Spanish Shilling

There used to be a nice Canadian show on the television about the delightful critters that live quietly in the garden. A slow and amiable voice helped us as we wandered around a giant lower-forty in far-off Newfoundland looking under leaves and behind rocks. Pleasant-looking bees worked feverishly to please the cameraman as the plant-life went through its various routines: flowers, seeds and pods. Small rodents galloped aimlessly about in the undergrowth as some muted music accompanied the friendly talk. Oh! to live near a Canadian garden and to follow the dragonflies!

Here in Mojácar, we use a Californian gardening book. It has most of our flowers and shrubs, but it is understandably light regarding the local fauna that flitter from bush to bush, or in the case of some of our guests, from root to root.

Such are the wild boar, those large pigs which appear to have joined our society recently. They are not particularly dangerous, although they can weigh anything up to 150 kilos and have an impressive collection of teeth. There’s the story of one of them taking a lamb from its mother. Another, that we’ve all seen, has a jabalí grabbing somebody’s picnic and running off along the beach, with the irate owner, I think he was a Frenchman, chasing along behind.

Could they attack a human: me for example? It’s possible.

My late-wife and I once had a wild boar as a companion (I think, rather than a ‘pet’). He would follow along behind when we went horseback riding. Theodore would eat anything, and we had persuaded one of the local restaurants to save scraps from the diners’ plates: vegetables, gristle, bones and even lobster-shells.

My garden though – a wasteland with some stunted fruit-trees I’ve been trying to bring back to life – has recently attracted the attention of a sounder of wild boars. They drop by every night and dig up the ground (it’s relatively soft now after the rains) and search for the roots which the indulgent orange-trees have shyly put forth, once again, thanks to a combination of the recent floods, plus my attentive husbandry.

I come out every morning to see if anything has budded yet, and find huge holes in the earth, or even in the track that leads to my property. Rocks have been rolled away from their place, and even the stone-terraces have been attacked, as the piggies search for something choice under the earth. They are after the rootlets: fresh, juicy, crisp, tasty rootlets. I may not have a green finger, or is it a thumb, but even I know these fellows need to go.

You may be surprised to learn that I have found the answer to this – forget the blast from a shotgun or the services of a large hound, and above all, ignore the local recommendation of strewing human hair taken from the barber’s floor onto your land (imagine a shred of that being caught by the wind and blowing into your face). My solution is to simply scatter around some powdered cayenne pepper. Honestly, it works out cheaper than buying dog-food.

Understandably, the boars don’t care for that spicy kick to their snout, (although, on the other hand, it’s true to say that a pinch of something picante does wonders to a good pork goulash).  

Thus encouraged, they will leave me and mine alone and go and dig up the neighbour’s garden instead, while I can return to my daily visit to the citrus trees and to counting the blossoms.

It all began with a post in Facebook: ‘I’ll be going to the Guardia sometime this week to make a denuncia regarding Iberian Funerals. If anyone is in the same position and wants to come with me, you are welcome’.

The Olive Press leads with ‘The Iberian Funeral Plans (their webpage here) scandal is a disgraceful betrayal of the British expat community in Spain’. The company abruptly closed last week following the death of its owner. The other partners were unavailable for comment, and the head office is said to be closed. 

Who are they? We find a gusher from The Euro Weekly News back in 2022: ‘Funeral Plans in Spain and Portugal: Look after your loved ones with an Iberian Funeral Plan’. 

However, from two weeks ago they say this: ‘Recent reports indicate that Iberian Funeral Plans may have stopped operating, leaving many individuals uncertain about what will happen to their prepaid funeral arrangements’. 

The company's Facebook page ‘is unavailable’. The company registry for Iberian Funeral Plans (and for Iberian Services Funerarios SL), both based in Alhaurin el Grande, Málaga, is here. 

Citizen Advice Spain has ‘An Advisory for Affected Individuals of Iberian Funeral Plans’ here. 

A later post from CAS reads: ‘Following further investigation, it has been confirmed that Stephen George Nelson, the sole owner of Iberian Funeral Plans, passed away approximately two weeks ago. For the moment, it appears that there is no indication of any wrongdoing or intent to mislead those who hold funeral plans…’ 

Various threads on Facebook regarding IFP are here.

The last notice regarding Iberian Funeral Plans is at The Olive Press here (unlike The Euro Weekly, they have investigative journalists): 'Expats demand urgent regulation of the funeral plan sector in Spain after the collapse of Iberian'. Describing the company as 'dodgy', the paper says 'Our investigation suggests the number of clients left with worthless contracts after the collapse of Iberian Funeral Plans could run into the thousands.
And with each policy costing over €3,000 (and sometimes as much as €7,250) the money missing is well into the millions of euros.
The disappearance of Iberian – as reported on our front page last issue – has left the expat community in tatters with joint legal action being threatened and many fingers being pointed'.

The paper then quotes an ex-employee as saying, 'I’ve been told it is unlikely that anyone will get any money back”.

A spokesperson for a rival company says: “Pre-paid funeral plans in Spain generally target expatriates, while Spanish nationals often use alternative methods for funeral expenses.”

At any rate, whether the family of Steven Nelson (they live in the UK) are to step forward or otherwise, the company motto 'Peace of Mind' will not be providing much comfort to those affected.

And thus we appear to have come to this once again, we Brits have been found to be the low-hanging fruit, easily exploited and taken for a ride by our fellow-citizens. Will the Spanish authorities learn from this - perhaps by tightening the rules for this form of speculation - or will they say - well jodér, it's just some guiris ripping off other guiris. 

One remembers the unregulated financial advisers, and later the asset management crooks (I see, they are returning once again). So, it's caveat emptor out there: be warned and be careful.

Later: The Olive Press has an update - a rather sinister one - on the company as the owner is confirmed to have died in Portugal.

Madrid is an interesting city.

How it became the capital of Spain (remember that word, ‘capital’) is an interesting story as well.

There wasn’t much going on in Madrid back in the XVI Century. It counted with a small population and of course it wasn’t on the sea or even on a decent river (the Río Manzanares is almost always nothing more than a trickle, although in the last week it’s certainly true to say that it has reached its highest level in donkey’s years). Madrid’s main industries were of court, religious or political interest rather than making anything useful. 

Other nations had their capital cities where they could enjoy good communications and better trade.

One of the city’s attractions for the Royal Family was the gigantic private hunting park, 16,000 hectares in size – which took up a full quarter of Madrid and which was and is to this day closed to the commoners: the Monte de El Pardo. There’s a huge palace there, General Franco was one of its tenants.

King Juan Carlos even built a house in the park for his lover Corinna Larsen, without anyone – including his Queen – being any the wiser.

The fence around the Monte de El Pardo is 66 kilometres long.

In 1561, when Madrid with its modest population of 20,000 became Spain’s capital city, there was no port, no industry, no commerce, no cathedral, no university, and no navigable river. But, on the bright side, there were plenty of fallow deer and stags for the king's enjoyment.

The previous Spanish capital, from 1519 to 1561, had been Toledo (it was also the country’s largest city), although it’s true to say that the seat of power has tended to jump about a bit along the Spanish timeline (including Seville - twice - in 1729 to 1733 and then again between 1808 and 1810), plus Cádiz, Córdoba and don’t forget Cangis de Onis in Asturias, where la Reconquista began, along with Valencia, Barcelona, Gerona, Figueras and Burgos – these last five during the Spanish Civil War), but from the point of view of the Monarchs, Madrid was far better suited (and they didn’t have to share the limelight with the Toledo bishops).

One of the cleverest of the grandees, back in the first half of the XVII Century, was Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas, the first Duque de Lerma. He is described as ‘the most powerful man during the reign of Philip III. He became immensely wealthy through his skill in corruption, influence peddling, and the sale of public offices’. Furthermore, he persuaded the king to move his court to Zaragoza in 1601 (having previously bought up most of the better real estate there) and then talked the king into returning his court back to Madrid in 1606, having been busy in the property market in that city too.

Some traditions in Spain are just too good to die.

The Duque ended up under a cloud, as sometimes happens when speculators are found out (viz, current events), but he built a large palace for himself in Lerma, a building which is now a Parador Hotel, to keep himself busy.

His elegant solution to his financial chicanery was to ask the Pope to make him a cardinal (senior churchmen had full immunity in those times, similar to that enjoyed by today’s politicians) giving rise to a popular saying:

‘To avoid the rope,

Spain’s greatest thief,

Pays off the Pope’.

“Para no morir ahorcado / el mayor ladrón de España / se viste de colorado”.

Again, it’s maybe safe to say, some things never change.

I’m surprised we don’t have an identity. There are 307,000 Brits living in Spain and perhaps a million stretched across the whole of EU (nobody seems to know how many). Then there are all those EU nationals who live in another EU country than their own, plus all those who came from somewhere else – South America, Northern Africa, China, The Ukraine and Timbuctoo.

How many is that?

In Spain, there are around 8,500,000 people who are foreign-born, and across the whole of European Union of 450 million souls, we are talking about some 60 million ausländers of one sort or another who have chosen a (new) EU country to make their home.

Begging the question, who are they?

Broadly speaking – we foreigners have come here either to work or to retire.

The workers may be those poor folk who arrived here through economic necessity, sometimes risking their very life for the chance of a better future, or maybe they flew here with just a good job-offer in their pocket.

The retired folk, perhaps because we live better over here (I’m thinking of – oh my Lord: it’s the PIGS countries with their good food, friendly neighbours and warm winters!).

But all of us, we do rather pass without much notice from the local people. There are a few wealthy Hollywood or sporting (probably football) types who grace the pages of the gossip magazines, as we wander through their palatial homes in Mallorca or Majadahonda, accompanied by some bearer of purple-prose; then there are a handful of tame foreigners who have been accepted by the local population (in Spain, we have James Rhodes, Ian Gibson, Viggo Mortensen and the late Michael Robinson); the odd homage for standout political leaders (there’s no Churchill Square but Madrid does have its sublime Plaza de Margaret Thatcher). A few other foreigners from an earlier time are remembered – the various sherry families and the Dr Fleming barrio also in Madrid (he discovered penicillin).

There’s no Glorieta de Francis Drake though… There’s someone who needs a publicist.

Wouldn’t it be fun, if one of our current number became known for his or her literary or musical endeavours, or because he (we!) invented a cure for cancer.

That would make all of us ghosts walk a little taller.

The largely invisible foreigners: whether expats, immigrants, guiris, émigrés, piratas, hijos de la Pérfida Albión or those people who for various reasons find themselves on the run – are all living a better life while admittedly suffering from certain absences; whether family, traditions or a decent pot of Scottish marmalade in the fridge.

What do you miss, the social media sometimes asks.

Me? Nothing, I’ve been here too long.

A useful page to help get through the bureaucracy here in Spain is one called Brexpats in Spain International. The name probably came about thanks to the Brexit (which affected us EU Brits far more than it did you UK Brits). The other day, this worthy organisation decided to change its name to Expat Support in Spain – and were strongly criticised for doing so by many of its supporters. The Facebook announcement quickly got 203 comments before being turned off. The first one said: ‘Whilst I understand that the group no longer fit its previous name, Expat is not a good catch-all either, I and many others are NOT expats, we are immigrants and proud to be so!’

It seems that the Brits have put their foot down – no longer merely indignant about bullfights and uncastrated feral cats, they now have a new bugbear – being called an expat.

The word comes from expatriate, which means ‘a person who lives outside their native country’. An immigrant means something similar, without being as specific. The Brexpat people serve, from their page on Facebook, the northern Europeans (that’s to say, pretty much the Brits, since no doubt the Swedes have their own page) and we all understand the meaning of the word. An immigrant – usually one who moves for economic reasons – will probably be aiming for a passport from his host country, will certainly aim to speak the language, and will most probably be working in some menial position, such as in the plastic farms or on a building site.

In short, we know what the word ‘expat’ means when we hear it.

But what do the Spanish think? Are we guiris immigrants and nothing wrong with that?

I asked a few journalist friends.

·‘It sounds inappropriate. The concept of immigrant in Spain is associated with ethnicity, culture, and, above all, integration. The English, as Europeans, don't consider themselves to be immigrants’. José María (note here he uses another name for the British: los ingleses).

·‘The English who consider themselves immigrants are right, because they've migrated from their country to settle here. That's what immigration is. Coming from one country to settle in another. But you're right too. For a Spaniard, it sounds strange to call a Western European an immigrant, because we have a subconscious understanding that immigration is linked to poverty, to flight, to leaving developing countries to come to more developed ones. So, technically, an immigrant is both a Moroccan and an English person, but in everyday language, an English person isn't called an immigrant, but a Moroccan is’. Miguel Ángel.

·‘I'd laugh. I often defend the English. As you know, some Spaniards are prejudiced against the English. It's also true that they don't usually make much of an effort to integrate’. Says José Antonio.

·‘The meaning of "immigrant" is another’. From Ángel.

·‘No, the term is correct, from the perspective that they are immigrants in Spain and emigrants from the United Kingdom, although they are not strictly emigrants in the economic sense. Nowadays, the word "expat" has become fashionable to differentiate economic immigrants from those who aren't’. Writes Diego.

Why we must label ourselves as anything at all is another question – unless they happened to be handing out a new passport.

The Partido Popular is in some choppy waters right now, with some issues floating up to the surface that they would rather see staying down there with the fishies.

Carlos Mazón, for example, over in Valencia, whose actions during the late October flood – known as the DANA – have yet to be explained. Short of airing the details on that fateful day (we suppose that he had his attention on some other subject) he is under greater pressure than ever to resign.

Another ‘baron’ – as the regional presidents are often called, is a baroness. This Thursday March 13th, a documentary on her mishandling of the covid crisis in 2019 will be shown on national TV. It’s called the 7291 and refers to the number of elderly people who expired in the residencias after medical aid was refused them. ‘They would have died anyway’, Isabel Díaz Ayuso said on occasion in the Madrid parliament. Between the show on the TV (the PP was trying to have it pulled), and the problem with the boyfriend and his tax position, Ayuso is becoming a trifle toxic. She had been doing so well and was being tipped as Feijóo’s successor.

Another potential replacement for Feijóo (when he goes) is Juanma Moreno, still popular but with a few underreported issues – mainly his privatisations, some cavalier dealings and the issue of refusing – in solidarity with his jefe in Madrid, mind – to take a 50% discount off the large Andalusian state-debt. We are talking of 18,791 million euros, and the corresponding drop in interest payments (money that, evidently, could be spent elsewhere).

While Feijoo is what he is – a second-rater who, like Mariano Rajoy, doesn’t speak a word of English - his businesswoman wife has recently been attracting unwelcome attention in Galicia over a property with exclusive beach access.

In an attempt to deflect attention towards the manifold crimes of the PSOE, last week a short video was made, using artificial intelligence, to show (a very muscly looking) Pedro Sánchez and his six-pack abdomen, together with his wife and some other senior figures in the socialist hierarchy, enjoying a jolly day bathing in the warm seas of the Dominican Republic, under the title: ‘The Island of Corruption’. 

That's a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Understandably, the President of the island didn’t appreciate the joke and the Partido Popular had to quickly pull the offending vid from their website, as Pedro Sánchez was obliged to apologise in the name of the Spanish people for the upset.

The International Women’s Day was last Saturday, and while the womenfolk hit the streets (despite the rain), Feijóo was telling reporters in a folksy way that his mum and granny were both women, you know, and they enjoyed all sorts of freedom (in, er, Franco’s Spain). Vox meanwhile came out with a jolly feminist video to mark the occasion, warning that you girls will all be wearing a hijab by 2030. If not sooner, hey?

Perhaps the answer is to just let Sánchez get on with things – after all, he’s doing pretty well…

Here's a story from Ángel Medina. We used to run a newspaper together called El Indálico.

 ...

It was the year 1974. Franco was still alive, and the regime was tightening in the face of the imminent death of the ghastly old Caudillo. It was rumoured that the borders were heavily guarded against any possible infiltrations of 'revolutionary material'.

Yes, we knew all too well what was meant by that.

Even so, a feeling that everything was soon going to change was in the air. People were already preparing for a major adjustment and the desire for freedom was manifested in all social orders: in the press and on the radio, on the state-controlled television... and also at the cinema.

Censorship continued to prohibit numerous films that were shown around the world and those of us Spaniards who could travelled to France to see them. Several French towns near the Spanish border (Perpignan, Céret, Amélie les Bains…) specialised in organising some weekend film marathons in which, over three days, you could watch films that were not permitted in Spain.

Stuff like The Kama Sutra, The Last Tango in Paris, La Grande Bouffe, Paths of Glory, Emmanuelle…

I had just bought a Seat 133 and decided to give it a good run by going to one of these film events, and so I travelled north with a friend to the neighbouring country with the intention of stuffing ourselves with cinema and at the same time bringing back some anti-Franco press and literature.

We saw a dozen films, bought Che Guevara t-shirts, some communist and libertarian newspapers and also several copies of the book that was on everyone's lips and that apparently brought to light the machinations and internal struggles for power within the Franco regime: “The Holy Mafia”, the history and situation in those days of the fiercely dreadful Opus Dei.

I bought five copies, although I had heard that carrying more than one could mean arrest and even imprisonment.

The night of our return to Spain, we cunningly planned to cross the border in the early hours of the morning, assuming that the civil guards at customs would be half asleep and would not be very interested in searching our luggage. I had the books in question lying on the back seat, casually covered by a trench coat.

A member of the Guardia Civil approached, and after looking carefully through the window, he spoke to me in a placid voice: ‘Would you be so kind as to get out of the car?’

I felt my intestines churning (what is commonly known in Spanish as shitting myself with fear) and putting my hands together as if I were going to be handcuffed, I slowly got out of the vehicle. The cop climbed into the car, sat down, took the wheel and pressed the accelerator and brake, while I was silent, standing at the door of my brand-new Seat, and he said to me:

‘I’m planning to buy a car, and I wanted to see if I fit well and was comfortable in this new model. And yes, I like it. Thanks for letting me try it. You can continue. Have a good trip!’

I just made it around the next corner…

We were talking over a bottle of wine about some of the old times and I remembered this story about one of the many differences that exist between Spain and the UK; and while we should celebrate and encourage those differences - after all, Spain is a wonderful place to live and Britain isn't - this particular item may not be the finest example in Spain's quiver of attractions and curiosities.

I refer to the humble suppository.

Chris had long hair and a thin moustache. He favoured pink shirts and kept his things in an off-the-shoulder handbag. His girlfriend was a pretty looking Danish girl, and we find her seated beside him on a train chugging slowly north towards Madrid.

They had arrived in Mojácar that summer of 1968 in a purple mini-moke, a type of low-slung jeep – much to the understandable horror of the small group of foreigners seated outside the village’s only bar and enjoying their early-morning brandies. Chris, it emerged, was a writer doing research on Carlos, the murderous ex-bodyguard of Rafael Trujillo, the assassinated dictator from the Dominican Republic, whose disgraced minder was now running a beach-bar in our quiet resort. According to my dad, Carlos made a good Cuba Libre and anyway, one should always try to forgive and forget.

Chris’ research, once he got around to it, involved a few talks over a glass of rum with Carlos Evertsz about his ghastly experiences as a torturer, inquisitor and bodyguard and Carlos, a short black fellow with a nasty look to him, must have taken offence at one of Chris’ questions on a particular occasion.

Or perhaps he just had a hangover that day.

The jeep was found, smashed to pieces.

Chris and his girlfriend, Gitte, decided to take off to Madrid for a week for some research and a release from the volatile Carlos. On the way to the train, Chris visited a farmacia to get something for a cold he’d picked up.

We are in the train again. It’s just left Linares where it had stopped for lunch. In those days, the conductor would go through the carriages asking what everyone wanted to eat and would then phone through to the station, where twenty-seven portions of meat and fifteen of fish would be waiting in the restaurant: along with chips, salad and wine, followed by a small plate of membrillo (a lump of quince jelly) for ‘afters’.

Not bad for sixty pesetas.

Back on the train, Chris sniffled again and remembered his package from the chemist. He opened it up and extracted a metal-foil-wrapped bomb-shaped item. The carriage, drowsy from its lunch, watched with mild interest.

Chris had never seen a suppository before and, as he peeled the foil off the plug (principal ingredient: cocoa butter), he decided he couldn’t eat it so, after a moment’s thought, decided to ram it up his nose.

The carriage stirred in anticipation. ‘No’ said some old girl in black.

No? thought Chris. Perhaps, since it’s a streamer, I should open another. He placed the second suppository, with its agreeable smell of cocoa butter, into his other nostril and sat back with a satisfied groan. The two suppositories dangled slightly from his nose, and he found that he had to hold them in place. His girlfriend tittered suddenly and the carriage, released, burst into laughter.

The man sat facing Chris lifted himself partway from his seat and made an explicit motion towards his backside. ‘Aquí’, here.

Chris, his face the colour of his favourite shirt, excused himself and went to find the lavatory. He told us afterwards that he could see the tracks flashing by when he looked down the pan, and that, after an embarrassing but successful operation hovering over the seatless commode, he unfortunately coughed, firing the luckless suppository down the hole and into the heart of the Andalusian countryside.

He eventually completed the book about Carlos, carefully waiting until that disagreeable fellow had been deported from Spain.

I think I must still have a copy somewhere. 

(A re-worked story of mine from 2010. Hey, it's raining here...)

Things are moving fast, and many of us wake each morning wondering what’s the latest shock coming from the Land of the Free. We switch on the TV or check the news on our mobile phone. What on earth is the King of America – and his supporters – up to now? He seems to be breaking things randomly. Silly calls and plastic straws and then some deadly serious issues too. We wonder if we will survive his reign (and in the likely event that he doesn’t last his four years, his vice-president appears to look like being an exceedingly poor choice as his replacement).

We worry about our children and the grand-kids. They won’t have it as easy as we did.

In my own defence, I’ve spent several years in the USA: I love being there, I was married to a wonderful woman from California and two of our three children (all born in Spain) live there. If you are going to be a foreigner in Gringolandia, being a tall, handsome and well-spoken Brit is as good as it gets. 

Let us look then at Spain’s relations with the USA (known here as Los EEUU).

Since the Spanish think of America as being everywhere from Chile to Canada, we call their people los estadounidenses, which is an ungainly word meaning the United-Statesians. Don’t wanna offend no salvadoreño, no.

The USA, a NATO member, maintain a couple of military bases in Spain – a naval base in Rota (Cádiz) and an air-force base in Morón de la Frontera (Seville), although Politico reports ‘American troops in Europe are not forever, US defence chief Hegseth warns. Donald Trump’s man in the Pentagon hints at major disruption to the continent’s 80-year-old protective security architecture’. Meanwhile, some of the lefties here shout: ‘Yankees go home’. Beware of what you wish for.

Spain’s main international disagreements with the Americans are not about their military presence here, but rather to do with Gaza, Cuba and Venezuela; and since Trump’s return, the Ukraine. The Spanish people’s first concern – on another phase of dismay – could well be the shocking American treatment of their Hispanic citizens and immigrants (legal or otherwise). 

Trump launched his first volley towards Spain right after his inauguration (‘Liberty Day’) by (probably) confusing the country as a member of the BRICS, the ‘emerging world economies’ that include Brazil, Russia and China. Maybe he thought the ‘S’ stood for Spain (rather than South Africa). We’re with the PIGS, remember?

Understandably, America’s policies don’t always dovetail with Spain’s – several times, they’ve sided with Morocco for instance.

Right now, there are important economic differences too. Congress wants to inflict tariffs (aranceles) on their trading partners, and an agreement that foreign traders won’t be subject to DEI policies (diversity, equity and inclusion) – which goes against Spanish and European law, social justice and common sense. "We want to ensure that our contracts comply with all U.S. federal anti-discrimination laws and that suppliers do not operate programs promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion that violate existing federal laws," U.S. embassy sources told the Spanish national broadcaster RTVE, as if distasteful Trumpian policies must automatically be observed by the rest of the Free World.

But if trade is one thing, then security is another. Could Trump bring us into a war? Or maybe, could Trump take a step back and bring the rest of us into a war? The Economist says ‘… the Ukraine is being sold out, Russia is being rehabilitated and, under Donald Trump, America can no longer be counted on to come to Europe’s aid in wartime…’

Nominally, or at least in pre-Trump times, ‘Spain and the United States are close allies and have excellent relations based on shared democratic values, including the promotion of democracy and human rights’, says the US Department of State. And maybe the coming breakdown stems in part from the Moncloa. A Spanish newspaper reports that ‘On Monday, Sánchez legitimizes Zelensky in Kiev and puts Spain in the way of both Trump and Putin. He offers his full support to the leader of Ukraine against these threats on the third anniversary of the invasion’. A second article – this time about the Middle East – highlights Spain’s opposition to the ludicrous plan to turn the land into a gaming resort: ‘Sanchez calls Trump's plan for Gaza “immoral”:  and “Gaza belongs to the Palestinians”’, says the headline.

Elsewhere we read (in a blistering take-down of the American leader): ‘Trump's betrayal opens a window of opportunity for Sánchez. Although, what the Spanish president must avoid in any case is that an excessive desire to take political advantage of Trumpian exuberance ends up by seriously damaging our country’.

It would be good to read that Sánchez has the support of all Spaniards (and better still, all Europeans) in his crusade against the current American leader (and his partner Elon Musk), but of course, there’s the Partido Popular, who are always looking for an angle to somehow take centre stage, and then there’s the far-right (are we allowed to call them fascists?) represented by Vox. This weekend at the PSOE Regional Congress in Seville, Sánchez called on Núñez Feijóo to cease his policy of being ‘a collaborationist’ with the far-right, and urged the PP to clearly position itself in favour of Europeanism. "You can’t support Europe only on the even days of the month", he said. 

From an editorial at elDiario.es, we read ‘…Trump's offensive against Ukraine has left the Partido Popular in an uncomfortable position. Its only reaction to the events in Washington has been to criticise Sánchez for standing out in his denunciation of the policies of the new US government. It is difficult to know the PP's position on international relations, beyond generalities, other than seeing the world through what Sánchez does’.

It’s true that Donald Trump has a few friends from Spain. The Vox leader Santiago Abascal f’rinstance. Even if Trump, at the CPAC (the annual ‘Conservative Political Action Conference’ held last weekend), salutes Abascal from the tribune by mangling his name as ‘San Diego Obascal’. They must be very close.

Elon Musk though, Donald’s first buddy, further encouraged Abascal when he said on Sunday that ‘Vox will for sure win Spain’s next elections’.

No doubt, there’s a lot he can do to help make that forecast come true. 

The Spanish voters are divided, as in most other countries where one is legally allowed to have an opinion, into the four blocks of far-left, left, right and far right. Even the small regional parties must march to this drum, while tending towards supporting the socialists in government (simply because the conservatives would consider their dissolution).

The old Ciudadanos party, which toothily claimed to be a centre party, was proved to be a crutch for the right, and it also showed us – once again – that no one wanted to be in the centre anyway.

My take is that the far left is, as always, too busy squabbling amongst themselves to ever get together to achieve much. They famously did it prior to and during the Civil War and (after being understandably quiet for the next forty years) haven’t achieved all that much since. The Conservative Media, the Judiciary, Church and Establishment all put a stop to their brightest star Pablo Iglesias – he of the ponytail – through lies, innuendo, bulos and lawfare.

In the socialist seats (a party with a lot of corruption cases in its history, particularly from Seville), another strong and intelligent man has risen to take the helm. He is truly a statesman and is well-considered in Europe, if less so here in Spain. Nevertheless, Pedro Sánchez and his government has done surprisingly well for the economy (rarely a strong point with the lefties) and is – compared with the other party bosses – the captain in the popularity stakes.

On the right, we have the party of Capital. Yet, they have a weak leader who is more prone to pointless attack than to mounting any useful opposition. The Right must defend the economy (and profits), but the economy is doing just fine. Could the PP do better in this important sphere? We remember the last time they were in power.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party recently voted against the increase in pensions (no doubt in a gesture towards fighting against rising costs) and promptly got a Black Mark from Spain’s better than ten million pensioners, and was obliged to reverse course in a second vote just a week later. The point of chastising the government is not always going to play well with the ordinary folk queuing up outside the bank or the employment office.

The chances are good that Feijóo will anyway soon be deposed in favour of Isabel Díaz Ayuso or possibly Juanma Moreno (both currently nursing some problems of their own).

If supporters of the Partido Popular tend to think more of their wallets than they do of mine, then the Vox crowd have a different and far more negative agenda based on hatred, fear and jealousy. This party, which has a soft spot for General Franco (and his international equivalents today), is slowly growing in popularity and now stands at around 15% in the polls.

If the ragbag of far-left groups must support the PSOE to keep the wolf from the door, then the Voxxers will be vital in any future election to putting the PP into power, and their price will be high.

Right now, a small but symptomatic headline comes from a tiny village in the forgotten province of Zamora. It appears that no one has given birth in Vega de Villalobos in the last eighteen years, but now everyone there is thrilled by a Happy Event. The ninety-one residents of the village are said to be delighted.

But then a Vox deputy called Rocio de Meer (a good old Spanish family name if ever there was one) wrote on Twitter last week, as one does, complaining as usual about the foreign immigrants and to make her point she refers to the birth of the Vega de Villalobos child saying: ‘The future of Spain is dark’. See, the baby’s name is Ayoub (and not, I don’t know… Manolito). Worse still, she received 10,000 ‘likes’ for her efforts. The parents may be integrated, but they are still newcomers.

The leader of Vox is Santiago Abascal. He is also the president of ‘the Patriots for Europe’ clique in the European Commission and he has just held an international far-right fest in Madrid, with all the usual suspects in attendance, including Viktor Orban, Marine Le Pen, André Ventura, Matteo Salvini, Geert Wilders and Kevin Roberts, president of the sinister American Heritage Foundation (the ‘Project 25’ people).

Donald Trump received suitable adulation from all those present (as Europe waits for his tariffs to kick in).

The phrase Make Europe Great Again appeared on the rostrum during Vox’s ‘Cumbre de Patriotas’ (celebrating the utopian and largely fictionalised past of our continent, or are we thinking of Mussolini and his partners of ninety years ago?).

Apart from the music, I can’t think of a time when Europe was greater than it is now.

Thus Spain has its four political groups (plus some small and eccentric satellites). As for the large number of foreigners living in this marvellous country, 6,800,000 of us, well we don’t have the vote and, sad to say, we don’t count for much with the politicians.

Unless we misbehave of course.

Or have a baby.    

In the bad old days, the village postman wasn’t much good with foreign names (although he liked to collect stamps, sometimes removing them with a certain amount of bureaucratic relish from the corner of the envelope). It was no big deal: in those times, the twenty pound notes tenderly send by my dad’s sister would be folded inside within a sheet of carbon paper to fool the early X-Ray machines in Madrid.

I’d be sent to Old Martín with instruction to collect all the foreigners’ letters – at least those of the foreigners who were sat in the village square, drinking and gossiping.

It’s not as bad as it sounds.

The correos opened in those day at the reasonable hour of 3.00pm.

Anyone who wasn’t in the square drinking naturally risked losing his twenty quid.

It’s a far cry from today. Now we don’t know each other – there’re too many of us – and the post office wouldn’t give out the mail to some spotty foreign kid anyway. Now, it’s either delivered by a person dressed in a yellow uniform driving an equally buff-coloured three-wheel motorcycle, or its placed in a tin post-box and you come along during opening hours to see what – if anything – is new.

As for the folded twenty pound notes, now the British Government lets you take abroad as much as you like: to spend freely on rounds of brandy, weekends in a Parador or buying a second hand car with no MOT and the steering wheel on the wrong end of the dashboard.

Before they took to delivering the mail, I too had a post box: un apartado. Nº 35 it was. Then they started charging a heavy sum for its rental, insisted that each person who used the PO Box would have to pay separately for the same number, and they introduced (free) house deliveries anyway.

It was an easy call, although any letters which later arrived at my Nº 35 were solemnly returned to sender, unread.

I’m sure that as the result of the Person Unknown stamp on the repatriated item, the editors of my old school magazine were convinced that I had precipitously joined the list of ‘the dearly departed’.

Which, on the bright side, saved me continuing with my modest annual subscription.

The world moved on, and someone invented emails, which took the wind out of the sails of the Spanish postal system. Then along came DHL and their parcel-totting competitors, plus those fellows who whizz through the city traffic on their bicycles with an urgent message stuffed down their Velcro pouch.

The post office was on the ropes.

So it invented in own high-speed parcel delivery system, operated as a bank for a while, started to sell books by right-wing authors (have a look next time), sent and received money abroad, sold stickers, lottery coupons and magazines and generally moved, as they say, forward.

The postage stamps were another change. Instead of a stamp which one could lick and affix, the new ones have peel-off backs. Or, and more usually, they print out an inelegant sticky strip with numbers and bar-codes, and press it onto your envelope – as often as not hiding part of the first line of the address.

So today, I went to post a letter to foreign parts and said that I wanted a stamp rather than an adhesive label, if it was all the same to them.

There was a fuss, but eventually the clerk played ball and found two stamps. The first had a peel-off back, the second did not. It has to be glued on, she said, as – not finding the glue-stick – she sellotaped it onto the envelope.

But let me leave on a positive note.

I always used to joke that when I grew up, they would put me on a postage stamp. Now, it appears, you can take along a photo to the correos and they will run you up a set of 24 street-legal stamps, with a sticky back, and bearing your smiling image.

I think I could have some fun with that.