Local elections give Rajoy the jitters!

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Tomorrow...a Sunday.....sees local elections in two Spanish provinces; Galicia and the Basque country, who will both be voting for their regional governments.  The results will be watched eagerly, not just by Mariano Rajoy, a Galician himself, but by many across Europe in the wake of yesterday's announcement by Angela Merkel that direct re-capitalisation of the (many) Spanish banks who are teetering on the brink of collapse will not happen immediately, if at all.

A worried Mariano Rajoy.

Spain is a country in crisis.  To live here is to be party to the desperation of the people.  Hope is now a dirty word as the nation sinks deeper into crisis and, to be honest, it's very worrying.

The Spanish are a people who do not like change and even when the rest of the world was cowering beneath the falling debris of the of the economic crisis many Spaniards were happy to ignore the signs and carry on as before.  But not anymore.

Spain is changing.  And it's changing rapidly.  But not, I would suggest, for the better in the short-term.  Things are going to get a lot worse before they start to improve.

Unemployment in Galicea is at 21% (as it happens lower than the national average) and is rising every month.  Rajoy, once the local hero, is fast becoming Rajoy the embarrassment, even though he may just hang onto power in the region as a result of the popularity of the PP candidate Alberto Núñez Feijóo (below).  Even so, there is expected to be a rise in the prominence of local nationalists which have a knock-on effect with further elections next month in other provinces.

 Alberto Núñez Feijóo

In the Basque country the situation is more complex, with the new radical nationalist coalition, EH-Bildu expecting to gain substantial support in their push for Basque separatism.  A year ago Eta, the Basque terrorist movement 'officially' renounced violence and since that time the radicals have moved towards a more political and democratic process with EH-Bildu (which actually means 'Basque country gather') blazing the way.

EH-Bildu did not take part in the 2009 elections (because they were formed after this time) and might be expected to gain considerable local influence after tomorrow elections.  Polls indicate that unemployment will be the key issue in an area where the rural vote has always been majorly important.  But even here it beggars belief that the radicals do not offer solutions to the problems for the electorate to mull over but instead spend their campaigning time slagging off the other parties and their mismanagement of the economy, employment, etc.

Heaven forbid that they might offer a new way of looking at things!  Radical by name only it seems! 

And one cannot help but wonder if, once tomorrows results are known, and the celebrations (what the Spanish do best of all!) are over, if anything will actually change.

Spain is a country in flux, but the paradox is that whilst change is being forced upon the nation by the recent austerity measures and an economy that looks to be sliding ever deeper into the red, nothing actually changes. 

Everyone bitches and moans about the lack of cash in their pocket and the complete and utter absence of prospects for the current U25's, no-one really wants anything to change.  If things could just go back to how they were 4 or 5 years ago then the majority of Spaniards would settle for that.

As a political and social policy, sticking one's head in the sand isn't usually a vote winner, but then Spain is a place apart, still reeling from a Francoist hangover and a black-market economy that bleeds the life from Spain as a vampire bat drains a vein, Spain is a nation lost in the political wilderness, wandering aimlessly, but forever looking over the shoulder to the good old days of a few years before.

Historically Spain has been stuck in a time-warp since the era of the Armada and as an Englishman living here I find many of the attitudes and 'customs' (for want of a better term) similarly dated, old fashioned and out-moded.  On the face of it, a staunchly Catholic country, where incongruously church attendances are actually lower than in the UK, yet religious holidays hypocritically fill the calender.  Any excuse for a party!  And as an electoral tactic holding local elections on a Sunday is a no-brainer.  It will almost certainly lower turnout because church is such a good excuse not to vote, whether you actually attend or not.

In the Basque region then the radical nationalists may well find themselves as the one of the new voices of the people.  If, as expected, a similar trend is seen in Galicia with the nationalists pulling together with the communists, separatists and the ecologists, it may spark further disharmony with the Catalonian electorate who hold their elections next month.  And if Artur Mas, Catalonia's President, is re-elected he has already promised a full referendum on the question of Catalonian independence, which may well be the first of many similar referendums all over Spain.

As one of Spain's richest provinces the outcome of the Catalonian referendum could be crucial for the future stability and unity of the Spanish state, especially since Mas yesterday agreed to work more closely with Basque nationalist leader Iñigo Urkullu on the issue of their respective sovereignty claims, further weakening the stance of Rajoy as he attempts to paper over the vast cracks that are fracturing this ever-more fragile and sick nation. 

What the future holds here I don't know.  As fast as people say 'it can't get any worse' it just does!  And it keeps getting worse.  I'm pessimistic about the immediate future of Spain simply because they seem to be unable to adapt to the changing economic climate.  There are no new solutions for what are a host of new problems and until someone actually stands up and offers something truly radical as a possibly way out, then Spain will continue to flounder as its' people go from bad to worse.

What do you think?

P XX

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Lance Armstrong: The Loss of a Hero

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As a kid growing up in Brighton all my heroes were sportsmen.  Perhaps the biggest hero for me was someone who was possibly the biggest for many a Brightonian athlete of the time; Steve Ovett.  And as I grew so my heroes grew with me......after Steve there was Crammy (actually in the same school year as me - I remember seeing him as a gangly kid stroll to victory in the 1500m at the English Schools - anyone else remember that?), then Carl Lewis, Miguel Indurain and so on and so forth, until we get to the noughties where the name of one Lance Armstrong appears in bold print on my list of sporting heroes alongside, and more recently, Alberto Contador.

Lance Armstrong who today resigned as head of his cancer charity, Livestrong, and was also dropped by sponsor Nike who are fending of allegations of corruption themselves (see below)

Sadly though those last two names have now been expunged, in more ways than one!  And it is a distressing thing when someone you've looked up to, admired and respected turns out to be nothing more than a cheat.  Since the days of Ovett, Coe and Cram there seems to have been something of a tsunami of fallen sporting idols.  Ben Johnson leaps to mind, Marion Jones, Justin Gatlin, Floyd Landis, the (tragic?) 'Pirate' Marco Pantani, Dwaine Chambers, Ivan Basso, Jessica Hardy (who medaled at this years Games), Ricky Hatton, Martina Hingis, Roy Jones Jr, Diego Maradona,  Eddy  Merckx, David Millar, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Shawn Ray, Bjarne Riis, Frank Shleck, Jan Ullrich, Richard Virenque, Alexander Vinokourov (who won this years Olympic road race), Mats Wilander, Shane Warne, Alex Zulle, Djamolidone Abdoujaparov, Lee Bowyer .....and the list goes on and on (List of doping cases in sport).

Are the rewards just so great that cheating is the only way to get to the top in any sport these days?

Sport plays such a huge part in my life that I have to believe that's not true.  I have no choice!

A quick glance down the wikipedia list (see link above) tells me that not everyone caught doping is a world-beater or that one particular sport is more prone (shall we say?) than another to dope cheats, although it would be true to say that some sports do get more than their fair share of bad press because of its' dope cheats.

For example, cycling and athletics have both been badly tarnished by a seemingly endless stream of top rate performers who have been caught doping.  Although I did spot a name, which I've forgotten.....and is not really relevant anyway.... on the wikipedia list of a guy who was banned from ten-pin bowling for doping!  The mind boggles!  I digress.......

I remember very well when Ben Johnson was exposed.  The furore that followed!  The reaction of much of the media and many armchair fans was perfectly understandable, if not a bit illogical.  'If the world record holder and Olympic gold medalist is on drugs then everyone else must be too!' 

Every gold medalist was eyed suspiciously.  The questions came.

'How come he/she got away with it?'  'What's he/she on?'  'Can a clean athlete even compete today?'

They were endless.  They are endless.  Those questions and many, many more are still asked today of this years sporting stars.  But is it right?  Should they be subjected to analysis by the press where very often a guilty verdict is thrust upon someone merely by association?

I think the answer is yes!

Our sports stars and heroes should stand up to be counted.  Testing and monitoring athletes ensures a clear playing field for those who are in fact clean.  If that means that those around and associated with drug cheats are subjected to more than a normal sized grilling then so be it.

If you were guilty of a crime that cannot have been committed by one person alone, then it is only right and proper that your colleagues and associates be asked to answer for their part in the proceedings.  Don't you think?

Yes, there will still those who will somehow manage to slip through the net and I have no reason to believe that anything will change there.  Some will still be tempted to cheat.  They always have been, they always will be.  I guess it's a flaw in human nature that allows people to employ a 'win at all costs' attitude that is literally that - Win at all costs, when perhaps it shouldn't be about winning at all.  But then try telling that to a kid who has just been inspired by Usain Bolt's latest dash down the track or Paula Radcliffe's anguished face as she crosses the line.  Without winners in sport there is no sport.  But where do we draw the line in what is acceptable in a winner and what is not?

The answer to that is easy to answer of course.  If the winner cheated then he's not a winner.  He's a loser.  And should rightly suffer the punishment, whatever that might be, of their respective governing bodies.  But for those guys, those cheats, those men and women who have crossed the line (from hero to zero?), did no-one tell them about the line or what?  Are they really that driven that to win at all costs becomes more than just a totem and twists itself into a lifestyle whereby the inflicted cements over the cracks and chasms of their own hypocrisy to be able to smile and beguile us mere mortals with their heroic performances and not bat an eyelid!

Next year sees the centenary of the Tour de France.  Tour director Christian Prudhomme was, by all accounts, hoping to have a parade of past champions as one of the highlights of the celebrations.  But with all the recent revelations his plans are now said to be in tatters.  No less than 20 of the last 21 winners of the Tour have now been caught doping with Armstrong's seven titles not being reallocated winners and will therefore have 'no winner', said Prudhomme this week.  It is as he said, 'a lost decade' of the Tour.

Prudhomme continued, saying that despite everything he believed that cycling was on the right road and must continue to work to catch the cheats, saying that the UCI (cycling's governing body) was becoming 'more efficient' and was catching 'cheats faster' than ever before.  'There's no other possible way,' he said.

And whilst I applaud his oratory, the emerging facts this week, cast more than shadow over cycling as a whole.

It now seems that in 2002 the UCI accepted a donation of more than $100,000 from Armstrong (UCI criticised for accepting cash payment).  Whilst the UCI have denied that it was nothing more than a donation, and was not in fact payment for the cover-up of a positive Armstrong test, they have put themselves (if they weren't enough before!), their methods and their officials well and truly under the microscope. 

Then today it emerged that former UCI chief Hein Verbruggen may have accepted a $500,000 bribe/payment from Sportswear giant Nike to hush up yet another positive Armstrong test (Nike deny cover-up).

It's been hard to read the almost daily revelations about Lance Armstrong.  I didn't want to believe it.  But the evidence is damning and growing every day.

So who left in cycling can we trust?  Is there a way forward that might maintain the (race) drama, but involve just a little less scandal?

I leave it to my big hero of 2012, our Brad, to show us the way (Our Brad looks forward...).

A world without Lance Armstrong did at first seem to be world that was lacking something for me.  I think even up until the point that I started to write this blog I felt aggrieved, pissed off even at the crap being thrown by Armstrong's former team-mates, colleagues and managers, almost as if it was I that was on the receiving end along with Lance!

But now I think that I was merely in mourning.  I've got all Lance's books on my shelves.  I can probably even quote you a few lines from each if asked.

What do I do with those now?  They won't even sell at a car boot sale!

And what about my motivation?  When I jump on my bike and I'm at the bottom of a mountain that I know is gonna hurt like stink, who do I turn to now?  I used to conjure up images of Lance thundering up mountains in all weathers, getting to the top and not being satisfied with his time, so turning straight back round and doing it all again.  And I'd be there, the lactic already burning like hot coals in my thighs, on a mountain a fraction of the size of anything in the Alps, and I'd be saying to myself 'if Lance can do it twice in bad weather on the big mountains, I can certainly do this bloody pimple!'

Even though he is my big hero of the year, by his own admission Brad isn't a natural climber, so who do I go to for motivation now on my big mountains?  Contador's been shown up to be a cheat.  So was Alejandro Valverde, both of whom I had previously 'admired'!  So, any bright ideas?  Suggestions on a postcard please!

In the end though, the sun still came up this morning.  Lance's demise didn't change the world, except perhaps for the better.  And those mountains won't be any higher or harder as a result of his misdemeanours.  And once I've fully recovered from the shock of losing yet another idol I'm sure I'll scale those bastards even faster than I did before.

See you soon.

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Chulilla - The Aftermath.

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Without any preamble let's get straight to the business in hand.........yesterday I finished after having just visited Chulilla.  But now it was time to see what damage had been done elsewhere.

Again there was no real possibility of getting up close and personal the fires, so I opted for the next best thing and left the CV35 to take a mud track which ran more or less parallel to the highway so that we were driving through a thin band of woodland that lies sandwiched between the highway and the fires.

As we drove down the track it soon became very obvious that the extent of the destruction was far more apparent and widespread than it had been around Chulilla.  Fires were visible at almost every turn of the track - to try and estimate the number of blazes would be impossible and again we stopped to watch the disaster unfolding before our eyes (Figures 1-3).

Figure 1.  The tops of almost every hill and ridge were swathed in smoke.  This was just one of many sadly.

Figure 2.  The wind was still blowing a gale and occasionally we saw the fires flare bright orange as the wind whipped it into a fury.

Figure 3.  This fire was burning its' way back down the slopes of the ridge against the wind.

The whole thing was depressing and sad.  After a time I couldn't stand it any longer and went home.

I don't know exactly how many fires we had had locally during this summer but however many it was, it was way too many.  The TV said this fire had destroyed about 7,000 hectares in the end.  The big fire at Andilla earlier this summer 70,000 hectares.  But it seemed that almost every day a new fire was being reported on the local news, many of them small, manageable and perhaps charring only a few hundred hectares - hardly worth mentioning in the scale of things - but some days there were 5, 6 or more of these happening.  

When I stand on my terrace and decide which route I am going to cycle that particular day, I think about the wind direction, the temperature and also the beauty that I may get to take in.  Now, it doesn't matter which way I go, if I want to cycle mountain routes locally, then every single direction has been burned to a crisp this summer.  There isn't a single route that isn't charred, stinking and ravaged.

Climate change has Spain towards a much drier, hotter future.  Some say that within 50 years large parts of Spain will be reclassified as desert regions.  As Murphy's Law would have it, 2 days after making the rounds and taking the photos above, the drought which had lingered on for just a few days short of 18 months, broke and the past weekend we were treated to rainfall on a massive scale - which in itself caused flooding, deaths and more mayhem.  But that, as they say, is another story.

The rain has finally put paid to the threat of fires until next year, when it may all start again.  I realise how lucky we have been this year in truth.  Our tiny valley was the only region left untouched by fire this summer and despite their close proximity the fires did not affect us directly.  But will we be as lucky again next summer?

The rain continued to fall in torrents for 3 days and finally doused the last remaining fires around Chulilla and Pedralba.  But the cost had been high, for the environment, the Spanish pocket and the people who have been affected by the fires.  When the rain abated yesterday I went off to see the damage.

Figure 4.  1.- Chulilla.

2.- The factory where the fire is thought to have started.  

The big flat-topped mountain is now bald.  There is nothing left.

Figure 5.  Normally lush and verdant in the valley with the mountains swathed in shrubs and small pines.  Now again...... all gone.

Figure 6.  The river valley below Chulilla was a favourite place for tourists.  There were countless places beside the river for picnic and/or swimming.  It was always shady, verdant and pleasant with banks overcrowded with bamboo growing to the height of a house.  But today, all the bamboo is gone, the river banks are thick with ash and the water is polluted.

Figure 7.  The factory where the fire may have started.  Amazingly it looks untouched!

Figure 8.  The factory is set in the side of the valley with Chulilla behind it and the flat-topped mountain in front.  All the trees you see here are dead.

Figure 9.  The flat-topped mountain in close up....you can see all there is left are blackened rocks and charred soil. 

Figure 10.  Chulilla before the fires.....I hope you can see clearly how the mountains are covered in vegetation.

1.- Chulilla.

2.- The factory.

Figure 11.  The mountain now devoid of life.

Figure 12.  Black, black and more black.

Figure 13.  Not a hugely spectacular photo but one that illustrates the new status quo around Chulilla.

Figure 14.  This is an area of national park, a place of beauty and serenity and a fine place for a walk.  But now that is ended.  In every direction the story was the same - destruction!  The area seen here is normally a small parkland place with benches, tables and BBQ areas - but no more! 

Tomorrow I shall go over to Pedralba, Bugarra and Gestalgar to survey the damage.  I'll be back with that news very soon.

Ciao!