DID THE EARTH MOVE FOR YOU?

I have often heard the expression – did the earth move you? – used in the context of sexual encounters.

Now it appears it is a fact rather than an ecstatic state of mind.

According to the Iranian ayatollah Kazem Sedighi the increase in the number of earthquakes around the world is due to illicit sexual relations.

The Imam made his remarks during Friday prayers in Tehran and they were duly reported the following day in the Iranian newspaper Aftab.

Sedighi told the faithful “the natural catastrophes are the result of our own comportment. Many women are badly dressed, they are corrupting the young and the increase in illicit sexual relations has seen the growth in the number of earthquakes.” He singled out young Iranians in Tehran and the country’s other major cities for not respecting Islam’s strict code of dressing.

So now we know.

The earth has only moved for me once. I was in bed in Fuengirola when my apartment shook in the early hours of the morning. I was not sure whether it was the disco in the basement or the reported rumbling in the Sierra Nevada – but now I know illicit sex was to blame. Sad to say I wasn’t involved!

SPAIN IS ON THE PILL

Spaniards are the Europeans who most use antibiotics to fight the symptoms of flu. However flu is a virus and hence this type of medication has not effect whatsoever. These two facts are highlighted in a report by the European Commission that is concerned over the abuse of antibiotics.

The report shows that 32 per cent of Spaniards mistakenly use antibiotics when they have flu with Austrians close behind them on 31 per cent and Cypriots with 28 per cent. The average European misuse of this medication is 20 per cent.

The EC wants to highlight the risks of misusing antibiotics in this way. Not only do they have no effect but it also builds the patient’s immunity to these drugs making them less effective when prescribed correctly.

Spaniards fair better in the use of antibiotics to fight the common cold. Whilst 24 per cent use them so do 40 per cent of Rumanians, 32per cent of Bulgarians, 30 per cent of Lithuanians and 27 per cent of Greeks and Cypriots.

Sixty-three per cent of Spaniards as against 53 per cent of Europeans wrongly believe that antibiotics can kill a virus whilst 61 per cent of Spaniards – 47 per cent of Europeans believe it can combat the effects of the flu or a cold.

In the antibiotic consumption league in the EU Spain comes third after Italy and Malta whilst the Germans, Slovaks and Swedes consume the drug the least.

To learn that popping antibiotics indiscriminately does more harm than good may be a bitter pill to swallow. But not as bitter as discovering that downing antibiotics for the correct illnesses does not work in the future because these drugs have been abused in the past.

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE

The Andalucía minister for education, Francisco Álvarez de la Chica, has stated that his department is to ask the senior prosecutor in Andalucía to investigate possible cases of fraud in obtaining places for children at schools. He has insisted that any instances should be treated as criminal instead as administrative offences as at present.

Speaking at a press conference Álvarez de la Chica explained that at the meeting with the chief prosecutor Jesús García Cañderón they had spoken about this and the ministry of education did not discount the possibility of following this course of action.

The minister stated that there were official reports that pointed to the possible falsification of documents by families who wanted to secure a place at a specific school or college for their children.

The situation at present is that the falsification of public documents to obtain an illegitimate advantage over other families in the process of seeking school places for their children is deemed to be an administrative offence. However the minister argues there should be greater consequences and hence it could be made a criminal matter.

The reason for this strong action said the minister was to make examples of those who tried to cheat the system. He stressed that it was important that the process of registering children for school was “one hundred per cent” clean.

Fair enough but readers in Britain will know that the situation there has already moved on. Now we have councils using covert surveillance and even evoking laws that were meant to combat terrorism to track down and prosecute parents who cheat the system.

School discipline for parents is the order of the day – but should they be legally caned or made to stand in the administrative corner?

A SOBERING THOUGHT

News reaches me this Monday that in Denmark the brewer Carlsberg has a strike on its hands.

Apparently it wants staff – including the delivery drivers – to reduce the amount of free beer they are allowed to drink at work.

At present the workers are allowed to drink the brewery’s products all day long. Carlsberg wants that restricted to just lunchtimes. The thirsty Danes are having none of it.

Now my alcohol intake is just wine with meals. However I certainly remember through the haze the days of downing four pints of Guinness in the snug of Doheny & Nesbitts in Dublin over a liquid lunch with my media colleagues.

But all day drinking - as part of the job – for free – that is a sobering thought! Especially if a tanker carrying Carlsberg is hurtling towards you down the road.

GIANT STATUE FOR HUMBLE SAINT

In January a large statue of Saint Rafaela was installed in one of the niches by the entrance to the Vatican apartments in Rome. Amongst those making the journey was the sculptor Marcos Dueñas who crafted the saint’s image out of an 8000 kilo block of marble. He was accompanied by his British partner Kate Finlay, their three-year old son Marco and Kate’s mother Mary – all of whom were received by Pope Benedict XVI.

Saint Rafaela María del Sagrado Corázon, to give her her full religious title, was born Rafael María Porras Allyon in 1850 in Pedro Abad in the sculptor’s native Córdoba. She was one of 11 brothers and two sisters and after the death of their parents the two sisters passed to the care of an order of nuns and these sisters later formed the Esclavas del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús – the Handmaidens of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Saint Rafaela was the first Mother Superior but at the age of 43 was unjustly forced to leave the sisterhood and became a menial at the order’s house in Rome until she died in 1925. This does not explain why Pope Pius XII beatified her in 1952 or why Pope Paul VI made her a saint in 1977. Nor do the few biographies of her life go in to any great detail.

However Mary Finlay did some reach in to what happened and said: “I have found out that it was her sister who did the dirty on her and she ended up being sent to Rome spending the rest of her life in household chores. She was made a saint for her forbearance in accepting the wrong she had been done instead of fighting back, thus causing her convent embarrassment.”

Now whilst the story of Saint Rafaela might end there the tale of her statue certainly doesn’t. It was commissioned from Marcos Dueñas by a businessman well established in Córdoban life, Rafael Gómez. He is popularly known as “Sandokán” because he resembles the Indian actor Kabir Bedi who played the part in the 1970s.

Well Marcos Dueñas had acquired his 8000 kilo block of stone and had been chipping away for two years at what would be a 5.5 metre high statue when “Sandokán” became embroiled in all sorts of mess. His Arenal 2000 construction company went bankrupt leaving many British buyers in the lurch. He was also arrested on June 27, 2006, in the ‘Malaya’ town planning scandal in Marbella. He was held in prison for three days being released when he’d posted 300,000 euros in bail. This case comes to court later this year and will be the biggest corruption trial in Spain’s history.

The result is that having commissioned the statue “Sandokán” now withdraws his support leaving Marcos Dueñas with a huge block of stone, the sisters in Rome without a statue and the Vatican with an empty niche. Luckily the Handmaidens of the Sacred Heart of Jesus are a resilient order. They raised the money for the statue to be finished then transported to Rome by selling replicas and no doubt some well practiced religious arm-twisting.

So Saint Rafaela stands in all her glory in the Vatican – a marked contrast to her raw deal in life. “Sandokán” awaits trial but will be judged by God over the statue fiasco. Meanwhile the sculptor Marcos Dueñas, who in the past has created works for the Royal Palace in Madrid and his native Córdoba, hopes to craft statuary and decorative items for the new cathedral in Madrid. I am sure as he works Saint Rafaela will be smiling down on him.

(Photograph is the copyright of Marcos Dueñas)

TIME FOR THE SPANISH CHURCH TO ACT

As regular readers will be aware I try to meet up with my good friend Prospero every week or so over breakfast in the Vecina Bar in Jimena to chew the cud. Last week our conversation turned to the Catholic Church and the sex abuse scandal. Both of us were raised Catholics, both of us are now well lapsed but as they say, once a Catholic always a Catholic, and whilst that is far from true in our cases we have a shared experience of being educated within the Church.

Whilst my experiences were from England and Prospero’s from Argentina we were both interested in knowing how the church in Spain would tackle the issue. Therefore I was interested to read a recent blog on Voto en Blanco from my ‘compañero’ in the media Francisco Rubiales.

Francisco believes that the Spanish church should as a matter of urgency follow the example of the Archbishop of Vienna and president of the Episcopal Conference, Christoph Schönborn. He is top dog collar in the Austrian Church and has made a public apology whilst praising the victims who have broken their silence by coming forward to denounce the cases of abuse.

Francisco has called for the Spanish Church to also seek the faithfull’s pardon and that of the victims. He would also like to see an office opened as a matter of urgency where the thousands of Spanish victims of paedophile priests, monks and brothers can report the abuse and seek justice. He writes: “The epoch of forced silence has passed and justice demands that the cancer of paedophilia, that corrodes the heart of the Catholic Church and affects thousands of Christians of the church, is brought to light and treated with urgency.

The signs are not promising. The Bishop of Tenerife, Bernardo Álvarez, has given an interview with Radio Club Tenerife in which he said that some of the abuse cases in Spain were committed 50 years ago and are only now being aired in a “diabolical” attempt to harm the church.

Yet Francisco urges the Catholic Church in Spain to seize the opportunity to open the office to accept reports of abuse because if it doesn’t then he believes the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero will. He also argues that Zapatero will be motivated not by a desire to seek justice for the crimes of paedophilia (whether committed 50 years ago or not) but because of his hatred for the church. He believes the sections of the media that support the socialist cause will have a field day putting the boot in on the church and in the process taking some of the economic heat off the government.

He also writes of the complicity of the Franco era where the abuses of the clergy in the dark decades of the 50s and 60s were covered up by the power of the church. It was only in the 1970s that these cases started to emerge but even then to denounce the church came at a very high personal price.

I have been horrified by the attempts of certain Catholic spokesmen for the Pope who have come forward over the Easter period to suggest, like Bishop Álvarez, that the paedophile scandal is nothing more than an attempt to harm the church. I suspect many Catholics present in Rome for the Easter services were stunned that the Pope took no opportunity to speak out on this issue.

Until such time as all the abuse cases are uncovered, until justice is handed down in courts of law to both to the offending clergy and those who helped cover these crimes up, until the Catholic Church accepts the terrible wrongs that have been carried by its priests, monks and brothers – then those who are enemies of the church will have an open target. Furthermore those Catholic spokesmen who attempt to defend the indefensible will be treated with the utter contempt they deserve.

HALF EMPTY OR HALF FULL?

This week I received the following email. I have deleted the name of the newspaper and sender but the message still stands.

“Reading this week’s newspaper I came across an article headed ‘Don’t buy in Spain.’ I don´t know about you but I am getting pretty fed up, sad tho’ it is, of hearing about the poor sods who are about to lose everything they own through inept and greedy lawyers, slick tongued developers and estate agents who do little or no research. I feel genuine sorrow for them, don’t get me wrong, but just for once could somebody with some clout speak up for the thousands of happy purchasers in Spain?

“These disasters are such a small minority but the bad publicity has spread like a cancer through Europe and is doing this country a great deal of harm. I for one have had to close my office, having not made a sale for 15 months, in a town that once thrived on tourism and foreign money. No doubt there are many more towns in dire straits out there.”

That property buyers foreign and Spanish have suffered in Spain is not in doubt – indeed the European Parliament, backed by Spanish MEPs, highlighted the injustices of the coastal law just last week. None-the-less as the above email rightly points out the vast majority of Britons who have purchased in Spain are completely happy.

In addition although some have fallen foul of Spanish property frauds there are many more who have been tricked out of their hard earned cash by property investment deals, time share scams or financial disasters peddled by British conmen or women. If you want to read some real horror stories go to the Costa Action Group website.

When I asked another ex-pat about the article mentioned in the email she told me she no longer read the newspaper because of its negative approach to the news. Well bad news might move newspapers but it certainly does little good to the image of Spain... a country both I and many others are now proud to call our home. Don’t get me wrong – wrongs should be highlighted but news should be fair and balanced to give an accurate overall view.

Another story given a negative twist was the fact that sixty per cent of Spaniards do not speak English. Look at it another way, forty per cent, probably fast moving towards fifty per cent do. Now ask yourself how many Britons in the UK speak Spanish – the world’s third most used language? Or how many Britons in Spain speak Spanish? Or how many Spaniards who have made their homes in Britain speak English. I don’t have the stats for these answers but I can make a shrewd guess – as I am sure can you too.

Half empty or half full?