Spanish Shilling

There are seventeen autonomous regions in Spain (plus the two autonomous cities of Melilla and Ceuta). Some of these regions are large: Andalucía comprises eight provinces, Castilla y León has nine, and others are small – such as Madrid, La Rioja, Murcia plus another four, which are all uni-provincial.

Each region has its own government and president.

Right now, we are in election mode in some of the autonomies (every four years unless called before). Extremadura with two provinces just had theirs in December – although the problem in the capital, Mérida, arises with the third party, Vox, insisting on various functions within the minority government of María Guadiola (PP) in exchange for their support. 

The final outcome remains unclear – and Extremadura could soon be called to the polls again.

Aragón is controlled by the PP and is currently in campaign mode for February 8th. It looks like Jorge Azcón will be returned, but as above, will need the support of a revitalised Vox. The Vox candidate Alejando Nolasco is a little extreme, describing the regional PP as ‘pro Islam’, according to one of the local news-sites.

Meanwhile, the candidacy of a PSOE government minister, Pilar Alegría, probably won’t be of much help for the party’s chances. The far-left once again refuses to join together (a bit like the Life of Brian’s joke of the antipathy between the People’s Front of Judea and the Judean People’s Front). Thus: IU and Sumar on the one hand, la Chunta Aragonesista on the other and Podemos bringing up the rear.

Aragón is three provinces, with its capital in Zaragoza.

The next up – for March 15th – is another PP stronghold, with Alfonso Fernández Mañueco (PP) holding the keys to Castilla y León. His problem might be the disastrous summer fires throughout the region, badly mismanaged by Mañueco and his team. Nevertheless, he will likely win say the experts (with the support or otherwise of Vox). The capital of this, the largest region of Spain with nine provinces (although the three western provinces of León, Salamanca and Zamora all want to leave) is Valladolid.

Finally, we come to Andalucía – yet again held by the PP. The president is Juanma Moreno and is seen as one of the two leading candidates (along with Madrid’s Ayuso) to take over the party nationally when Feijóo throws in the towel. The PSOE candidate is the heavyweight María Jesus Montero, the current Minister for Hacienda and vice-president of Spain. The date is sometime in June.

There could be the chance of an early surprise general election on the same day as the Andalusian ballot – depending on events and Pedro Sánchez.

In all these regions – as indeed elsewhere – the key to the throne-room appears to be in the hands of Santiago Abascal’s Vox party. In an uncomfortable alliance with the PP (which must make allowances and exceptions), Spain is approaching a difficult time.  

I’m not sure if they did table-service back then, I’ll have to ask Haro’s son Paco when I see him. ‘Let’s see, two gin and tonics, three wines, a beer and a Fanta Orange’ (the last one being for me). I'm pretty sure you had to walk up to the bar and place your order. 

In those days, back in the late sixties, there wasn’t much else to do for my parents and their friends beyond gossip and drink while seated around the rickety tables of the Hotel Indalo in the square. There was no TV, no newspapers and few interruptions beyond…

‘Napia, gimme a duro’, said a dishevelled local fellow called Antonio: the price of a brandy.

My dad would hand over the five peseta coin and Antonio would totter into the bar for his reward.

Oddly, the word Napia (my family name is Napier) would raise chuckles among the local folk. Everybody had a nickname (important when there are seventeen people called Paco working in the town hall) and napia means in Spanish a beak, a hooter, a conk, a schnozz – in short, a large nose. This happened to be a feature of my father’s appearance, along with being very tall, red-headed, and covered with so many freckles that they always looked like they might one day decide to join together.

He was also known as El Langostino.

My parents had already decided to leave the UK and move to somewhere odd, when a family friend suggested Mojácar: a falling-down white village in the forgotten province of Almería with a view of the sea and just the one cheap hotel (60 pesetas a night). They arrived in the summer of 1966, just a few months after the bombs fell from the stricken USAF B-52 over the nearby village of Palomares.

I was at boarding school and didn’t make it over to Spain until the following year. 

A couple of the people regularly gathered around the tables on the terrace were something to do with the Americans – one of them was rumoured to be in the CIA and another had worked ‘for Uncle Sam’ installing a desalination plant over the site of one of the fallen bombs as a sop towards an outraged Franco (it was quickly dismantled after the Americans left and sold for scrap). The engineer deciding to stay and open the village’s first beach bar.

There were a couple of London wide-boys, a few artists, some gays, an Olympic skier gone to seed, a dance instructress who had been in the French resistance, a Danish fellow with a handlebar moustache who spoke better English than Terry Thomas (who he strongly resembled), an air-vice marshal with a plummy accent, an American draft-dodger (Vietnam), two or three piednoirs (Franco didn’t allow work-permits, but French Algerians were excepted), and a revolving number of others who came and went as circumstances allowed.

If they all enjoyed a few jars, the odd libation, a nip or two, a gargle and a swally, the only sober one at these sessions would be me. I was thirteen when I first came to Mojácar, and I maybe smoked a bit – but I had no interest in booze, and the one time I tried I was sick all over my father.

Smoking though. Everybody smoked. It was so cheap back then – a packet cost between five and twelve pesetas (three to seven cents of a euro) with the only problem being that this was black tobacco, grown I think in Extremadura. Far rougher than Virginia.

Not an issue of course – everyone in those times smoked Ducados or Celtas.

Even Antonio, the moocher.

The hotelier’s son, about my age, grew up as one does and wrote a book a few years ago. It was a homage to those early foreigners who had stayed either in the hotel or slept in the foyer. He kindly called his tome: The Made Mojaqueros.  

No matter what is going on in Spain or around the world, it’s hard to not turn and look over one’s shoulder a couple of times each and every day at the terrifying antics of America’s leaders: Trump and his motley crew of whack-jobs.

Few of us here in Europe will identify themselves with his supporters. The left and centre certainly don’t, and Marine Le Pen, the French fascist leader, says she thinks he’s crazy. But of course, here in Spain we have Feijóo and Abascal, who appear to like anything that the Government doesn’t, and look for approval and support from wherever they can find it.

Venezuela has long been a topic for the right-wing in Spain. How not to run a country and so on – a short step for identifying the current Government here with the ghastly mess that comes from that unfortunate Latin American state, now under the firm control of the USA.

I think it started with the story – invented by the Spanish so-called ‘Patriotic Police’ – of how Podemos was financed by Caracas: a most successful smear which pretty much did for the party.

‘Right-wing Spanish politicians often bring up Venezuela to criticize the left for a mix of political strategy, symbolic comparison, and historical context. Indeed, analysts describe Venezuela as a sort of handy excuse for the Spanish right to attack any appropriate position on the left’ says Google.

Unfortunately – Trump decided, following his extraction of Nicolás Maduro – to leave the Chavista government in place rather than turning things over to the opposition (and the Nobel peace prize winner María Corina Machado). Who cares – he just wants the oil as he himself says. It also appears, to the dismay of Spanish conservatives, that Maduro’s membership of the fabled Cartel de los Soles was purely an American invention.

The PP and Vox, their noses rather out of joint, must now (with the rest of us) contemplate further possible Trumpian attacks on Colombia, Cuba, Mexico and Greenland. Hell, maybe Canada too: most of this malarkey, mind, devised in the last ten days as The Donald apparently goes rogue. 

He’s only got until the mid-term elections next November (plus his ailing health) to lock everything into place. 

All of this would mean the irreparable break-down of Nato.

Then there’s Iran – which come to think of it probably deserves a little tender American lovin’.

Back in Small Town USA, the same people who claim the woman killed in Minneapolis was a domestic terrorist are telling us that the people who stormed the Capitol are heroes. In fact, a Trumper friend writes and compares the killing to the shooting of a woman involved in the January 6th 2021 mob attack on the Capitol in Washington, following the Dear Leader’s complaint that the results of the 2020 election were rigged.

And thus we ‘live in interesting times’; and wonder guiltily how our children and grandchildren are going to manage in the next years and decades.

I think on balance, we oldies had it pretty good.

...

PS, I couldn't bring myself to capitalise the word 'he' in the title - it's bad enough that he thinks he's a king... 

It’s been raining a lot recently. I am sure that the ground could do with a good soaking, and the wild-flowers later this month and next will no doubt be spectacular. But for those of us who live under a flat roof (as most of us do in Almería) the first thing after the pitter-patter coming from sound above our heads (unless it’s the cat) is to put out a few buckets in the living room, move the bed a bit to the right and tie a knot in our handkerchief to remember to see about fixing the leaks once the sun returns. 

Or, failing that, before next winter anyway.

We never think much about rain down here in the south, although flooding both on the Costa del Sol and the Costa Blanca can be mortal (229 people died in the Dana in October 2024 in Valencia). Sometimes houses near where I live get inundated, especially in those areas which are listed both as flood-planes and urbanisable by whoever makes these calls. 

My friend Chicho would tell a story of how he was sitting under an umbrella in his lounge watching water dribble through a crack in the window one wet afternoon when the local lagoon breached and a tide of water smashed through the glass and drenched the poor guy.

In most of Spain, a river is a river, or at least a stream. It will fill up when the rains come, maybe overflow and cause damage to the roads and nearby houses; but here in the dry south we don’t have rivers – we have ramblas, which are in effect, huge drains waiting for their moment of glory.

Along comes Storm Francis: Frank to his friends. The various costas are duly flooded and the journalists are to be found, standing in their wellies and speaking into the cameras. It’s the usual television cliché, like when they show snowballers after a good arctic storm.

Right now, I’m home safe, dry and warm. I have a couple of large tins of pork in a German sauce, courtesy of Aldi and my own planning ahead, a bottle of gin and some tea. I’ll be fine. I’m also isolated, surrounded by a lake as our dry river has filled and overflowed into my grateful orchard. The thing about the river-beds is that they can suddenly fill with water as a wave comes from up-stream. It’s not here that the rain needs to be watched, so much us up there. A decent wadi can fill in no time at all.

It will be a couple of days before I can get out and go shopping.

Actually, having written that, I see that I panicked needlessly, and the road is still there.

So: lessons. First of all, build your dream home on a small hill. It’s good for your tubes.

Second, if you are going to have a flat roof (and our local ordinance insists that you must), then make sure it’s leakproof.

Thirdly, buy a couple of those German emergency K-rations – mine are good until 2028.

A remarkable story on Saturday, as Donald Trump’s soldiers attacked several Venezuelan military bases while his Special Forces (in a breathtakingly professional operation) managed to bag the president of that country and his wife Cilia to take them to some location in the USA – later revealed as a detention centre in up-state New York. The Pentagon said that Maduro will be judged for criminal offences and that the attacks on the country would cease. 

Give them their due – it was a slick operation.

The whole enterprise was a bit similar to Putin’s 2022 attack on Ukraine, the buildup of forces on the frontier and so on, but evidently turned out to be rather more successful. Will China feel that it’s their turn now with Taiwan? We shall see.

My son, who lives in the Midwest, can now expect cheaper petrol at the gas-station, and will thereby appreciate that at least one of the Presidential promises has been fulfilled.

Aljazeera has ‘Maduro joins Iraq’s Saddam, Panama’s Noriega as latest leader taken by US’. Reuters posted: The Russian Foreign Ministry called the U.S. strike on Venezuela "deeply concerning and condemnable", and from Argentina’s President Milei, "Freedom moves forward, hooray for freedom Goddammit’.

Spain’s reaction to this remarkable coup understandably varied from left to right. President Sánchez calls for a de-escalation – he says: “Both International law and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations must be respected”. Pedro Sánchez, in line with the EU, avoided expressly condemning the US operation, while Sumar denounced the attacks against Venezuela as “imperialist aggression. Alberto Núñez Feijóo meanwhile was insisting on a quick transition led by Edmundo González (the doddery old fellow who lives in exile in Madrid). 

Feijóo and the Partido Popular were quick to congratulate themselves on Maduro's kidnapping, assuming it signalled the beginning of Machado's return to Venezuela, as well as Edmundo González's. They must have been livid when they saw Trump constantly referring to oil as one of his priorities.

The ex-Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias didn't mince his words after the attacks in Venezuela: "They're bombing to steal their oil and impose a puppet government."

Gabriel Rufián (ERC spokesperson) says "Bombing another country is not war, it's aggression, and detaining the President of that country is not an arrest, it's a kidnapping."

We read at El Mundo that Maduro will be tried for ‘narcoterrorism and possessing destructive arms against the USA’. (We are reminded that the ex-president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández was recently pardoned by Trump after being jailed for the export of 400 tons of cocaine to America).

The American vice-president JD Vance tweeted: “The president offered multiple off-ramps, but was very clear throughout this process: the drug trafficking must stop, and the stolen oil must be returned to the United States. Maduro is the newest person to find out that President Trump means what he says."

Although Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to emphasize that the attack and extraction of Maduro and Flores were a law enforcement mission, Trump made it clear the goal was regime change in order to gain control of Venezuela’s oil. The administration acted unilaterally, without consulting Congress, and in apparent violation of international law.

Around 600,000 Venezuelans live in Spain, many in the smartest barrios in Madrid. No doubt, those wealthy expatriates having managed to get their money out of Caracas and safely invested in real-estate, they would be pleased by the events. Indeed, we see on the TV that a large Venezuelan celebration was held in Madrid on Saturday afternoon ‘supported by both the PP and Vox’. "I thought the Americans would solve this in a day at most, but if it's true that they captured Maduro in just three hours... that's a whole different ballgame", said one celebrant.

…

‘An assault not seen since World War II’ said Donald Trump in a live speech on Saturday afternoon (Spanish time) in a babbling monologue as he veered off-topic more than once to discuss things like the National Guard presence in various US cities. Perhaps you saw it.

“They took our oil infrastructure. We never had a president who did anything about it”, he said, with a nudge against the former president.  

“We are going to run the country until the arrival of a proper turnover of power”, he said.

“The oil business – we’re going to have our large American companies fix the infrastructure, and we are ready for a second, much larger attack if necessary”. Mario Rubio standing beside him looked faintly embarrassed.

“National security, just like tariffs – make our country rich” said The Donald.

“A year ago, we were a dead country, no longer”, said Trump, unerringly alienating half of the American population once again.

Following his speech, we heard from his senior advisers.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio: ‘Don’t play games with this president, because it won’t turn out well’.

‘We showed Guts, grit, gallantry and glory’, said Defence Secretary Hegseth in an alliterative moment.

‘A rather extraordinary press briefing’ said the BBC journalist following the event.

The Guardian covered the Mar-a-Lago speeches here.

…

The opposition leader (and Nobel Peace Prize winner) Maria Corina Machado speaking from an undisclosed site (probably in Miami): “The time of freedom has arrived, and we are ready to take power”. However, 20Minutos reports that Trump has ruled out María Corina Machado to lead Venezuela: "She doesn't have the internal support or the respect of the country", says Trump. Instead, the President has chosen a hostile (Maduro’s vice-president) Delcy Rodríguez to take over.

The pundit Chris Hedges writes: ‘The kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife solidifies America’s role as a gangster state. Violence does not generate peace. It generates violence. The immolation of international and humanitarian law, as the U.S. and Israel have done in Gaza, and as took place in Caracas, generates a world without laws, a world of failed states, warlords, rouge imperial powers and perpetual violence and chaos…’

Hedges returned to his attack on Monday: '...Trump governs by imperial decree through Executive Orders. The media, owned by corporations and oligarchs, from Jeff Bezos to Larry Ellison, is an echo chamber for the crimes of state, including the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, attacks on Iran, Yemen and Venezula, and the pillage by the billionaire class. Our money-saturated elections are a burlesque. The diplomatic corps, tasked with negotiating treaties and agreements, preventing war and building alliances, has been dismantled'.

From The Other 98%, we read: ‘Let’s strip away the euphemisms: this is invasion, not enforcement. There was no imminent threat to American soil that justified the use of force under international law. Venezuela sits on some of the largest proven oil reserves in the world, and its economic and geopolitical position has long made it a target of U.S. political and economic pressure’.

The surgical strike that caught Maduro on Saturday morning was - it turns out - not entirely bloodless with members of the palace guard being (as the Israelis like to say) neutralised. Around eighty died here and there, including some Cuban soldiers. 

Later: A few other reactions. The Venezuelan Attorney General condemned the "cowardly imperial attack" against civilians in Venezuela. He also demanded the release of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

Brazil's president denounces the "unacceptable" US attack and the capture of Maduro. Lula da Silva warns that it paves the way for a world where "the law of the strongest" prevails.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Saturday said China is deeply shocked by and strongly condemns the U.S. blatant use of force against a sovereign state and action against its president.

The far-right French politician Marine Le Pen criticizes US attack on Venezuela.

The parody site El Mundo Today says Europe is losing patience with the United States and is seriously threatening to issue a statement. “It will be partly in capital letters,” thundered Von der Leyen.

Finally, Trump issues a stark warning to Colombia's Gustavo Petro: he asserts that Petro will be the next US target after Maduro.