Free-D

Community charges are going up  – despite the attempts of several protesters to interrupt the council in session (cue an admonishing “thumbs down” from the Gaceta). We also have the misery of a possible refuse collectors strike. You must have seen the effects of such an action in Madrid: piles of rubbish collecting on the streets. I can’t help imagining that most of it consists of discarded lottery tickets. Don’t you just love the lottery? Tens of thousands give away a little bit of money  so that one or two people can have an unhealthy amount. The person who ends up with this dubious blessing is not chosen according to worth or even need – but entirely randomly. (Except in Malaga). I know a chap who complains that for the last three years he’s had terrible problems with his teeth and is spending ten Euros a week in the hope that he’ll win the lottery and be able to pay for his treatment. The solution to his problem might seem obvious, but that’s the wonderful, if infuriating thing about humans. we don’t make sense. We often can’t see the simple answers but seemingly find it second nature to construct impossibly fragile fantasies, which the cruel alchemy of daily life transforms from a “golden ticket” to a useless scrap of paper nestling next to the carcass of last week’s Christmas dinner. Not only do Salmantinos have to face this disappointment (it seems  everyone plays the lottery on Christmas day) – but this year they have to deal with these huge hikes in community charges. It may be that these rises are only in bringing us in line with certain other regions - but it’s the suddenness and steepness of them which hurts. After all, taking and spending other people’s money (or “politics” as it’s normally called) is an art. There are ways and means. My bet is, that rather than give you a “tenner” extra for better sanitation – most people would spend the money on a lottery ticket – even given the almost 100% certainty that the next day it will be merely adding to the mountain of rubbish not being collected. People are complicated aren’t they?  It might be somewhat more helpful therefore if things were discussed rather than reducing them to a sort of  caveman grunting as the Gaceta does with its “thumbs down” approach.
Personally I don’t like the lottery but you can’t put everyone who plays it into a box and write them off: just as you can’t take a group of frustrated, anxious citizens who’ve committed a tiny indiscretion and judge them in this way. Frustration is obviously running high here in Salamanca - the last thing we need are knee jerk reactions.