TILTING AT WINDMILLS: WHAT HAS AZNAR GOT?

Friday, December 19, 2008

WHAT HAS AZNAR GOT?

A Madrid judge has ordered broadcaster Telecinco to pay 240,000 euros to former Spanish premier, José María Aznar and his wife Ana Botella, for falsely reporting that the couple had separated after supposed infidelity by the former leader. The couple married in 1977 and have three children.

The claims were made in November 2007 on the popular daily gossip show 'Aqui hay tomate', which has since been taken off the air.

Aznar, 55, who served as prime minister for two terms between 1996 and 2004 as leader of the Partido Popular, called the reports "false" and "degrading" and insisted he would take legal action against any media outlet repeating the slander. Ana Botella is a PP councillor in Madrid and has not commented on the rumours.

In its ruling the court said the couple had suffered “illegitimate interferences regarding their fundamental rights to honour and personal and family privacy”.

Fair enough.

They say there is no smoke without fire although I find it hard to envisage anybody getting the ‘hots’ for José María. Yet earlier this year there were scandalous rumours that emanated from Morocco that Aznar was the father of the French Minister for Justice Rachida Dati’s love child.

I know that power is meant to be an aphrodisiac but even so. Please, can somebody tell me what Aznar has got apart from 240,000 euros.

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TILTING AT WINDMILLS

Sancho Panza is much less learned but a good deal saner than his master.

"At this point they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that are on that plain.

"Fortune," said Don Quixote to his squire, as soon as he had seen them, "is arranging matters for us better than we could have hoped. Look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants rise up, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes. For this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth."

"What giants?" said Sancho Panza.

"Those you see there," answered his master, "with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long."

"Look, your worship,'' said Sancho. "What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turned by the wind make the millstone go."

"It is easy to see," replied Don Quixote, "that you are not used to this business of adventures. Those are giants, and if you are afraid, away with you out of here and betake yourself to prayer, while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat."”