Monthly Archives: May 2012
Teetering on the brink
Focus on Spain 1 – the economy The Tablet With unemployment now at 25 per cent, Spain is becoming the sickest man of a sick Europe. Its austerity solution to its debt-ridden economic woes has sapped people’s confidence about their future. Fears are growing that an almost inevitable bailout could be coupled with insurrection It is just as well that Spaniards still have their fiestas. Spring is traditionally that time of year in Spain when Spaniards put the winter gloom behind them and usher in warmer weather, returning bird song, …
Aguirre´s unfortunate intervention
Much as I admire the Madrid regional government´s president Espereranza Aguirre as a person, I cannot agree with her politically when it comes to football. It is I think unfortunate of her to suggest that Friday´s King´s Cup on Friday should be played behind closed doors if Athletic Bilbao and FC Barcelona fans whistle the Spanish national anthem. By so doing, she has stirred a hornest´s nest of enduring resentments, and fuelled antagonisms which only radical minorities stand to gain from. To Barca supporters Aguirre´s politics brings echoes of the …
This blog is for my Chelsea friend
A persistent and enduring commentator on my blogs-a childhood friend who is a Real Madrid and Chelsea fan-has emailed me complaining about my silence on the outcome of this year’s Champions’s League final. Rather than be accused –as he has accused me-of self-censorship and Barca bias (others who might know me less but who read my blogs less selectively will notice I am actually quite objective about whoever I write about, be it MI6 or Pep Guardiola), I am jotting this blog down for his benefit and those of any …
Barca & Pep: Egos at play
Changes of managers at big clubs are never quite what they seem, for reasons that range from journalistic laziness or collusion to personalities and complex contractual issues- although in the end, as the great Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset once said, we are defined by who we are and our circumstances. The departure of Pep Guardiola from FC Barcelona, once put down to a simple question of work life balance , and placed in a context of solidarity and sacrifice, seems likely to have involved more complex, less chivalrous issues …
La Roja launched in London
Spanish Meetup Group – Wednesday 16th May. 18.30 start. ‘The Horse’ pub 124 Westminster Bridge Road The European Bookshop – Friday 18th May. 18.30 start. 5 Warwick Street, London W1B5LU www.spanishbookshop.co.uk/ Queen’s Park Book Festival London NW6 – Sunday 20 May. 6 pm start with David Winner and Mihir Bose. Chairman Chris Maume of The Independent http://tinyurl.com/78lt8n6 Cervantes Institute , Dublin Monday 28th May 6pm http://dublin.cervantes.es/FichasCultura/Ficha81377_16_2.htm 29th May, Dublin 1.30pm pre record for Sport at 7 with Damien O’Meara on RTE Radio 1. 2.15pm pre record interview for Now that’s …
Messi is not a Racist
So, that admirable totem of journalistic objectivity and fairness The Sun has run with a story suggesting Lionel Messi is a racist. The only problem is that it has got its facts hopelessly mixed up, courtesy of its main and only source Everton’s Royston Drenthe’s apparent ignorance of colloquial Argentine. Drenthe-on loan to Everton from Real Madrid-is reportedly unhappy that while playing in La Liga two seasons ago Messi allegedly said Hola Negro to him . Messi is reportedly somewhat perplexed, not to say pissed off that this should be turned into …
A tale of ambassadors
Whatever the shortcomings of Spanish corporate culture-and there are many not least in the oil giant Repsol which seems to have made a dog’s dinner out of its investments in Argentina and is now suffering for it-the same cannot be said for Carles Casajuana, Spain’s ambassador to London for the last four years as he has struggled to counter the inevitable pessimism that his country economic crisis has generated without resorting to crude propaganda. Last night the Spanish embassy residence in Belgrave Square was packed as the friends and contacts …
Gareth Williams: Conspiracy not Cock-up?
Whichever way you look at it, the case of Gareth Williams worryingly continues to raise more questions than answers. a. Why did his employers MI6 take more than a week after William’s disappearance to alert either his family or the police? b.Why did officers of the Met’s counter-terrorism branch SO15 delay informing investigating police officers of the existence of nine memory sticks and a black holdall found at Williams’s MI6 office until two days before the inquest into his death ended? c. How much of Williams’ private life-the inquest revealed …
