If you turn right at our front door, then keep right and
walk up a slope you will arrive at El Castell. This is a marvellous edifice in
tiled marble, three viewpoints, kid’s playground, notice boards telling the
story of the town’s history in four languages. It stretches all along the old
town that hangs, literally hangs over the river. To describe the water running
below as a river may be stretching the imagination a bit but it is a steady, if
small stream. Each side is paved some parts tiled, steps to nowhere in
particular ascend with rhythmic style and sinuous curves. On both the north and
south side you will eventually ascend flights of precise steps to meet a rather
high and stately bridge.
Immediately before the bridge is met you cannot fail to
notice the huge Euro Boards declaring how much this development has cost the
EC, which means, us, me, you, emphatically not them. Started in 2007 it has
only just been completed.
Totally wrecked by 2013/14.
You would not want to wander about El Castell out of
pleasure, it doesn’t really go anywhere you can’t get to easier, you can’t see
anything more worthy of your gaze than by turning to the east and seeing the
sea. Apartment blocks don’t capture the imagination, nor does an overgrown
stream with so little volume it is unable to wash the rubbish into the sea.
Thankfully.
You really wouldn’t want to go there at all. It is foul
with dog’s mess, everywhere. Every wall, even the stone walls are covered with
the most hideous graffiti. You wouldn’t want to go there after dark either
because if you go there in the daylight you will see that the smart retro
streetlights have been filled and smashed with rocks wrested from the walls. Up
at the castle lookout itself there are lights let into the floors, walls and
parapets but what do you think they illumine? Yup, indeed and it’s not pretty,
indeed I suspect it allows the dogs a degree of luxury as they do what they do
after dark, with the owners looking on. At least the EU has allowed them to see
the mess their dogs are making.
Until recently I worked and was taxed by HMG to pay for
this folly. And so were you, or you are still.
Along the tram we’ve seen three if not brand new
hospitals then three fairly recently built ones within 25 miles. Tell me,
Blair, Brown, Cameron where in the UK will you find three new(ish) hospitals
served by a modern tram within 25 miles. OK, forget the tram. Currently the
tram stops at Voldemort and you travel five miles or so by coach to connect
with the rest of the service. The Euro Boards inform me that Spanish are
pleased to tell you that the initial 50,000,000€ investment for improving and
upgrading to all electric is being met by EC. Actually, I apologise it’s only
49,800,800€.
As the cafe owner explained, half the cost will go to
Eurocrats, half will got to politicians national and local then there will be a
50% overspend that will actually see the project started. That will be met by
EU, naturally.
EC Blue Boards and flags are everywhere and the finished
products are treated as dog toilets and graffiti opportunities.
The EC is totally unappreciated by anyone apart from
corrupt politicians, even the Royal Family is being done for corruption, the
news is full of bankers and beaurocrats in handcuffs, rightly so. The
corruption is immense, the money from me, you and the rest of northern Europe
is astronomical and in the end wasted. Utterly wasted.
Yesterday the news was full of Santander, San Sebastian
and much of the north coast being damaged by storms but who did they interview,
not local councillors complaining that central government cuts would mean it
can’t be mended, no, they cut to Brussels and EC money men who smiled like a
grandparent spoiling their grandchildren, there, there, of course we’ll pay,
don’t you worry about a thing.
They won’t pay, you will. If you’re in work you will pay
and if you’re not you’ll pay because your old hospital isn’t served to the door
by a modern electric subsidised tram system. Even if we could have a blue board
and a euro flag telling us that the cost of parking in every hospital in UK was
paid for by EC it would be so little comparatively and it would be valued, I’m
sure. It just seems to me that we get zero, and higher taxes. I won’t mention
the price of wine in a supermarket. Nor the fish. I promised I wouldn’t mention
the fish. Small, though. Very, very small. Lots too.
They have the weather and I’ll pay to share it, I’ll
even accept being ripped off because it’s sunny. I love it here, I really do
but we have to pay our way and when we do we try to look after what we’ve spent
our money on. But if we’re given it and have it maintained by someone else then
we’ll treat it as a dog’s toilet and spray paint randomly everywhere because we
don’t value that which hasn’t cost us anything.
The sooner we get out of EC the better. Nothing else
matters. Nothing.
If this comes over as a rant, that’s probably because it
is. But someone needs to and I don’t see our government of whatever colour
fighting our cause in Brussels, do you?
I still don’t want to go home to windy, rainy, cold,
grey days, though.
And I have appreciated the escalators in the park.
The EC funded that, too. And the free car park under the
prom. The new schools and the police station have euro flags on them and the
police, both varieties drive by very frequently. We used to see police at home occasionally, many moons ago.
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