Now I realise that the following will upset some people but I want you to consider this.
Recently, without doubt, Spain´s general election was skewed 180 degrees by the bombing in Madrid.
Due to the large turnout of the voters it cannot be viewed as anything less than ´the will of the people´. But I suggest the ´will of the people´ was typically ´Latinly´ (if there is such a word) emotionally affected.
Now don´t get me wrong, the massacre in Madrid was terrible and I´m sure we all feel for the victims, their families and friends but consider what sort of world we would be living in now if the Londoners had come out with their white flags on the 8th September 1940, on the day after the first raid of the London Blitz.
A white flag does not mean peace to these demented people it signifies submission, reinforces their twisted ideologies and proves that dynamite, semtex or whatever is as effective in bringing down a government as a disused block of flats.
If someone ran down Jaime III with a machine gun killing innocent bystanders surely you would consider him to be crazy and that he should be captured and locked up for good even if he was convinced that his God whispered in his ear that he should do it. What is the difference between this and the Madrid bomb for example? No difference at all, is my opinion.
This fanaticism is not new to the Spaniards after all. Much of Spain was under bloody Moorish rule from the 8th to the 15th centuries. One famous ´ miracle´ is in the history books relating to one of the final battles in Andalucia when the Moors were finally defeated. The story refers to the battle of ´Barranco de Sangre´ (Ravine of blood). "With the valley awash with gore from both sides, the blood of the Christians miraculously flowed uphill to prevent it being tainted by that of the Muslims".
This of course you would say is medieval, religious clap-trap and ridiculous but the fact is that the current fanatics are still in this time warp. It just happens to be that today it is Islam that they are hiding behind. True believers in Islam have condemned these atrocities as they have, the terrorist actions of Israel. How can a man believe that he´ll be met by umpteen virgins in his heaven? And, when you consider that seconds before he arrives at the pearly gates he´s just semtexed his ´marriage tackle´ into orbit, it is complete lunacy.
I cannot see the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq being anything but a green light to these madmen to indiscriminately kill and maim. Do not fall into the terrorist´s trap of mixing up the war in Iraq and terrorism. Withdrawal from Iraq will make Spain look like a soft target. Terrorists will very quickly find new ultimatums and demands. For once I do hope I´m wrong!
Under the heading ´political gravy train´ I am delighted to report that, as new members of the EU, Malta and Cyprus have won the right to nominate lavishly-paid members of the EU´s new Railways Agency, set up to oversee the running of all the EU´s railways, even though neither of these small countries actually has any railways. This is no more absurd than the fact that UK fisheries ministers must sign "designation orders" permitting Luxembourg and Austria access to Britain´s fishing waters, containing four-fifths of all Europe´s fish, and that the ministers of these two landlocked countries help to decide the Common Fisheries Policy, even though between them they do not have a single fishing boat.
Two mates meet in a bar; Fred and Ron. "Evnin´ Fred; D´ya know, I wish I had a wife like yours." "My wife ran away wiv another bloke last week Ron." "Exactly!"
Now then, if you can´t answer the following quite straight forward questions forget about passing the written part of the driving licence test in China- I kid you not gentle reader.
1/. How high can one load a motorcycle to travel on an expressway.
2/. If you come across a road accident victim, whose intestines are lying on the road, should you pick them up and push them back in? On the other hand you can buy a licence- worth every fen. (Pub quizzers, and other retainers of completely useless nonsense, please note the fen is China´s smallest coin, which is 1/10th of a jiao which in turn is 1/10th of a yuan!)
Someone once said that, "There are lies, damned lies and statistics".
With that in mind I offer you some statistics.
Who are the most dedicated boozers in Europe?
A new study by Eurostat found that the nation which admitted to the most consistent drinking were the Irish (52 per cent), followed by the British and the Danes (44 per cent), and then the Dutch (43 per cent).
At the other end of the scale, only 12 per cent of Italians claim they are regular drinkers, and 19 per cent of Spanish.
The main question is: are these statistics used like the drunk and the lamp post? More for support than illumination?
The questionnaire used the expression "regular drinking" - which is open to a variety of interpretations from one country to another. And who is likely to be the most honest in answering? Some 89 per cent of Spanish people, for instance, believe that they lead a healthy life, yet 37 per cent smoke (compared with the EU average of 34 per cent) and 35 per cent claim to suffer from stress.
Additionally, only 69.9 per cent eat fruit daily, only 45.5 per cent eat greens and 41 per cent say they take exercise twice a week. But then again - what´s exercise? A bar crawl?
Oh dear, here we go again; yet another glossy mag. launched in Mallorca called abcmallorca.
I think the only remarkable thing about this new mag is that the Publisher has managed to get 6 photographs of herself and a 4 page article devoted to her plus a further 6 pages on her business within the first issue- talk about vanity publishing!
Rumour has it that the Balearic minister for yachting tourism, Jesus Uept, had been impressed by the press coverage of the increasing number of British yachtsmen moving to Scottish marinas thet he went on a 2 week (all expenses paid & taking his golf clubs) fact finding tour. On his return, at a press conference, he said,
"We have much in common. We also have an unintelligible dialect and I´m sure our marineros will not mind wearing pleated lamp shades instead of trousers or shorts, particularly if money is involved.
Another factor is the change in global weather.
This winter, here in the Balearics it has been miserable, as is normal in Scotland. This is obviously what the British yachtsman is looking for."
When asked if the fact that mooring charges in Scottish marinas are up to 50% less than those on the English southern coast was a factor Uept head-butted the journalist and left muttering, "See yoooo Jaime".
The new airline laws that will come into force in Feb next year will give compensation to people who are the ´victims´ of overbooking.
Great, you might say but nowt´s for free.
The airlines are already mumbling about putting up their prices to pay for this compensation. Can anyone please explain to me why overbooking exists?
Women’s libbers please skip this paragraph.
A woman awakes during the night to find that her husband was not in their bed. She puts on her robe and goes downstairs to look for him. She finds him sitting at the kitchen table with a hot cup of coffee. He appears to be in deep thought, just staring at the wall. She watches as he wipes a tear from his eye and takes a sip of his coffee. "What´s the matter, dear?" she whispers as she steps into the room. "Why are you down here at this time of night?" The husband looks up from his coffee. "Do you remember twenty years ago when we were dating, and you were only 16?" he asks solemnly. "Yes, I do," she replies. The husband paused. The words were not coming easily. "Do you remember when your father caught us in the back seat of my car making love?" "Yes, I remember" said the wife, lowering herself into a chair beside him. The husband continued. "Do you remember when he shoved the shotgun in my face and said, ´Either you marry my daughter, or I will send you to jail for twenty years?" "I remember that, too" she replied softly. He wiped another tear from his cheek and said . . .
"I would have gotten out today."
Marg. update. The ex-empress Marg. Najera of Calvia is facing a big day on the13th of this month when she has to answer to the charge of ´misuse of Calvia´s public funds´ to the tune of 120,000 Euros on personal items such as frocks and jewelry.
She faces between 4 and 8 years in the slammer!
This is one of a number of legal cases against her. Whilst I´m on my political soap box we now have absolute proof that the Socialsts, headed by Najera tried to fiddle the local elections last year.
Notification came through recently of the European elections in June.
Both I and ‘er indoors received notifications whereas in the local elections only I was listed as a voter.
As suspected, for the local elections, the socialists sent a very old list (more than 6 years old) to Madrid which did not include ‘er indoors despite the fact that she had registered for ´the padron´ (voters´ list) four year prior. Her name was in the town hall computer prior to the local elections but that list was obviously substituted by the older list. The reason? Over the last few years more and more foreigners have settled in Calvia who could see through the spendthrift looney left!
Now here’s a bit of a tip to save money. Appaled by the price of printer ink cartriges? Get down to ‘Top Inks’ in Cala Major, you’ll be happy with their prices- Tel: 971 40 57 18
There have been numerous polls regarding the so called ‘Beckhamgate’ and so not to leave you out, gentle reader, here’s one of your own.
What do you think of the Beckham affair?
A- Don’t give a hoot.
B. Don’t give a shit.
C. Don’t give a **ck.
Send your opinion to:
info@ whogivsa****.com.
And, on the same subject here’s a quote from the early life of David Beckham.
As a three year old boy in his bath young David examined his testicles and asked,
"Mommy, are these my brains?"
Mom said, "Not yet dear".
As somewhat of a warning for parents not to interfere with their offsprings’ love life I offer you this true story from mainland Spain down Costa del Sol way.
40 year old, Senor M.R.M, as the papers describe him recently killed his 68 year old mum by stabbing her no less than 61 times!
What had she done?
Punctured his blow-up doll and chucked it in the basura- a poco over the top methinks!
And another odd legal case from further afield:
A restaurant in south-west China has been fined for offering to serve sushi on the bodies of nearly-naked women, according to media reports.
The Yamato Wind Village restaurant in Kunming city attempted to launch its "body sushi" dinner earlier this month. local debate.
Now the restaurant has also been fined 2,000 Yuan (US$240), according to the Beijing Daily Messenger newspaper.
The practise of eating sushi off naked or nearly-naked women has long been popular with a certain clientele in Japan.
But the authorities in China said the restaurant´s actions violated women´s rights, as well as laws on advertising and food sanitation.
They also said the women used to display the sushi were not suitably dressed for restaurant employees.
I am looking for investors in my new venture, ‘body butifaron and sobrassada’.
Read this (verbatim as seen in a Q & A article).
‘Q. If a relative living in Spain only semi-permanently dies, do their Spanish assets get affected by Spanish inhertitance laws?’
Is this a punctuation mistake or does it refer to an habitue of the Club de Mar Bar?
I shall not labour any points regarding the recent ‘International (Ha! That’s a laff) Palma Boat Show’ except to say that I’m waiting with baited breath to see the numbers of visitors claimed this year.
Hasta soon,
BATES