Current affairs.

It’s a good job the Three Kings don’t come to England. They’d have a miserable time of it at the moment. I say this because here in the North West of England 2013 has begun as soggily as 2012 ended. It’s all very well the weathermen assuring us that the weather is now getting drier, that people can expect it to be dull and overcast but essentially DRY. This is simply not the case. Oh, we did manage our planned walk home from our friends’ house early on New Year’s Morning but we woke up later to rain ... again. Since then we have begun each day with a little window of dry weather, followed by drizzle, low cloud, fog and general dampness. So far, not so very impressed. 

 However, I have just heard that 2012 didn’t quite manage to be the wettest year since records began. That dubious honour goes to 2000. Do they tell us these things to cheer us up? To make us happy with our lot?

I can’t for the life of me imagine why I thought the weatherman might have got it right. I should know by now that our little corner of the UK has its own micro-climate: mostly dull and damp with occasional outbursts of brilliance, either bright cold or bright and warm, when the place wakes up and shows off its beautiful scenery. So it goes. It’s probably time for us to visit our borrowed homeland, Galicia, and see if it’s any less damp there. 

Another would be ex-pat is Frenchman (for the time being) Gérard Depardieu. Having fallen out with the French taxman he has gone off to set up home in Belgium. The latest news is that Vladimir Putin has offered him Russian citizenship. Does Vlad just want to annoy the French or does he have a devious plot to lure Monsieur Depardieu into a false sense of security and then tax his fortune anyway? 

I don’t really see what our Gérard has to moan about. Even if he paid his taxes he would undoubtedly still have a good deal more to live on that your average Frenchman in the street. As far as I am concerned, you SHOULD pay your way. If your country has looked after you so far, don’t you need to put something back and, in Depardieu’s case, do something to help others who might like to be as successful as you are? Maybe G.D, doesn’t feel that France has looked after him well. It’s a hard life being famous. 

The FBI have just released papers revealing that they were investigating Marilyn Monroe. She was suspected of being an undercover communist agent apparently. She clearly mixed with the wrong sort of people. 

In the Carabanchel district of Madrid they are trying to stop the expulsion of an immigrant who has played the part of King Bathazar (el rey negro – the black king who used to be my nephew’s favourite when he was small – the nephew not the king) in the Three Kings’ Procession for the last few years. It may, of course, turn out that he has committed a crime and so loses his right to stay in Spain but in the meantime the Christmas spirit is standing up for him in Carabanchel. 

And finally, a money matter. The Spanish have always been rather reluctant to give up on the peseta. Estate agents’ windows blow my mind by insisting on putting prices in millions of Pesetas. Has the exchange rate fluctuated at all since 2002 when the Euro became legal tender? How do they work out how much a certain amount of Euros is in pesetas? And who decides which currencies deserve capital letters? When I type pounds, lower case throughout, there’s no problem but if I do the same with euros the spell-checker on my computer starts to protest. 

Anyway, be that as it may, it seems that there are still some 1,691 million pesetas kicking around Spain. If my calculations are anything like correct, that’s about 35 Euros per person, 35 Euros for each and every Spaniard. 

I suppose some people have just a few for sentimental reasons; I’ve got a couple of old pennies around somewhere, much to the amusement of the grandchildren who can’t imagine walking around with a pocketful of those huge things. But some folk must have an awful lot stashed away under mattresses and in piggy banks. You have to go to the Banco de España now to change them to Euros. No other bank can change them. But maybe those who have the huge stashes are hanging onto them in case Spain has to exit the Euro zone and then they would be the only ones with anything like a Spanish currency.