Unspoken communications

NO MASS: After last week’s parliament ceremony.

WATCHING Felipe VI proclaimed king of Spain brought back memories of his wedding to Letizia Ortiz. The ceremony was officiated by Spain’s Grand Inquisitor Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela.  

During the interminable homily they occasionally stole sidelong glances at each other. Complicity?  Love? One of those silent coded verdicts that couples exchange?  We shall never know. But there was no Mass following last week’s parliament ceremony out of deference to Spain’s other religions, the Palace said. So perhaps, after all, we do have a vague hint of what Felipe and Letizia were thinking.

 

The bolters

‘DOING an Aguirre’ has become Madrid jargon for disobeying a police order to stop. If the saying endures it will immortalise Esperanza Aguirre, the female politician who recently drove off to avoid a parking fine.

And now Justice minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon’s son has done an Aguirre by not stopping after a minor collision with another car in central Madrid. The occupants of the other car photographed the number plate and followed the car to an address that turned out to be Ruiz-Gallardon’s. Police also traced the vehicle to the minister’s son.  

Soon afterwards Ruiz-Gallardon asked the national daily El Pais to rectify its report, a request it complied with. Doubtless before long running into another car, fleeing and saying it never happened will be known as “doing a Ruiz-Gallardon.”

 

Books and covers 

THE PSOE needs a new face, preferably an attractive one, and whoever emerges from the July conference to choose the party’s next secretary general is likely to have one. Regardless of their policies, Eduardo Madina and Pedro Sanchez are young and easy on the eye. The important voters might be in possession of all five senses but one of them governs the rest. In a world where the visual dominates taste and choices, what they see matters as much to them as to what they will get.

 

Cutting up the cake 

PODEMOS, the fledgling political party headed by Pablo Iglesias, was the fourth most-voted in the European elections.  Podemos will pursue companies like Inditex, which markets the Zara label, for channelling internet sales through countries like Ireland, Iglesias has promised.

This situation could be resolved in a week with the right legislation, he told an interviewer. In the best of possible worlds, which this is not, that is what would happen. 

Instead, if Podemos were ever in power it would end up smoothing the path of the moneymakers to ensure they go on making money as the rich get the cake and the politicians get the icing.  

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