Madrid Teacher

It was interesting to read today that Blair can now foretell which children are born to be criminals. .Although I don´t live in the UK it is still my country and I find it unbelievable that he can get away with making comments like this (unless the BBC is lying) . What right does he think he has to make statements like this?

he associates himself with the following.

people who pay for peerages
people whose children have sold drugs
people who have to resign from jobs because they lie to the public eventhough they take the publics´ money
people who are drunk and disorderly in the street


Still with friends like this he probably does have an eye for who had criminal characteristics. Next he will be quoting Lombroso, people with high foreheads are more likely to be criminals. Well thats me stuffed!!!

After an argument with R last night over which was the biggest empire, the British, French or Spanish (we left aside the nicer issues of how bad imperialism is! well we had drank a bottle and half of white wine and watched a film chronicaling the love story between Josephine and Napoleon), and discussed whether Gibralter shoud be British or Spanish, I went to bed thinking about patriotism, the monarchy and other old duffer stuff. In fact I am reading a book about the decline of the Windsors which is interesting but not really relevant as I don´t think that they will ever go. I am bi-monarchist I think they do some good however I do have issues with how they seem to carry out their personal lives while spending our money. But I do believe that in Spain the monarchy is necessary, at least until the "historical nations" as the comminities label themselves nowadays, finally decide on where they see themselves in relation to Spain and Europe (personally I hope it stays as one state but that is the Hobbesian in me).
It seems that the country could split into different states, many of the nationalist parties do quite well, even here in Madrid you see grafitti stating "Madrid es Castilla" a geeky variation on I woz ere. I think that the monarchy here is a centrifugal holding the state together. Also the Queen of Spain does a wonderful job and she does appear to care about people. However, after reflecting on my thoughts last night when I awoke with hangover, bad breath and after taking Nova for her absolutions I decided to listen to a bit of the Mikado. There is nothing like a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan to bring out the patriot and you don´t have to be a scoundrel to take refuge in listening to Yum Yum.

I have finally got around to understanding how to upload pictures to the blog, This is a picture of Nova who obviously was fortold by the Sybil. She is photgraphed next to a Roman ruin 100 km from Madrid. This was built a couple of thousand years ago, Nova was born several months ago, but her name is clear as day in this Roman theatre post. Who says the X files is not true. ...

One of the hot topics in Spain is immigration. Many migrants have perished at sea and the true figures are well above the official figures. Many respected international organisations have provided good evidence of this. The latest part of this tragic story is that 700 children have arrived in the Canaries and the authorities in the Canaries say they don´t have the facilities to support them. What I don´t understand is that there are millions of euros being spent on roads and modernising the older part of many cities with a view to increase house prices and property value, but the opposition PPs main concern is that the Government are relocating the migrants to PP controlled areas (maybe these areas have the best social services. I have only lived in PP areas and yes in my opinion the public services are excellent in Spain (not the beaurocrats). In fact it is one thing of which Spain should be proud.

I don´t want to spark a debate about immigration but I think no matter what ones political, social, economic or philosophical view is on immigration, the futures of these children, who have risked everything to arrive in Spain and may have lost parents on the journey, should not be debased to an argument over a small amount of money. The local authorities can and do appear to sell of any spare land for building (which are only built because of immigrant labour), and they make piles of cash from this . Once the politicians have taken their share surely they could spend some on ensuring these children have a future where they too can enjoy the excellent public services.

Just a thought, I remember having a blue peter bring and buy sale for the Vietnamese boat people. Funny how times change!!!

I had a great week off work these past 7 days. I have good holidays but this week I actually did some of the things I had set out as objectives at the beginning of the summer hols.

I had wonderful late mornings, after an assortment of wine, meals and visits to the fiesta this week in the town where I live, also a good friend of mine visited and we had discussions about politics (he usually been right and my self not so right) , but never let facts get in the way of a biased opinion I always say, a good gossip about people we know and good wine, food and travel. I also finally finished my book on the Krays (gangter fiction and non - fiction is great, it enables us to think if only we could live our lives like that no worries with parking and never will someone go into us with their trollies in the super market) Yeh , I live my life like that.

It is only in the holidays that I can get out of the town and into the countryside which is so beautiful in Spain. We saw a palace built by Phillip dos (whose Armada we destroyed) although the school system here seems to blame the English weather rather than Sir Francis Drake.

Spain really does know how to look after its old buildings, it cost 4 euros to visit which is a nice change from the Kings ransoms we have to pay in the UK for buildings which I always thought we owned anyway.

As I am writing this there is Spanish Rock blasting out from the fiesta, I would go if it was anything else but SR. I would place Timmy Mallets itsy bitsy polka dot bikini a good 156 places higher than Spanish Rock if I had a top 200 favorite songs special on channel 5. Spanish Rock is an inane attempt at transending flamenco( which is perfectly acceptable ) and trying to mix it with ZZ top (obviously without the taste in beards) while adding a smidgin of T pau. A good analogy would be 15.99 Rioja passing as Helen Shapiro and Spanish Rock being a 46 cent Carton de vino blanco. To sum up my loathing of Spanish Rock there was a great quote in the Krays book, one of them said that a certain criminal was like an easter egg, "nice on the outside but fuck all on the inside". However, you could quite often forget about the nice on the outside, the clothes these Spanrockers wear.........

Today I watched bbc world (its in english and I live in Spain so its a regular channel) only because my Spanish is crap. I watched Assad from Syria and I must say I agree with him (more or less) The peace process is not a peace process. A good friend of mine got me into Chomsky ( she is a diamond) , and he is right, how can you have apeace process when one side hold all the cards. Thats it, thats my politics for the day. Good night God bless.

While many people in Spain in this lovely month of August will be sunnying it at the beach, taking copius amounts of illegal substances, and having wild rudies think of us poor people who have to live in the provinces.

While parking is now an easy task cos every body is on hols, BUT buying cigarettes when all the tabacs are shut (because they are on holiday for between two or four weeks) ( who says socialism is dead), the bars shut early through lack of custom, and the government decided to stop shops selling gaspers, think of us smokers. I am now desperately looking at my ash tray and think of smoking a docker because since about 6 pm this afternoon I couldn´t buy cigs.

I have just spent a wonderful week in the UK, mainly down south looking at villages where my family came from. I love the south its is so peaceful (well the villages are) I have to admit anytyhing town bigger than 1000 people in the South tends to turn me to jelly with regards to firstly, the people seem to walk cheetah like at about 30 mph (which adds a certain campness), and secondly they drive like looneys. However today I returned to Spain after leaving my home town at 9 and arriving at my manor in Madrid at 7. Now I understand the security scare in the UK caused some of this delay and this I can cope with I don´t have the mental energy to think about what is happening there at the moment but it was the 5 hours without a cigarette. I smoke a lot and obviously I am biased although would John Stuart Mill agree with the health facism ?(by the way I love Bushes new term Islamic Facists - he could write a paper on the neologism of religous terms). By the end of the journey I hated all airport staff, plane attendants , security staff and my fellow passengers ( I had evil thoughts against the people sat next to me who seemed to be enjoying the journey unaware of my internal agony), infact half of the known world. When I finally arrived to collect my suitcase and ripped open the case like a screaming dervish trying to find cigarettes with dirty clothes strewn round the edges of the case, not really caring who was looking, I grabbed my gaspers went to the nearest smoking point and inhaled.

I chained as usual and next to me a nosy Spainard exclaimed "otra vez" (again) as I proceeded to start on my second "Si , " I screamed, "Soy un addict".

Anyway, now in my flat where I can smoke to my hearts content taking great pleasure in my wheezing.

I am thinking about responding to bbc online "have your say" about the security crisis but I suppose some people have had it worse.

Today I made a decision not to touch my computer until I come back from my visit home. The reason is that I have become an addict, not to the darker side of the net but to family history research. I must have spent about 8000 man hours researching my forebears and have made great progress. I am back to the time of Napoleon (who thankfully does not share my genetic fingerprint), and am a total mix of backgrounds which proably does explain a lot.

It is amazing how grounded you can become by completeing this arduous, but very worthwhile, detective work. Once you realise where you are from I think that you can actaully face and deal with some day to day issues.

I recieved a letter from a distant relative in the USA, which had been passed down to him from my great great graet uncle who went to america. This letter described my great great great grandmother who lived to be nearly 100, it said that she was kind, selfless and always thought of others. When I think of how they had to find the money for her funeral for this angel of a lady and I think of the money I waste on frivolities, it certainly puts it in context for me.

Today a car went into my car in Madrid. This is only about the twentieth time this had occurred. No damage the light had only just changed to green which usually means you should be in at least fourth gear by this stage and doing a minimum of 50KMH. It is nice to meet another "safe" driver on Madrid¨s roads. Mr Magoo eat your heart out.

All my friends seem to be setting up a blog so will I, I thought. So here it is. A basic run down of what this will probably be about:

• Living in Spain
• Working in Spain
• Living with my Spanish Partner
• A lot about my dog
• A bit of comment on issues of the day

So lets start with today.

All is well today. Done a lot on my family tree , sent a lot of emails to friends and thought a bit about the new term at school ( but not too much).

Its hot here in Madrid today but I shall be returning to UK for a week or so very soon to cool down. Will be spending quite a bit of time with my family so that will be nice. Touching Base.

I am going to go . Very tired. 2.47 in the morning and need to go to the bank tmw. I will tell you about Spanish banks next time. Ohh this can´t wait.

personally I have no problem with my bank, its very efficient and is one of the only institutions in Spain which never lets me down eventhough I manage my account like a 1930´s aristocrat. A friend of mine a few years ago wanted to set up an account, this happened when about 20 of us started work in Spain. There are two of us left. The reasons why there are only two of us left will become apparent in the future. Anyway I digress. One one day (can´t remmeber the date) a new starter opened up an account. The following day in the same bank a few of us went to open up our accounts. I joined one below my flat (saves walking), but I went along to because when you atart to work abroad you need to be in the incrowd which does actually include everyone who started on the same day (obviously this friendship network alters after a few weeks when , like university days, your best friends become pains in the bum after the first couple of weeks of nights out). I digress again. Anyway in this bank where they had opened an account a few days earlier they refused to open one up for my new colleague. "But you opened one up yesterday" we said in berlitz book Spanish, "Cant do it they replied", "but you opened one up yesterday" we said, "can´t do it" these phrases were repeated about four or five times, then without any thought the teller said yes. This is an example of beauocracy in Spain. They said no for no reason then said yes. Now I wish I had learned this lesson there and then but five years on I still expect it to be like going to the post office in the UK. This engendering of good customer relations reached its catharsis for me when trying to replace a driving license I was told to F*** off to my own country. At least it was in Spanish so I didn´t understand what they were really saying. I think the moral of this story is not to learn too much spanish or you might find out that you have been insulted.

Good night