There was a very good piece in yesterday’s Guardian by a local (non-)resident. Slate meanwhile carried a slightly less polished effort from Mr Hitchens, with which I agree more (via Iberian Notes).
A number of people I spoke to yesterday were firmly convinced that Mr Aznar had himself planted the bombs, and that even al-Qaeda would be better than another Partido Popular term in power. Since most of these people also believe that one can have rational conversations with trees (but not, apparently, with prickly shrubs), it’s…
The Guardian gets some things wrong this morning which other people will jump all over. However it is carrying an intelligent analysis of why yesterday’s outrage was probably the work of a changing ETA, and not of Islamic bombers. It took the ageing terrorist apologists who run Gara.net the whole morning to figure out what…
Giles Tremlett writes this morning in The Guardian that: Support for the Spanish People’s party government is ebbing away as concern about terrorism and separatism dominates the general election campaign, according to opinion polls published yesterday. In fact – apart from the blip in socialist support when the war started – there is no statistically…
The headline figure this morning is 20%, but the survey (.doc) asks the question twice and the other answer is different. First there’s question 3: I’m going to read you a list of apparatus and new technologies that are being used more and more frequently in Spain. Tell me, please, of each one whether you…
From The Independent, re the death of 19 Chinese cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay: The intensification of the industry has been driven by Conservas Dani, based in Vilassar de Mar… Dani’s products are a household name in Spain by virtue of the fact that Espanyol, the club chaired by the company’s wealthy owner, Daniel Sanchez…
David Beckham and Andalusian chanteur David Bisbal are the public figures most admired by Madrilenian schoolchildren aged 6-12, according to a new survey. While the missus is admired elsewhere for the form, if not the functioning, of her aural receptors, I suspect that Becks the voice artist may eventually revolutionise English teaching in Spain. Says…
Hell, I didn’t know that Thomas Pynchon had been referred to on the Simpsons, nor that we’ll get to see him (not) on the show in Spain in about 2010. Via Elastico.
Giles Tremlett has an amusing/alarming article on the local man who is being required to pay more than half his monthly €980 (£678) disability pension in order that his mid-20s sons may lounge around at his ex-wife’s home. I don’t know what British law is like re parental obligations to keep feckless offspring approaching middle…
So what if José Bono has called Blair a dickhead and an imbecile? Bono may be the leading candidate to lead the Spanish socialists after their almost certain defeat in the March generals, but the party is so enthusiastically engaged in auto-defenestration at the moment that it’s difficult to see them achieving anything constructive even…