Lenox Napier¹
Editorial:
Thinking of buying a new car? Probably not. For one thing, as you may have read, it will spend most of its life parked. Not being used.
Then there’s the garage or parking space to pay off. Maybe we should stick to running a bicycle, which one can always leave in the kitchen, or the spare bedroom.
The average number of people in a car, when it is moving about, is just 1.6 persons, which, when you think about it, is a lot less economic than a tandem.
Expensive things, cars. They cost a fortune new, are heavily taxed, and then there’s the depreciation – starting from the moment the new owner drives one off the forecourt.
Even at the end of its life, many years later (or when the ITV people have thrown up their hands), it’s still a bother. All those brand new bits, for some reason known as ‘spares’, inside the Old Girl from various repairs, are evidently now worthless. The desguace people gave me fifty euros to sign off my old banger yesterday as being en baja. Fifty euros? That was the price I paid for the novelty screw-on gear-knob I bought last year in Benidorm.
Maybe we should share transport in some fashion, several of us having keys to the same utility vehicle, plus a little lockable drawer inside for personal CDs. Or simply take the bus.
If there is one.
The buses in the countryside, or the small villages, are few and far between – and the ones that go to the house of George and Eunice across the valley for evening drinks are even less so. An electric scooter might be the answer, but after a couple of gin and tonics, and speaking for myself, I’d likely lose my balance and fall off. It looks like I might have to take the local taxi and chat with Antonio about politics.
The vehicle inspection, the painful ITV, is slightly on hiatus these days (45% of cars that should have had their latest inspection, er, haven’t – we’ll put it down to the Covid, shall we?). It’s the case that the parque automovilístico – the cars on the road in Spain (or parked somewhere near it) are getting older. The average privately-owned vehicle is now over thirteen years old.
Unsurprisingly, the sale of new cars has fallen sharply (by 40% it says here) – since we drive around even less these days, what with the pandemic sprawled in the back seat picking its teeth. Added to that, the taxes have risen steeply on buying a new car.
Sales in second-hand cars are also down by over 16%.
We should be moving towards electric cars, but who will want to buy your old sparkycar with 200 kilometres of autonomy five years from now, when the new ones will be much lighter and offering 20,000ks between recharges? They’ll probably be programmed to do the driving by then anyway, as you sit in the back and munch on a sandwich.
There are those people who own two cars. Since they no doubt drive as much as someone with only one car, then their average vehicle-usage halves. And as we have seen, it wasn’t good to begin with. Maybe we should stick to art – at least it goes up in value unless the item in question is terrible, in which case – with luck – you can probably sell it for what you paid for it (or, failing that, give it to your mother-in-law for Christmas).
Then there’s the status of having a new car – which is a bit like having a gold tooth – there’s not much point unless you use it a lot.
Lenox Dixit
Housing:
The harrowing issue of the ‘300,000 illegal homes’ which made Andalucía famous for all the wrong reasons was largely resolved by the current regional government. Almería Hoy reports that the 22,000 homes in that province that were under threat – homes mainly bought by northern Europeans to retire to – were largely rehabilitated by the Junta de Andalucía (many years down the road) and that this has now been ratified by the Central Government in Madrid. The terrible situation that began in 2008 with the famous demolition of Len and Helen Prior’s home in Vera, Almería, has finally come (más o menos) to an end. This ruling is of course for all Andalucía (again, más o menos) as The Olive Press says here. Más o menos – more or less? The homes referred to here are outside the coastal protection zone and are neither in a flood plain, on public land or occupying land due for expropriation.
Of course, too little legislation is as bad as too much. A major article from Traveler (Español) here: ‘Málaga for sale: enquire within. Unprotected virgin coasts, skyscrapers instead of forests, industrial pollution on the beach: all of Málaga is being sold to the highest bidder’. A five-part documentary called ‘Se Vende’ is introduced in the article.
The average price for a city home is 1,883€ per m2 says El Huff Post, but there are fancy neighbourhoods which will cost far more than that. We look at some of them here.
Think Spain reports on a village which features in The New York Times – a moribund and forgotten village in Lérida called Gósol (Wiki), where new life has arrived in the shape of settlers from the City. A hundred years ago, Pablo Picasso spent time in Gósol, which has a small museum dedicated to the artist. There’s a castle too.
‘Eight years have passed since a group of young people decided to buy several houses in Zoroquiáin, in the Unciti Valley, properties in ruins that they would repair to make their future homes’. An article from Noticias de Navarra here.
Tourism:
Putting a kybosh on tourism from the UK this summer: From The Daily Mirror here: ‘Foreign holidays illegal from Monday with £5,000 fines for breaching rules. Non-essential international travel will be explicitly banned under new coronavirus laws – which won’t expire until June 30’. British holidaymakers to Spain before then will apparently be few.
‘The Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, is confident that Spain can recover around 40 million international tourists this year, half the level recorded in 2019, when almost 84 million foreign tourists were counted. “That for the sector would already be an achievement,” said Maroto at the Europa Press Tourism Forum. In this recovery, the health passport prepared by the EU for the summer will be a key factor…’. The item comes from The Corner here.
ABC (paywall) bewails the ‘Second Semana Santa in Andalucía without tourists’ here.
Spaniards are indignant that foreign tourists (from the Schengen Area) can visit Spain, while Spaniards still can’t cross from one Spanish region to another.
Seniors:
El Agente Topo, ‘The Mole’ (with trailer), is an award-winning documentary about loneliness in nursing homes. elDiario.es reports on its message here.
Vermut is a social media platform aimed at those over 55. Valencia Plaza says that the platform is designed for Seniors to exchange experience, recommendations and information – not just online, but also in person, with discussion groups organised locally. The site is still in development (unfortunately). Watch this space!
‘In Spain, there are many inheritances that no one benefits from that leave homes abandoned without being passed to their heirs, either due to ignorance of them or perhaps because there are no heirs. According to the National Institute of Statistics, 4.8 million people live alone in Spain. In addition to people living in single families, which are increasing, it must be added that immigrants from countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom or France also living in Spain with property and occasionally, their origins in our country may end up being forgotten when they die…’. The Sunday Vision (Uganda) here.
‘Euthanasia will be legal in Spain in three months, subject to stringent procedures and criteria’ says Eye on Spain here.
Finance:
‘Leading employers believe that the economy will not recover until 2023’, says El Español here. ‘They emphasize that Spaniards have increased their savings rate during 2020, but that we need to become consumers once again’.
‘Amazon will expand its logistics network in Spain with the construction in the Region of Murcia of a new robotized logistics centre of 160,000 square meters and equipped with state-of-the-art technology, to be located in Corvera, sources from the organization reported in a statement…’. El Independiente reports here (Thanks to Richard).
Politics:
It is hard to argue with the editorial from El País – here in their handy English version – that Spanish politics is increasingly moving to the extreme. Whichever side loses will be suitably appalled at the winning team – the PP coupled with the fascist Vox, or the PSOE with the commie Podemos. Of course, in this panorama – no one wins. ‘Spain is quickly advancing toward the turbulent waters of populism and increasingly radical polarization. Extreme positions are gaining traction, with Madrid as a hyperbolic ideological battlefield for the right-left axis, and Catalonia mired in its own damaging, disruptive dynamics.
As if this were not enough, in recent days Spaniards have witnessed a series of tactical moves that could be defined as short-sighted or even downright shady, and which in all likelihood are disappointing for a large segment of society. Many citizens rightly wish they had a political class that could address Spain’s enormous challenges through earnest, serene dialogue. Instead, there is a widespread feeling that partisan calculations play a disproportionate role in politics. Last week’s ill-fated no-confidence motion in Murcia and the call for an early election in Madrid have now set dangerous dynamics in motion…’.
We post this here as an introduction to this week’s items below:
With Pablo Iglesias leaving his Government post before the end of March, to campaign in the Madrid regional elections, his departure means a ministerial reshuffle for Pedro Sánchez (and, no doubt, considerable relief for the opposition parties).
Some expert trolling from the PP here: the party has asked for a debate and subsequent condemnation of «communist totalitarianism» despite the fact that the Chamber has already rejected the initiative. The story is at El Huff Post here.
An opinion here at Público suggests that the only reason that the PP haven’t ditched their leader Pablo Casado, is because they have a larger threat – Vox is treading on their heels.
From 20 Minutos here, the General Secretary of Vox Javier Ortega Smith on Pablo Iglesias: «Let’s see if we can get him to flee from the borders of Spain, overwhelmed and cowed by the betrayal he has committed against the Spaniards, how he abandoned our elderly in residences, how he tries to bring in the communism of the Chavists and Castroists to Spain».
ECD says that Pablo Iglesias’ wife, the minister Irene Montero, insists that she should be ‘the woman’ who leads Podemos, and not Yolanda Díaz.
Ciudadanos continues to bleed, says ECD here, with another departure from the Congress leaving the party with just eight parliamentary seats.
The leader of the Ciudadanos in Andalucía, and vice-president of the Junta, is Juan Marín. Marín is also in charge of tourism for the region. He says that the idea of him ever joining the PP is ‘preposterous’.
So, what does Albert Rivera have to say about the collapse of Ciudadanos without his firm and experienced hand on the wheel? Nothing.
The euthanasia law has now been passed into law with the opposition from the PP and Vox.
In the end, Murcia voted down the motion of censure (after three of the Ciudadanos councillors reneged). The PP still needed some help from Vox to survive and… well, the bottom line is that Murcia must now accept a key-Vox policy, known as the parental veto or ‘pin parental’. When the parents don’t approve, their children will be made to miss particular classes or subjects taught in schools. El País (partial paywall) has the story here.
Valencia is in a state of something between shock and surprise, as ‘The disgraced former regional president Francisco Camps has proposed himself as a candidate for the Mayor of Valencia, while the PP keeps an uncomfortable silence’. Público explains here.
Susanita is Susana Díaz, the last of a line of old-fashioned socialists in Andalucía.
This is not necessarily a compliment.
To revitalise the PSOE-A, Pedro Sánchez is backing a contender to take over the party following the primaries which won’t occur until late in 2021.
Juan Espadas is the current mayor of Seville, and is known as being a moderate and a clear favourite over Susana Díaz.
The game is afoot, says elDiario.es here.
Madrid:
The ex-president for the Madrid region Ángel Garrido (he followed after the defenestration of Cristina Cifuentes in 2018) (Wiki), is abandoning politics following the May elections. He says he won’t figure on the party list, but will help in the campaign. Garrido is another loss for Ciudadanos. El Huff Post reports here.
Edmundo Bal will be the candidate for Ciudadanos in the Community of Madrid says ECD as the erstwhile leader and vice-president of the region Ignacio Aguado takes a step back. Aguado is remembered as having pacted with the PP and Vox to form a government eighteen months ago, rather than with the most voted party at the time – the PSOE.
The PP accepts the risk of strengthening in the short-term public support for Vox in the approach to the May 4th elections in the Region of Madrid says El Confidencial here.
‘Isabel Díaz Ayuso believes that Pablo Iglesias is «pure hatred» and that he wants all of his opponents flung into jail and an ETA environment out on the street. She urges him to «resign right away» from his position of vice president and she claims that he is the candidate of the squatter, the seizure and the cobblestone’. Thus the headline of the right-of-centre ECD.
Catalonia
‘The speaker of the Catalan parliament, Laura Borràs, has confirmed that lawmakers will be summoned on Friday 26th to vote on who should be the next head of the government, a move that could pave the way for Esquerra Republicana’s Pere Aragonès to be green-lighted as president by the pro-independence majority in the chamber…’. Item from Catalan News. A later report, at La Vanguardia, doubts whether Pere Aragonès will raise enough support.
From elDiario.es here: ‘A homeless union is born in Barcelona: «There cannot be people sleeping on the street with 13,000 empty flats», they say’.
Europe:
An article from The National carries a video where ‘Europeans tell Scots to ‘come home’’.
The Yorkshire Bylines says here: ‘When the British press write about Brits abroad – most especially about Brits in Spain – we are often depicted as a collection of stereotypes. We play golf or bowls, drink too much, spend all day on the beach and complain about the weather’. But, no! That’s not true at all!
From ITV here: ‘Deadline looms for ‘undocumented’ expats in Spain to return to UK under new Brexit rules’. Or, at least, they will need to abandon the Schengen Area. Time will tell how strict the Spanish authorities will be regarding those Brits hoping to stay under the radar. The first place to look will probably be the permanent camp-sites.
The Coronavirus:
‘Spain must multiply the vaccination rate by seventeen so that 70% are protected by the summer. Our country has only managed to immunize 1.8 million people in the last three months’. El Español posts the item here.
Pablo Iglesias was not in charge of the residencias for the elderly; it’s a bulo, says Maldita.
Corruption:
Ciudadanos denounce an operation from within to dynamite the party with leaks to the PP. The leadership has no doubt that the former secretary of the Organization Fran Hervías had been collaborating in the shadows with the PP for some time to launch a hostile takeover and dynamite the formation in order to help Pablo Casado take over the entire centre right. The expulsion of a senator and the march of another senator to the Mixed Group, both in the Hervías camp, aggravates the party’s crisis…’. elDiario.es has the story here.
Courts:
Various heavy-hitters from the PP – Javier Arenas, María Dolores de Cospedal, Francisco Álvarez-Cascos, José María Aznar and Mariano Rajoy (here) – have had their day in court regarding the opaque party ‘black accounts’. None of them know nothing, Your Honour, no. The newspaper baron Pedro J Ramírez (El Español) was also called. Ramírez said that he had published an interview with Luis Bárcenas back in 2013 (as the then-editor of El Mundo) who admitted the existence of the ‘caja b’, the undeclared cash accounts of the party. From El Plural here: ‘…after the former president of the Government (Mariano Rajoy) was called to explain the published story in the Senate following the disclosure, «the PP Government began a frantic offensive to try to make any evidence disappear because the credibility of the Prime Minister was already at stake». He added that this statement is, of course «a personal appreciation»…’.
Media:
Cyber-visitors to the various newspapers in February show La Vanguardia as being the leader with 22.7 million different visitors, followed by El Mundo (22 million), El Español (20.7m), ABC at 20m and El Confidencial at 19.3 million. El País is in 6th position with 19m visitors.
Google really doesn’t like aggregators (other than itself). I find I have to routinely sweep the ‘Spam’ folder these days to find the various news-bulletins that carry links (similar to BoT).
Público looks at the Madrid regional elections, where ‘words begin to lose their meaning’.
Libertad for example…
Various:
The incoming law on euthanasia isn’t to the taste of everyone. ‘I shall die when God is ready’ says a sign held aloft in a recent protest in Madrid (with video).
This Sunday, says Contrainformación, expect a noisy day as ‘Francoists will march through Madrid to praise the dictatorship’. Luckily, they have permission from the Government to celebrate the Día de la Victoria’ when Madrid was ‘liberated’ (damn, there’s that word again!) from the legal government of the time.
The Memoria Histórica (Wiki) is the reason given to erase all reference to the dictadura of Franco. This means the removal of statues and street-names. The Generalísimo (often the name for the High Street) has long gone from the maps, but many names remain. In Oviedo, since Spain is different, the street names have gone the other way, with Francoist names being returned to the corners, and Calle Federico García Lorca becomes once again Calle Calvo Sotelo. Then in Belalcázar, Córdoba, they’ve followed the rules and changed the name of a street from Calle Capitán Cortés (a Francoist) to Calle Capitán Cortés (a local Republican officer). Everybody – for once – is now happy. Things aren’t much better in Palma, however, where the streets honouring Admirals Cervera, Gravina and Churruca have been replaced; since those names aren’t in memory of Francoist sailors, but illustrious naval men from the XVIII century.
‘More than 500 police checkpoints are being set up across Andalucía to monitor perimetral closure during Easter Week. The Guardia Civil are cracking down on movements across the region with a particular focus on roads which cross provinces and those which lead out of the region’. From The Olive Press here.
National Geographic (España) brings us the history of the name of each and every capital of Spain – with the help of the íberos, visigodos, romanos, celtas and the árabes. As always with Nat Geo, we come for the article, but stay for the photos.
The Visigoth church of Santa María de Brovales has been demolished. It was on private land near Jerez de los Caballeros (Badajoz) and this weekend the neighbours found it practically in ruins. «Only the west access-door remains, but the rest has been literally destroyed,» says archaeologist Victor Gibello. Canal Extremadura has the item here.
Diario Sur (partial paywall) writes of an 1895 Panhard Lavassor which belonged to a family from Antequera which was still being driven in 2011 (probably not often) when it was sold to a Florida museum, the Revs Institute, where the car is exhibited, un-restored.
See Spain:
Eye on Spain brings ‘some tiny villages in Spain that must be visited’ here.
From Reach here: ‘A stunning hike among Nature & History: Castellar’s Ancient Roman Road. Along this beautiful trail, you’ll walk along an incredibly well-preserved ancient Roman road which once connected the old Córdoba with the Phoenician city of Carteia’.
From Fascinating Spain here, ‘Quel (La Rioja), the village with the most breathtaking scenery’. Easy nearby routes include Peñas de Arnedillo, Peñalmonte and Calahorra.
Finally:
This one is great: it’s a piece called Kondja mia (My Rose) and comes from the Sephardic group Yamma Ensemble. The song is sung in Ladino, which is close enough to Spanish to make the subtitles (almost) unnecessary.
- For subscriptions and other information about this site, go to businessovertapas.com
