|
Gracious! The things they print or sling on the telly! The Guardia Civil academy is teaching strange new techniques to the young cops these days.
At any rate, the Civil Guard has had some very good figures to report this past month.
After two hundred young and inexperienced agents, some still in training, were transferred to the future Republic of Catalonia (pause for tearful moment as the anthem is played), the entire population of burglars, thieves, villains, pick-pockets, arsonists and axe murderers that operated in those lands were fingered within a question of hours.
The prisons, lock-ups, detention centres, clinks, gaols and hoosegows are now full to the rafters with evildoers – often apparently of the Rumanian persuasion.
There was barely time to find beds for all those extra cops before… they were no longer needed! What a magnificent strategist is our Interior Minister, the thrice-blessed Rubalcaba (known familiarly if unfairly as ‘Beria’ by the Press)!
A brilliant minister in the right place is worth… just a tiny tweak of the facts to make things look better. Surely?
You see, it was just as the government needed a small tonic, to get a spot of extra kudos from the Catalonian parties as well as a few points against the opposition during the ‘State of the Nation’ address.
Not that we are talking about ‘manipulation’ here. Goodness no! In the past those things went on, with the Nazis, the Soviets, the ‘revisionists’, the Maoists and so on… even with those ‘weapons of mass destruction’ from that nice Mister Bush, but, these days, one has to look to the future.
The politicians, I mean. They have to modernise their techniques a bit. The rest of us are already in the 21st century, and have been for several years now. Behind the sports people, the businessmen and investors, the intelligentsia and the artists, a long way behind, come the always-cautious politicians. If it worked before… we’ll keep with it!
The American moon landings, for example. Everybody accepted those blurry pictures at the time they appeared and – if anyone cared – they still work today!
So, when four Rumanian campers were surprised by two hundred cops all shouting hello hello hello as they, the Rumanians that is, were digging into a tin of stolen sardines, the nation rejoiced and Rubalcaba was promoted in the public mind to just behind that FBI chap who arrested the man with a hydrogen bomb hidden in the heel of his shoe.
The Interior Ministry needed some results, and, Oh My! They got ‘em!.
It’s all a question of timing. When the images from the Twin Towers were being beamed around the world, the Spanish 3.00pm news was just beginning. Of course the towers existed, as I once had a coffee in the plaza between them, but I remark on the timing of those events, the fortuity of the villainous Bin Laden and Al Queda, a sort of modern Ali Baba and the forty thieves who, if they hadn’t of existed would need inventing.
The newscaster was saying ‘…it appears that our correspondent in New York has some pictures of an airplane crashing into a tower… Oh my goodness… and it’s happening live…’.
I’m not questioning the events here, just the timing.
The day after the State of the Nation, Spain’s greatest singer chose the moment to die. Rocío Jurado, the best of the lot for her splendid voice, her interpretation and her personality, expired after a long fight with cancer. We shall all miss her.
I’m just worried about the timing. |
