Chaos in Spain

[OFSO]

Yes. They are joining the Policias Locales, Local Police. Who do not get transferred away from home and who are offered a career policy.. Basically, doing simple police work in their own home towns.

There is also great resentment in the Mossas in that they are blamed by Madrid for not stamping down on Separatists, their commander-in-chief currently being in the dock in Madrid accused of turning a blind eye to what Madrid calls 'terrorism'.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I figured it must be something like that. Only idiots like me resign on principle with no job to go to

[OFSO]

The irony is that when the Mossas were re-established, many Guardia Civil resigned and enlisted with them as the Mossas offered better terms of employment. Now they are leaving.

Just watched the socialist mayoress of Barcelona, Ada Coleau, saying there is nothing wrong with public safety and security in Barcelona. That'll keep the tourists happy.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

[OFSO]

Two years exactly since the terrorist attack in Barcelona, 16 dead and130 injured including related incidents. Investigations still ongoing. Part of the problem is the
exposing of the relationship between the CNI (Spanish secret police) and Abelbaki el Satty, the leader of the terrorist cell before the incident, killed while preparing explosive gas cylinders at Cambridge before the main attack.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Do you think the CNI scrubbing their files is to cover up incompetence, involvement of individuals, or both?

[OFSO]

Since time began, turning a spy or informer always carries the risk that you don't, you can't, know how his or her loyalties lie. Was Satty ever against ASIL/terrorism ? The CNI are saying he 'changed back' just before the planned attack. Was he playing them for fools all along ? How come the explosives he was preparing in the house in Cambrils detonated just before they were due to be used, killing him and an associate ? How come the other two cells under his authority managed to carry out the attacks a few days later ? Relatives and friends and injured (still on crutches/in wheelchairs) at the memorial ceremony want answers.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

So, maybe the CNI took a reasonable chance, it didn't work out, but it now pays to hide everything because the Government doesn't understand about reasonable?

[OFSO]

Grim news on TV. Worst ever year (!) for road deaths in Catalonia, yesterday was the 40th incidence of domestic violence in Spain this year resulting in the murder of a wife, and the fires on Grand Canary out of control. And as far as the local tourist economy is concerned, the four neighbouring houses that are normally rented to summer visitors are all empty.

[Capetonian]

I believe BCN (city) is still suffering from a surfeit of hideous drunken lowlife tourists, mostly winged in by aircraft with a harp on the tail. Vueling and easyJet contribute too. When I see some of these people and the way they behave, if you can call it that, I am not surprised that the residents of the city are calling for tighter controls on tourism. A noose round the neck of many of the tourists would be a good solution.
They only spend money on cheap beer and hookers.

[OFSO]

I used to live in Empuriabrava before moving 600' up the mountain. Empuriabrava is the largest marina town in Europe. Nice little port with shops, bars, restaurants, yacht chandlers and so on. Spent many a happy evening there at the Café del Port.

After several years, went back to the port to buy a boaty item today. What a shock. Two chandlers shut, dusty For Rent signs up. The others selling cheap model boats and chi chi aprés-boat clothing. Café del Port closed, tattered For Sale sign askew in window. Restaurant Papagallo now an estate agent. General air of abandonment in port area. Plenty of people about in town but not the sort to spend francs, sorry euros, if you know what I mean...Parking used to be free everywhere. Now it's pay to park, and run by a contract firm in cahoots with the town council, so pricey.....and as for commercial rents....

[OFSO]

Amazing scenes on the TV breakfast news. Police raided an enclave of illegal street traders in Barcelona yesterday. Hundreds (literally) of large burly black Africans all carrying large white sacks poured across the ring road (Ronda Alt) waiting for rides to safety, so many that the police closed the ring road so that they all got away without incident (!)

[Capetonian]

At least they're on the move. Hopefully they will eventually be arrested and returned to the shitholes they came from and they can carry on their scamming, spreading diseases filth, FGM and breeding in their own countries.

I am sick and tired of seeing so many city centres full of these people selling fake goods, drugs, and God knows what else, spreading out and blocking pavements and access to tourist sites and shops, leaving their filth and litter, and ripping people off.

[OFSO]

Current strikes:
RENFE (The railway network)
Barcelona airport security staff
Iberia
Vueling
Ryanair

[Capetonian]

So things are working as normal in Spain then?
The first words I learned in Spanish when I lived there were :
'Averiado' and 'En Huelga' (broken down, and on strike.)

[Woody]

Current strikes:
RENFE (The railway network)
Barcelona airport security staff
Iberia
Vueling
Ryanair

Must be Barcelona taxi drivers next

[OFSO]

Or Girona garbage collectors.

For some reason, the millions of French holiday makers who always leave Spain before the last weekend in August are still here this year, leaving cars parked at random, pushing ahead of one in queues, expecting everyone to understand their language, and otherwise being offensive, i.e. French.

[Capetonian]

The Spanish should hike the prices then, that would get the frogs to go back under their stones. They are real skinflints. I was in London a couple of weeks ago and heard a Frog couple complaining about the price of the riverbus from Waterloo to Greenwich (£7 which I think is a barfain for such a lovely ride and it's a fair distance too). They were being really rude in broken English to the staff member, a big Jamaican with a big smile, and he just stood there waiting for them to finish, refusing to argue or engage with them. Eventually they got pushed forward by people behind who wanted to get onto the boat.

[OFSO]

So here we go again. For the fourth time in four years, the King of Spain has had to call for a General Election. November 10th it will be. Yet the candidates and politicians remain the same and so do the problems. I predict that nothing will change because there are too many opposing factions. Spain is ungovernable.

[OFSO]

Coincidentally with the minority-ruling Socialist Party and their ambitions to win November's General Election, Spain's utterly and totally independent Supreme Court has supported the government....er, not disagreed with their plan to exhume the mortal remains of El Caudillo, OKA Generallissimo Franco currently in the gorgeous mausoleum at El Escorial, and rebury what's left next to his wife, in a Madrid cemetery. The plan has gone slightly wonky as it has infuriated the ultra-right Vox party who might have been expected to back the Socialists in the forthcoming election, and now Franco's heirs have registered an appeal as they want him entombed in Madrid's central cathedral. Still, can't win every time, can you....