Let’s face it; the “botellon” is now an established fact of Spanish life. No longer can it be viewed in the light of an aberration, if it ever was. In some ways the difficulty the older generation has in coming to terms with this often anti social phenomenon reflects the “crash in slow motion” which is taking place between traditional conservative, cohesive Spanish society and the “modern” European world. Read the rest of this entry »
The news, when not full of construction delays, the latest furore over Matacan, or the constant back biting between Salamanca and Valladolid, centres around the lives of the “great and good” – or in some cases Julian Lanzarote. Actually I do think the epithet “great” an adequate one for our mayor, if in need of some qualification. As he lets go of the local PP presidency this coming December (a position he’s held for 15 years), it’s worth bearing in mind that a city such as Salamanca, living as it does in that peculiarly liminal state - survival through tourism, needs a mayor with what is best termed “chutzpah”. Read the rest of this entry »
What a turn it gave me last week to read that the Banco de Castile” is being “absorbed” by another institution – going by the somewhat nondescript moniker of “Banco Popular”. With tectonic shifts in finance occurring almost every day now we’re all getting a bit more edgy about things; so my first assumption was that the bank had collapsed. Read the rest of this entry »
