A race in mighty Spain
While a cash-strapped student a couple of decades ago I found myself in Brussels one evening after a long and exhausting train journey from Amsterdam. My intention was to travel further south to France but was too hungry and fatigued to contemplate much more than a meal and a bed for the night. Luckily I stumbled upon a Greek hostel of sorts which offered cheap lodgings and inexpensive food.
Either Brussels was not the place to be on that particular evening or my guest house had a repellent character which I failed to observe but I found a curious absence of guests at the Greek establishment. Untroubled, I checked in and was soon sitting in the hostel’s tiny dining room examining a rather meagre menu which offered little more than moussaka and Greek salad. The mousakka turned out to be rather toothsome and I was wholeheartedly tucking into my generous portion of the stuff when I was joined at my table by the fat proprietor of the enterprise, Mr Stavros Constantinides. He seemed eager to talk to and had brought along a couple of bottles of red wine from which he constantly replenished my glass and his (mercifully at no cost to me). Stavros seemed a pleasant enough chap and, well lubricated by the wine, I found we shared similar views on a variety of things.
“You see that cluster of huge buildings to your right?” asked Stavros. “That is the headquarters of the European Commission. We love the European Commission in Greece. It is full of wonderful people.
“Really? Why is that?” I asked. “My experience of the British is that they are deeply suspicious of the EC and everything it stands for.”
Stavros laughed a long belly-laugh. ”The British are too honest for their own good,” he said. “They should speak to us. We are the experts! When we cry the EC wipes our tears. When we are hungry, the EC feeds us. When we shit the EC licks our arse clean for us. Nobody can play the EC better than the Greeks, my friend, nobody. Ha ha ha!
Well, since that fateful conversation, Stavros’s mates in Athens have been spending money liken drunken sailors and are now in such desperate trouble that the rest of the European Union is urgently cobbling together a bail-out package. Portugal and Ireland are expected soon to follow Greece but the thing that is keeping Europeans awake at night is the fear that mighty Spain may follow suit. In the words of the most articulate speaker since Cicero, Mr George Walker Bush, spoken as banks self-combusted in September 2009, “if money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down!” I have little doubt that many Spaniards are watching the events in Greece and thinking “there but for the grace of God go we.”
While the Greeks may have few qualms about accepting European largesse (but seem violently unwilling to suffer for doing so), the Spaniards a proud people. You need look no further than the grandiosity of their names for evidence of this. Take the names of three famous Spanish artists, for instance. Names like Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes or Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez are jolly impressive aren’t they? Well, they look like mere pretenders when you consider the names given to Spain’s most famous painter. Can you really do better than Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso?
The Spaniards also have something the other basket case European countries do not: the Spanish Grand Prix. In addition, they have a double world champion and arguably the best all round Formula One driver in Fernando Alonso. Having arrived at Ferrari, he seems determined to win another world championship in his first year at Ferrari. In doing so he is prepared to employ as much ruthlessness as may be required to get the job done. We saw this during the last Grand Prix when he committed the ultimate act of disrespect to his Ferrari stable-mate, Felipe Massa: overtaking in the pit lane entrance. Massa was furious but Alonso was less than concerned. He was making a statement: “I am a double world champion, so get used to it, matey!” I expect more of the same from the Spaniard. He won’t win friends and influence people by behaving like this but he knows that it matters little, for he is a semi-god at home. The Spanish love Alonso more adoringly than I have ever seen in Formula One.
The Spanish Grand Prix is not usually a stellar race unfortunately. The track tends to produce processional racing not too dissimilar to the shambles we witnessed in Bahrain, so I am not overly optimistic about this weekend’s racing. Admittedly, as we have seen at the last three races, rain would shake things up a great deal but I fear it may be too much to ask of the Gods to allow us four rain affected races in a row. Still, there is nothing lost by hoping.
I suppose the best way to approach the race in Barcelona is to expect nothing spectacular and then be pleasantly surprised if you get fireworks. Nevertheless, it is a Formula One race and these are always good fun, so crack open the Cruzcampo and,
Enjoy Barcelona!
Gitau
07 May 2010
Either Brussels was not the place to be on that particular evening or my guest house had a repellent character which I failed to observe but I found a curious absence of guests at the Greek establishment. Untroubled, I checked in and was soon sitting in the hostel’s tiny dining room examining a rather meagre menu which offered little more than moussaka and Greek salad. The mousakka turned out to be rather toothsome and I was wholeheartedly tucking into my generous portion of the stuff when I was joined at my table by the fat proprietor of the enterprise, Mr Stavros Constantinides. He seemed eager to talk to and had brought along a couple of bottles of red wine from which he constantly replenished my glass and his (mercifully at no cost to me). Stavros seemed a pleasant enough chap and, well lubricated by the wine, I found we shared similar views on a variety of things.
“You see that cluster of huge buildings to your right?” asked Stavros. “That is the headquarters of the European Commission. We love the European Commission in Greece. It is full of wonderful people.
“Really? Why is that?” I asked. “My experience of the British is that they are deeply suspicious of the EC and everything it stands for.”
Stavros laughed a long belly-laugh. ”The British are too honest for their own good,” he said. “They should speak to us. We are the experts! When we cry the EC wipes our tears. When we are hungry, the EC feeds us. When we shit the EC licks our arse clean for us. Nobody can play the EC better than the Greeks, my friend, nobody. Ha ha ha!
Well, since that fateful conversation, Stavros’s mates in Athens have been spending money liken drunken sailors and are now in such desperate trouble that the rest of the European Union is urgently cobbling together a bail-out package. Portugal and Ireland are expected soon to follow Greece but the thing that is keeping Europeans awake at night is the fear that mighty Spain may follow suit. In the words of the most articulate speaker since Cicero, Mr George Walker Bush, spoken as banks self-combusted in September 2009, “if money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down!” I have little doubt that many Spaniards are watching the events in Greece and thinking “there but for the grace of God go we.”
While the Greeks may have few qualms about accepting European largesse (but seem violently unwilling to suffer for doing so), the Spaniards a proud people. You need look no further than the grandiosity of their names for evidence of this. Take the names of three famous Spanish artists, for instance. Names like Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes or Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez are jolly impressive aren’t they? Well, they look like mere pretenders when you consider the names given to Spain’s most famous painter. Can you really do better than Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso?
The Spaniards also have something the other basket case European countries do not: the Spanish Grand Prix. In addition, they have a double world champion and arguably the best all round Formula One driver in Fernando Alonso. Having arrived at Ferrari, he seems determined to win another world championship in his first year at Ferrari. In doing so he is prepared to employ as much ruthlessness as may be required to get the job done. We saw this during the last Grand Prix when he committed the ultimate act of disrespect to his Ferrari stable-mate, Felipe Massa: overtaking in the pit lane entrance. Massa was furious but Alonso was less than concerned. He was making a statement: “I am a double world champion, so get used to it, matey!” I expect more of the same from the Spaniard. He won’t win friends and influence people by behaving like this but he knows that it matters little, for he is a semi-god at home. The Spanish love Alonso more adoringly than I have ever seen in Formula One.
The Spanish Grand Prix is not usually a stellar race unfortunately. The track tends to produce processional racing not too dissimilar to the shambles we witnessed in Bahrain, so I am not overly optimistic about this weekend’s racing. Admittedly, as we have seen at the last three races, rain would shake things up a great deal but I fear it may be too much to ask of the Gods to allow us four rain affected races in a row. Still, there is nothing lost by hoping.
I suppose the best way to approach the race in Barcelona is to expect nothing spectacular and then be pleasantly surprised if you get fireworks. Nevertheless, it is a Formula One race and these are always good fun, so crack open the Cruzcampo and,
Enjoy Barcelona!
Gitau
07 May 2010
posted by Gitau at 5:21 pm
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