In a symbolism laden video posted on his facebook page, Mariano Rajoy, leader of the opposition and head of the PP party, spoke to Spain about his hopes for the future, and his plans to save bullfighting (spot the Osborne bull in the opening credits).
The video is shot in the back seat of his limo on a dody handicam – it looks like the start of a low budget porn film- and the constant movements made me feel car sick.
Irrespective of all that nonsense, it’s worth pointing out that neither Rajoy, nor his mate, were wearing their seatbelts. Had they been stopped, a 300€ fine apiece would have ensued. Sadly, they weren’t, despite the GC having said that they are cracking down on passengers not wearing seatbelts this summer.
In case you care, Rajoy is off to his hometown of Pontevedra (hello Colin Davies!) for a few weeks holiday. ZP has taken this opportunity to remind people that he’s only having a weekend off this summer, and will be working away in Madrid. Poor sod.
Catalunya has taken a further step away from Spanish identity with todays decision in the local Parliament (Generalitat) to ban bullfighting.
68 regional MP’s voted YES to the motion, with 55 against and 9 abstentions. The law will come into force in 2012 and ban all organised bullfights.
The law came into being after a popular motion was carried by animal rights groups to the Generalitat, after they gathered sufficient voters signatures (180,000) to force a vote on the issue.
The two biggest parties in the Generalitat, the PsC and the CiU, both allowed their MP’s free votes on the matter. However, the PP has already announced that it is to ask the Spanish Parliament to grant bullfighting “protected historic and tourism status” which would exempt organised bullfights from the law.
Officially, this is about “animal rights”. Unofficially, everyone knows it’s about poking Madrid in the eye and saying ¡Eh! ¡madrilenys fora!
Van en un vagón de tren una gorda, una rubia guapísima, un catalán y un madrileño.
De repente, el tren se mete en un túnel y se queda el vagón a oscuras; entonces se oye un guantazo enorme PLASSS!, el tren pasa el túnel y vuelve la luz. Los cuatro pasajeros se quedan pensando en lo que ha podido ocurrir.
La gorda piensa: “seguro que el madrileño le ha metido mano a la rubia, la rubia se ha mosqueado y le ha dado un guantazo”.
La rubia piensa: “seguro que el madrileño ha intentado meterme mano, se ha equivocado y la gorda le ha metido una hostia”.
El madrileño piensa: “seguro que el catalánle ha metido mano a la rubia, la rubia se ha equivocado y me ha dado la hostia a mi”.
El catalán piensa: “a ver si llega otro túnel y le meto otra hostia al madrileño“
Congratulations to my brother-in-law Antonio Cervantes, who last weekend sat his civil service exams to become a seconday school / FP teacher, and passed out nº 1 in his form for Almería, and at nº 3 overall for Andalucía.
According to Ideal, some 3,000 people in Almería province alone sat those exams.
Here he is, celebrating the world cup win. He still had time in between studies to keep those muscles going!
And he’s just got notice through that yes, he has a full position, instead of having to do a couple of years as an intern. So he is now a fully fledged funcionario, unfireable and with a cast iron salary every month.
A cautionary tale now from Huércal de Almería, where local lady María del Carmen G. has just received a court decision ruling on a compensation claim from a fall in (wait for it) 2005.
It seems María was crossing on a zebra crossing one fateful day when a car screeched round the corner and raced down the road at her. Rather than stand there and be run over by the louts, she legged it across the road, where she got her foot trapped under a broken tile and fell over, breaking her leg.
After a mere five years, the administrative court in Almería has finally gotten around to looking at her complaint against the townhall.
The Judge, however, appears less than sympathetic.
The cause of her fall was not necessarily the broken tile, but rather the excessive speed at which the lady was running. Normal use of the crossing would not put the pedestrian in danger, and if there had been a warning light or traffic lights, the incident would still have carried out as it did ruled the Hon. Judge. Therefore it was María’s responsability to look where she was running, if she wished to use the sidewalk in an unsafe fashion.
Despite ruling that the sidewalk was unsafe, and that there weren’t any indications of the danger, the local townhall has been exonerated of all blame.
María, who admitted that she was shocked by the incident, told Ideal that “I don’t know what the Law says, but I know what common sense dictates”. (El Ideal)
Transparency International, the worldwide anti-corruption organisation, in conjunction with the Fundación Ortega y Gasset, has released it’s 2009 list of the most transparent townhalls across Spain.
Almería is 3rd from the bottom, at 108 out of 109 (only Salamanca and Fuengirola are worse).
El Ejido, for some reason, comes in at nº 57.
The test involves how much municipal information is publicly available. T.I. sent the 110 biggest towns in Spain a questionnaire asking them how they publish over 80 different reports that are supposed to be publicly available; they then investigated to see how easy it was to obtain this information for a member of the public.
Almería didn’t even bother to send the questionnaire back (along with Fuengirola, Salamanca and Valencia).
Here’s a salutory lesson on investing in real estate from the Caribbean, courtesy of Michael Winner and Simon Cowell.
Angry villa participants who’d put down massive cash to be embroiled in this mess wondered what fees Michael Pemberton and Robin Paterson had taken and if they were to be put back into the diminished pot. When I questioned what was going on, Pemberton wrote, “I have passed your communications to my lawyers.” His “clients” described him in language that made Gordon Ramsay sound like Listen with Mother. [..]
Then there’s the X-Factor: Simon Cowell. Simon, who I introduced to Barbados in 2000 when he was so unknown even his mother didn’t recognise him, has paid up for a sea-front villa. He’s too famous to reside in public. Every tourist ship disgorging 2-4,000 people onto the quayside in Bridgetown will be besieged by local taxi drivers saying: “Do you want to see Simon Cowell’s house?”
In Monday’s La Voz, which I have just got around to persuing over a freshly baked croissant and a coffee, page 3 is given over, not to lovely Sally (21) from Essex, but to a somber reflection on “Brits take to the internet their fear of demolitions of illegal homes”.
In an politically charged piece, the paper appears to say that AUAN, the urban abuse pressure group, has issued a false press release relative to the proposed demolition of 98 homes in the Almanzora valley, and says that Brits in the area appear to be scaremongering. It singles out the website typicallyspanish.com as an “anglosaxon” online newspaper which makes politically charged comments on the situation without fact checking. I hope typicallyspanish.com has their paperwork up to date now that they’ve come to the unwanted attention of Those In Power.
According to the reporter, the Mayor of Albox has denied all knowledge of the 98 homes, as has the Junta, and La Voz claims that the whole press release (which they published in full late last week) was based on speculation over a court investigation and has been blown out of proportion.
While acknowledging the importance of dealing with the illegal homes, and admitting that many people are living in fear, the paper warns that the general public should take care to make a critical distinction between official news released from the Junta or courts, versus scaremongering press releases from self interested groups.
Interestingly enough, the article is illustrated by a picture of the ex-municipal secretary of Arboleas on the day the townhall was raided by police investigation allegations of corrupt planning processes in the municipality.
Frankly, I suspect that La Voz got in trouble for printing last weeks AUAN press release, and are now desperatly trying to recoup political favour by backtracking. Could be awhile before the subject is broached again…
Here’s the page (click for a full size image)
Later - interestingly enough, shortly after posting this, I received the following press release from the AUAN:
Junta includes AUAN in working party to find solution to illegal housing problem
In an informal 30 minute meeting with a delegation from AUAN, the Minister for Planning and Housing of the Junta de Andalucia, Rosa Aguilar, announced the creation in September of a working party to find and agree solutions to problems arising from the illegality of homes in the Almanzora Valley.
The working party will include representatives of the regional government, the mayors of the valley and representatives of the affected families, specifically AUAN.
AUAN is satisfied with this new development which represents one of our key demands. We look forward to actively seeking solutions to the serious problems faced by our members in an open and transparent manner.
We encourage all those affected by this issue to register to vote to help maintain pressure on the working party to deliver results.
The meeting took place on Tuesday 20th July in Albox when the Minister attended the ceremony to mark the opening of the towns’ new bridge.
IES García Ramos in Albox decided, after consultation with teachers and parents, to go “uniform only” next year.
In general, after a quick swing through the local forums, parents seemed to be broadly in favour of the plan, which was nothing too fancy. Smart trousers or shorts, shoes, polo shirt and appropriate gym wear.
However, Andalucia being a Socialist country where Democracy Rules and the Right of the Individual is Guaranteed under the Law and the Constitution, public schools can’t impose uniforms on the children, as the Junta reminded Albox sternly only two days after a letter to parents was issued.
The controversial word in the notice was obligatory. “We have no issues with a school uniform, but it is up to the child and his or her parents to decide if he or she should wear one” explained the Junta in a pompous release.
The school must now reissue the letter removing the word obligatory and explaining that this is a personal matter for each parent to decide on.
Once again, Pink Floyd’s warning to us all about the dangers of production line education has been heeded by our brave defenders of liberty in Seville.
The school has accepted the warning, although the director did point out to La Voz that President Griñán himself recently said he was in favour of compulsory uniforms in schools. The Junta also reminded the school that any uniform must bear the logo of the Junta de Andalucia and the appropriate ministry (why say appropriate ministry when it’s bleeding obvious it’s the Education Ministry?).
Almeria townhall has come up with an interesting tourist concept – it’s launched it’s much announced “Almeriacard”, which gives the holder discounts of between 5% and 20% in shops and establishments across Almeria town.
The idea is that tourists pay either 5€ for a seven day card, or 10€ for a 15 day card, and the money is then used to promote Almería.
Residents of the city can buy a card good for one year for just 10€.
There will also be a new debit card launched, with Cajamar, which offers holders the same discounts without having to buy the “AlmeriaCard”.
It’s an interesting way to offer tourists (and residents) a little “something back”, while at the same time collecting money for further investment in promoting the city. The Mayor has said that he hopes this will be an alternate way of raising extra funds without charging every tourist a minifee, as Barcelona or the Ballearic Islands do.
The Junta de Andalucia has agreed with Mojácar’s townhall that as the population of the town doubles in summer it should be designated a major tourism town (zona de gran afluencia turística).
This means that opening hours for shops are relaxed for the summer and easter periods. (Not, however, June and December, as the Junta said that there were insufficient tourists around then to permit this).
“These extended opening hours will only improve the tourism experience in our village” said the townhall in a note.
Just imagine – now you can buy tourist tat 24/7, instead of having to wait until dawn!
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