The price of fame!

This morning I went to the hairdressers. The girls must have been practising their hair-dying skills as almost all of them had exactly the same shade of hair colour.

Scanning the scandal magazine Diez Minutos, I learnt that a star I had never heard of, Chenoa, a 42 year old singer, is having a bit of a problem. Her biological father, an Argentinian, is taking her to court to get her to pay him a pension. She hasn't seen him for 25 years. This has been her choice; he did try to keep in touch but she wanted nothing to do with him. And now he has come a ross from Argentina, demanding that she must support him. And according to article whatever it is of the Spanish Código Civil, he is is perfectly within his rights to do so. I am astounded!!!

I had already heard of cases in France where parents were obliged to continue supporting their grown-up offspring when the latter declared themselves to students, even if long past the age at which one might think they had finished their studies.

 So in both these countries family feeling is enforceable by law. Presumably it does not matter if you and the family member demanding maintenance have fallen out long ago. They remain your responsibility. What happens to those destitute people whose family do not have the resources to support them? Do they add to the numbers of beggars on the street?

I shall leave that question hanging and move on to some tourist matters.


What do Venice and Cambridge have in common? Both cities complain of too many tourists punting on their waterways. Venice I can understand. The people of that city find themselves overwhelmed by tourists. But who knew that Cambridge had the same problem. Apparently people advertising walking tours of the dreaming spires have been corrupted by punt-touts. They lead the unsuspecting walkers down to the river where they are persuaded that it will be a good idea to,go for a ride in a punt. Chaos ensues as too many folk try to navigate the Cam.

It would seem that visits to Britain by international tourists are up by 9% so far this year, and they are spending 14% more than at the same time last year, a spree fuelled by sterling’s post-referendum decline. Meanwhile, more Britons are holidaying in the UK, in part as a result of the extraordinary rise of Airbnb and other providers of competitively priced self-catering accommodation. It is all adding up to a mad summer for Britain’s tourism honeypots. Every cloud has a silver lining I suppose.

Meanwhile in Galicia the price of octopus is reported to be going up, mainly because of the "hordas de turistas" who want to try it. One pulpo seller commented: "vienen portugueses, franceses, ingleses ... muchos no hablan castellano pero todos saben decire pulpo perfectamente."

Whoever heard of people seriously complaining about too many tourists?!

Tourist excesses maybe!

I read that extra police have been deployed on the streets of Sanxenxo to "contener los excesos de la noche". In the first two weeks of July they imposed 32 fines for peeing in the streets €90 each and 131 for botellon €200 - group drinking is a worse crime than oublic peeing. This seems to have worked. The authorities declare: "esto no es el Magaluf gallego". It seemed quite refined when we were there in June but that was before the start of the high season. To my knowledge nobody compared it with Magaluf, a place that no respectable tourist destination really wants to emulate, but I did once overhear someone explain that it was the "Marbella del Norte".

So it goes!

Feeding the birds.

Sundays are quiet around here. Most of the very local bars close. Clearly everyone feels that they need a day of rest.

So instead of resting we went out for a walk to the Castro park before it got too hot to be out and about. As it turned out the day has been cloudy but still quite bright and warm. Just about ideal, in fact, for a longish walk and back in time for lunch. We stopped for refreshments at the cafe in the Castro park. The service was slow and the waiter possibly slightly deaf. How does "agua con gas" tunr into "coca cola"? Fortunately he mumbled the order to himself as he went off and so I was able to put him right. I can't remember when I last drank Coke.

Maybe the waiter's hearing or his attention span has been affected by his constant need to chase pigeons away. They really are a major nuisance up there. I watched one of the waiters remonstrate with a pair of daddies whose little girls, side by side in their buggies, were sharing a packet of crisps: a handful for each of them and then a handful thrown out for the pigeons. The daddies appeared to take it in their stride and took the crisps away from the little girls.

They did depart not long after this so maybe they were more miffed than they let on.

Mind you, some very odd people actually encourage their offspring to feed the pigeons. I fail to understand such actions. They never encourage them to feed the seagulls, after all! 

Here's a bird-feeding story from the news. Some bald eagles in Canada picked up a hawk chick, probably intended as food for their own young. However, watched by bird enthusiasts, the mother bald eagle ended up feeding the little hawk. Perhaps he just started squawking, beak wide open, and the mother bald eagle saw yet another gaping maw to be filled with food. And so it went on. Having fed him once or twice, she could not feed him to her own chicks. The end result is one confused chick who doesn't really know what he is but is now almost old enough to fly the nest.

Biologists are watching closely to see what happens. They report: "The young hawk has been seen poking at seaweed close to the eagle nest – a typical foraging behaviour for bald eagles. But he’s also been observed swooping to pick up pinecones and sticks, a behaviour often seen in young hawks as they hone the skills needed to hunt rodents and rabbits from high above. " If his unconventional upbringing proves to have fallen short in teaching him how to hunt, went on one of the experts, “that’s when I think we would catch him and retrain him in a wildlife rehabilitation facility”."

Who knew that such things as wildlife rehabilitation facilities even existed?

In the supermarket.

The staff in the Mercadona supermarket are well trained. As a rule there is only one till open but they keep an eye on the queue and as soon as there are more than three people waiting the cashier gets on the phone and sings out across the public address system "Señorita ..... acude a caja". Then there is rarely the indisciplined rush to a newly opened till that you might expect. Shoppers are invited, por orden (in order), to move along to the next till. And off people go, keeping to the order they had in the original queue. Good grief! Who says the British are the only ones who know how to queue? 

When your turn comes at the till, the cashier goes into a scripted dialogue. A proper greeting followed by a question about bags - ¿Bolsa va a querer? - and about the car park -¿Coche en el parking? - and as a rule they help you pack. Ever so civilised.

At the Carrefour, which I visit rarely and therefore cannot truly speak with any authority about it, they seem less on the ball. Caught out there by a sudden change in the weather the other day - sunshine when we went in, heavy rain when we left - we had to buy an umbrella. As this is not the centre of town there were no umbrella-sellers on the street. (On Principe, the main shopping street in the town centre, they spring up like toadstools when it rains.) So I was forced into the supermarket in search of a brolly.

Phil stayed just outside the entrance with the computer bag as they insist plastic-wrapping anything other than a handbag as you go in. Paranoid fear of you secreting something away and leaving without paying? I guess they would plastic-wrap handbags if they thought they could get away with it.

Anyway, after some dithering I finally asked an assistant where the umbrellas were. Right behind her, of course! There is a special law that says that once you ask where something is in a supermarket you will spot it immediately and look like a fool. So I selected one that was not too garish and joined the queue for checkout. Very efficient, a little screen and an animated voice tells you which till to go to. I got the dopy cashier.

First he spent several minutes trying to remove the security tag; this was a €5 umbrella but I suppose that on suddenly rainy days they might lose lots of cheap brollies without security tags. Then he discovered that the selected umbrella had no price label. Several more minutes went by as he tried to find umbrellas on his computer screen to check the price - ultimately without success. After that he had to locate a supervisor to get a price for him. She disappeared . We waited. He served a couple more customers in the meantime. I went and found another umbrella with a label. I paid my €4.99 and left.

Phil thought I has been manufacturing the umbrella. Fortunately it was still raining when we eventually exited the shopping centre or I might have been just a little frustrated.

Here's something else about the Mercadona staff: they are trained to sing out the special offers that abound. Women with perfectly ordinary speaking voices change into cartoon-like characters with a weird sing-song intonation to tell you about the watermelon, pineapple, jamón serrano or fuet (a strange yard-long sausage-like thing) which is going at a really good price:- "¡lo tiene muy buen de precio!

What's more, they all seem really happy at their work. I wonder how much they pay them.

Doing things the traditional way!

As we strolled out yesterday afternoon, we passed two women having a full-blown argument in the street, at one point almost coming to fisticuffs. One made a lunge to snatch something off the other, who then set off down the road shouting at the top of her lungs, "¡No se lo doy! ¡No se lo doy!" Which means "I won't give it to him/her/(polite form of) you!" I doubt that the polite form of you was being used in the circumstances but you never know!

I have no idea what they were arguing about, although the one who ran off appeared to be waving a mobile phone around. It was the kind of slanging match you might expect over-excited early-teens to have, or perhaps overtired toddlers, but these were two grown women. Amazing!

Later, in the local cafe, taking advantage of their wifi to check our mail and so on, we sat a table near three man having a conversation. A perfectly amicable conversation. At the level of volume they might have needed if they had been sitting each one in a separate corner of a field. Maybe they all came from huge families where everyone talked at once and had always had to shout to make themselves heard. Or maybe they were just Spanish!

The UK's ambassador to Madrid has apparently been having an argument on television with a celebrity cook, Mikel Iturriaga, about the Spanish tortilla. Simon Manley defended people like Jamie Oliver for adding stuff like chorizo and coriander to the traditional omelette but Mr Iturriaga was having none of it. I don't think they got to shouting at each other though and in the end the cook made a tortilla, traditional style, for the ambassador.

Now, I know that my friend Colin has persuaded Spaniards to add ginger to the tortilla but I am with Mikel Iturriaga on this; traditional recipes should be left as they are. No tweaking! I have fond memories of almost living on bocadillos de tortilla as a student in Spain back in the sixties. A tortilla sandwich with added ginger, chorizo, cheese or whatever would just not be the same.


All this reminds me of when my mother became very ill and my father took over the kitchen. He was very good at it, it has to be said. However he had been on numerous visits to my sister, the one who lives in Andalucía, and had acquired a taste for garlic. So he added it to just about everything. "He even puts in in shepherd's pie!" complained my mother, "We have to stop him!"

Traditions have to be maintained and really should not be messed with. Even traditional shouting!

Modern problems.

I read recently that Randy Newman had written a song about Donald Trump, all about the size of certain part of his anatomy. In the end he decided not to include this scurrilous song in his latest album as he felt that things were already being stirred up enough without his adding to the mix. Maybe he didn't want to be the target of a vindictive tweet!

The writer of the news item felt obliged to point out that this was not the first time that Randy Newman had written songs of that nature:
"Newman is perhaps now best known for his heartwarming songs in Pixar movies such as Toy Story and Monsters Inc, but his career has often featured pointed, socially conscious songwriting. His 1974 album Good Old Boys contained Rednecks, which dealt with racial bigotry and tension between northern and southern US states, while Kingfish celebrated egalitarian Democrat politician Huey Long. His 1988 song It's Money that Matters, meanwhile, lamented both poverty and consumerism, while 1972’s Political Science was a scathingly sarcastic ode to American imperialism."

And there I was, completely unaware that Randy Newman had written songs for children's films. This is how people end up with totally different perceptions of singers and writers. When Rufus Wainwright sang Hallelujah for the film Shrek loads of people assumed it was HIS song, never having heard of Leonard Cohen. It's a funny old world!

We were out looking for something interesting on DVD to watch on the computer. Apart from overpriced films we have no real interest in watching, we found the selection in various shops here very disappointing. There seems to be less stuff available than there was maybe sixth months ago. We decided it might be something to do with people streaming material or watching films and series on Netflix or similar. We cannot do that here as we don't have internet in the flat.

But just as people seem to have stopped buying music CDs, now DVDs are perhaps becoming a thing of the past as well. And I found myself wondering what do people do who don't have computers or internet at all. There are still some such people around. Do they only ever watch the television programmes that are directly broadcast? If so, how do they not go crazy with frustration and boredom? A diet of reality shows and competitions must stunt the brain.

As it is, we have successfully missed the great hit of the year, Love Island, which has been described as having cheered up the British Nation, including apparently some of our politicians in recent weeks.

Shouldn't politicians be studying policy, not watching nonsense on TV?

Trains and heat and fountains and such.

Looking for information about trains on the internet yesterday I came across the website of Vigotourism. Here is a small extract:

 "You can travel to Vigo by train from Madrid, Barcelona, Ourense, Pontevedra, Santiago, A Coruña, Ponferrada, León, Bilbao, Alicante and Porto. If you’re in Madrid, you have three options: the Intercity train, the Alvia train and the Hotel Train. Vigo has two railway stations: URZÁIZ where departs the AVE (Spain’s high-speed train), and GUIXAR, located in Areal St., bouth of them right in the city centre."

"Where departs the AVE" indeed? Does it really leave from Vigo or is that an urban myth? The strange English "where departs" I leave without comment. Likewise the odd spelling "bouth" which could conceivably be a typo although I suspect both these things are the result of someone's niece/brother/best friend having written it. However, I question the statement that Guixar station is really "right in the city centre". Only if you are a very fast walker from the city centre could that possible be considered the case! Poetic license I suppose!

The sun continues to shine here. The temperature gauge at the end of the road registered 21 degrees at 9 this morning, up to 27 by 12 o'clock when I walked down to the Movistar shop to put some credit on our Spanish mobile phones. Having paid my money and received my text message confirming that the credit was there I was still waiting for several minutes for a receipt. Production of the receipt involved the young lady shop assistant typing some stuff in the computer and then printing out an A4 sized sheet indicating how much I had paid and how much of it was various forms of VAT. Amazing! The Spanish do love their paperwork.

Anyway, the sunshine seems to be affecting Italy far worse than here. Or rather the heatwave and drought.

"Vatican authorities have turned off 100 fountains, including two Baroque masterpieces in St. Peter’s Square, due to a prolonged drought affecting the tiny city state and the city of Rome, which surrounds it.

Suffocating summer heat has followed two years of lower-than-average rainfall in Rome, forcing the Italian capital to close drinking fountains and consider the prospect of water rationing. More than a million residents of Rome are facing water rationing for up to eight hours a day as the prolonged heatwave that has ravaged southern Europe takes its toll.

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said it was the first time authorities in the spiritual home of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics could remember being forced to turn off the fountains."

Apparently 72% less rain than normal fell in Rome in July. There was 74% less than normal in June, and a 56% reduction from the long-term average across March, April and May. Authorities are considering shutting off the water supply for several hours a day. Imagine being really hot in Rome and not being able to shower at will!

So the Vatican is showing solidarity and reminding us all that caring for the planet and its resources is an important issue for Pope Francis. I doubt if he is unable to shower but fountains will be switched off. “This decision is very much in line with the pope’s thinking on ecology: you can’t waste and sometimes you have to be willing to make a sacrifice,” said a spokesman.

I wonder if shutting off the water supply will work. I remember years ago my sister telling me about the same thing occurring in El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz, where she lives. On the whole the net result was that most of her neighbours filled up the bathtub with water every evening, just in case they needed it, and then, usually not having needed it, let it all run away the following morning. 

There must have been some kind of logic at work there!

Tourism.

For the first time in weeks there was a cruise boat in the harbour when I got up this morning. The reduction in numbers of boats calling here must be taking place after all as the newspapers said some time ago.

I must say the tourists have chosen a lovely day to call in at Vigo. Blue sky and sunshine always makes the city look better. But I can imagine some bemused reactions amongst the people who seem to regard a tour stop as a chance to go shopping. This being Galicia Day all the shops will be shut and the visitors will be thinking it must be half-day closing. As if such a thing existed these days.

The Spanish have not yet got around to thinking that shopping is the kind of leisure activity you get up to on a public holiday. They will have found better things to do with the day.

Most of the residents of our flats seem to have done that too. For a good while I was all alone at the pool once again. My own private pool! Gradually a few more people arrived but not in huge numbers. And somewhere around two the smell of woodsmoke came from the barbecue area but that too was sparsely populated.

I wonder if tourism here will be affected by Ryanair's threat to stop flying from Britain unless a reasonable Brexit deal is sorted out, which means one that favours them, I expect. They are already moaning about passengers not booking luggage into the hold when they travel.

Crafty travellers are avoiding charges by bringing more and more luggage into the cabin. Ryanair’s chief financial officer, Neil Sorahan, said the airline could review its second bag allowance as passengers were starting to “take the piss”. He said: “I’ve seen two-year-olds wheeling a bag up to the plane as people try to take advantage.”

Pardon my unreasonable attitude but I think two-year-olds have to pay for a seat. Surely they are entitled to a luggae allowance in that case!

It must be hard trying to make lots of money!