All posts by Tom

Ciudadanos – showing their true colours

Catalonia, Politics, , , , , , ,

I was amused to read today that Albert Rivera, that young chap with the dead eyes, has been ousted [CAT] as leader of the Spanish nationalist party Ciudadanos. “Ciudadanos, Partido de la Ciudadanía” (catchy name, huh?), stormed onto the political scene a couple of years back, using promises of only speaking Spanish and… er… that’s about it… to attract disillusioned falangists and other Madrid-centralists to its smelly cause.

This isn’t the first time that the C’s have had major internal issues, but coupled with the fact that they’re now standing as part of far-right group Libertas in the EU elections, I think it’s time we forgot about this flash in the pan. Hopefully we’ll be able to say the same about UPyD soon!

TVE censors crowd disapproval of Spanish national anthem at Copa del Rei final

Catalonia, Politics, Spain, tv

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTJRhiOaNLk[/youtube]

When the Spanish national anthem was played on Wednesday night, it was met with whistling, klaxons and a lot of other noise from the predominantly Catalan and Basque supporters present. TV España switched to its outside broadcasting units in Barcelona and Bilbao in an apparent attempt to hide this, and then played coverage of the anthem being played, with edited sound. The sport director of TVE has been sacked for this ‘human error’ which actually looks a lot more like the Spanish national broadcaster trying to hide a potentially embarrassing truth.

More coverage at Cataloniablog.

Copa del Rei seen in Barcelona

Catalonia, Photo posts, , , ,

As I was walking back from the Mississippi station today, I happened to bump into a TV3 OB team and a bunch of Culés. I asked a likely young lass if, perchance, El Barça would be coming through shortly and she confirmed that they were on their way.

I stood around for about five minutes and then spotted the TV3 team moving into the middle of the road, a surefire sign that the bus was on its way. And then, there it was. Heralded by flashing blue lights, cheers and foghorns, the Barça bus made its way across Carrer Numancia towads us. The cup itself was displayed proudly at the front of the bus, and some figures could be seen behind the tinted glass, waving and cheering. I imagine Eto’o led the chants.

Behind the bus was a fleet of hundreds of motos and cars, horns sounding and flags waving.

But this was fairly subdued by Barcelona standards. Everyone knows that within a couple of weeks, we could all be celebrating a much bigger triumph. If Barça can win the Champions League and secure a historic triple (yes, that’s a big if, but it’s there to be won), Barcelona will party for days on end.

(All 9 pics here. By the way, the pics aren’t great: I was using our compact camera and I was somewhat hurried)

Norman Tebbit wants the far-right to do well in the European elections

Politics, UK,

…well, he didn’t say as much but what other explanation could there be for this?

Think about it: if the BNP and UKIP do well at the expense of Tories (and Labour), the result will probably be a rightward shift from the Conservative party, who are already confident of victory in the next general election anyway. That way, Tebbit wins. Grotty little man.

Feliç Sant Jordi

Catalonia, Politics, , , ,

Saint George’s day is here again, and with it some lovely weather (it always seems to be sunny on April 23rd). As I’ve mentioned before, in Catalonia today is the ‘day of lovers’ or the ‘day of the book and the rose’. Each year, we’re encouraged to buy eachother roses and books as an expression of love and friendship. I think that, as well as giving the publishers and rose traders a bumper day, it’s a lovely tradition.

One of the funny thing about it is that there are lots of places to choose from when it comes to buying your gifts. You can go to El Corte Inglés, as did one of my colleagues, and buy two roses for €16… but it’s far more normal to purchase your flower either from a gypsy rose merchant (visible on many street corners all through the day), or a stall in your local plaça. These stalls are often (though not exclusively) operated by charities and political groups, so while buying your rose you get to choose which pressure group or political party you want to support.

This year, I bought Gemma’s rose at the Solidarity with Palestine stall. For much less than the Corte Inglés price, I got a lovely rose and a poem (apparently about Palestine). The stall was also selling wallets, tshirts and so on… but I prefer to wear my heart on my blog.

Right… off to enjoy the sunshine!

Vodafone and the Queen

Spain, UK, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Every year, on April 21st, I receive a text message from Vodafone España (my mobile operator) that reads as follows:

VF Publi: Hoy, dia nacional de Reino Unido, date de Alta GRATIS en Mi Pais marcando *189# y llama por 18 cent/min ese dia (20,88 IVA inc).+info:www.vodafone.es

Now, I’ll leave out any criticism of a deal that costs me 18 cents a minute to call the UK (“€20,88 included”).

What first amused me about this piece of text-spam was the bit about the UK having a ‘national day’. At first, I thought they must have sent the message a couple of days early and were wrongly assuming that they could get away with calling St. George’s day ‘the UK’s national day’. But no… the truth is that they made an even bigger mistake: Vodafone thinks that the Queen’s birthday (she was born on April 21st 1926) is some sort of national fiesta that we all celebrate and that I’d probably want to call my mum to wish her “Happy Queen’s birthday, Mum!”.

Yes, silly Vodafone.

Or rather, silly Tom. Because after some deep investigation (well, putting ‘Queen’s Birthday’ into Wikipedia), I divined that the Queen’s “official birthday” actually is Britain’s national day. It’s just that no-one told us about it. The official birthday happens one Saturday in June (no one knows when), and so is never made a public holiday.

So, silly United Kingdom for having a Queen who has two birthdays. And silly me for not knowing we had a national day to sullenly ignore. And silly Vodafone for sending me their spam on the wrong birthday. Idiots.

Is Thailand on the brink of revolution?

coup, Politics, Thailand, , , ,

The prime minister of Thailand declared that the country is in a state of emergency today, in response to widespread (and at times humiliating) protests against the current government (the third, if I recall correctly, since the military coup d’etat in 2007). Former PM, Thaksin Shinawatra, who the protestors apparently claim to see as their leader, has suggested that this might be the beginning of a revolution in Thailand.

When Shinawatra refers to a ‘revolution’, he probably means another coup, and though I lean towards Shinawatra’s version of Thai democracy rather than that of the urban middle classes, I feel that Thailand needs to achieve a revolution which no one talks about: abolishing the monarchy. A truly socialist anti-king revolution in Bangkok would probably fix a lot of the problems that Thailand now faces or some travel agencies like koh samui villas.

Chances of that happening: ZERO

Bastards!

Catalonia

Some fucker stole my wallet on the Metro last night. Along with my money, they got my precious Tarjeta de Residencia which had expired and cannot be replaced. Words cannot express how pissed off I am right now.

Ya Empezamos! Caja Castilla La Mancha ‘bailed out’

Capital, Spain, , , , ,

The Spanish government has moved to ‘bail out’ the first banking institution to fail in Spain during the current financial crisis.

In Spain, we have banks ‘bancos de credito’ and building societies ‘cajas de ahorros’, with the building societies being the most common place for Spaniards to keep their money. There are tons of building societies here, and the Caja Castilla La Mancha (CCM) isn’t the largest by a long way (I believe that this honour falls to La Caixa d’Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona, ‘La Caixa’). In fact, CCM is apparently the newest of Spain’s building societies. All the same, news of troubles at CCM suggests that the building society system here, much touted as being safer than those in other European countries, isn’t quite as cast-iron as we’d been led to believe.

I bank with La Caixa (well, I have my salary paid there: I don’t get involved in anything more complex than having a credit card), and I will be damned annoyed if it appears that the Barcelona bank is in trouble too. The amount they charge me for basic services….

Let’s hope that this so-called bail out means that normal customers don’t end up losing any of their cash. But shouldn’t we be pushing for a full nationalisation of the banks? I feel a poll coming on.

European parliament votes against choice of language in schools

Catalonia, Language, Spain,

Despite being generally divided on the issue of multilingualism, the parliament apparently approved a PSOE-CiU-ICV-PNV-EA amendment that removed references to parents’ rights to choose the language in which their children are taught. Protecting the range of languages in some countries (like Spain) was described as ‘essential’.

So that’s the end of that debate, I imagine.