Lavengro in Spain

Telling the foreigners how to behave

The view that Britons have been put on earth in order to tell the foreigners how to behave is one that is deeply rooted in British culture. An expression of it is to be found in a letter to the Independent on Sunday:

Breeding animals for food is one thing, but breeding 40,000 to kill in the name of sport is barbaric. These bulls are taken from their mothers at a few weeks old and raised to be provoked and tortured to provide so-called entertainment for an ignorant and uncivilised crowd. It must be stopped.

Margaret Sibley, Sidmouth, Devon

The injunction in Ms Sibley’s last four words reflects exactly the attitude that sent gunboats around the world to ensure that the Natives toed the line. Unfortunately, now as then, such smug arrogance is associated with the blundering ignorance of Native customs that we see in her first seven words. The fact is that the meat from bulls killed in Spanish bullrings is sold as food; it is greatly prized for its quality and commands high prices. All Spanish bullrings are licensed abattoirs.

Oh, and nobody in Spain regards bullfighting as a sport.

Britain and Germany

Two pages on my blog that have enduring popularity, judging as people find them on Google searches, date from July 2006 (Anti-German prejudice) and April 2006 (British xenophobia). Now that peculiar British anti-German prejudice has surfaced again with the Max Mosley scandal. I am pleased to say that today’s Independent has an excellent article by A. N. Wilson:

I want to write, not about le vice anglais, which is a harmless eccentricity over which some chaps have no control, but about a much worse English vice – namely our demonising of the Germans. Thomas Kielinger, the London correspondent of Die Welt came on the radio, during the early stages of the case of Mosley vs the News of the World to say that no one nowadays thought mock-German accents were funny. Ephraim Hardcastle in the Daily Mail immediately responded with “Vee shall be the judges of zat, Herr Kielinger!”

…

More than 60 years after the ruination of Europe, and after a tragic war, from which the Soviet tyrants emerged victorious, the British are still fixated upon the idea that Germany – socially enterprising, politically liberal to the point of blandness, filled in every town and region with gentle, music-loving, civilised people – is secretly longing to return to the days of concentration camps and the Nuremberg Race Laws.

Since each British generation is less competent in foreign languages than the last, and since the British press grows more and not less insular, we will presumably continue to think that German accents are “funny” and that “German” equals Nazi.

The Church in Spain

The status of the Roman Catholic Church is under discussion in Spain. It enjoys privileges, particularly in taxation, that other religious organisations do not. The question is whether to extend rights to other groups or to trim the sails of the Catholic church. The problem is that the Church of Rome is a sovereign state and its relations with Spain are governed by a treaty (concordat), which would have to be renewed.

A poll in today’s El País shows the following figures:

Strongly agree + agree / Neither agree nor disagree / Strongly disagree + disagree

Do you agree or disagree with…

There should be an army bishop (1): 30 / 16 / 47

There should be religious state funerals: 47 / 15 / 33

Hospital ethics committees that decide on treatment for terminally ill patients should include a Catholic priest: 33 / 10 / 54

When government ministers take office they should swear their oath of office in the presence of religious symbols (a crucifix, the gospels) (2): 32 / 19 / 45

The civil authorities should be represented in some religious ceremonies (e.g. processions) (3): 36 / 15 / 45

(1) This means army chaplains, all of whom are Catholic in the Spanish armed forces. So are the huge majority of the members of course, at least of those who have any religion, but the numbers of Muslims and Protestants (from Latin America) are growing.

(2) There was a scandal when the present government took office with these symbols on the table. In fact, though, they all made a non-religious oath, as did all but one of the ministers in 2004 (the exception was Bono – of course).

(3) This is required, or at least expected, in some cases. But a few years ago a friend who was the mayor of a town in the north of England told me that she had to attend the parish church as part of her mayoral duties. She is a Catholic.

Doing it on the cheap

Those were the days, when cheap flights landed...

Or after that, when they gave you one parachute per passenger.

Yes.

Forges, El País 13-7-08

Rarity value

The computer system that checks London Transport tickets was down for five hours on Saturday morning (BBC):

Transport for London, apologised and said Oyster faults were "very rare".

Immediately after this we read:

It said a problem of this nature had not occurred since March 2006.

The great airline baggage rip-off

Not only do air travellers in Europe have to submit to stupid and humiliating ‘security’ regulations, but we are now being ripped off right left and centre by the airlines. I have written about how I have failed to get a sensible response from easyJet about a case that was damaged when I flew with them two months ago. Now it transpires that their charges for baggage (eighteen euros per bag with easyJet, if I remember right) are not only exorbitant but illegal. The Spanish consumers association FACUA is taking Clickair, easyJet, Vueling and Ryanair to court over this issue (here, Spanish), my translation:

Spain’s Law 48/1960, of 21 July, on Air Navigation establishes in article 97 “the carrier shall be obliged to transport baggage together with the passengers, and included in the price of the ticket, with the weight and volume limits set by the Regulations. The excess shall be the object of special conditions”. The rule goes on to say that “for these purposes hand-carried objects and packages that the traveller carries with himself or herself shall not be regarded as baggage”

The charge for baggage is also an abusive clause as it implies “price increases for accessory services … that do not correspond to additional provisions” according to article 89.5 of the amended text of the General Law for the Defence of Consumers and Users (Legislative Royal Decree 1/2007, of 16 November).

This last point is especially interesting. A couple of years ago Liverpool John Lennon airport tried to introduce a charge of £2.00 per departing passenger for ‘security’. easyJet hit the roof. They pointed out that their contract with the airport included security services and that the airport had no right to make any separate charge. The publicity was bad (as were the airport’s chances in any court case) and the charge was dropped. Now easyJet is acting the same way itself by charging a small fortune to carry a suitcase in the first place, and then ignoring passengers who claim for their damaged luggage.

 

13-7-08

Pamela Heywood kindly mentions this post on her blog where she describes her experiences with Thomas Cook. I am very happy to return the favour.

A Christian country

A couple of years ago I posted a message about Spain. I titled it Not a Catholic country. In it I said:

All the evidence is that the [Spanish] Church is in crisis and that its influence over the nation’s life is in free fall. Its attempts to suggest that Catholic councillors should exercise a right to conscientious objection and refuse to conduct gay marriages (as in France, the mayors here are ex officio official registrars and notaries who perform the ceremonies) has got absolutely nowhere; a few weeks ago a PP [conservative] mayor in Galicia performed a gay marriage ceremony for two councillors from his own party. Any refusal by a public official to perform a public duty would be utterly illegal, and the Constitutional Court has refused even to hear a case alleging such a right of conscientious objection.

Now I see in the BBC:

A marriage registrar was harassed for refusing to conduct same-sex ceremonies, a tribunal has ruled.

Lillian Ladele, who said the civil partnership ceremonies went against her Christian faith, hailed the decision as a "victory for religious liberty".

The tribunal ruled that Miss Ladele was discriminated against on grounds of religious beliefs and was harassed.

So, which country is more under the influence of religion: Spain or the UK?

San Fermín

The seventh of July is San Fermín, the day of the bull-run in Pamplona.

Earlier in the day the BBC was reporting gleefully that many people had been injured; ninety was the figure that they gave. A couple of hours later that ninety had been reduced to ... errr ... nine! Later they got it up to thirteen, and even managed to include one dead -- but that turned out to be an Irishman who had fallen off a wall, which didn't really count.

As I write at midnight, the BBC is claiming that thirteen people have been injured while El País says that eight have been taken to hospital, none of them gored: one Californian, one South African, one Englishman, one New Zealander and four Spaniards. Only three of them (including the Californian and the South African) seem to have injuries of any seriousness.

Hemingway did it, and plenty of people since then have fancied themselves as his heirs and voluntarily run in front of wild bulls. Each year the number of Anglo-Saxons who take part, and get injured, is disproportionately high -- not to mention Celts who fall off walls. It should be mentioned that the alcohol consumption among bull-runners on the evening of 6 July is also quite remarkable, which was probably not the case in Hemingway's day.

Claiming against easyJet

On Thursday 15 May I flew with easyJet from Barcelona to Stansted. I checked in one suitcase. When I collected my baggage at  Stansted, I found that it had been damaged. The case had been torn on the side and that the pull handle had been ripped from the back of the case. I reported this at the airport on, arrival and was told that my claim was against easyJet as the carrier but that as I was returning to Barcelona on the following Monday there would not be time to process my claim and that I should make it on my return.

I did so. I took the case to a baggage shop, which gave me an official claim form (and charged me 24 euros for doing so) stating that the case was in new condition (I had had it about a year and had used it maybe half a dozen times), was beyond repair, and that its value was sixty euros. On 25 May I mailed easyJet with a copy of the form and photos of the case. I received a mail by return, which said:

Thank you for your e-mail which has been passed to our Baggage Claims Team.

They will endeavour to respond to you with more details within 14 days of receipt of this acknowledgement.

Kind Regards,

easyJet Baggage Claims Team

On 3 June I received this (my emphasis):

Ref: EZB080528HAREF

Dear Mr Harvey

Thank you for your letter from which I am very sorry to learn that your baggage was mishandled following your recent journey with easyJet.

Despite our very best efforts to avoid this type of occurrence, where there is a mixture of manual and mechanical labour unfortunately such incidents can happen, although only to a small percentage of the baggage carried on our flights.

Fair enough. I understand that.

To enable us to give further consideration to your claim, I would be grateful if you could please forward to us the following documentation.

Original or clear copy of your booking confirmation covering the entire air travel.

Thank you for your co-operation and we look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Yours sincerely,

Eloise Rowland

Baggage Claims Department

Now, this is very odd. I would have thought that the baggage receipts – which bear my name and the date and flight number – would have been sufficient by themselves to act as confirmation that I had booked and flown on that date. But if easyJet need more, then they need only to look to their own records of passenger lists, which they are obliged to keep for a certain time. Why should the passenger be obliged to send additional information, which he might not still have? One obvious answer does spring to mind, of course. In fact, I was able to send a copy of my booking form and did so on 3 June. I received a mail by return, which said:

Thank you for your e-mail which has been passed to our Baggage Claims Team.

They will endeavour to respond to you with more details within 14 days of receipt of this acknowledgement.

Kind Regards,

easyJet Baggage Claims Team

On 26 June I sent another mail to ask what was going on. I received a mail by return, which – you will not be surprised to know – said:

Thank you for your e-mail which has been passed to our Baggage Claims Team.

They will endeavour to respond to you with more details within 14 days of receipt of this acknowledgement.

Kind Regards,

easyJet Baggage Claims Team

There the matter rests. I have sent another reminder. I hope that I will soon be able to report that the matter has been resolved satisfactorily.

The state of Denmark

From the BBC:

Denmark 'world's happiest nation'

From El País:

Denmark, first EU country to go into recession.