Sometimes, We Must Laugh at Ourselves
Sunday, March 17, 2024
It's been a tough few months recently for the country - with protests of one sort or another receiving coverage in the national newspapers.
A long-term protest is the one currently going on outside the head offices of the PSOE, the ruling government party which is the socialist party. Those to the right, the PP and the Vox, agree on one point, that everyone else in Spain is not only wrong, but shamefully so.
Thus inspired, they wrap themselves in the Spanish flag - it's odd how national flags these days only belong to the far-right - and get on down to the Calle Ferraz in Madrid for some good ol'-fashioned protestin'. Maybe burn the president in effigy or howl some appropriate insults. The police will likely turn a blind eye (Madrid is a conservative city) and the media will be there.
What with the tractors all driving through the city, lovingly decorated once again with Spanish flags (the agricultural workers who really do all of the picking, wrapping and dodging work inspectors will have stayed home); the angry protests outside the headquarters of the smellysocks; the populists banging on in their heavily subsidised media (Madrid spends 27 million this year on 'institutional advertising' for friendly newspapers and TV channels) and the current issues with the regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso, Madrid is as usual the centre of attention in Spain.
But let us move our attention to another city, usually (if not currently) in the hands of the left: Valencia. There, the fallas have just finished. The fallas are a week-long festival with lots of music, fireworks and a tradition of comic papier-mâché models which will be judged and them, with one saved for posterity, thrown into the flames. It's like we read it in Gormenghast, with the Hall of the Bright Carvers.
But not every model - they are called ninots - are destroyed, and one must be saved. My own favourite this year is the old lady with the sun-glasses and the Spanish flag.
Now, where have I seen her before?
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How Are Things in the Spanish Government Right Now?
Thursday, March 14, 2024
If we can just play ‘catch-up’ here for a moment, know that there are two sides in the Cortes, the Spanish parliament. Following the election last summer, the PP took the most seats, but wound up with a minority that even an alliance with the far-right Vox wasn’t quite enough – just four votes short – to get them into power. Then the second party in number of deputies, the PSOE, took the opportunity to get all of the other groups, the briefly united left (or far-left), plus the nationalists and the Catalonian secessionists, to agree to vote in Pedro Sánchez as president. Only, the secessionists, the Junts per Catalunya (and to a lesser degree, the ERC), said they would pull out unless an amnesty over the independence events (and bogus referendum) of 2017 were shelved. All forgiven and forgotten.
Says the Financial Times here: ‘Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has broken a parliamentary deadlock by striking a fresh amnesty deal with Catalan separatists aimed at protecting them from terrorism charges. A neat move, taking advantage of an EU definition of ‘terrorism’ narrower than Spain’s’. The PP had hoped to find support for their efforts against the amnesty from the European Commission for Democracy through Law (known as The Venice Commission) but the opinion from this body is that amnesties are acceptable in a democracy, thus stymying the efforts of the Spanish conservatives to weaken the government and even cause fresh (and likely winnable) elections.
“Thank you to the Popular Party and the Senate for requesting this report. Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, said last week with a smile on his face. The director of elDiario.es describes the PP as being ‘victims of their own propaganda’ here.
Pedro Sánchez reacted to the news during an official visit to Chile by saying that the current legislation will now last the full four years – as elements of the judiciary continue to seek ways to bring the edifice tumbling down.
The exiled leader of Junts Carles Puigdemont, living peacefully enough in Belgium, ‘celebrated the outcome with a tweet in which he thanked the PSOE for its “willingness”, but also announced that he has no intention of stopping there. “Now, self-determination. We have every right to continue the independence process”, he crowed. The amnesty (passed in a vote on Thursday), will now be slowed down (but not stopped) by the PP-controlled Senate before passing into law somewhere in late May or June.
A protest was held in Madrid on Sunday against the amnesty. The PP and Vox were both at the event. Many Spanish flags were waved by the protestors, as they do.
The next important subject was to be the budget for 2024, but this has now been dropped following the surprise collapse of the Catalonian regional governmnet and the announcement of fresh elections there for May 12. Changes and rivalries from the Calalonian politicians in Madrid would make a national 2024 budget difficult to pass.
Other proposals for this legislation include a ban on prostitution and the recognition of Palestine as a country.
…
The lesson is that a small party with just seven deputies has managed to hold to ransom the government of a modern democracy. But what would have been the price to pay, we wonder, if the Partido Popular had have won the summer elections with the help of Vox?
For example, the far-right Voxers wants to ban all nationalist parties.
It looks like we might get a clue of how this could have played following the results this Sunday in Portugal with a hung-parliament and the far-right Chega taking third place.
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Dere's a Rat in Me Kitchen
Monday, March 4, 2024
There’s a major bookshop in our local city, and I’ve dropped by there a few times – either to buy a novel in Spanish (which I can read, if sometimes a bit slowly), or one in English from their foreign-language nook downstairs. Three or four shelves in English, plus a few books scattered in there in German – hey, it’s all foreign, right?
The spines on Spanish books are always printed upside-down which means that the usual book-stocker employee, unaware that this peculiar custom has yet to emigrate beyond the Pyrenees, will put the English (and German) books on the shelf the wrong-side-up so as to match the other shelves upstairs. Then along comes a Brit and pulls a few out to scope the back-cover and before you know it, the foreign books are higgledy-piggledy, which means, when I come along for a spot of browsing, I have to throw my head from one side to the other, wrenching my neck, to glom the offers on display.
At twelve euros a pop or maybe more, they ain’t cheap, neither.
So, in the Brit community fifty miles to the north, there’s a few charity shops that sell books.
The Brits will volunteer to run these shops, collecting funds for some Noble Cause (dogs and cats, usually – they haven’t yet run to helping the Palestinians).
The charity shops work on stuff being brought around and kindly donated.
Often after a local funeral.
Books are considered as a filler, I suppose, as they are usually sold at six for a shilling. Which is fine by me. See the difference here? One book at twelve euros in the city, versus seventy two charity books in guiriville for the same price. I mean, if I get half-way through and decide that it’s tripe, then I’m down by fifteen cents.
So the other night, I am lying in bed in the place I’m looking after, a country-home. Nice, very quiet, lots of trees and birdies. Reading some rubbish about a pretty detective who rides a Ducati through the worst streets of Washington (I do love to travel), I was interrupted by a large rat galloping across the bed and disappearing under the wardrobe.
So the next day, I went to buy some poison. A box with a dozen blue cubes of some dreadful stuff that disagrees with rats and I leave one on the kitchen counter, and returned to my detective, now in bed with her lawyer.
The next day, the poison had gone. But, you know, judging by some evidence in the fruit bowl, the rat hadn’t.
Or maybe there were two rats. I put another cube out.
The following day, the second cube had gone, but someone had got into the rice crispies.
I put out a third cube, put everything edible in a steel case with a combination lock, and returned to my pile of books.
And so, Best Beloved, every day and until the box was empty, the daily poison has been taken away from its place in the kitchen. Seems I either had a very strong rat on my hands, or I was doing the Devil’s Work and killing the babies living in some hitherto undiscovered hole.
I found one possible lair under the wardrobe and wedged the detective and her motorbike in it. It was about time she did something useful.
Today, a friend gave me a humane rat-trap. You leave a chunk of cheese within, the trapdoor goes *clunk* and you take him outside and toss him out in the campo a few kilometres from home. That’s the theory, anyhow.
I also bought a box of strychnine this morning, just in case
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The Valencia Apartment-block Fire
Friday, March 1, 2024
Last week’s main story was the tragic fire that burned two connected 14- and 10-storey blocks of flats in Valencia on Thursday February 22nd in just a couple of hours. 138 apartments were gutted. That it happened during the day meant that only ten people were killed. Another 500 or so (the estimate of the total inhabitants in the two blocks) are reported safe.
The fire started on the seventh floor following a spark from a short-circuit inside an electric window-awning.
The façade of the building – which began construction in 2006 – was covered by an innovative material called Alucobond, an aluminium composite that includes synthetic material.
The manufacturer’s website insists on its product: ‘High-quality, resilient and unique in appearance – Alucobond® stands for sustainable construction quality and the highest creative standards. The façade material is distinguished by its outstanding product attributes such as precise flatness, variety of surfaces and colours as well as excellent formability’.
The suggestion is that the inner core was highly flammable. The cladding ‘was made from polyurethane, Says The Local, which is a versatile plastic material, which exists in various forms. It is used in everything from shoe soles to sportswear fabrics and mattresses. It’s also often found in building construction, particularly for cladding and insulation. The material is highly flammable, and "when heated, it catches fire" said a fireman. The fact-checking site Maldita expressed caution over the claim, saying that the cladding was more likely to be a rock-wool composite.
A friend who lives close-by sent me the photograph he took the next morning.
We are reminded of the Grenfell tragedy in North Kensington, London, which burnt down in June 2017 with 70 deaths. The fire ‘was accelerated by a dangerously combustible aluminium composite cladding and external insulation, with an air gap between them enabling the stack effect’.
Back in 2008, when the buildings were completed, similar to the entire real-estate sector in Spain, the developer behind the project and an even larger sister block nearby, a firm called Fbex, went into crisis. Two years later it filed for bankruptcy for 640 million euros and the entity passed into the control of its lending bank Banesto.
Many of the owners (or perhaps mortgage holders) were left with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing. The city hall of Valencia has given shelter to those affected. Mapfre insurance nevertheless has an obligation for 26.5 million euros on the buildings.
There are an untold number of high-rise buildings in Spain using a similar kind of cladding with polyurethane built before the regulations were changed in 2006. How would the owners (or, again, the mortgage-paying tenants) feel to discover that their building is potentially a fire-hazard? The tenants in the second Fbex project, in nearby Mislata (162 apartments) are understandably very concerned.
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Far-right leaders at CPAC
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
‘The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is an annual political conference attended by conservative activists and elected officials from across the United States. The CPAC is hosted by the American Conservative Union…’ (Wiki). A toxic mixture of fundamentalist religion and authoritarianism.
Besides the usual suspects, some big names from abroad were at the CPAC last week (held outside Washington DC last Wednesday through Saturday), including German MEP Christine Anderson from the AfD; Hungary’s Miklos Szantho; the ‘anarcho-capitalist’ Javier Milei from Argentina; Liz Truss from the UK and Spain’s Santiago Abascal, the leader of Vox (Media Matters here).
A picture of Donald Trump and Abascal made the Spanish news (they look like they are sharing a lift) – and Europa Press quotes Trump as saying ‘‘From what I read, I think you will soon be number one’, at the same time ensuring that he was "delighted" to have met Abascal and congratulating him on the "great job" that Vox is doing’. The far-right Spanish press was, if possible, even more enthusiastic: El Debate (owned by 'the Catholic Association of Propagandists') quotes Abascal in his speech saying ‘Only from strong nations can we defend the culture and values that unite us: the homeland, freedom, reason, the faith of our parents, family, property, sovereignty, democracy and the limitation of power. And above all, life, from its beginning to its natural end’. Público (on the far-left) says: ‘Abascal deploys his ultra remarks in Washington and charges against socialism, environmentalism and the 2030 Agenda’.
(‘The Global Goals and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development seek to end poverty and hunger, realise the human rights of all, achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, and ensure the lasting protection of the planet and its natural resources’, we read here).
‘Brexit boss Nigel Farage — a veteran of more than a decade of CPACs — was received warmly by the CPAC audience and proved even more popular at evening cocktail parties. We “need strong leaders,” Farage railed during his speech, adding “we need Trump back in the White House”…’ says the The NY Post here.
All of these leaders would no doubt agree with the opening speaker and right-wing activist Jack Posobiec, who said: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavour to get rid of it and replace it with this right here.” He held up a cross necklace and continued: “After we burn that swamp to the ground, we will establish the new American republic on its ashes, and our first order of business will be righteous retribution for those who betrayed America”.
...
(While on the subject…) Trump on Putin – a short video at YouTube. ‘More and more Republican lawmakers are siding with Russia, seemingly at the behest of former President Trump, who has a long history of fawning over Vladimir Putin’ says MSNBC.
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The Rudderless Island
Sunday, February 18, 2024
Those of us who moved to Spain from the United Kingdom will have our view about how the old country has either prospered or gone to the dogs since the Brexit, or perhaps even before that particular upset.
My dad used to trace Britain’s final decline to the Suez Crisis in 1956. Now, I think it was when they arrested Julian Assange in 2010 on a trumped-up rape charge (oh look, I’ve gone and used the t-word!).
But we all have opinions. Those of us Brits who are living in Spain have other things to think about – unless we are among those unfortunates who find themselves enmeshed in the 90/180 Schengen Trap – then it’s a daily and anxious look at the calendar and the doubt about who to look after the house for the next three months.
Another way to look at the UK comes from a Spanish journalist who works at El País called Ana Carbajosa, who after travelling extensively across Britain has written a book called ‘Una Isla a la Deriva’: the drifting (or rudderless) island. The write-up provided by the printers, Península, says, ‘When did the United Kingdom collapse? How is it possible that the empire in which the sun never set has ended up becoming an increasingly isolated, fragmented and unequal place? How much has Brexit contributed to deepening cracks that had been opening for decades? How were unscrupulous politicians like Boris Johnson or Liz Truss able to end up running the country?’
elDiario.es interviews Ms Carbajosa. Their first question is: ‘What misconceptions are there in Spain about the United Kingdom?’
She answers, ‘We probably think that the United Kingdom is a unit and that the United Kingdom is the English (los ingleses). In truth, the United Kingdom is a very complex and diverse country due to the geographical and regional differences that, as the experts I spoke with for the book explained to me, are the most noteworthy in all of Europe. In all European countries there are differences between rich and poor regions, but the poor ones are not as poor as those in the United Kingdom, which is (by the way) also the sixth largest economy in the world. There is a brutal regional inequality that we are not aware of and that has contributed to Brexit and other political phenomena’.
She tells us that the media and politicians who she meets there talk of ‘ Broken Britain’.
But that’s all happening elsewhere. We live in Spain, with its own triumphs and failures (of which, if we stick to The Euro Weekly and other low-shooting English-language media, we are blissfully unaware of).
Perhaps we can stay here – or perhaps some hostile currents in Iberian politics or the media (chucking Spaniards out of the UK needs some retaliation, maybe) may send us abruptly home. There are 5,700 Spaniards currently living in the UK under threat of deportation.
After all, as we fail to concern ourselves about Rishi Sunak’s hostility towards the immigrants, it’s not like we have the ear of the Spanish legislators.
Most unlikely, of course, but there you go. We live in unlikely times.
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The Farmers' Revolt
Wednesday, February 14, 2024
The farmers’ protests – roads blocked by legions of (recently washed and highly polished) tractors.
Of course they have a point. The low prices paid for their products versus the high prices they (and everybody else) must pay for food in the supermarkets. Someone is making a fortune, and it clearly isn’t them.
Although – in a small way – farmers or smallholders often trade between themselves: a crate of tomatoes here for a box of potatoes there.
The issue isn’t just a Spanish one – rather, it’s Europe-wide. Control on pesticides and fertilisers; rising costs; over-powerful retailers; cheaper (and un-regulated) imports from outside the EU – and sometimes, even legal imports from within (well we know what the French are capable of). Then there’s the political opportunism coming from here and there; the overwhelming list of regulations and the all-weather work, rain or shine.
Which should be worth something. As they say: ‘No farmers, no food’.
Small and large farmers are in different leagues of course. We read of ‘the decline of small and medium-sized farmers, ranchers or fishermen. Rising costs (and droughts) have aggravated the difficulties in general and, specifically, the crisis of the traditional model, which has been made up mostly of self-employed workers, favouring the business of large companies in all links of the food chain’.
The number of self-employed farmers has fallen by 20% in the last decade.
One problem is that when there’s a drought, extra efforts are made, such as new desalination plants (with their own pollutive issues and high-energy costs) and government aid – which brings in turn more consumption, more crops, more hotels. The next drought finds the short-fall far worse than the previous one, since the demand is by now much higher.
Another issue are the illegal wells. As the strawberry farmers outside La Doñana say – we all have a right to make money for our families.
The Government has dug deep in the past few years. President Sánchez recently said ‘Since 2022, we have provided 4,000 million euros for the primary sector. Including 1,380 million euros in direct aid and 2,800 million for the modernization of irrigation. A further 6,800 million has come through the European Common Agricultural Policy of which 4,800 million are direct aid together with agricultural insurance”.
In fact, the CAP takes up 30% of the entire EU budget.
The far-right has found the opportunity to their liking, rabble-rousing and attacking the ‘out-of-touch elites’. Meanwhile, one of the small pleasures of the ‘tractoradas’ (as they are called) was watching the populist agitator Alvise Pérez – who just happened to be passing by while shouting ‘Por España’ into a megaphone – being beaten up by the police in a park outside Madrid. He’s involved in stirring things up along with Lola Guzmán (president of the 6F Group) who tells the police at the same event ‘that ETA didn’t kill enough of you people’. Isolated events, perhaps, as the farmers become ever-more indignant. Lola herself is an ex-militant of Vox.
Always a pleasure to see the true patriots at work. With their flags and their hatred.
For most of us, the inconvenience of a group striking for one reason or another is either minor or non-existent – unless they block the roads or close down the flight or train-ride we had booked. In this case, the shops may run out of certain items in the short-term and probably will be obliged to raise their prices once the farmers’ claims have been satisfied.
…
Regardless of the activities of any fellow-travellers, or practical solutions from the Government, it appears that the tractoradas will continue for a while. The DGT has the real-time road-blocks by the farmers (and all other pertinent road-conditions) here.
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Drought and Some Patchwork Solutions
Monday, February 5, 2024
It’s not looking very good in Catalonia with the water issue at the moment.
The BBC says ‘A state of emergency is declared as the region faces worst ever drought’. The fact is that the reservoirs are all but empty and there’s what the British would call a hosepipe-ban come into effect in 102 municipalities affecting six million residents including the people of the city of Barcelona.
While the Generalitat has concentrated on draconian reductions for agriculture, ranchers and industry (-80, -50 and -25% cuts), the subject of tourism has been left in the hands of the town halls. A headline on Sunday says that some of these local authorities are insisting on sea-water filled swimming-pools and no plugs to be provided in hotel baths.
We learn that tourists apparently like to use more water than residents.
Not enough rain (or snow-melt) is the culprit. But the effect is a drought – in the tail-end of winter.
One plan is to bring water up from Sagunto (Valencia) to the Catalonian capital by sea.
It’s been a warm and dry few months in Spain, with other areas equally worried about water shortage – particularly Andalucía.
All right, they aren’t cutting the water to the golf-courses on the Costa del Sol (at least, not yet), but the larger plan there ‘will focus on using disused wells and boreholes, more desalination projects to make seawater usable and pushing local councils into fixing existing leaks in their water supply networks’.
In both regions – the fear is more that the tourist-industry will suffer than any apparent concern for the residents – as the availability of agricultural water is reduced and water-cuts are programmed for Seville, Córdoba and Málaga.
Andalucía is also looking at cistern-ships, maybe hauling water ‘from Portugal or even Asia’. Didn’t some place in Malaga bring a petite ice-burg down from Greenland last year?
A useful list of household water-economies includes showering rather than taking a bath – but the most effective break on domestic water-use would no doubt be the local water company putting up its prices.
Judging by the last few years of steadily increasing temperatures, the tourist bonanza may begin to falter, particularly in the south – although, here’s Sur in English: ‘Reassurance for Malaga and Costa del Sol tourism sectors following Andalucía's fresh drought decree. The regional government is to spend a further 217 million euros on measures to shore up water supply as the much-needed rain still fails to arrive’.
One answer is to build new desalination plants, but they are expensive and, as Greenpeace says, "This technology is essential to alleviate a period of extreme drought, like the one we are suffering now, but they are the last option". In Spain, there are currently an astonishing 770 of them – mostly used for domestic consumption.
Thus, we prepare for the summer season - with another 85 million or so international tourists joining us for a drink, a swim and a shower.
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More, No Wait, Less Tourists: More Money!
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
Following another successful session at the Fitur Madrid tourist fair this past weekend, Spain is preparing itself for the 2024 season.
With numbers of visitors beginning to reach uncomfortable highs, there are plans to try and resolve the problems. After all, as we know, it’s not really the crowds of foreigners, so much as the amount they spend. The Express brings us: ‘Spain only wants to attract 'high-class tourists' as the country becomes overwhelmed. Spain is set to focus on 'high value visitors' including those with significant 'spending power' as the country battles high visitor numbers’.
Plans to spread the visitors around won’t work – after a cold and dull winter, the truth is that nobody wants to go and visit Huercal Overa (a market town in Northern Almería present – inexplicably – at Fitur) for their hols. They want Benidorm.
Tourist apartments are a low-hanging target. ‘Town councils may establish limitations regarding the maximum number of homes for tourist purposes, per building or sector’. There are, we read, 80,000 of these just in Andalucía. In Mallorca, ‘Holiday lets are to blame for Mallorca tourist overcrowding’. Controls are evidently overdue.
This is for the comfort and safety of the customer, peace of mind for the neighbours, and a more ready income for the hoteliers.
Even though tourist-rentals work out as being usually more expensive than hotel stays.
Then we read of the ‘alarm at the boom in the number of tourist homes in Spain’. Exeltur considers this as the worst problem facing the tourist industry in 2004 ‘ahead even of concerns regarding the Government cutting short-range domestic flights’.
Some hotels are still yet to recover from the Covid crisis, as we see in an article at Infobae: ‘Tourism is still not profitable: half of the hotels in Málaga, Madrid and Barcelona are at high risk of defaulting on the banks’.
The Bank of Spain weighs in, concerned about the ‘increases in the minimum wage, difficulties in finding staff and adapting to new technologies’ (none of which are particularly a problem for tourist lets).
But, while the high numbers of tourists staying in the downtown apartments is certainly a problem (with their little wheelie-suitcases trundling noisily across the cobble-stones) and one should always feel sorry for the grand hotels with their assembly-line business model, the long-term threat comes from elsewhere.
The looming climate-crisis.
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Now, They'll Let us Vote in the UK...
Monday, January 22, 2024
It was a shame that those of us Brits who back then in 2016 had lived abroad for fifteen years couldn’t vote in the famous referendum over leaving the European Union. The Brexit as it became known: the one where the UK would steer a new course all by itself.
As to where it was going, who could be sure? Glory, success and ennoblement of course, but maybe only for those few millionaires who had wisely moved their funds offshore beforehand.
But that’s the problem for the United Kingdom and its inhabitants to face. Brexit will bring some benefits perhaps, along with some unpleasant realisations and lessons.
Over here in the remains of the European Union, things appear to be moving along. We are managing quite well in the absence of the British, and wish them well with their straight bananas and trade deals with Timbuktu.
We couldn’t vote, us lot. Normally, voting for a candidate to become either a member of parliament or to crash and burn might be useful enough for those who live there – a good candidate will have ideas and energy to spruce things up locally – with the benevolent support and indulgence of his party – but we live, and have lived for a long time – in foreign parts.
The French have long had a group within their parliament which represents Frenchmen abroad. They have eleven seats in the National Assembly. Nice.
The referendum, of course, was different. Instead of discussing the pros and cons of increasing the acreage of sugar-beet (I’m from a bucolic part of East Anglia: left for Spain when I was thirteen), it was about a subject which would enormously affect us expats – traitors and malingers as we might have been considered back in Henley – in many ways.
Sugar-beet, by the way, is a kind of turnipy-thing that you can either get sugar from, or can feed to the cows.
Yet we couldn’t vote in the one thing that would have affected us.
Back then, I doubt even the British media bothered to ask us our views, despite there being 1,300,000 of us living in the EU and another 4,200,000 living elsewhere in the world.
Regardless of the usefulness or otherwise of swelling my North Norfolk constituency by one person; and following a change in the law, we Brits abroad (fifteen years and up) are now encouraged to register (every three years) and to call for our postal vote. This register of Brits abroad may not be huge (although they endearingly estimate three million potential voters – spread of course across 650 polls), but it might attract a few extra donations to one party or another which will no doubt be welcomed (if criticised elsewhere).
Right now, I’m renewing my passport (they do this these days in Belfast). My current one has ‘European Union’ stamped in gold on the cover. My new one won’t.
I suppose you are right – I should be looking for Spanish citizenship after all these years here. After all, I speak Spanish and know my way around – even if I do happen to look extremely and pinkly Nordic.
All I wanted, really, was to be a European.
Anyway, it boils down to this: either get myself a Spanish passport, or find out more about the fascinating politics of sugar-beet.
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