Along with a group of other people I'm doing some bits and pieces for the blog of a local, English language magazine. I've added the link in the box to the right but, if you want to have a look it's here
As a young schoolboy I was lied to first by Miss Bushell and later by Mrs. Beard. They told me Francis Drake had commanded the first ship to sail around the World. Sometime later, when the tentacles of the glory days of British Empire had loosened, I learned that it was actually a Portuguese chappie called Magellan. Here in Spain the Navy has a tall ship called the Juan Sebastián de Elcano. I think, though I'm not certain, that all Spanish naval officers spend time aboard her as part of their training. I heard that the ship was named for Juan Sebastián de Elcano, the first Spaniard to circumnavigate the globe. When we were in Barcelona a few weeks ago there was a boat moored there, the Victoria, which is apparently a faithful replica (apart from the diesel engines) of the first ship to sail around the World between 1519 and 1522. We didn't go aboard then but today the same boat was in Cartagena and we did. What's more at last I learned the truth. Magella
Easter is big in Cartagena. During Holy Week the brotherhoods, generally dressed in the tall Klu Klux Klan type hats, parade with military precision through the streets, often in the dead of night, to muffled drum beats whilst carrying huge carved religious statues on their backs. My language exchange pal, Carlos, told me a story about how one of the statues, Saint Peter, was maintained by the Navy. In order to pay for the upkeep of the float, for the costumes and other paraphernalia he is employed by the Navy and receives a salary. At Easter he gets his only shore leave of the year. An admiral sends him on his way with strict instructions to be back by midnight. But Saint Peter doesn't do as he's told and when he gets back to barracks he's drunk - he sways from side to side and he gets locked in the brig till next Easter for his disobedience. It sounded like a strange story and one at odds with what I understood to be the sobriety of the events with floats called "
This is playing havoc with my cleaning. The radio people have just interviewed a woman from a bank who is hanging around the draw somewhere ready to offer big winners preferential interest rates for putting the winnings in her bank. In the process of talking to her it turns out that money launderers also hang around the draw. They offer to buy winning tickets for more than their winning value as a way of laundering and legitimising dodgy money.
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