Sailing South
From Corunna, we sailed on down the Portuguese and Spanish coasts to Casablanca. We did see a bit of sun, but I didn’t see anybody in the swimming pools, as it was rather cold.
The pictures were taken on the afternoon of the 21st of March, the day after we left Corunna.
The Ship And The Itinerary
The cruise I went on was on the Oriana. It started and finished at Southampton and stops were to be in Corunna, Casablanca, Gibraltar, Cadiz and Lisbon.
As in everything, I had objectives. These were getting a bit of sun and also looking at the sites in the stops.
One thing I didn’t do though, was enough preparation, but then in some ways that was always the way C and I planned our holidays. We liked to see what turned up!
It’s All Double Dutch to Me
Some things in International football are always the same. For a start England always lose penalty shoot-outs and various Latin teams are good at faking injuries and being badly tackled.
Another was that The Netherlands always played in orange.
But not tonight!
As Portugal are playing in red and Holland in black with orange trim, from the other side of my room, I thought Portugal had scored first. But it was The Netherlands!
Rinaldo also seems to be trying to get the award for the most over-rated player at the Championship.
Unfortunately for the Dutch, he got very much better!
Germany versus Portugal
I’ve watched most of this match now and there has been a lot of tackling, that would get yellow cards in matches in the UK, but not too many seem to have been issued.
I’d not heard of the German striker who scored, Mario Gomez before, but he seems to have sensible views on gay footballers and urges them to come out. After reading something in The Times last week, I would suggest that Ukraine is not the place. He talked about his views in the Guardian here. I hope it doesn’t have any consequences in this tournament.
After Greece and Ireland, It’s Now Portugal!
There is a lot of opposition to bailing out Portugal in the UK. We should always remember wha happened to the British economy when Denis Healey went to the IMF in the 1970s. We got the money we needed, but we had to bring in some very unwelcome policies under IMF supervision.
So shouldn’t the same rules apply to Greece, Ireland and Portugal? Isn’t there an old phrase about the person paying the piper calling the tune?
I’ve just returned from Greece and it is a country in turmoil. But then I’ve hardly ever been to Greece without suffering some form of labour dispute. Because of its history and weather, it has a lot going for it. But a lot of it requires investment in infrastructure for which it doesn’t have the money.
I must ask the question as to whether the money that has been pumped into Greece has been used wisely?
I have had no experience of Ireland in the last few years, but the Irish still seem to find the money to spend on racehorses. They want to renegotiate the bail-out conditions on the one hand and on the other they still have a low rate of Corporation Tax, to which many countries object. So perhaps the most important condition in the bailout of Ireland hasn’t been applied.
In some ways loaning money to Ireland is in our interests, as a lot of it will come back in the purchase of goods and services, as our two countries are very economically entwined. But again we didn’t seem to apply any obvious pressure on Corporation Tax.
With respect to Portugal, which used to be known as our oldest ally, we don’t really have any great economic interests in the country. I suppose the one problem we do have in Portugal and Spain is the large number of ex-pats, who have bought properties there. So if either went bust and we didn’t help, then there might be quite a few votes down the drain.
After all, the only reason we bailed out the stupid people, who put their money in Icelandic banks, was to buy votes.
So on balance we should probably help with Portugal. But only on our terms. After all, if China or the United States was to bail out any country, they wouldn’t do it without a lot of self-interest.
The Anonymous Widower 