Spanish Shilling

This post will need updating during the week...

Last week, the Government took an enormous hit after a senior party deputy was found to be partnered in with Jose Luis Ábalos and the fixer Koldo García in a corruption deal that swapped construction-contracts (mainly from the multinational Acciona) for cash.

The deputy in question was the right-hand of Pedro Sánchez, whose post was ‘Secretary of Organization of the PSOE’, a post he took over from his sacked predecessor, the above-mentioned José Luis Ábalos in 2021.

The moment the story broke, Pedro Sánchez did what he had to do by demanding the immediate resignation of Santos Cerdán from his post and from the PSOE. Sánchez himself emphasized this in his press conference by stating that, sad to say, there is no such thing as "zero corruption", in this world but at least in the PSOE there is "zero tolerance" for any serious evidence of corruption.

"…It causes me enormous indignation and profound sadness to see that an entire project that millions of people trust and depend on can be affected by the conduct of a few," he lamented. "The response to this kind of behaviour will always be forceful, regardless of the enormous disappointment I have experienced today".

Mind you, Rajoy was saying something similar when the corruption in his Partido Popular government first rose to the surface in 2014.

“There will be no elections before 2027” said Sánchez, whether as a promise or a prayer, as that confidence may be too hard to swallow. Will Koldo García – whose secret recordings, now in the hands of the UCO fraud police, where past deals and conversations are now being leaked to the media – produce any more bombshells?

The turnaround consisted of demanding Cerdán's resignation as secretary of the PSOE organization and his resignation as a member of Congress; announcing a restructuring of the Ferraz executive committee at the federal committee meeting to be held on July 5 in Seville; and commissioning an external audit to rule out any suspicion of irregular financing within the party. Whether that will be enough… and whether the secret recordings in the hands of the UCO will produce any further revelations.

A point worth making is that we all know that corruption – easy money – can and does appear in both socialist and conservative parties; but to my mind, a corrupt socialist is worse – he is stealing from the people, whereas corruption in conservative circles is somehow less of a surprise and almost part of the game and something to be expected.

The worry is that Spain could fall, via an autumn election, into the hands of a PP/Vox combination. If the Partido Popular could go it alone, then maybe Spain could continue to move forward, but with a far-right anti-EU party wagging the dog, such a prospect would be a disaster. Indeed, a snap poll carried out over the weekend unsurprisingly gives both the PP and Vox a push at the expense of the PSOE. Highly aware of this threat, the junior parties within the Government are wriggling on the hook. Not happy, but they know that they will have to keep in line.

There difference between the two parties is in evidence. A socialist gets caught, he gets fired. Whereas on the other side… Ayuso in Madrid up to her neck in shady deals (the last PP leader, Pablo Casado, was thrown under the bus when he accused her of corruption). Valencia’s Carlos Mazón remaining as a willing millstone around Feijóo’s neck. Indeed Feijóo was in Valencia last week to congratulate Mazón over his administration of the DANA and to bless the budget agreement arranged together with Vox in their regional government.

The Government is now living day to day in a state of entrenchment in the face of the more than evident judicial and media campaign being carried against it.

On Monday afternoon, in a meeting with the press, the President insisted that his project would continue.

On Wednesday, Pedro Sánchez will be grilled in Congress. The opposition will no doubt be calling for his resignation.

If things go wrong (perhaps following further unwelcome revelations from the police), like the Portuguese prime minister before him (later exonerated of any corruption), Sánchez will likely end up in a senior role in Europe.

It’s the time of the year when some of the pueblos in my small corner of Spain celebrate their various Moors and Christians festivals. How close to marking a factual date, or just because it was otherwise going to be a quiet weekend, is unclear. But apparently in 1488, Mojácar fell to the Christian forces. Next-door Vera on the one side of us and Carboneras just over the mountain on the other side also fell this (or maybe next) weekend some 537 years ago. As I write this, all three towns have been enjoying their processions, fabulous costumes, bands playing waily-waily music and lots of thunder-flashes going off – loud enough to wake the dead. Indeed, to add to the fun, Vera town hall has thrown in a bullfight as well.

And don’t forget, Carboneras (I find that it starts this coming weekend) has a castle for that extra bit of verisimilitude.

The whole idea began down our way in around 1988 (appropriately, the fifth centenary of the final push towards Granada, a ‘reconquista’ which swept through our area in that year). The costumes and celebrations come (usually rented in our case) from the Alicante town of Alcoy, which has apparently been honing its medieval armour since King Jaume of Valencia passed through there with his forces in 1276.

Mojácar’s festival is different, according to our recently-invented tradition, in that the Christian captain and the Moorish mayor are said to have sunk their differences over a glass of dandelion tonic down at the Fuente, and agreed that we – or rather they – were all Spaniards together and, by the way and in case you wondered, the road to Granada is over there, just past that algarrobo. As the Town Hall’s blurb puts it ‘…when we tell them of the story of that peaceful surrender of the city, they are surprised. It's a festival without victors or vanquished’.

This year, the fiesta had been extended an extra day and now runs Thursday through Sunday. When pueblos find that they are on to a good thing, visitor-wise, they often add an extra day or two. The Almería City’s saint’s day in August, for example, runs for nine days straight.

Peculiar that, considering that very few visitors make their way to the Big Al. Their surrender to the Christians, meanwhile, falls rather unfortunately on December 26th – where other, jollier celebrations are already going on.

We went up to the village on Thursday evening, to find that things hadn’t really got going. The different hard-board castles or kabilas, or whathaveyous were there, pressed back to back in the reduced area of the pueblo (Mojácar: a small and ancient town perched on a hill), all equipped with the 21st century equivalent of record players. Eight different venues for the seven groups loosely divided into Moors or Christians (generally speaking, the Moors are the PSOE and the Christians are the PP because, even in a small village, one must divide into still smaller peñas to belong).

The foreigners? Well some of them have joined in, above all, those who can afford to rent a costume. 

I’ve been to a few Moors and Christians festivals over the years. The tinier villages in the mountains may be a bit quieter – with a costumed fellow on horseback declaiming a major chunk of poetry to his be-turbaned antagonist before the hired band lets go with a selection of modern pop songs and we all, locals and those who moved years ago to Almería City but still have a house here, move en masse to the tin chiringuito for a beer and something chewy on the hot-plate. One village popular with the foreigners, Bédar, used to feature a chap on a donkey wrapped in a table-cloth, another wearing the uniform of a military service private soldier seated on a Mobylette, plus someone from the Town Hall to help with the ancient poetry. ‘Avast, thou Moor, for this is a Godly Kingdom…’

Gouts of this stuff. Think ‘The Merchant of Venice’. And then cue the fireworks, and down to the bar. 

Mojácar on Thursday evening was fairy crowded but the various kabilas hadn’t got going, so we sat in the main square at a table with someone we knew, together with a man from Tipperary, whose accent, alas, was too impenetrable for my poor German companion, plus a very nice lady dressed in a disturbing Goth outfit. To make up the party, there was a large and unchained parrot, who was nodding appreciably in time to the distant drums.

After a couple of schooners of gin and a Donner Kebab – Mojácar suddenly has a number of these establishments – we went home (there’s a secret route that the traffic police for some reason haven’t found).

For these affairs, I used to wear my old djellaba (a sort of gentleman’s nighty with a hood), a souvenir of a long-ago trip to Morocco. But I can’t find it now, I think it must have gotten thrown out.

On the second evening, Friday, we decided to take the bus up to the village – a performance which proved to be painless. We could see cars parked all the way up and all the way down again. Our bus-driver let us off just below the square.

By now, the party was well and truly underway. Many townsfolk were in their costumes and several carried with them a type of arquebus (or maybe a hand-cannon) called un trabuco, which, as far as I can see, they will fire off whenever they see a defenceless earhole. The different barracks were doing trade, one with a magnificent group of brass musicians from Alicante wearing fezzes. The wine was flowing and luckily the busses were still running when we finally made our adieus.

Saturday was a quiet day for us, with the windows firmly closed – and the air-conditioner on full – to help keep the explosions, bangs, drum-rolls, trumpets and shrieks away.

The last day of the festival was Sunday.

We took the bus once again, this time so overcrowded, the driver could barely close the door. We then lounged about for a couple of hours, with a few drinks to refresh ourselves, in keen anticipation of the oncoming parade.

Which was fantastic.

I think they must rent the costumes from some crafty fellow in Alicante who is making himself a small fortune. They were both beautiful and dramatic. More and more warriors (and princesses and some heavily armed children) passed slowly and regally by, with musicians accompanying each of the seven kábilas.  The whole parade took over ninety minutes and probably had anything up to a thousand participants.

Following this stupendous experience, everyone else went home, while we settled on another glass of wine and a bowl of patatas bravas.

The Mojácar mayor had this to say:  

‘In many other cities, the confrontation is recreated. In Mojácar, we celebrate mutual respect. And that, in these times, is more valuable than ever’.

The next hand is now being played, with a non-party demo to be held in Madrid this Sunday. It’s been called by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, after his plan to persuade the smaller support parties to give way and allow him a vote of confidence against the Government failed to attract any takers between the minor groups (understandably, since Vox wants to illegalise some of them).

The protest, and I kid you not, is called ‘Mafia or Democracy’.

Feijóo, the PP leader, wants his go at being president, even though this would absolutely mean an alliance with Vox. He issued his call for the demonstration on the same day as yet another ex-party deputy, the enabler for the last Minister of the Interior, was admitted to jail.

His particular crimes were money-laundering, criminal organisation and selling on private information.

Feijóo’s call for Mafia or Democracy also happened on the day when Ayuso’s boyfriend was finally corralled and is now to be challenged by the Court over his manoeuvres to avoid paying tax (around €350,000) on the Covid masks he sold to some of those town halls that were buying in an understandable panic back in 2020.

Madrid is a bastion of the Partido Popular, and one could expect many people to turn out for the protest: José Maria Aznar says he’ll be there, along with Mariano Rajoy (whose last government collapsed because of, precisely, corruption), even Valencia’s Carlos Mazón says he won’t be passing up the chance to show his face among friends.

Madrid’s regional leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso has her hands full, as another court is attempting to interrogate three of her captains about the Protocols of Shame – the emotive name given to the decision to leave the elderly closed off in the residences without medical attention during the Covid crisis (7,291 died).

But no doubt, she will be there too.

The suggestion that the PSOE is the party described as being corrupt is collapsing by the day, with little to show for it – both Sánchez’ wife and his brother, and the Attorney General now almost completely off the hook. The latest scandal for the delight of the Opposition (and the private TV channels) is about an ex local politician from the PSOE and journalist called Leire Díez found to be (privately) investigating the ‘Patriotic Police’ (sic) regarding their subversive activities down the years. Elsewhere, we read that the Guardia Civil are carrying out their own investigation into ‘the Patriotic Police’.

‘Mafia or Democracy’. Is this going to be Feijóo’s final attempt to scold the Government (he’s called five protests so far) before his party congress in early July?

As The Weenie’s Leapy Lee says (repeatedly), ‘you really couldn’t make it up’.  

Later: Watching the RTVE, which claims 55,000 present at the protest (including people bussed in from other parts of Spain) we were treated to Feijóo talking about the corrupt government of Sánchez and the ‘decency’ of the Partido Popular. He called for fresh elections.

Oscar López, the leader of the PSOE in Madrid, noted that ‘they filled the Plaza de España with hatred and insults, but not with people’.

As we know, the two main political parties are vying, neck and neck, to find the most cases of corruption or inability within the other group – fair or foul.

Making the country a better place for all is a nice thought, but sinking the other side with some scandal is so much nicer.

The Corner, a conservative English-language Spanish webpage, found it too good to resist: ‘David Sánchez, the Prime Minister’s brother, will go to trial for influence peddling and prevarication (deception). The judge who investigated the case concluded that after Pedro Sánchez mentioned his brother was a musician, the PSOE leader in Extremadura, Miguel Angel Gallardo, created an ad hoc job for him as coordinator of the two music conservatories in Badajoz, whose provincial council Gallardo presided over’. The point that the mildly ineffectual David has been in the same job since 2017 – long before his brother became president – appears to be lost to The Corner, and one wonders if he only had of had a less visible brother whether there’d even be a case after all. The poor fellow uses the name David Azagra which looks like he doesn’t seek notoriety. He’s hardly another Juan Guerra (remember him? Alfonso Guerra’s businessman brother).

As far as Sánchez’ wife Begoña Gómez goes, well we’ve been entertained now for over a year without any outcome. But Judge Peinado, encouraged by the knuckle-dragging Manos Limpias with their sheaf of press-cuttings from OKDiario, continues his (apparently) final investigation with unalloyed enthusiasm.

Another case against the PSOE, where the Attorney General (a political post) was accused of publicising the confession of Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s boyfriend, without any proof, has since collapsed after several journalists had stepped forward to say they knew about the activities of the boyfriend a couple of days earlier. Indeed, now the lawyer for the boyfriend, Alberto González Amador, admits in court that he sent out the confession (in the hope of leniency).  

Summing up, El Plural says: ‘Gómez, Sánchez, and García: Three Judicial Cases Under Suspicion. It's impossible to ignore the stench of bias in the cases of Pedro Sánchez's wife, Pedro Sánchez's brother, and the Attorney General appointed by Pedro Sánchez’.

However, the main scandal for the PSOE is the ex-minister José Luis Ábalos, who was summarily fired from both his post and from the party in February last year by Pedro Sánchez when the accusations of impropriety first arose (his lieutenant Koldo García is under investigation for massive tax fraud during the Covid crisis).

Over on the Partido Popular bench, the leading stories are the problems with Carlos Mazón in Valencia (following the October flooding there) and then there’s the issue of Ayuso’s boyfriend’s activities (he is accused of tax fraud). A more immediate problem for Ayuso – sometimes seen as the next leader of the PP – is the accusation levied by the court towards three of her senior officials regarding the refusal to give medical aid to the elderly trapped in residences during the Covid crisis known as ‘the protocol of shame’ (‘they would have died anyway’ said Ayuso in a regrettable parliamentary outburst). Then, the Monday appointment with the judge was abruptly postponed at the last moment.

7,291 veterans died in Madrid – apparently due at least in part to this dereliction of duty.

Then there’s the forthcoming surprise PP congress brought forward a year to early next month to be held in Madrid (Feijóo oddly announcing it by saying, ‘the Pope had a conclave, now it’s my turn’). As Pedro Sánchez asked him in Parliament: ‘are you going to make changes? Weren’t you ready before?’

We shall find out the answer to that one on July 6th.

Perhaps things will all settle down in a few weeks’ time.

Who am I kidding?

Just to make the two points that the above reflections come from items found in the Spanish media (as collated by me), and that neither I nor indeed most of my readers have The Vote in national elections in Spain, making my recent essays on Spanish politics theoretical rather than practical.

From last week, El País reports that the PSOE is shaking up the housing market with a battery of tax measures. The Socialist parliamentary group has introduced a bill in Congress to increase the taxes payable on vacant housing, to tax foreign (non-resident) home buyers and to raise the IVA on tourist apartments. The article begins: ‘The PSOE has pulled out all the stops to address the housing crisis in Spain. The Socialist Parliamentary Group submitted a broad bill to the Congress of Deputies this past Thursday to ease congestion in the residential market, with measures aimed at limiting tourist apartments, curbing home purchases by non-resident foreigners, ensuring the sustainability of public housing stock, and incentivizing lower rental prices...’

elDiario.es begins with ‘The Government announces a tax increase on vacant homes. The Socialist parliamentary group has approved a tax package that, according to Minister Rodríguez, increases the taxation of vacant homes "to encourage them to become part of residential rentals"’. The government wants to use tax pressure to bring an extra three million vacant homes onto the market. The plan is to encourage the release of vacant properties by gradually increasing the amount charged to their owners in personal income tax from 1.1% to 3%. Some experts consider this an insufficient amount for the measure to be effective.

The Majorca Daily Bulletin says ‘Spain pushes ahead with 100 percent sales tax on home buys by non-resident Britons and Americans. Real estate agents and lawyers doubt that it will ever be introduced’. Spanish Property Insight also singles out British and American private buyers: ‘Socialist governing party pushes forward with plans to tax foreign non-resident buyers from outside the EU, mainly Brits and Americans’. It begs the question – who should take precedence in the Spanish housing crisis as far as the Spanish authorities are concerned?

Bloomberg says that ‘Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist party presented the plan as part of a broader housing bill submitted to Parliament on Thursday. The bill seeks to promote “measures that enable access to housing, since we are facing one of the largest problems our society is currently confronted with”’.

One thing is clear – the 100% tax proposal is aimed primarily at the mainly foreign investment funds (fondos buitres) who buy city blocks to put them out to rent. Google’s AI gives this answer: ‘There is no precise data on how many homes are owned by vulture funds in Spain, but it is estimated that a significant number, although not yet precisely defined, exist. Fifty-seven percent of homes in Spain are owned by funds and multi-owners. It is estimated that 15% of homes are owned by vulture funds, and 42% are owned by owners with more than three homes’. Google AI on ‘Vulture Funds’: ‘These are investment firms that buy assets at discounted prices when they are in financial distress, with the expectation of turning them around for profit’.

The other string is to tax the tourist apartments controlled by Airbnb and their competitors at a rate of 21% IVA There are currently some 400,000 tourist apartments in Spain. elDiario.es has a useful map of their location.

From The Times we read that ‘Spain has banned some Airbnbs. This is why they’re right to do so. In a bid to solve the country’s housing crisis, 66,000 short-term lets have been taken off the market...’ The writer says: ‘Do any of us wish to be complicit in the eviction of ordinary people to increase the income of certain homeowners? Do we want our presence in Barcelona, Palma, Madrid, Seville or Las Palmas to be welcomed or resented? Rented apartments almost always beat hotels on price: next weekend £350 will get you either a twin-bedded cupboard in a three-star hotel in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol or, a few streets away, an entire former residential apartment that sleeps four and has an outdoor terrace. But, is bagging that bargain the most important consideration here?’

Several major plans by the Government – all designed to help resolve the housing crisis for the Spaniards.

I suppose it comes down to this – the country is doing well with Pedro Sánchez. Employment is the highest it has ever been, Spain’s GDP is growing and most observers from abroad put Spain squarely in the forefront. ‘Spain leads Europe with strong growth and connectivity’, ‘Spain leads Europe in outlook for travel experiences’, and tellingly, ‘Why is Spain's economy booming? Thanks to migration’ they are saying approvingly.

But the Opposition wants in. Resign, they cry at every opportunity. The subtext being – let us have a go.

There’s more than one argument against letting the Partido Popular take the helm – the first being that they’d need to partner with Vox to obtain a majority, and no, we wouldn’t like that; and secondly – the last time they were in power, their government fell when they lost a motion of confidence for corruption. Quite a few of them still remain in national politics today.

It doesn’t sound good. The Courts and much of the Media might be with them, but we still didn’t know who the mysterious ‘M. Rajoy’ was: one of the many people who accepted sundry payments in ‘black’ from the party treasurer Luis Bárcenas, although the then Interior Minister (the one who came up with the anti-Podemos conspiracies and is also remembered for awarding Nuestra Señora María Santísima del Amor, a plaster virgin, with a gold medal) admitted in March this year that ‘M.Rajoy’ was (Oh the surprise!) Hizzhonor Mariano Rajoy no less.

But that’s all water under the bridge.

Apart from cutting taxes (and thus cutting services), what are the politics of the right? Could they make Spain more successful and wealthier than anything Pedro Sánchez can do? In Spain under the PSOE and its allies, we have seen rises in the minimum wage, rises in pensions, improved social justice and women’s rights, more jobs and better labour practices – and when the Opposition (along with Junts per Catalunya) hopefully drop their resistance – a reduction in the working week. 

The money that goes to (or is earned by) the wealthy might end up in a savings or investment account, or perhaps offshore. Or hey, maybe another supermarket (to improve their profits). It’s rare to see the wealthy commit the faux pas of philanthropy, but of course it happens now and again, and most welcome too.

On the other hand, the money that goes to the less better-off will immediately be returned to the economy, finding its eventual way to the owners of the leading supermarkets, banks, warehouses, importers, insurance companies and so on in what might almost be known as the ‘trickle-up effect’.

We wonder – why do the conservative parties do so well with those poorer voters who will clearly reap none of their benefits?

I think a lot of it is down to marketing, lies and manipulation.

José María Aznar – often thought of as Spain’s worst modern president (remember the weapons of destruction in Irak?) – says ‘He that can do something to pull down this government, let him do it (El que pueda hacer, que haga)’.

Many are giving it their best shot. 

‘Judge Marchena joins the antagonistic movement against the government. The list of judges openly critical of the government grows as the impartiality of the courts is called into question’ says one editorial.

‘Is Sánchez's Spain a mess? This is how the right constructs the false narrative that only they know how to govern’, we read in another pro-Government paper.

A third one says, ‘The government sees a "clear campaign of siege" against Sánchez from a conservative opposition that believes power belongs to it by right’. Or maybe, divine right.

Then there’s the complicit media – which provides the news (from the top) that one expects and hopes to read. Journalist Ester Palomera writes ‘Manipulators and liars have always existed, but what is worrying today about the existence of unrestrained professional agitators and mis-informers is that they have the support of the PP’.

Furthermore, there is the far-right Manos Limpias with its fake news and press cuttings which has brought about the fruitless year-long siege by Judge Peinado against the wife of Pedro Sánchez, with the apparent aim of attempting to weaken the President’s popularity.

A useful way to check unlikely stories is to go to the fact-checkers Maldita or Newtral (they both have a reputation to maintain, so they don’t publish whoppers).

Far-right news sources include La Razón, OKDiario, El Mundo, El Español, El Debate, ABC and many others. The ‘progressive’ media (El País, El Huff Post, elDiario.es and so on) also has a large number of titles. On the TV, the pro-Government news is on RTVE and, to a lesser degree, LaSexta, while all the others are conservative (Cuatro, Telecinco, TeleMadrid and Canal Sur).  Beyond these are even wilder channels like EDATV and the  Church’s Canal Trece (lots of cowboy films, prayers and far-right news). Plus any number of YouTube specials...

Congress is fighting back at some of the worst of the extreme youtubers by ‘targeting far-right media agitators accredited to Parliament. The PSOE and its investiture partners propose avoiding violence and disrespect from pseudo-media outlets in the chamber. The Partido Popular has not revealed how it intends to vote, and Vox flatly rejects the reform of the rules’. We read that ‘Incidents of hate, insults, and disrespect have become a decorative element within the Congress of Deputies’. Perhaps more encouraging is a notice that ‘The Supreme Court denounces the attempt to "criminalize the political system" with "unusual and absurd" lawsuits’.

There’s an old song from The Doors with the line ‘they’ve got the guns, but we’ve got the numbers’.

It’s getting tight though...

I was in Baden-Württemberg (south-west Germany) for the past couple of weeks, enjoying excellent weather, good beer and food, while visiting churches, sundry Schlösser (including a giant one in Schwetzingen) and plenty of cake-shops. 

I took a boat down the River Neckar in Heidelberg (an astonishingly delightful city), cycled a hundred kilometres through back-lanes and small villages (with a luxurious e-bike: it’s like you are always going down-hill) and visited a local zoo (with another cake-shop) and later, a huge old car, motorbike, plane and tank museum in Sinsheim.

The Sinsheim museum really is quite a thing. There's a Concorde one can climb inside and also a U-boat (which must have been a bother to obtain since the town is almost 600kms from the sea).

With a couple of obligatory stops in some Biergärten, the occasional schnapps and then another cake or two for good luck, I had a great trip and now weigh rather a lot.

My thanks to my kind hostess.

I didn’t (and don’t) think much of Barajas airport. I had to wait there for several hours queuing to get another ticket after my flight from Germany had been delayed by two idiots flying drones over the runways there. Barajas, which has several hundred squatters living in this decidedly uncomfortable airport, was spraying against a plague of bedbugs while I was visiting.

In Spain, we seem to be enjoying some outside weather as well, notably while protesting for this or that. The Good Folk from Madrid for example were spoilt for choice over this past weekend with a pro-Palestine demo, an anti-Sánchez rally and a pro-European march.

Frankly, I would have gone for an ice-cream instead.

Much has been written and said about the power cut last week which affected almost all of Spain and lasted anything up to a full day (and night). The government says it has called for an investigation, and there was even talk – now rather less, but one must keep up with the times – of some cyber sabotage.

It’s called ‘El Apagón’ - the Shut Down, and it evidently inconvenienced a nation, from stalled lifts to inoperative traffic-lights, with no cell-phones and no news (unless one has a radio with a battery). The panic however was generally light and there were no reports of looting. We read that some virtuous citizens were helping the police directing the traffic, while others even accepted drinking beers at room temperature!

Commercial losses due to the incident were around 1,600 million euros according to figures from the CEOE as quoted by the BBC.

Of course, the Opposition in its usual helpful way is trying to blame the Government for what must obviously and inevitably be a technical issue from within the electric companies themselves.

While the EWN stridently complained about the black-out (they had a paper to print) and furiously blamed the politicians in their topical edition (no doubt the Government trembled), I was lucky enough to be found that day cycling in Germany on an e-bike equipped, I have to say, with a full charge.

The Weenie, by the way, following the lead from La Razón and its ‘Caos Total’ front-page.

Other agencies also put the blame firmly on the Government – although it’s clear enough that the singularity was a technical one, emerging in some as yet unexplained manner from the electric companies, whether through some failure or other between the renewables and the standard polluters (although there was no particular rise or fall either in the sun or the wind on that day).

But let’s blame Sánchez anyway. The PP, which is bearing up well under the Mazón Crisis (where, after six months, we still don’t know what he was up to – besides not answering his phone – in the Ventorro restaurant on the day of the Valencia flood), lasted almost three hours following the restoration of power nationwide before declaring that there was an information black-out by the Government – we demand answers (and so on).

The President stated that ‘Citizens must know that the government will get to the bottom of this. Measures will be taken, and all private operators will be held accountable. To this end, the Spanish government has concluded a commission of inquiry led by the Ministry for Ecological Transition’.

So, who are the power companies – and who owns them?

Much of the energy industry has been privatised over the years, with the Red Eléctrica Española – which operates the national grid – currently having only 20% public participation (although the president of the REE, Beatriz Corredor, is a government appointee). The largest private investor in the Redeia (a holding which includes the REE) is the Galician billionaire Amancio Ortega.  Endesa, Naturgy and Iberdrola are private entities (Endesa is 70% held by the Italian Enel). We read of a ‘lack of investment and prevention in the energy system’, where profit-driven companies look to their shareholders. An irate article at Canarias-Semanal asks ‘What silent mechanisms protect the dominance of the power companies? For decades, electricity was a public service. Today, it is a commodity controlled by foreign funds, recycled former politicians, and corporate giants’. Today’s ‘eléctricas’ are not just companies that sell electricity, but are also large financial groups with tentacles in politics, the media and the economic structures of the State – and the term ‘revolving doors’, where politicians retire from active service and end up on the boards of power companies – or elsewhere – is a sure-fire protection for them. Furthermore, with their generous publicity campaigns, who will criticise them in the media?’

We must still wait for the answer to the power-cut, and the Government is anxious to know both the details and the solution as soon as possible. Are the renewables insecure and should we rely more on nuclear power? The Guardian notes that ‘Blackouts can happen regardless of what type of energy powers the grid’.

Thus, it wasn’t a cyber-attack by some aggressive foreign agency – but it could be the next time. Measures must be taken and maybe a few heads must roll. It’s the nature of things.

I followed my own advice a few weeks ago and bought a torch and a few cans of baked beans, put a battery in the radio and – what was the other thing?

Ah yes, picked up a Teach-Yourself-Russian primer.

But it’s funny how things turn out.

I was in Kraichgau in Germany this Monday, riding an e-bike along a quiet country lane when the mobile phone went off in the Karrimor – a kind of bicycle side-pack.

These calls – no one I know ever phones me – are usually from one of those scam outfits that either want to sell you something you never realised that you could do without, or worse still, a complete hollow silence from the caller: probably cleaning out your bank account details as you wonder whether to say ‘Yeah?’ or just hang up.

I block ’em when I get ’em, but if I’m doing something else, then I don’t bother to answer.

Who does these days – if someone knows you, they send a message or make a call on WhatsApp.

Pedalling away with Lotte just in front of me, i hear that my mobile is insistently trilling once again.

'Hold on', I call to her.

Long story short, it’s my neighbour in Spain, a slightly dim-witted fellow called Paco. Salt of the earth, but not always fully up to speed.

‘The power is out’, he said.

‘Well there’s fu-’…

‘And in your house too’.

Shit, did I give him a key?

‘Can you call Endesa, the electric company?’ he’s saying.

‘Paco, I’m riding an e-bike, and it’s still going strong, so I reckon I've got more than enough electricity. You call them’.

I get a message some time later, laboriously written by Paco, which says (roughly) ‘there’s no electric on the beach either’.

Lotte has dismounted and is scrolling her phone. ‘It looks like the whole of Spain is out’, she says.

‘Pity the poor buggers trapped in a lift’ I say as we pedal on towards the biergarten.

I wrote this one back in 2010. It's about a joint local to me called 'The Lavatory Bar'. But, what with it being Easter, and me in the processions, I thought I'd run it again. The picture is two of the Guardia Civil visiting my dad back in 1970.
.....

In the old days, before the passing of Franco, the bars closed at 1.00am. Most of them no doubt closed a lot earlier, right after the black and white football game on the telly ended, but the bars in the tourist towns at least, would remain open for the boozy foreigners until the bell went. By the late sixties, prices for a gin and tonic had crept up to fourteen pesetas, and a beer cost anything up to a duro – five pesetas. Our town lush, Old Antonio, would patrol the bars in Mojácar on the lookout for a drink, appearing more and more dishevelled after each invitación. ‘Rubio, dame un duro’, he’d whine.

The local bars were dressed in simple stone, marble, slate, tiles and plaster. There might be a calendar for decoration, the obligatory shelf of bottles, Green Fish gin and so on, perhaps a TV or a radio or a juke box – or with luck, all three. Noise was the keynote of a good bar, with the walls rebounding the sound and lifting it on high.

The few foreign bars would be decorated with paintings from local artists (who always attempted to drink for free) and would have the lights on low. Music came from a record player.

By 1.00am, those who wished to continue with the business of drinking would move to our solitary discothèque, run by Felipe, a Frenchman from Casablanca. Felipe would charge a little more for a cubata, the generic name for a mixed drink, but he had a disk jockey and a dance floor. At 2.00am, according to the rules, he’d close the door and pretend to be shut while we finished our drinks.

This could take some time, as the next legal establishment, the Fisherman’s Bar in nearby Garrucha, didn’t open until three.

In those days, the local Guardia Civil had to provide their own transport, which would generally be an old moped. They wouldn’t bother hiding behind a road-sign to catch the occasional drunk driver – they couldn’t stop you without ‘probable cause’ anyway. At best, they might be in the village watching the small carpark and helping drivers reverse safely out of their space and away down the hill.

The trip to Garrucha took about fifteen minutes and included a drive through the dust, ruts, or puddles, depending on the season, of the floor of the riverbed, the oddly named ‘Rio de Aguas’ that, in those days, more or less divided the two towns geographically.

Garrucha High Street was and remains a narrow and ugly road that flows straight through the fishing village and away towards Vera and civilization to the north. In those times, it was a two-way street. Halfway down it was the Bar Bichito, a bar with a special licence to open at 3.00am for the fishermen to have an early morning carajillo, a black coffee and brandy. This particular mixture always seemed like a good idea to the inebriates from Mojácar who would order a round as a song began to bubble up from within them.

Hitherto, the drinking had been reasonably quiet, with the music taking the strain, but in the Bichito, fetchingly designed in white tile throughout and known to the foreigners as ‘The Lavatory Bar’, there was no music whatsoever and entertainment had to be found elsewhere. The bar made the ordinary local establishments of the times look positively attractive. The door was on the end and opened into a narrow bar which stretched along in a small 'el' shape parallel to the street. There were two small tables and a few chairs just inside the door, and, if feeling faint, one could always sit outside on the curb. Otherwise, we stood at the chest-high bar (or even higher for some of the vertically challenged local fishermen), blinded by the bright lights and namesake decor and watched, between songs, as Pedro man-handled his one-spout Italian coffee machine. The toilet facilities, a throne with a long drop, were through the back and doubled as a storage room for the beer and soft drinks.

The fishermen and the old municipal cop would look on in a friendly way as the small group of plastered Britons, French, Germans and Americans, depending on the draw, would start on their lengthy repertoire. A family favourite of ours was ‘I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now’ (an old song immortalised in the late sixties by the New Vaudeville Band) followed, perhaps, by the popular drunken bawl ‘I’ve Got Sixpence’ or perhaps ‘Bless Em All’. A cockney couple, Pat and Tony Farr, had taught us a number of appropriate songs, such as ‘I’m One of the Ruins that Cromwell Knocked Abaht a Bit’ or ‘I’m Henry the Eighth I Am’ and so on.

More carajillos as Pedro, face pitted with acne, would tell everyone to hsss, to be quiet. People are trying to sleep (apparently).

Things could only get worse as the Rugby Songs were unleashed. Rugby Songs are England’s answer to folk music and run along the lines of ‘My Little Sister Lily’ or ‘They Were Tattered, They Were Torn…’ with lots of lines ending in –uck and so on. Curiously, many of them are set to opera music, which gives the performers a chance to really crank out the key words with enthusiasm. At times, even the extranjeros can be loud.

The ride home was always uneventful I’m sorry to report. No accidents or arrests. But those were different times. Cheap, basic and fun.