All posts by Tom

News from Spain

Catalonia, Politics, PP, Spain, , , , ,

Quite a big split has taken place in the right-wing Partido Popular, with the more Catholic conservative side (Aznar, Rajoy, Aguirre and Acebes) now claiming victory over the more centrist elements (Gallardon & Piqué). This is good news for the PSOE as a right-wing shift in the PP might convince potential non-voters to come out and back the centre-left. John at Iberian Notes (in between a couple of misogynistic and racist remarks) reckons that it would still be better for Spain if Rajoy won, if only to prevent Zapatero from having two terms. Now that’s what I call party loyalty. Mariano Rajoy is a politician who somehow manages to make Zapatero look statesmanlike, confident and wise. Actually, I wouldn’t vote for either candidate but on balance, Zapatero hasn’t had that bad a time in office.

The national anthem lyrics which I mentioned the other day, after being firmly rejected by the Spanish public, have finally been withdrawn by the Spanish Olympic Committee. They were, as you can see, awful lyrics. But it seems that the ‘Viva España!’ rallying call (which features twice in the proposed song sheet) was what upset the most people. ‘Viva España!’ is a phrase which for most people still evokes Franco’s fascist regime – the old coot used to say it every other breath. Tourists – this may be why people stared at you and muttered under their breath when you tried to express how much you love Spain.

Actually, this opens up an interesting debate about Spanish nationalism in general. At some point in the future, it’ll become more possible to shout ‘Viva España!’ and not be called a fascist. But for the moment, expressions of nationalist or patriotic pride always seem to hark back to the dictatorship. You would think that the chap who wrote the proposed lyrics for the national anthem, would have known the import of including a couple of ‘Viva España!’s… but I doubt that he realised he was saying anything that could cause anyone offence. An unemployed man from La Mancha (‘Castilla la Nueva’), I suspect he is in fact pretty cut off from public opinion in the big towns.

My wife has quite a lot of family in Ciudad Real province and while the older generations are lovely, warm and sensible country people, the cousins who are our age, are spectacularly badly informed, racist and nationalist. They even took part in that pathetic anti-Catalan boycott a few years back (and had the temerity to invite Gemma, who lives in Catalonia and is Catalan, to take part). Actually, one of them also intended to have a medieval-themed wedding at which all the guests would have to dress up in silly costumes. I found this even more offensive than the stupid boycott.

Spanish national anthem gets some lyrics

Spain, , , , ,

For a long time, Spain’s national anthem has been without words. The original set of lyrics, deemed excessively militaristic and overshadowed by General Franco’s fascist dictatorship, were laid to rest more than 30 years ago. Since then, the anthem has been hummed or laahed, which is what drove the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE – no relation to Seb, so far as I know) to launch the contest for new lyrics.

Apparently, the new words have caused some consternation… partly because the first line is ‘Viva España!’, not a phrase which goes down well with a significant proportion of the population.

I’m planning to obtain Spanish nationality sometime soon and I’m now worried that I’ll have to learn the new words. I can’t help but remember the schoolyard version I’ve heard sung by many Spanish and Catalan twenty-somethings:

“Franco, / Franco, / que tiene el culo blanco, / porque su mujer / lo lava con Ariel” – I hope I don’t lose points for singing that version. I’d rather they left it without lyrics – I always thought there was rather more nobility and style to standing still and quiet than to reciting some dull hymn. That said, Els Segadors (Catalonia’s national anthem) is replete with incitement to violent uprising and is actually rather stirring.

Anyway, there’s a video on El País which gauges Madrileño opinion to the new words.

Update: Here are the lyrics in English (nicked from the Guardian, so they may not be 100% kosher)

Long live Spain!
We sing together
With different voices
And only one heart

Long live Spain!
From the green valleys
To the immense sea
A hymn of brotherhood

Love the Fatherland
Which knows how to embrace
Below the blue sky
People in freedom

Glory to the sons
Who have given to history
Justice and greatness
Democracy and peace

By the way, a lot of people seem to come to this page looking for the lyrics to the Barça anthem… so here they are:

Tot el camp, és un clam
som la gent blaugrana, Tant se val d’on venim
si del sud o del nord
ara estem d’acord, ara estem d’acord,
una bandera ens agermana.
Blaugrana al vent, un crit valent
tenim un nom, el sap tothom:
Barça , Barça, Barça!
Jugadors, seguidors, tots units fem força.
Son molt anys plens d’afanys,
son molts gols que hem cridat
i s’ha demostrat, i s’ha demostrat,
que mai ningu no ens podrà torcer
Blau-grana al vent, un crit valent
tenim un nom, el sap tothom
Barça, Barça, Barça!

Senior US officials implicated in nuclear black market

'Terror', Politics, , , , , , ,

An interesting post at Lenin’s Tomb asks why more isn’t being made of Sibel Edmonds’s claims about corruption in the US government.

State Secrets laws don’t permit her to talk to a judge about it, much less a television reporter, and much of the media has avoided looking too intensely at the matter. Apparently, she knows that several high-placed American officials put US nuclear materials on the black market, some of which were going to Pakistani secret police individuals with connections to ‘Al Qaeda’.

By the way, lots of work on at the moment… I’m still working on a few longer posts though.

King for a day (or two)

Home,

Today was Kings’ day (Epiphany) and according to Catalan (and Spanish?) tradition, we ate some Tortell de Reis (Kings’ Cake). This cake is magical because it contains two secret ingredients, a bean and a king. They are packaged carefully and hidden in the cake. The person who finds the bean in their slice of cake is supposed to pay for the cake, while the person who finds the king is deemed to be king for a day. This was the second year running that I’ve been lucky recipient of the piece containing the king.

As a staunch republican, you might expect me to reject the king status and propose, say, a people’s committee to oversee activities for the next 24 hours. And I did think of that. But in truth, I feel that the best way to spread ill feeling about the monarchy is by acting badly while holding the title ‘king’. So I intend to act as despot for the next 24 hours, as a warning to those who would accept a king as their master. And if the message doesn’t get through, I might have to extend my rule by a day or two. For their own good, you understand.

George MacDonald Fraser: 1925-2008

General, , , ,

I was sad to hear about the death yesterday of George Macdonald Fraser, author of the Flashman series of historical comic novels. His books were politically incorrect, naughty, adventurous, educational and above all seriously funny. They charted the story of the British Empire through arch-cad, Harry Flashman’s eyes, placing this coward and poltroon at many of the key events and battles of the mid to late 19th century. He wasn’t, as some will claim, an apologist for empire or colonialism… far from it. In fact, MacDonald Fraser occasionally used his writing to warn of the dangers present in the waging of imperialist campaigns far from home.

Flashman remains, in my opinion, one of the great comic characters of the English novel and now his creator has died without giving any answer as to how Flashy managed to fight on both sides during the American Civil War.

I nearly shed a manly tear.

How about a nice glass of Franco wine?

Spain

I saw this bottle at a family friend’s house today. He’s got quite a decent Rioja cellar and was apparently given two of these some years back. I’m not sure what the origin of the wine is (though I guess it’s from some time shortly after the dictator’s death) and I didn’t ask to taste any. Something tells me it would have upset my tummy.

franco-wine-1.png

franco-wine-2.png

BNP ‘in meltdown’ as numerous officials are purged

Politics, UK, , , , , , ,

Those of us on the left who’ve ever had any interest in party organisation will be all too aware how often splits can occur. The recent wrecking behaviour of Galloway supporters in Respect is a classic example. So it is great to see that a potentially much more serious split is taking place in Britain’s main fascist party, the BNP.

Two key activists in the party,  Kenny Smith and  Sadie Graham were purged from the party after they attempted to maneuver against Mark Collett, the party’s publicity officer. Collett seems quite unpopular and general opinion among many activists appears to be that he is being protected by leader Nick Griffin. I remember Collett’s appearance in a couple of TV documentaries which showed him to be a particularly unpleasant neo-Nazi.

Now, many organisers and party officials seem to be resigning in protest at Griffin’s betrayal of the party for personal reasons. This is great news, of course, because a party in disarray is an unsuccessful party. Griffin’s authority is now being directly challenged and it looks like he’ll either have to get rid of his chum Collett or face more resignations. It all stems from various dark accusations of nefarious acts connected with Collett, as well as a claim that the BNP’s ‘intelligence team’ have hacked into blog sites and deleted posts.

Read the Lancaster Unite Against Fascism post for a more coherent explanation of what has gone down, and how grave the BNP’s problems appear to be. I’m going to have a celebratory cigarette.

CiU’s man and the Mafia boss

Catalonia, Site news, , , , ,

An interesting story has been bubbling away for several months. Antoní Fernández Teixidó, a CiU member of the Catalan Parliament, failed to turn up at court the other day for a hearing into his links with Malchas Tetruashvili, an alleged Georgian mafia boss. Apparently, during an anti-mafia operation, police found a letter from Teixidó, written on official notepaper, thanking the Georgian for dinner. The mafia guy could then take that note and show people how well connected he was. It’s an old trick, but a pretty stupid one as most people don’t write a note on official notepaper to say thanks for dinner. It makes you look a bit odd. Hopefully more details on the case will emerge soon.

My favourite bit so far is some of the information surrounding Teixidó’s failure to turn up at court. Officials said that he must have known about the case because they’d sent him a telegram. A telegram! One wonders why they didn’t send the pigeons like normal.

===

By the way: you may have noticed some strange characters and symbols cropping up in my posts. There’s some sort of problem with my character encoding settings which I don’t currently have time to look into.

Marry me, or I’ll stab you in the neck

Spain, , , , ,

And no, this isn’t the way I proposed to my dear wife.

Apparently, a woman who said “No” to her ex-boyfriend’s proposal live on El Diario De Patricia was stabbed in the neck five days later.? Svetlana Orlova, who died in hospital on Monday, had already suffered violence at the hands of? Ricardo Antonio Navaro and didn’t know that he would be joining her on the TV show. The programme makers have said that they were completely unaware of Navaro’s history of domestic violence for which he had already been given a suspended prison sentence (and a restraining order to keep him away from Orlova). “You’re everything. Everything. Forever”, he told her.

It looks likely that the humiliation of a public rebuttal pushed this nasty man over the edge and that five days later, he stabbed the woman he professed to love. What a sad story. Domestic violence against women still appears to be a major problem in this country: 63 women have been killed so far this year.

‘Catastrophic’ incident at Revenue & Customs

Politics, UK, , , , , ,

The UK Chancellor has this afternoon announced that HM Revenue and Customs ‘lost’ personal information on 25 million individuals.

Apparently, every single child in Britain had their data lost on two password-protected (but not encrypted) CD-ROMs which were sent to the National Accounting Office but never turned up. After the Northern Rock incident, Alistair Darling should now resign. He probably won’t yet, but I bet he’ll be gone soon.

The Tories have suggested that this is proof enough that the National ID Card project is a risk to far, and dead in the water. They’re probably right about that too.