Don’t be the village idiot

PERCEPTION is a strange thing. Disparaging remarks are often made about the Costas’ concrete jungles.

On the other hand people gaze up at Andalucía’s white villages and dream; that is my Spain.

Is it really? Over the years I experienced both. The so-called concrete jungles are not what they seem.

I found them tranquil; models of communal pleasantness, where everyone is friendly and supportive.

Circumstances meant my living for seven months in a pueblo blanco.

It is so beautiful and famous tourists often outnumber the inhabitants.

I was a bird in a golden cage shared by strange species.

Streets the width of a driveway with screaming off-the-road bikes constantly racing past. It is half a kilometre to park the car. A neighbour releases his hounds of hell several times a day.

A ‘stroll’ to the shops needs mountain climbing techniques.

Moral of the story: be careful what you wish for; it might come true.

Politics can be funny business

HE does have a sense of humour: Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy spent his 57th birthday at a Nuclear Security Summit.

He remarked, ‘getting a year older is never good but not getting a year older is worse.’

That said he has met the U.S. President personally on two occasions.

Some would say that requires a good sense of humour. Rajoy is pencilled in to meet the American President in September.

Every vote counts for Obama.

I know the Jewish lobby in Washington DC is powerful, more so than the American Irish even.

I wonder if the latter could be taken over by the Hispanic vote.