5TH NOVEMBER 2010 TO 18TH NOVEMBER 2010 I TENERIFE NEWS 412 I 1919
Elena Salgado Staggering, but still there Popular. Both the Ministry and the Minister of Housing (Vivienda) have gone like a puff of smoke, and ex-Minister Beatriz Corredor will become a secretary of state, which is a sad comedown for this hardworking young lady (42). Angel Gabilondo is a good Minister of Education, and will be relieved to know he has not been relieved. The Ministry of Culture (Angela GonzálezSinde) is untouched. So is the Ministr y of Science under Cristina Garmendia. Zapatero surprised not a few of his many supporters by plucking Rosa Aguilar (another lawyer) from the ranks of the Communist Party and making her the new Minister for the Environment, replacing Elena Espinosa. The Minister for Industry, Miguel Sebastián, one of ZP’s oldest friends and advisers, stays at the helm, though the seas are very rough indeed, and he will need all his undoubted talents to avoid the rocks. Thus the total number of ministries is reduced from 17 to 15, but it has also been announced that each ministry will form a department working for a Spokeperson (Portavoz). This means there will be no change in the cost of government. No cuts are expected. In fact not a single newspaper or political website has missed the fact that the cabinet re-shuffle has brought no new plans to deal with unemployment, rising inflation or reckless public spending in the Autonomies. It is a wholly political game of musical chairs, designed with one purpose in mind; an unending and determined assault on the Popular Party, which has
started already. The significance of all this drama is to reduce the Opposition by systematic propaganda. Under the genius of Rubalcaba, who has just become the effective ruler of the country (he controls justice, the police forces, and communications), each serving member of the Opposition will be singled out for scrutiny. Character destruction via the PSOEcontrolled media will be rife. Woe betide any Popular foolish enough to accept a bribe in the form of a box of chocolates. He or she will be dragged up before the courts as a champion of corruption. I don’t need to point out that such microscopic meddling by government departments will not be applied to members of the PSOE. That would be stretching things a bit. When I regard recent events, I am reminded, by some perverse chance, of a very early sixteenth century painting by the barely known artist Signorelli. This brave man dared to produce a work showing the AntiChrist as identical to the figure traditionally associated with Jesus Christ, rather more saturnine, with skin affected by the fiery regions he inhabits. Standing close by the AntiChrist in this remarkable painting is Satan himself, whispering bitter thoughts in his ear. Four centuries later Cardinal Newman remarked that noone resembled Christ more than the AntiChrist, except that the former is the Son of God, and the latter is a Prince of Iniquity, capable of defrauding everybody, including those on his side. Why do I see in this minor masterpiece a mirror of our times? Could Signorelli have foreseen Rubalcaba whispering into Zapatero’s ready ear? Note: By the way, the painter did indeed suffer horribly for his daring to put on canvas his interpretation of the AntiChrist. His oldest son, already an admirable painter himself, was cut down by the plague in the flower of his youth. Signorelli himself died twenty years later, forgotten and penniless.
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Playground Politics
W
ITHin the space of a few days the propaganda machine of the socialists has been working overtime. First came the undignified opinion of the mayor of Valladolid. He said that Leire Pajin, the Pasionaria of our times, had ugly cheekbones. Scandal! Tumult! The entire new Zapatero cabinet appearing on TV with solemn, indignant faces, hypocrisy braced, to declare that the ‘comments of El señor alcalde de Valladolid were ‘out of place’, ‘repulsive’, ‘typical of the extreme Right’ etc. etc.
Serves: 4 people
Partridge in Rioja Wine
H
ERE is an autumnal dish fit for kings (and queens too). You can buy partridge at almost all big frozen food shops in Tenerife, or you can go to your local branch of Iceland, where the game comes frozen from the UK.
Ingredients: 2 plump partridges (perdiz; dos perdices) 30 gms. Butter (mantequilla) 2 medium sized glasses of red Spanish wine from the Rioja (or Valdepeñas) ¼ litre of well made, jellied stock (use stock cubes or make your own) 1 teaspoon tomato purée (puré de tomate) Mixed herbs (optional, but usually parsley, thyme, sage, rosemary etc., or a bouquet garni if you have such a thing; 120 gms. unsmoked rashers of streaky bacon (beicon) 120 gms. of button mushrooms (champiñones; fresh if possible, but you can use well drained tinned mushrooms if you want, though the taste is not the same) 24 very small white Spanish onions, small enough to use for pickling (cebollas muy pequeñas) Another 30 gms. of butter 30 gms. of butter kneaded with 15 gms. of ordinary white flour (mantequilla and harina blanca)
Method: Drop the butter into a heavy-bottomed casserole and put it on to a low heat. When the butter begins to foam put in the clean partridges and colour slowly on all sides. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, and add the herbs or bouquet garni. Heat up one glass of the red wine in a separate saucepan and pour over the birds when it has just come to the boil. Add the stock and tomato purée. Cover with grease proof paper and the casserole lid and place in a medium oven to cook. Remove the rind from the bacon slices, and cut into lardons or sections about an inch long. Remove any stalk from the mushrooms and wash thoroughly; drain and cut into quarters. Blanch the tiny onions (put them into boiling salted water for the same time as it takes you to say out loud, slowly and clearly: “¡Y ellos vivieron felices, y comieron perdices!” Melt the second 30 grams of butter in a frying pan, put in the bacon and onions and cook gently for five minutes. Do not let them burn. Add the mushrooms and continue cooking for another two minutes. When the birds have had about 40 minutes in the oven, add the bacon, mushrooms and onions and continue cooking for another fifteen minutes until all is tender.Take up the birds, carve in your favourite manner, and arrange in a warm serving dish. Heat up the second glass of red wine and add it to the juices in the pan, then thicken with the kneaded butter. Spoon the sauce and garnish over the birds.
Raise a laugh!
D
ON’T mope about looking like a soggy blanket all day. Allow Dean Swift’s humour to raise a laugh!
A personable young man in his early twenties faced his father one afternoon and said, “Dad, there’s something I have to tell you.” “Tell away, son!” said the father. “Promise me you won’t get like you always get?” said the boy, ungrammatically. “Come on, out with it!” said the dad. “All right I will,” said his son. “Here goes; I think I am gay.” There was a dramatic pause. Then the father said: “Have you got a Degree in Social Science?” “You know I haven’t.” “Right; have you got a job paying you an annual income in five figures?” “No, Dad, I haven’t.” “Do you wear clothes by Tommy Hilfiger or Armani?” “No, Dad, I don’t.” “Do you introduce a TV programme?” “No, Dad.” “Have you got an Aston Martin Rapide?” “Dad, please!” “Good, never mind then. You are not gay, you’re just a bloody poofter!”
After this unimportant piece of juvenile badinage came the much respected Spanish author Arturo PerezReverte, member of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language. He published on Twitter that Miguel Angel Moratinos, the recently sacked Foreign Minister, was ‘a silly shit’ because he allowed himself to be seen on
TV cr ying when it was announced that he was the exMinister. This was, according to the author, unmanly. PérezReverte is not known for generosity in his prose when he writes about politicians, of whatever hue. One supposes that he will be hauled before a court, or sacked from his valuable position as columnist with ABC, or lynched. The odd
thing is that the socialist newspapers publish infinitely worse insults every day, and members of the PSOE have the freedom of the press and the rest of the media to insult the day ’s selected victim whenever they like. Pérez-Reverte, author among other books of the tremendously successful Alatriste novels, should
embark on the real yacht he owns and sails singlehanded around the Med. Let him leave poor embattled Spain to live in Corsica, or the Hebrides. World literature expects that he, at least, should be saved from the Civil War that Zapatero and his minions so urgently seek. Jeremy Taylor.