Sport?

With only the sound of passing jets to break the tranquillity of a sleepy Sunday morning, it took more than good intentions to get me on my (electric) bike to make the arduous journey to the swimming pool – you have to understand that I count the bridge over the motorway as an actual hill.  But it is amazing what sheer peer pressure will do to get you moving.  One comment from Toni and I was out of my all-too-comfortable chair and finding a fresh towel.

As it is a Sunday I eschewed my normal route to the pool via the longer way, allowing me to cycle along the paseo next to the sea and beach, as the bright sunshine would have brought out an overwhelming crop of dominguerros (Sunday visitors to our seaside resort) and cycling with oblivious pedestrians is far too hard work in the mornings, and anyway it encourages negative homicidal approaches to progress.  Even along the clearly delineated cycles paths it took relentless dinging of my less than authoritative bell to get the more resentfully recalcitrant walkers to get over on to their bit of the pavement.

My Herculean efforts to get to my daily lengths were surprisingly rewarded by a totally empty pool.  There is little (at least to a swimmer) more satisfying than breaking the pristine surface of a tranquil pool: an example, if ever there was one, of the sort of hidden pleasures of a peculiar life.

I know that everyone has quirks and, while some may be socially disadvantageous there are others that are particular, do not harm and give great pleasure.  I know someone whose choice of beach is purely dictated by the fact that it is next to the airport and lying in the sun had the added advantage of low flying, noisy aircraft enlivening the tedium of tanning.  Another friend has an eye for vegetation and always has her phone camera at the ready to capture the bounce of a bough or the lilt of a leaf; yet another regards a trip to Matalan as justification for a visit to Britain; another regards the Crunchie Bar as the highest achievements of the confectionary trade, while yet another relishes Marmite.  You will note that I have not ventured into the realm of sexual proclivities because, well, because as soon as you go there then all the other little innocuous kinks can be seen as sexual as well.  Take, for example, the diving into a pool.  It doesn’t take a doctor from Vienna to make something suggestive about that!

It's all in the noticing, taking note of something and seeing it in a way that is personal to you.  This line of thought was brought on my sunbathing.

Sunbathing is a tedious occupation, and the sometimes-blotchy results make you wonder if it is all worthwhile.  You tell yourself that the ‘modern’ preoccupation with a tan can really be traced back all the way to the middle of the last century, as, previously (at least in Europe) white skin was more highly valued than tanned skin.  Tanned skin was the normal preserve of the working agricultural classes and was therefore seen as rather infra dig.  In the same way that Chinese Mandarins’ long fingernails was a visible indication that everything (and I mean everything) would have to be done for them rather than their having to do things themselves, therefore showing their high class and their ability to afford the servants necessary to live a long-fingernailed life style.

Nowadays tanning is seen as a sign of health, and to hell with scare stories of skin cancer.  People like my good self, prefer to think that the acquisition of Vitamin D from sunlight is enough of an excuse to indulge.

Anyway, getting away from why I was sunbathing and getting towards how I was sunbathing.  For the purpose of extending my periods lying prone on the beach or on the third-floor terrace I had resurrected my iPod – that now, by the way, appears quaintly dated: so heavy, such a little screen!  But it worked and that was all I wanted.

Being by nature an incurable dilettante I always set the thing to ‘shuffle’ play.  This means that my musical experience is very much like the organization of my library: serendipitously chaotic, where juxtapositions of tomes is so random that it looks contrived!  I put an exclamation mark at the end of that sentence to stop those who know me from shaking their heads sagely and remarking, “Exactly!”

So, my ‘listening pleasure’ via my iPod might feature a movement from one of the less fashionable early symphonies by Tchaikovsky, followed by a Spanish conversation from a previous on-line course, succeeded by a piece of obscure German table music, followed by some random pop.

With earphone stuffed firmly into my ears (see ‘passing jets’ above) I actually listened to the lyrics of ‘Lola’ by the Kinks that were remarkably clear and easily decipherable.  Perhaps everyone else in the world (well, given the sales of the thing it must be a sizeable chunk) knew that Lola was a transvestite or trans-sexual, but I didn’t.  I listened again to check my perceptions and finally thought what a remarkable record that must have been for its time.  It was of course banned by the BBC – not for any sexual priggishness, but rather because the Kinks used the word ‘Coca-Cola’ and the Beeb did not go in for any sort of in song advertising, so the Kinks re-recorded it substituting a more generic ‘cherry-cola’ for the obnoxious ubiquitous liquid.  I am still at a loss to understand how that disgusting concoction has spread like a carbonated plague across the face of the earth.  It can’t all be down to advertising.  Can it?

So Lola, “she walks like a woman, but she talks like a man” or was it “moves”, I can’t remember, and I am typing this on the terrace so that the sun can get at my back, and there is no internet – lying again: there is internet and I have re-read the lyrics and they are worth looking at, you can find them here: https://www.google.com/search?q=lola+the+kinks&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b

The narrative of the song is fairly simple, a guy goes to a club in ‘North Soho’ drinks suspect champagne meets an ambiguous girl and declines to take things further.  Probably.  The interest lies in the detail of the lyrics where we discover that the protagonist is inexperienced “I’ve never ever kissed a girl before” he only left home “a week before”.  He admits that he is “not the world’s most physical guy” or “passionate” or “masculine” not really a traditional build up for the profile of a lover, but then, this is no conventional love song.  In spite of the fact that he is confused “Why she walk like a woman and talk like a man” he “drank champagne and danced all night” with her and it was only when she asked him home that he realized that in spite of living in a “mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world” where “Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls” he is able to assert that “I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man” and, in my favourite line before the final extended chorus, “And so is Lola.”!  I love the general ambiguity in the quality of the attraction between the ‘hero’ and Lola, seen at its most sexually poignant when he gets down to his knees and “that`s the way that I want it to stay” – is that a rejection or an invitation!  He admits that he “almost fell for my Lola” and I think that the use of the possessive is revealing!

This is a rhythmic, musically exciting and lyrically engaging song, it’s a pity that I did not notice the ironic complexity when I first heard it in 1971 when it first came out!  Better late than never.  And who knows what other linguistic delights there will be as I listen more attentively to the occasional erratic pop tracks that pass the time as I bake on the third floor.

The World Cup

I must admit that I have been less than stringent in my not looking at the FIFA (corrupt) World Cup (corrupt) in Russia (corrupt), in spite of my best intentions I have constantly been beguiled into giving this ‘competition’ some attention.  Not, obviously, to the ridiculous extent of actually watching England play, but I have watched some part of some of the games.

At the moment Spain (corrupt) is playing Russia (corrupt) and while I have little interest in the outcome, I did break my typing to go downstairs and get myself a cup of tea where I saw that the so-called King of Spain (corrupt) had ‘graced’ the game with his presence.  May I be the first to extend my congratulations to a Head of State from a fellow European nation giving credence to a state that ordered a murder, using their own noxious nerve agents, in Great Britain.  Thank you, your majesty, and you wonder why you are cordially loathed by your rightfully rebellious ‘subjects’ in Catalonia!  The sooner that a republic is declared in this country the better.  Independence for Catalonia might be a vexed question, but the case for a republic is surely a simple one!  And made simpler every day by the actions of a high handed, autocratic Borbón de Borbón!

And Spain have lost on penalties to Russia.  I am sure that there must be some sort of point that I can make, but the ‘bread and circuses’ simply depresses me too much!

You can't get away from what is going to be.

There is a real temptation to talk about the fact that today was hot enough for me to sunbathe on the terrace of the third floor; or bemoan the narrowness of parking spaces in our local shopping centre; or the fact that imitation Post-It notes do not stick as well as the real thing, or any damn thing other than the one thing that I should be writing about - the situation in Catalonia.

It is too easy to ignore the big bad world when you live in a seaside resort where you can see the horizon.  How many city dwellers actually get to see a real horizon, a natural horizon, rather than the artificiality of the barrier of construction?  And life goes on.  After all, people come here, have a walk, have a meal and then go home to real life.  Real life, for them is elsewhere - not here, by the side of the sea.

Barça are playing Athletico Madrid and are one down.  At the moment that seems more real and more important than all the crucial decisions and actions that are going to inform the development of Catalonia over the next few days.

And it is days.  The day after tomorrow the Catalan government can issue the already signed declaration of independence.  In five days time the Spanish government could declare that section 155 of the constitution has been brought into play and the government of Catalonia is now in the hands of the government of Madrid.

Or they could declare any one of a number of ‘states’ from ‘alarm’ to ‘emergency; or they could declare martial law; or impose curfews; or bring back the Guardia Civil and the Spanish national police onto the streets.  There could be further (one has happened already) roundups of political opponents; there could be jailings; there could be an all-out national disaster.

And, although the EU is still sticking to the idea that the Catalan Crisis is a ‘local’ problem for the Spanish government, anything really bad that happens in Catalonia will impact directly on Spain and then indirectly and directly on Europe and the EU.  The value of the Euro will respond to the situation in Catalonia and that will have a direct affect on the 27 other nations.  Instability is catching, and there is a price to be paid for it.

Political debate in Spain at the moment is only a little step below racism.  We are watching ultra right wing demonstrations with Franco versions of the Spanish flag, with fascist salutes, with hate slogans taking place.  We are hearing political debate reduced to simplistic nationalistic slogans.  We are seeing sides forming.

In my heart and in my head, I know that I prefer to see unity rather than division.  With all its faults I celebrate the reality of the EU as a way of bringing something like community to one of the most powerfully dysfunctional continents in the world.  We tut-tut about the multiple failures of Africa; we shake our heads at the rampant corruption of South America; we throw our hands in the air at the inability of the Middle East to sort itself out; we chide Asia for its misuse of power; we sigh at the ignorant boorishness of the present POTUS and yet, if we look carefully at what our oh-so-civilized continent is doing and not doing we should be ashamed at our inability to subscribe to a coherent system of fair government.

I am reminded of a film in which an American hangdog comic character plays a millionaire (I’ve just remembered his name, Walter Mathieu) who has lost all his money.  His bank manager explains to him that he is poor and there is nothing in the bank.  Mathieu listens patiently and then asks the manager why he has not cashed his check.  It is a variation on the TV sketch about a British soldier lost in the jungle and, after years of hiding, not being able to understand that the war was over.  It is the perennial problem of not being able to see what is in front of one’s eyes.

Mismanagement, corruption, theft and lies have been the stock in trade of politicians throughout the years as Spain has made the transition from dictatorship to democracy.  We are now living in a country where the fundamentals of decent government have been tarnished and subverted.  The fact that after years of unrelentingly appalling revelations about the criminality of PP, the minority right wing governing party, the fact that 30% of the voting population of the country would still vote for them tomorrow is, to put it mildly, depressing.  In spite of literally hundreds of members of the party and their supporters being indicted for criminal behaviour that the country still votes for them and makes them the party with the largest share of seats in parliament is astonishing.  But significant.

If the torrent of accusations, the clarity of the corruption and the arrogance of their defence is still not enough to get their base to turn away from them to a more congenially democratic and law abiding party, what will?  We are looking at a Spain that threatens to be governed in perpetuity by a party that thinks only of itself and nothing for the gullible who vote for them.  For people who look for hope for a better system to the present main political parties of PP, PSOE and Cs, I have to say that they are deluding themselves and ignoring the immediate past history of their political activity.

Spain desperately needs a radical rethink about the way that it governs itself.  Not one of the parties mentioned in the last paragraph seem to me to offer the slightest shred of evidence that they are up to the job of rewriting the constitution and producing a society that is more equal and lawful.

Catalonia is not without its own problems.  Corruption cases have to be sorted out.  The past president with his 3% and his mafia like family all have to be dealt with.  Everyone knew about the 3% and those who condoned this abuse must be rooted out of the political life of the country.  But, perhaps, with independence Catalonia might have a chance to achieve a more equal society.  Linked with the poisonous corruption of mainstream Spanish political life, it has no chance.

Perhaps Catalans are prepared for the financial, social and political problems that will be their if they call for an independence that is going to be resisted with all means possible by the central government.  Perhaps they are prepared to fight for their ‘freedom’ in spite of the economic and social cost involved.

The next seven days could be decisive in the way the country or region goes forwards or slumps.

Keep watching.

To tan is to be!

Summer?

The weather continues to confuse.  One moment it is sunny, then cloudy, then hazy, a sudden downpour, humid, cool. 

No, I’m lying. 

We have had some changeable weather that Toni has described as ‘awful’, but all I have to do is translate it into British terms of weather and I find that I am more than satisfied with what we are getting.  Yes, to be fair, it is not entirely cloudless skies and unmitigated sunshine, but I have to realize that I have been driven indoors because I am glistening with sweat and it is perhaps a little too hot.  The third floor study is relatively cooler and, even if the fan doesn’t create cool air, it at least moves it around a little.

Art passes

The ‘unsettled’ weather has also destroyed The Stain.  I had great hopes that the slash of fading red from the broken bottle of cheap wine would be something that could have lasted through the rest of the summer, but two sharp torrential downpours seem to have consigned my gestural piece of land art to evaporation and the gutter. 

The next time I pass on my newly charged electric bike, I must pause and see if there is anything left.  I do feel somewhat self conscious taking photographs of nondescript parts of a pavement, but it would be somehow ‘satisfying’ to find some tinted remnant lurking.  Given the amount of time that I have spent being confounded by various manifestos of the artistically self obsessed, it is the least I can do to drag out the last pieces of aesthetic significance from a chance event deemed art-worthy!  And I have to say that it was more interesting than some of the stuff that I have been studying over the last couple of years via the course in the Open University.  Though, there again, I defend maligned Modern Art with a vengeance when provoked by those who cannot find an upturned and signed urinal to be provocatively original!  Though with Duchamp I sometimes wonder, as with Warhol, how much of his ‘art’ was clever and how much taking the piss - and if the difference between the two is real, or indeed matters!

Anyway, I am sad that The Stain has gone, but also recognize that one particular part of the pavement in Castelldefels will be forever different (at least to me) because of what it once contained.  And with Modern Art, who can ask for more?

The ghost of past hurt

I follow my father in the way that I take the sun.  My mother was fair skinned, blond haired and blue eyed - and so was I when I was a pre-toddler.  But after a few years my father’s genes asserted themselves and my eyes went hazel and my hair (O tempora! O mores!) a very dark, almost black-brown, and in the summer I went a more than acceptable shade of not white.  When the summers were kind enough to have a reasonable quantity of sun.  Of course in my childish memories, all summers were sunny, as were all visits (and there were many) to Barry Island.  In Barry my excavations were frenzied and extensive, all my efforts devoted to building a castle mound surrounded by a wall that would resist the sea, so that eventually I would be sitting surrounded by the incoming tide.

The real joy of course, was the even more frenzied activity to repair breaches in the wall to obtain the “island” objective.  Sand was plundered from the castle mound to rebuild sea-washed defences and eventual, and usually quick and complete failure was guaranteed.  But once, and once only, did I achieve sufficient repulsion of the sea to be surrounded.  It was only momentary, but it remains an achievement that I treasure!

Here in Castelldefels we have no tides.  Technically, I am told, we do, but they are not aquatic events that you would recognize sitting by the side of the sea.  Certainly, if you are more used to the tidal range of the Bristol Chanel then Med. tides can be ignored!

So, castle building does not have the same allure - and it is some sixty years too late to hold the same attraction.  Admittedly, there was a spate of civil engineering in the sand when I was in university in Swansea when streams on the beach (ask not of what the water was composed!) lured me back to the sort of hand digging where you paid the price through the sand impacted under the fingernails.  Extensive systems of canals and dams were built with Robert perfecting his technique of dripped sand buildings with fantastic towers that rivalled the architecture of Gaudi.

I find that I am not drawn to constructions and I also find that my ability to lie in the sun has also lessened.  Time was when a Christmas holiday trip to Gran Canaria would seem me outstretched for hours.  On one particular day lying on my hamaca in Maspalmoas it started to rain!  I and the other northern Europeans who had paid and arm and a leg to stay on the island in high season simply ignored the adverse weather conditions and waited for the weather to get better.  And it did.  Or at least it got good enough to lie there with out shuddering and we could continue to rely on the penetration of the UV rays through the cloud cover to do what we had expensively paid for.  And anyway, it was always worth it, greeting colleagues in cold Cardiff in January, and watching their eyes take in my bronzed skin!

Nowadays, I use factor 20 cream - rather than the perfumed cooking oil that I used to buy to get that “deep down tan”.  It never worked and I always dreaded the day when I would finally start to peel and then I would worry about the fact that I could be going home even whiter than when I arrived!

Nowadays I do not have to rely on two sunny weeks in foreign parts to get my tan done.  I live in foreign parts and they do have a disproportionate number of sunny days - even in December and January - when our nearest star can be enjoyed.

But I also notice now that, as I brown, elements of my history show up on my skin.  For example, just above the second knuckle of my middle finger of my right hand, there is now a faint outline of a small, three-sided rectangle.  It must related to what must have been a fairly serious cut or graze, where a flap of skin was ripped out of my flesh.  It must have hurt, there must have been quantities of blood and, given where it is positioned, the flexing of my hand and finger must have pulled and broken the scab.  On the right hand, as well, it must have constantly been rubbed and knocked.  It must have been an extended and thorough nuisance.  And what with the natural propensity to pick and worry at healing scars it must have been a feature of my life for ages.

And I have absolutely no memory of the injury at all.  The ghostly outline is almost like a accusation form my body.  Look, it seems to be saying, this happened, it was an event and you care so little that you have consigned it to forgetfulness!

Other scars have a back-story that I remember well.  The ball of the right-hand thumb and the slicing of an open salmon tin; my right elbow and the tip over the tennis net during my victory leap; my inner thigh where the rotten tree stump entered and broke off; my chin and the collapse of friends on top of me in junior school; my lip and something on the building site that bit back; my foot and a piece of rubble on the Asia side of Istanbul - and all those scabs of childhood on knees and legs and arms that would have to be layered in three-dimensional ghostliness to show the succession of minor cuts and abrasions that is part of growing up.

I have always found the expression “like the back of my hand” as a picture of familiarity to be woefully inappropriate - I challenge you to describe yours without looking at it!  And, in my opinion, apart from our faces (and let’s face it, we mostly recognize ourselves from reflections in mirrors and that is absolutely NOT how we appear to other people!) what parts of our bodies do we actually know?

It is usually only when something is going wrong that we start to explore the substances of which we are made.  Which is why I am grateful for my ghosts of past hurts.  They make me think and they encourage me to remember and with the absolute pleasure that comes with confused recollection, although specifics might be inaccurate the experience can be retextured to my own individual attitudes and prejudices.  I can remember about the cut on my finger, even if the unique circumstances are lost.  I know how I am and what I’m like, so I can place the cut and call it mine.

Rain, sun and lunch!

-->

YESTERDAY

 

Each time I took a breath going upwards towards the school end of my local pool I noticed the sky.  At first it was a light lilac, then it went to a grubby bluey-grey and finally it took on the appearance of the sort of sky that they use as a backdrop for those dystopian, Armageddon-like total disaster movies that at least take your mind away from what the 45^th POTUS might or might not be doing.  Then the first fat drops of rain began to fall.

It’s an odd experience swimming in the rain.  I am always amused by a shower of rain on the beach: there is instant evacuation as if the liquid that is falling (and in which of course they have been bathing) has suddenly taken on corrosive acidic properties and precautions must be taken.  Given where we live, fairly near a very large city and on the flight path of a busy airport, I would not be at all surprised to find out that our rain is anything but Ph. neutral - but generally all we worry about is getting wet.  Even when getting wet is something that we had been doing a few minutes previously.

But rain in an official swimming pool is different.  There is a different quality to drops of falling rain on skin to the splash of a passing swimmer.  And anyway, experiencing rain in a commercial swimming pool is a limited pleasure because Health and Safety regulations indicate that rain will affect the safety mixture in the water and consequently, as with our pool, the roof has to be closed.

As our Russian-doll roof structure began its slow progress enclosing the pool, we were able to go from outside and the rain, to inside and the gloom in a single length.  Luckily I had virtually finished my swim when the shower ended, and by that time the moveable structure had just aligned itself with the exit and so I was able to move seamlessly to my shower and my eventual cup of tea.

I dried off the water on my café chair with my towel and was quite happily imbibing in the threatening gloom when it started to rain again.  The cloud cover look as though it would quite easily be able to sustain  showers and downpours for the foreseeable future so I gave in to Nature and moved to a giant parasol (what irony!) protected table and sulked notes into my trusty jottings book.

But this is Spain.  A visit to the Birthday Girl in Terrassa and by the time we came back the sun was out and, even with odd clouds, all was well with the world and sunbathing was a possibility.

And that is what I love about living here: we do not have the sort of spiteful weather that cursed my life in the UK.  The sort of threatening clouds that I swam under in the morning could easily have accompanied my exercise for the next fortnight in Britain - but in Spain it is an isolated day when you do not get at least a sight of sunshine during it!  Yes, Spain, and Catalonia are not as green as Britain.  You have to go to a region like Galicia in the north west of the country for the lush greenness that Brits might recognize.  But I am content with a certain degree of aridity and the sight of the sun.

TODAY

 

I was beset with a lingering malaise of indolence and so decided (because I can) not to go for my swim today.  I suppose the idea was that I had thought that preparing, going, swimming, changing and tea drinking took up such a disproportionate amount of my time, I wanted to get settled into some sort of academic activity without the distraction of swimming to act as displacement activity.  Needless to say such laudable motivations did not translate into actuality and what I actually did was have a cup of tea, do the Guardian quick crossword and read further information about the Antikythera mechanism.

I think that there are two approaches to the acquisition of knowledge not previously known: the first, is one of sheer delight in discovering new areas of understanding that were previously blank; the second is a deep sense of shame that one didn’t know about it previously.

The Antikythera (I love the sound of the word anti-kith-ar-ee-ah, it is the sort of word you can roll around your mouth) Mechanism, falls securely into the second category.

An account of what the ancient shipwreck offered historians may be found here: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/decoding-antikythera-mechanism-first-computer-180953979/ and you can tell that I have been doing courses in the Open University because I did not give you a Wikipedia entry first!

This ancient shipwreck has been described as the most astonishing archaeological discovery of the twentieth century, or indeed of the twenty-first century - the discovery of what might truly be called the mechanism of the first computer ever discovered, dating from some two thousand years ago!

And I had never heard of it!

I am not saying that I am the datum point of common knowledge, but surely something this astonishing and revolutionary should have impinged on my rag-bag accretion of general knowledge at some time since its discover in the early 1900s?

 

With the discovery of early ‘technology’ I am always reminded of the invention of the first voice recorder.  The mechanism and the raw materials and the whole technology while put together for the first time in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, were actually available in Classical times!  A way of recording the voice could have been available during the time of Christ, and we could have heard the last words from the cross or the text of the sermon on the mount as they were spoken.  But the machine was not invented and we didn’t.

The sophistication of the Antikythera Mechanism was around over a millennium before its next iteration!

And I knew nothing about it!  What shame!

 

It is at times like this that I am reminded of my first reading of Jared Diamond’s book, Guns, Germs and Steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years, where a revolutionary world view disrupts conventional acceptance.  This book is constantly revelatory and, rather like one of my tutors in university, constantly says things that you should have thought previously!  The sort of things that are blindingly obvious as soon as they have been articulated, but you need their help to get there!  Diamond’s book (as indeed are the works of M Wynn Thomas https://www.swan.ac.uk/crew/staff/professormwynnthomas/  are wholeheartedly recommended.

And now I shall echo Osvald’s plea, “Mother give me the sun!” - though, I am glad to say in rather different circumstances, and I will only retire to a sun lounger rather than the murderous ministrations of a mother!

Little and often!

I've worked out that, when I finally get my Spanish “pension” (it really is so small that it doesn't deserve to be allowed to exist without quotation marks) it will be the equivalent of getting a fiver every day for breakfast – perhaps a bit more, but I'm allowing for inflation and Brexit! Which is much better, as I always say, than having to pay a fiver a day before breakfast! And I get it just for being alive!

     I expect that this delight will wear off and I will get back to the more grimy realities of life rather than spending my time rhapsodising about something which is boringly predictable, and for which I have paid throughout my working life. But, I have to come back to the point that pensions are magical when they happen. Magical that is, as long as you have been fortunate enough to gain access to a scheme which gives you a living return. And of course where you are still living to enjoy it.

     However, enough of that (though I cannot guarantee that I will not wax lyrical when I actually feel the putative money in my hot little hands) and on to more serious things.

     The political situation in the UK is depressing to put it mildly. Not only are Conservative stalking the corridors of power under the delusion that they have coherent policies to govern the country, but also an unelected PM is gibbering about education as if she has been caught in a 1950s time loop! In desperation I look towards my adopted country to show signs of sanity.

      Fat chance of that.

     After two inconclusive General Elections, Spain is still umpteen months into trying to form a government. Meanwhile we have a government in functions to continue the outward appearance of competence. Unfortunately this is being attempted by PP, the Conservative Party of Spain which is, to any reasonable viewer, totally and irremediably corrupt. And brazen about it too. I urge you to put “PP” and “corruption” into Google and see what you come up with.

     The sheer number of cases of corruption involving PP is astonishing. Don't get me wrong, other political parties on the left and centre as well as the right are corrupt, but they are nothing compared with the epic corruption shown by the party of 'government'!

     And what of the left, the opposition? In the Way of the Left they are at each other's throats. The major opposition party, PSOE has not gained enough seats in either election to form an alternative government of the left. To be the government they would have to pact with another party or ask for abstentions from other parties when the election of a President occurs.

     In the first election PSOE could have pacted with Podemos (a new party of the left) and they would have had an overall majority. Instead, after the election, Podemos was filled with elation and suggested a pact in which they would become partners in government and stipulated which ministries they wanted all the while waving a positive book of legislation that they wanted to get through in double quick time! PSOE (especially the so/called Barons or leaders of the party) were horrified at what they saw as the presumption of a bunch of Johnny come lately leftie extremists.

Podemos was also in favour of giving Catalonia a referendum on independence and therefore this was an added, and for many in PSOE a clinching reason for retreating from any agreement with what in politics counts as alacrity.

     Instead PSOE pacted with C's, another new party of the right. This 'brilliant' strategy did not give the combined parties an overall majority and the C's were anathema to Podemos and so in the Presidential election in parliament both PP and Podemos voted against. Stalemate. New elections.

     Amazingly, in the new elections, PP (The Putrid Party) after a series of revelations which showed the systemic nature of corruption at all levels in the party, actually gained votes! People, ordinary people, always have the capacity to astonish. C's lost some votes and Podemos gained some but, and this is why we are still without a government, there is still difficulty in forming a government with an overall majority.

     PP (sic!) have the largest number of votes but no overall majority. The C's (the political sluts of Spain) having pacted with PSOE on the left, now switched to the right and voted with PP for the old President. Everybody else voted against and therefore we had no new government.

     The left, i.e. PSOE and Podemos now no longer can combine and form an overall majority, they would need the abstention of the C-s sluts or the active support of other small independence parties.     A big no no for PSOE.

     The situation, as it draws itself out, grows more complicated. Recent elections in Galicia and the Basque Country did not work out well for PSOE and so, over the last few days some senior members of the party have resigned from the executive committee trying to cause the resignation of the current party leader. Other members of PSOE have been murmuring about abstaining during the next presidential vote. Everything seems to suggest that Rajoy and PP will form the next government. The left seems incapable of seeing the big picture, that a continuing government of Rajoy and PP will be an out and out disaster for Spain and they need to bury differences and work something out which keeps Rajoy out too.

 

     I have no confidence that people will see sense. I think that party loyalty is something which is far too important to far too many people, and the fate of the country runs a very unconvincing second best to party|personal gain. It is a depressing realisation, but I think it is all too accurate.

But the sun is shining and I was able to do a little light sunbathing. So, at the moment, not everything is ill in the world!