In the rain - and other stuff!

Sitting in the sports hall of a rather posh school in Pontevedra where Phil is playing in a chess tournament, I listen to the rain pounding on the roof. Other years when we have been here it has been so hot that it was positively uncomfortable, so really the rain is probably preferable. It’s a bit sad for Pontevedra though with its Semana Grande going on or about to start and the funfair set up and everything. What will the walking bands do if they have to walk about in the rain. It may out a damper on the youngsters whose favourite evening pastime during the fiesta is to run around squirting each other with diluted wine!

Phil and I have been rewatching the television series The Wire, set in Baltimore, USA? We brought box sets over with us and have just reached the end of series two. Despite odd anomalies such as detectives who have no idea what texting is - the series must be getting for twenty years old, after all - it holds up very well and is still relevant. Police trying to do their job still have their hands tied by superiors who are more interested in statistics and meeting targets than anything else. And corruption does not appear to have gone away.

 At one point Stringer Bell and Avon Barksdale, the latter doing his share of running the drug empire from his prison cell, find themselves having to reduce their activity, only temporarily, of course. This means that some of their “employees”, the “corner boys”, have to be dismissed. If or when things pick up they will be re-employed. In the meantime they are redundant. One of the boys asked if they do not at least get “separation payment”, presumably meaning redundancy pay. The very idea! Stringer Bell might be doing a business course at night school but things have not gone that far.

 But here’s a thing:-

“British taxpayers funded £850,000-worth of golden goodbyes during Theresa May’s chaotic premiership, a POLITICO investigation has unveiled. Hundreds of thousands of pounds was paid out in severance to ministers who quit their jobs, were fired or who lost their seats at the 2017 snap general election, along with their numerous advisers. Analysis of departmental figures has revealed that 40 ministers who departed government were paid at least £361,463 during the tumultuous three years May was in power. That includes eight secretaries of state such as Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab (who got almost £17,000 each) and Esther McVey (who is now a minister of state under Johnson’s cabinet), who all resigned in protest last year over Brexit.”

Who’d have thought it!

 On the subject of television programmes, here’s another little oddity I have come across:

 “British TV and radio stations will be explicitly required to protect the “welfare, wellbeing and dignity” of individuals who take part in their programmes, under proposals that could radically change how reality TV is made in the UK – and have a collateral impact on news and documentaries. The media regulator, Ofcom, said it was proposing to add two rules to the existing broadcasting code to protect members of the public who take part in programmes, in an announcement timed to coincide with the final of this summer’s series of Love Island. In addition to requiring producers to take due care to protect the dignity of participants, broadcasters will also have to ensure members of the public are not “caused unjustified distress or anxiety by taking part in programmes or by the broadcast of those programmes”.”

 Well, I could think of ways that the aforementioned “welfare, wellbeing and dignity” of those people could be protected. They just need not to take part. Oh, dear, too simple! Everyone seeks their moment of fame, or so they say. But not me!

 We live in odd times!