While the British seemed insatiable in their need for salacious gossip about their Royals, the Spanish seem uncharacteristically subdued and controlled. But perhaps this is changing… Read the rest of this entry »
Portuguese laureate José Saramago, in self-imposed exile in Lanzarote (I could think of worse places) declared this week that it was inevitable that some time soon the Iberian Penninsula would be one country. After all, his argument goes, “We see an undivided whole made up of different nationalities, some with their own languages, which have lived more or less in peace.” It would seem to go against the trend in Europe at the moment where the tendency is for devolution of power from powerful centres to nations within nations like Scotland and Catalonia. I was trying to work out the linguistic mix: if my maths is correct (and it often isn’t), then about 28 million Iberians would have Spanish as their mother tongue, 10 million Portuguese and 4.8 million Catalans, with people like me making up the other 7.2 million Basques, Gallegos and other odds and sods. The relationship between the Portuguese and the Spanish, as far as I can gather, is rather ambivalent. The Portuguese are rather antagonistic against their larger neighbours (the second most significant date as far as they’re concerned is 1640 when King Joao IV regained independence), but most Spanish seem to think of Portugal as some little cousin whom you need to grudgingly include in your games. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating, Salamanca repeatedly turns its back on two of its most valuable assets: the River Tormes and its proximity to Portugal. I’m continually amazed about how few people pop over the border to sample the historic delights of Monsanto, Sortelha and Sabugal, let alone the endless Atlantic Beaches north and south of Aveiro.
It comes as some comfort that a joint initiative between Spain, Portugal and Italy has just held its 3rd get-together in Lisbon with the three heads of state as their special guests. The event is organised by COTEC Fundación para la Innovación Tecnológica run by our very own Mariano Rodríguez Sánchez (Emperor of Salamanca). Unfortunately, COTEC’s website doesn,t actually work, which isn’t a great advertisement for technological innovation, but lets not be churlish!
In a country where there are said to be more Muslims than practising Anglicans, and where Catholicism is even set to overtake Anglicanism as the most popular de-nomination, it seems rather surprising that Tony Blair’s imminent conversion to Catholic faith should attract such widespread interest. But as so often, history defies logic… Read the rest of this entry »
With his usual imaginative flair for the English language my son informed me this week, that they were choosing a new manager for the village. His attitude to politics is spot on
He told me that he wouldn’t be voting for anyone, and even when I broke the news to him that he couldn’t actually vote till he was 18 in any case, he remained unperturbed. “It’s stupid to vote,” he told me, “because I don’t know who they are and I don’t care who wins.” Being a card-carrying democrat (though not in the American sense) I tried to explain to him that it was our privilege and our moral duty to vote, but he looked at me, singly unimpressed and I realised that I had been rumbled; he knows exactly when I mean what I say and when I don’t. The sad fact is that the privilege I really enjoy is the right not to vote, and I very much sympathise with his standpoint. I know how I would like our systems to be run, it’s just that the people that end up running the show invariably disappoint. And it’s more than that: I find it even more depressing and upsetting to have a marginally favourable candidate than one that is an anathema to me. It’s better to have someone up there you can really hate than someone ywho simply disappoints you.
Yes, the biggest bigot this side of the Klu Klux Klan, the Protestant Loyalist the Reverend Ian Paisley, and Martin Mac-Guinness, ex-IRA terrorist, joined together to take on the role of ruling Northern Ireland. I shall be perfectly frank, if you’d asked me ten years ago if these were the most suitable men to oversee this anomaly of a province, I would have answered quite emphatically, not. And if you’d have predicted that the two men would actually join hands – metaphorically, at least, because Paisley still refuses a physical handshake – I’d have scoffed at the merest idea. But here it is – miracles do happen… at least in Northern Ireland.
