankrupt bank has just committed suicide; a previous head of the PP government of Valencia has died before she could be investigated thoroughly - well, you get the idea.  Each day brings new scandals and precisely nothing of moment is done about them.

The present government is a minority one.  We have over the past couple of years plodded our weary way through a few elections where the left has thrown away its advantage and allowed the corrupt PP with the help of the sluttish C’s and the abstention of the so-called socialist party PSOE to form a government which has done precisely nothing to remedy the corruption which is rife in the system - how can they when they are precisely the ones who would suffer if anything substantial could be done.

A clear example of the compromised system that we have is clearly illustrated by the Prime Minister giving his evidence.  He was dragged into the Gürtel Case

(you can find out more about this astonishing case here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCrtel_case ) much against the wishes of the governing party as you can imagine.  However, the Prime Minister did agree to give evidence, but we soon discovered that he was not going to give evidence in quite the same way as other witnesses.

You have to imagine the scene: the body of the courtroom in front of the judges is taken up with seats for the accused and a section for the press.  As there are so many accused they leave no room for virtually anyone else.  Each witness sits at a little desk with a microphone, directly in front of the judges.  Behind them are the motley faces of those thieves accused of stealing over a billion euros from the public purse, and of illegally financing PP and its various elections.  They make a gruesome backdrop of grafters, most of whom are personally known to the Prime Minister.  It does not however make a particularly Prime Ministerial setting (though one that I think is totally accurate for the debased reputation of our glorious leader) and there is also an aspect of guilt by association (!) in such a setting.

So, Rajoy did not come openly to court.  He arrived as part of a cavalcade in a car with tinted windows and entered the court via the judges’ entrance that gave him direct access without having to confront the protesters who had been waiting for this moment to hurl accusations against him.

Inside the court, things were different for him.  There were no accused in the massed seats in court.  They were all empty.  He was not asked to take the place where all other witnesses gave their evidence.  Instead he was given a little desk in line with the seating of the three judges!  His background was empty of any bad associates with whom his party has done ‘business’ for years.  Talk about a set up.

But because of the lack of real politics in Spain, the ruling PP is able to get away with things like this.  It is essential to stress that although PP has the largest party in parliament, it does not have an overall majority.  It can be voted down.  It should, in my view, be voted down.  But, politics does not seem to extend any further for most political parties than their own party concerns.  The idea that they have been elected by actual people to serve the country in parliament seems more like a joke in poor taste than a crushing accusation.

Politics in the art of the possible, and I know that there always have to be unsavoury compromises to get things done.  But in Spain at the moment, there is a lot of frenetic activity and lots and lots of high words and angry exchanges but still, THINGS DO NOT GET DONE.  That is an accusation that lies squarely at the feet of the politicians who seem unable to do politics.

I know that the election of 45 as POTUS shows that no matter how appalling your behaviour and outrageous your statements and low your morals, you can be elected to high position.  Brexit has shown that completely unscrupulous scaremongering and out and out lies can get you cabinet positions and the love and care of the gutter press.  Truth, morality, honesty, and ethics - all seem to be olde-worlde relics of a yesteryear that didn’t exist.  I know that a world of ‘alternative facts’ makes for dizzying reassessment of what is possible, but still, politics is supposed to take account of ‘events, dear boy, events’ and those include ways of thinking and ways of behaving.

Although it is glaringly clear to me that our government is irremediably corrupt and is totally unable and unwilling to reform itself and must therefore be removed, I am also aware that something like 30% of the voting population would be prepared to vote for PP if an election was called tomorrow!  It is difficult to imagine a worse few years of unrelentingly bad publicity for PP as the ones that I have watched.  Secret accounts, kick-backs, black money, illegal funding of buildings, campaigns, accounts in tax havens, lies, duplicity, sedition, collusion - you name it, and somewhere in PP you can find it!  And 30% will still vote for them!

The right wing C’s party (the political sluts of Spanish politics) generally supports PP, while making pathetic mewling noises about how independent they are and what they are achieving for the country!  They complicate things.  In my view a vote for the C’s is a vote for PP, and generally speaking they vote with them.  Their cowardly approach is to ask for commissions of investigation rather than vote against the government and bring it down.

PSOE (the so-called socialist party) has undergone its own self immolation with a widely divisive leadership election where the previous leader who lost a lot of seats in a previous election resigned, and then found a certain amount of backbone and suddenly appeared as a candidate for the new leadership which he, amazingly won.  However, they are far more concerned with abstention rather than voting against the government because they have a very real fear about what might happen in any general election that they force!

I think our present situation could have been avoided a couple of three elections ago by parties working together, but ineptitude, political ineptitude made that impossible and so we have had years of the same corrupt government that daily has to become even more corrupt to keep itself in power.

I also know that there is nothing to be gained by saying ‘if we had’ in politics because, that verb tense shows that the past is gone.  We have to deal in the present and, in my view, the political parties, especially on the left, are not doing enough to provide the country with a viable alternative to what we already have.

To say nothing of what is happening here in Catalonia.

 

In October we will have a referendum about independence.  Our government has said that if there is a majority for independence (no matter how many people vote) then the government of Catalonia will start the process of disengaging with Spain within 48 hours of the vote.

The Spanish government has declared the vote illegal.  A previous vote (overwhelmingly in favour of independence) saw the President of Catalonia charged and convicted in a court of law for holding a democratic election.  He has been barred from public office and has been fined.  PP has said that it will do everything that it can to stop the vote.  The Supreme Court has ruled that it is illegal and the Catalan government has responded by saying that they will disregard the rulings, which prohibit the vote.

Again, I ask, where are the politics?  Where was the renegotiation of the relationship between the Spanish central government and the region of Catalonia?  Where were the mollifying words about rethinking the relationship of the two entities?  Where was the suggestion that a referendum could be held some time in the future after a process of rethinking the present positions?  Nowhere is the answer.  PP went straight for denial and rejection.  Everything the Madrid PP government does makes new independentists each day.

In my heart I would like to see a Spain united and strong, with an association of regions with a dynamic relationship with central government.  But PP has in the past and seems bent in the future of being absolutist and obstructionist.  They seem to be actively seeking confrontation - to do what?  Send in the tanks?  Disenfranchise the whole of the Catalan government?  Impose direct rule?

Spain, and more particularly Catalonia, is my home.  I am concerned about how this country within a country sees its future.  My status is already under real threat from the idiocy that is Brexit, my position could become even more problematical after the October vote - or before, depending on how far and how stupidly a myopic central government feels that it can act.

So where, to come back to my starting point, are Politics?  And why aren’t they being used for what they should be used for: to provide a government of the people, for the people, by the people.

Are the politicians listening?

The new white feather?

As a Baby Boomer (Leading Edge) I have never had to make the sort of problematic choices that the previous generation to my own had to make.  I have not been involved in a World War, I have not had to do Military Service, I have been able to find work without problems, I have been looked after through my educational life and in terms of medical help in a way in which I have not had to think too hard about the financial consequences.  I have, in short, been fortunate in choosing the time to be born! 

Central of course to that opening paragraph of gloating, though not actually stated, is the reality of my pension.  I now have three pensions from two countries: which sounds a damn sight more impressive than the reality!  I have a professional pension from my job, I have a much smaller state pension and I have a truly tiny (but welcome) pension from Spain.  The generations that have come after my own look at my experiences and feel envy and resentment.  This is an attitude that I can easily understand, especially as the retirement age seems to be getting more and more distant for some folk.  But this piece is not about finance and comfortable old age, it is more about responsibility.

I was far too young to have an opinion about Suez and the criminal behavior of my government: I was too young to understand the trauma of moving from an imperial past to an uncertain future – and very badly managed at that; too young to understand the full import of the Cold War, though old enough to appreciate the danger of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I suppose that the first real moral challenge that I felt fully engaged with was the Apartheid system in South Africa and the United Kingdom’s culpability in the continuation of the regime.

What did I do?  Looking back on it, the answer would have to be, not very much.  I supported Anti-Apartheid; I refused to buy or eat South African fruit; I didn’t drink South African wine; I sent money to organizations against Apartheid; I put up posters; I marched; I spoke against it.  But could I have done more, could I have been more pro-active?  And what about Viet Nam?  How much, or how little did I do to show my abhorrence about that grubby conflict?  When I look back, I think that I was more worked up about the Conservative government’s imposition of museum charges for our national galleries than I ever was about a war which claimed the lives of thousands and threatened the stability of the world!

In other words, I feel a nagging sense that I could have done more, and should have done more, but I was protected by a fairly comfortable sense that, in spite of a few local and international difficulties, things would probably work themselves out with, or without, my active help.  And my involvement was my choice.

In today’s world, with the rise of the extreme right, the self-inflicted wound of Brexit, the reality of President Trump, the growing obscenity of inequality in the world, the banking crisis, corruption and on and on – it is much more difficult to remain as a vaguely involved spectator.  To do nothing, is actively to encourage the situation to worsen: disengagement is denial.

What I am saying is that life in 2017 is the equivalent of life in the 1940s: there is an international crisis and everyone has a part to play in attempting to ameliorate what is turning into a national and international disaster.  You have to make a choice, in which not making a choice is a choice in itself.  It’s the same as it was living in Northern Ireland during the Troubles: the situation was dangerous, and if you had knowledge that might help the authorities then you would have to accept that your duty would put you in danger.  In just the same way involvement in the Word Wars that my parents and grandparents had to endure, put them in danger too.  Dangerous times, and god knows we are living in dangerous times now, call for positive action.

We can see that the growing opposition to Trump and so-called policies in the United States and around the world is an active statement that many people have accepted their responsibilities to hold power to account.  This is one of those times when inaction is the deadliest action of them all.

So, what am I doing, this time round?  Well, it basically comes down to reading the Guardian, shouting at the television, watching American late night political comedy on YouTube and typing futile screeds against the fading of the light!

Stuck (by my own choice) in a wealthy, sunny corner of Spain it is easy to forget that the rest of the world is going through a crisis and, in some ways, this period of time is a little like the so-called Phony-War before the actual war of 1939-45.  My Dad was in London when war was declared and remembered the sirens sounding soon after the announcement and . . . nothing happened: no enemy planes, no bombs, nothing!  Obviously that quiescence was soon to develop into the bloodiest conflict that the world had ever seen, but the immediate result of the challenge to German Nazi power was nothing.

You might say that quite a lot has happened over the last few years.  The banking crisis has weakened economies, and the paucity of cells filled by the perpetrators of one of the greatest pieces of financial fraud and duplicity ever has weakened the very concept of democratic accountability.  Governments have poured public money into the banking sector with the result that the very bankers who caused the crisis are now even more secure in their inflated pensions and high lifestyle.  Bonuses are back, the stock exchanges are booming and people are getting poorer.  This should be a time when implementing the ideals of socialism is seen as something that can take people out of poverty and make a fairer society – instead of which we see the politics of inequality and prejudice trumping any humanistic ideal.

You might think that, as a retired person with a secure pension, I am one of those people ‘sitting pretty’, but I am most certainly not.  As a British national living abroad in an EU country, I have seen the relative value of my pension fall by some 20% as the reality of Brexit gets closer and starts having a real effect.  I have the threat of punitive action by the government in which I reside when Article 50 is finally invoked and I find myself as a foreign citizen, living in a state which can, at a moment’s notice cancel my healthcare, and revoke my right to stay in the country that I now call home.  And that is just the local, Spanish situation.  Let us not consider the full ramifications of the Oaf in the White House!

We are all (including the country of origin) living in what the Chinese curse calls “interesting times” and what we do in response to those interesting times will define the conditions of development for the next generation, or indeed the next generations.  We all have to step up to the plate and ‘do’ something.

Aftermath

corruption

Still reeling from the onslaught against the Spanish language that my interview yesterday represented, Toni has decided to produce an English translation of what exactly I said. He is dressing up this enterprise in the guise of an exercise in IT which aids his course, but I know it is part of his attempt to expose my astonishing lack of linguistic ability in any language other than English to the wider world! Luckily my self confidence (bordering, some would say, on downright arrogance) was enough, not only to provide me with sufficient reserves of energy to get through the interview, but also was sufficient to encourage my positive enjoyment of the whole experience!

          People will soon be able to judge for themselves as the whole débâcle will be readily available to enjoy and digest!

The interesting times in which we live have now extended to the immediate political situation here in Catalonia. The local government has taken the first steps in declaring Independence from Spain. The whole situation is complicated by the fact that the acting president of Catalonia is tainted by his close association with Puyol (the ex president of Catalonia) who is fighting against the avalanche of overwhelmingly damming evidence which demonstrates that he and his clan have been little more than a “criminal organisation” (as they have already been termed in the press and by some legal authorities) and their criminality is being used by the terminally corrupt national government of PP to deflect attention from their own nefarious doings so that the population at large fears that an Independent Catalonia will be corruption writ large.

          The FACT that there are numerous criminal cases pending which demonstrate with shocking clarity the bare faced rapacity of the ruling PP party has now been shunted into the background of the general population's consciousness and they are concentrated instead on the very real threat of Catalonia breaking away (totally and utterly illegally according to the hands-wet-with-blood government of Spain) and the breathtakingly audacious corruption of notable Catalans. Thus showing clearly and indisputably that Catalonia must be kept securely in the safe hands of irremediably rapacious ignoramuses which form the so-called legal government of Spain. The fact that this group of kleptomaniacs and compulsive liars can even think about presenting themselves as some sort of legitimate force for good just goes to show that any old group of mendacious curs can get away with anything as long as they keep their nerve and keep on lying as proficiently as they have been doing for the whole time that they have been in what they like to term 'government.'

          When I say that I have more respect for the Evil Old Bitch (you know who I mean) than for Bromo, my name for the so-called President of Spain, it just goes to show how much contempt I have for the be-suited cretins who occupy positions of power in the present sad joke that is Spanish government.

          I tend to think that I do more work trying to attribute Machiavellian intelligence to the way that events are presented by the dead heads in PP than they actually deserve. With the build up to the General Election on the 20th December, they are either being deucedly clever or astonishingly stupid in the way that their strategy is developing.

           Having listened to some of the half-brains who seem to speak for this apology for a government with some sort of assumed authority, I can hardly believe that they have a coherent political brain cell to spark to action, yet it is possible to work out a terminally cynical approach to the electorate which speaks of some sort of primal intelligence.

           As an intelligent member of PP is an obvious oxymoron, I have to admit (and indeed we know because of the way that their finances have been laid out to an unbelieving public) that they have enough cash from various crooked sources to buy in the intelligence that they do not possess themselves. And shame on those with Neanderthal Plus brains who have sold themselves to the amoeba-like slime that sits on the PP benches in parliament to further their despicable causes, i.e. themselves.

           So, at the moment, we here in Catalonia are waiting for the political parties that make up the majority in our local parliament for independence to come to some sort of agreement about who is going to be president. The last vote for Artur Mas to be president was defeated – and rightly so. But what the immediate future holds is difficult to say. Bromo has stated that he, himself, personally will not allow the break up of Spain – which is a bit like saying that the magma refuses to allow the volcano to blow. He and his party seem to have gone out of their way to antagonise Catalans and then they act with shocked surprise when Catalans respond as if they are ungrateful for their abuse.

          When I first arrived in Catalonia I was all in favour of a united Spain, feeling that the country would be much more powerful and coherent if all the constituent parts of the country were linked together. I still feel that is true, but the present PP government with the dictatorial use of their absolute majority have changed my mind markedly. PP have gone out of their way to make it clear that they despise Catalonia, only valuing the money they can suck from the country. Well, enough is enough.

          PP and PSOE (the equivalent of Conservative and Labour in British terms) have colluded in the creation of a completely unconstitutional so-called king, they are colluding in the suppression of Catalan independence, they are colluding in the suppression of a multi-party democracy and, above all, they are colluding in maintaining the status quo to ensure their own position in the troughs that they have fed from for far too long. A plague, as the Bard rightly said, on both their houses.

           Spain has a democratic system whereby you vote for a 'list' of candidates for each political party. The number of votes given to each party determines the number of candidates 'elected' on each list. Thus, if you are candidate 1 on PP's list you are guaranteed a place in parliament, and so on down the list according to the number of votes cast. In other words the scheming, conniving, corrupt members of a party do not need to worry about a particular constituency to get elected; as long as they are near the top of the 'list' they will succeed. It also follows that individual members of the party owe more allegiance to the party rather than to any constituency made up of voters in a particular location.

          It also means that utterly disgraceful party hacks like Rita from Valencia, who ripped off the people of that region to satisfy her own inflated opinion of what she felt she deserved, are not cast into the otter darkness (with wailing and gnashing of teeth) after her party (PP!) is justly thrown out, but is instead promoted to the Senate, where the overblown apology for honesty can continue to milk the state!

          Whatever you think of Cameron and his exclusive brethren of upper class take-it-all opportunists, they look like honesty personified when compared with their openly rapacious parallels in Spain!

Peregrinating Kate of the Barcelona Poetry Group is going back to California for the winter, but her crown as leader of our group has been gifted to another member who is going to take over the task of ensuring that the meetings continue until the middle of December when we will have a Christmas recess until the middle of January.

           Last night's meeting was on the theme of 'Returning' and I read out the opening page of Rebecca as my contribution to the initial responses. Sandy read a stunning poem which referenced her post traumatic shock syndrome from her time as a military doctor. It's poems like that which make me even more eager to read through her latest book which has accompanying poems by her sister. The publication date is December 1st and that is something to look forward to as I have demanded that her sister in the states send copies to Spain as soon as it is published!

           Kate brought up the idea of producing a book which could be a co-operative effort from members past and present of the poetry group. I have thought about this and so was able to share my ideas about how to make it a practical reality. This is something which can see a publication by the Spring (or more likely early summer) of next year. I hope that I will be allowed to edit the publication and see it through its various stages of production.

          The OU course continues and I am finding out just how little I know about the Renaissance – which I have said before, but each new day merely shows how superficial my previous knowledge was!

          This week sees me making a tentative start on the long three-part essay-like assignment that we have to complete. Other events and meetings are stacking up in the time left for its completion so I will have to exercise a certain amount of discipline about how I spend my time if it is to be done to my satisfaction.

          Another factor claiming time is the work (now delayed by still sitting in a folder on my desk) about the early history of swimming in public pools, which should, in time, link up with the previous work that I have done on Guevara and his paintings. It is getting to the stage where I will need to produce one of those 'fantastic' timetables that I am only forced into drawing up when there is already too little time left to do what I want to do. The notorious one that I drew up for my finals actually proved to me that I didn't have anything like enough time left to revise with anything like the thoroughness that I had intended to use. Still, lots to do – including filling out the absurdly long form for my pension. Though, thinking about it, I was able to use it as part of a poem for my next book!

Now, enough writing indulgence, time to start work.

At least the hoover works

Well deserved

The major advantage to studying is not a belief in the idea that ‘to live is to educate’, but rather the relief that you feel each time you complete an exercise or essay.  It is like a headache; you don’t realise how delightful normality is until pain shows you what non-normality can be like! 

However much you enjoy the learning process, there are few things to beat the sheer relaxation that comes when the proof that you have completed a unit of learning has been sent off to the powers that be and there is nothing further that you can do except wait.

            I am now in that honeymoon period of waiting for a response and I am going to make the most of it.  I am ahead of myself as far as the reading that we have to do is concerned, so I can give almost my full attention to my poetry.

Poetic justice?

In what I am sure could be seen as a fairly grotesque metaphor for something or other, our robot hoover ate its own power lead.  At least it tried.  There is, luckily, a fail-safe system that kicks into play when the machine tires to consume something more substantial than dust.  So, when Toni came back from his walk the poor machine was bleeping plaintively in the middle of the living room with the power lead firmly in its innards.

            Don’t worry, I rescued the poor thing, disengaged the lead and it is now feeding quietly and will roll into renewed operation when we go off for lunch.

            This time I will put the power leads well out of its way – and check the receptacle at the end of its time to check that it has actually been doing what it is supposed to do.

Beyond a joke

In the lead up to the Spanish election, the bunch of morally bankrupt thieves and liars that have hijacked the government have sunk to a new low.  The Minister of Justice (sic) has decreed that people will no longer be termed imputado when they are accused of a crime, they will be termed investigado instead.  Why?  I hear you ask!  Well, a large section of the ruling PP party are totally and completely corrupt, as are their friends and paymasters in banks and businesses.  So many of them have been imputado that they have had to find a way to make it sound a little less, uh, criminal in the run up to the election that they have resorted to the desperate expedient of changing the word: semantic hiding of criminality.

            The unspeakable horror who has come out of retirement to stand for PP as a possible candidate for Mayor of Madrid should be ashamed to be seen in public.  She is a hit and run driver and virtually all her past colleagues are either in prison or are awaiting prison.  She, however, remarkably, astonishingly, unbelievably, alone-ly amongst all her erstwhile criminal colleagues is pure and untainted.  As if!

            And she is not alone.  Every day there is a new scandal about the way PP are ruling (I use the word lightly) the country, or some new revelation about how the PP wealthy backers have been milking cash from banks and companies.  Few of them are in prison and I have little belief that Justice (whatever that word means in Spain at the moment) will prevail and that the droves of thieves and liars who daily parade themselves on our television screens will get their comeuppance.  But I live in hope and trust that Podemos will get a healthy showing in the election and force the established (and corrupt) political parties to pass laws which will bring some degree of transparency to political life.

Continuing lunch

Tomorrow sees Irene arriving to join us for lunch.  We will have to go somewhere different to boost Toni’s blog.  It’s hard work enjoying yourself.