Troublesome Treats
You've got to be glad to live in a country where Greggs depiction of the Baby Jesus as a Sausage Roll didn't result in crowds of angry men threatening to behead those insulting the Son of God.
Greggs has since apologised, saying it was never their intention to cause any offence.
I don't know what's going on, but these tasty pastry snacks seems to be getting lots of people into a spot of bother recently.
Who Ate All the Pies? (14/11/17)
Venezuelan President Victor Maduro was caught out enjoying an 'empanada' during a live TV address to the nation many of whom are starving in this oil-rich country.
Now for the uninitiated Empanadas are a tasty Latin American treat and admirers argue all the time over rival recipes for both the pastry and fillings.
But essentially an Empanada is a pie which can be eaten either hold or cold although it is unusual for a country's president to be viewed wolfing one down 'live' on TV.
Spitting Image (12/11/13)
Anyone looking for confirmation that Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro, is nothing more that a political snake-oil salesman should consider his latest crazy antics - his claim, for example, that a 'miraculous' image of Hugo Chavez (his mentor and predecessor) appeared on the wall of an underground construction site.
Now I've posted the 'miraculous' image with this post and have to say that I can't see this as the 'spitting image' of Hugo Chavez - no matter how hard I try.
In fact it looks at best to me like one of those misshapen vegetables that attract publicity from time-to-time as loosely resemble a human face - good for a laugh perhaps, but that's all.
Yet Nicolas is keen on interpreting this as another miracle, a sign that Hugo Chavez is somehow watching over his country and giving his blessing from beyond the grave to the increasingly wacky Maduro administration - which has price inflation running at an astonishing 50%.
Now Nicolas is a 'socialist' politician of course, but he seems more than happy to inject a little voodoo into his pitch to the voters - many of whom are deeply religious.
Which is a load of old bollix, if you ask me - and while you would think that no socialist worth their salt would indulge in this kind of mumbo jumbo, President Maduro appears unabashed.
So, I would not be in the least surprised if he is carted off by men in white coats any day now - or perhaps even the military - because there seems little doubt that the President is losing the plot.
Here's a report on the 'Chavez is everywhere' story from the Telegraph newspaper - which made me laugh out loud.
Now I've posted the 'miraculous' image with this post and have to say that I can't see this as the 'spitting image' of Hugo Chavez - no matter how hard I try.
In fact it looks at best to me like one of those misshapen vegetables that attract publicity from time-to-time as loosely resemble a human face - good for a laugh perhaps, but that's all.
Yet Nicolas is keen on interpreting this as another miracle, a sign that Hugo Chavez is somehow watching over his country and giving his blessing from beyond the grave to the increasingly wacky Maduro administration - which has price inflation running at an astonishing 50%.
Now Nicolas is a 'socialist' politician of course, but he seems more than happy to inject a little voodoo into his pitch to the voters - many of whom are deeply religious.
Which is a load of old bollix, if you ask me - and while you would think that no socialist worth their salt would indulge in this kind of mumbo jumbo, President Maduro appears unabashed.
So, I would not be in the least surprised if he is carted off by men in white coats any day now - or perhaps even the military - because there seems little doubt that the President is losing the plot.
Here's a report on the 'Chavez is everywhere' story from the Telegraph newspaper - which made me laugh out loud.
Hugo Chavez 'appears' on construction site wall
President Nicolas Maduro claims marks on a wall are the image of late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez
Stories of Chavez appearances draw mockery from the roughly half of Venezuelans who do not support Mr Maduro Photo: Reuters
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said an image of his political idol and predecessor, the late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, had appeared miraculously in the wall of an underground construction site.
Since his death from cancer earlier this year, Chavez has taken on mythical proportions for supporters, and Mr Maduro has spoken of seeing his former mentor's spirit several times, including in the shape of a bird.
In the latest incident, Mr Maduro said Chavez's face briefly appeared to workers building a subway line in Caracas in the middle of the night.
"My hair stands on end just telling you about it," Mr Maduro said on state TV late, showing a photo of a white-plaster wall with marks that appear like eyes and a nose.
"Who is that face? That gaze is the gaze of the fatherland that is everywhere around us, including in inexplicable phenomena," added Mr Maduro, who won an April election to replace Chavez after his 14-year presidency.
Mr Maduro's reverence for Chavez plays well with government supporters, who treat the charismatic former leader's memory with religious adoration. The 50-year-old Maduro, who mixes Catholic beliefs with a penchant for Asian spirituality, has been a devoted personal follower of Chavez since first meeting him at a jail in 1993.
Workers took the photo with a mobile phone during the image's brief appearance, the president added.
"Just as it appeared, so it disappeared. So you see, what you say is right, Chavez is everywhere, we are Chavez, you are Chavez," Mr Maduro said during an event on live TV.
Stories of Chavez appearances draw mockery, however, from the roughly half of Venezuelans who do not support Mr Maduro. Many of them regard him as a buffoon riding on Chavez's image and causing embarrassment for Venezuela's international standing.
Both sides are gearing up for local elections in December that will be a major test of Mr Maduro's standing in the OPEC nation of 29 million people. Rampant violent crime and economic problems are the main issues taxing voters.
The president's first six months in office have been characterized by dozens of accusations ranging from assassination and coup plots to sabotage of the power grid. Critics say that is a smokescreen to cover up domestic problems.
Edited by Bonnie Malkin
Sleep Disorder (19 October 2013)
I've been taking a keen interest in what's going on in Venezuela these days as I'm fascinated by the rise to power of President Nicolas Maduro to power - because I'm convinced he's a political panhandler, a phoney or as we might say here in Scotland a complete chancer.
My reason for saying this is that the Venezuelan Maduro sees 'dead people' when it suits his purpose and one in particular - his predecessor Hugo Chavez who appeared to him in the form of a little bird at the height of the presidential election.
But this kind of shameless behaviour has continued with the new President letting it be known that he beds down frequently in the mausoleum where Hugo Chavez's remains have been paid to rest - in the Mountain Barracks which is a 19th century fort in a run-down areas of Caracas.
Apparently, the 'Great Leader's' tomb is housed in the ornate central atrium of the military barracks and is now guarded - around the clock - by soldiers replete with red and yellow hussars uniforms and swords, although what Hugo Chavez is being protected from is anyone's guess.
President Maduro 'slipped out' this revelation, quite deliberately of course, and announced portentously to his people:
"I sometimes come at night. At times, many times, I sleep here. We enter at night and we stay to sleep. At night we reflect on things here."
The royal 'we' in this case is the president's entourage who join him in the mausoleum, but it's all clearly just a silly political stunt designed to reinforce the personality cult that grew up around Hugo Chavez - in the hope that some of this will rub off on Maduro.
The latest wheeze from the new President is to ask parliament to grant him special powers - so that Nicolas can govern by Presidential decree for up to three years - allegedly to tackle corruption and economic sabotage.
Yet the language used by President Maduro in seeking these new powers is very revealing and in a three-hour speech to the Parliament he reportedly called it a "matter of life or death" for the country's socialist revolution, before adding:
"If corruption keeps expanding and perpetuating its destructive capitalist logic, there will be no socialism here."
Now the problem with this kind of overblown rhetoric is that it's empty-headed, rabble-rousing nonsense of course - since all kinds of people around the world will tell you that 'capitalist' countries have no monopoly on political corruption.
If politics has taught me anything, it's that people with 'left' or 'right' wing views are both very capable of behaving very badly - and that by and large it's bad for democracy and the body politic for any one person or party to remain in power for too long - because as the saying goes 'Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely'.
Looney Tunes (7 May 2013)
A few weeks ago, the acting President of Venezuela - Nicolas Maduro - told the world that the former President of Venezuela - Hugo Chavez - had appeared to him during the presidential election campaign in the form of a little bird.
Now at the time I said Nicolas was either bonkers or a complete charlatan - and evidence in support of my statement continues to pile up as the Venezuelan leader sees plots around every corner.
Is the President paranoid?, seems a fair question to ask in the circumstances - but I think not, I suspect it's all just a cynical political act.
The latest claim from Nicolas Maduro is that he is the target of an alleged Colombian plot to assassinate the Venezuelan President - an incendiary charge to make towards a neighbour and one for which Nicolas has not a shred of evidence to back up his claim.
Just like Hugo Chavez appearing to him in the form of a little bird - it's an emotional appeal that's designed to exploit people's feelings - their sense of loss over Chavez and now their sense of resentment towards a neighbouring country, Colombia.
So the newly elected President Maduro has accused former Colombian leader - Alvaro Uribe - of plotting to assassinate him - and Nicolas has alleged other conspiracies against him since taking over from the late Hugo Chavez - and winning disputed elections last month.
The BBC reported Maduro as saying last week:
"Uribe is behind a plot to kill me. Uribe is a killer. I have enough evidence of who is conspiring, and there are sectors of the Venezuelan right involved."
Yet, conveniently, no evidence has been produced - and this latest outburst seems like yet another inflammatory attempt by Maduro to portray his critics variously as killers, traitors, fascists and bogeymen.
Meanwhile, Mr Uribe responded by describing President Maduro as 'immature' - which seems an very apt description to me of a new President who appears to be way, way out of his depth.
Venezuela and Catalonia (13/11/17)
Read the full story via the link below (which is behind The Times) paywall, but apparently these messages originated from two Russian controlled broadcasters, Russia Today and Sputnik.
"Two Kremlin-linked media outlets sent millions of messages to sow divisions in Spain before the referendum. A study by the George Washington University in the US said that the reports sent by RT and Sputnik, two broadcasters owned by the Russian government, had spread messages giving a negative image of Spain around the time of the illegal referendum last month.
"An analysis of 5,029,877 messages on Facebook, Twitter and others using the word Catalonia between September 29 and October 5 found that many were circulated by social media accounts based in Venezuela.
“The most surprising thing about the investigation has been the discovery of an entire army of zombie accounts that are perfectly coordinated and that are dedicated to sharing content generated by RT and Sputnik in digital conversations, which go from Syria and the US to Catalonia,” Javier Lesaca, of the School of Media and Public Affairs at the university, told El País.“There is evidence to suggest that the pattern of digital disruption that has been detected in digital debates about the elections in the US or Brexit has also been seen in Catalonia and that the authors of this disruption are the very same.”
"At a meeting of EU foreign affairs ministers in Brussels today Spain will raise the issue of Russian interference."
Seems very odd if you ask me, especially as Venezuela and Venezuelans have quite enough on their plates at the moment.
I voted Yes in Scotland's independence referendum in 2014, but if you ask me the position in Catalonia is a very different kettle of fish because the outcome of its own referendum on October 1st 2017 is so hotly contested.
Even giving the pro-independence camp the benefit of every doubt, the fact is that less than 40% of the electorate voted to break from the rest of Spain.
The Catalan Government claimed 90% support for independence based on a turnout of 43% while those in favour of a united Spain chose to highlight the fact that a majority of voters boycotted the event, on the basis that it could not be recognised under Spain's 40-year old written constitution.
So we now have a terrible mess with the pro-independence side proclaiming the result as 'good enough' to establish a new Republic while the Spanish Government obdurately hides behind the written constitution as a road block to any change and a permanent guarantor of the status quo.
I spend a lot of time in Catalonia and I have friends and acquaintances on both sides of an often fierce argument which has remained relatively friendly and good natured, up till now at least.
But that may well change as the political temperature heats up and people convinced of the righteousness of their argument take the law into their own hands: witness the Spanish Government's attempts to disrupt the referendum and behaviour of some in the Guardia Civil, alongside pro-independence supporters blocking roads, motorways and student classes.
In my experience, the use of force does not always involve 'violence', but the use of force will always lead to violence in the end.
Catalonia is divided over the question independence which is hardly surprising really given that so many of its citizens are from other parts of Spain, and the very different priorities of people living in small towns or rural areas from those in larger cities.
But we have ended up with the worst of both worlds with one side pretending that independence is the 'settled will' of the Catalan people while the other insists that no change is possible without the agreement of the rest of Spain.
Worst of Both Worlds
I voted Yes in Scotland's independence referendum in 2014, but if you ask me the position in Catalonia is a very different kettle of fish because the outcome of its own referendum on October 1st 2017 is so hotly contested.
Even giving the pro-independence camp the benefit of every doubt, the fact is that less than 40% of the electorate voted to break from the rest of Spain.
The Catalan Government claimed 90% support for independence based on a turnout of 43% while those in favour of a united Spain chose to highlight the fact that a majority of voters boycotted the event, on the basis that it could not be recognised under Spain's 40-year old written constitution.
So we now have a terrible mess with the pro-independence side proclaiming the result as 'good enough' to establish a new Republic while the Spanish Government obdurately hides behind the written constitution as a road block to any change and a permanent guarantor of the status quo.
I spend a lot of time in Catalonia and I have friends and acquaintances on both sides of an often fierce argument which has remained relatively friendly and good natured, up till now at least.
But that may well change as the political temperature heats up and people convinced of the righteousness of their argument take the law into their own hands: witness the Spanish Government's attempts to disrupt the referendum and behaviour of some in the Guardia Civil, alongside pro-independence supporters blocking roads, motorways and student classes.
In my experience, the use of force does not always involve 'violence', but the use of force will always lead to violence in the end.
Catalonia is divided over the question independence which is hardly surprising really given that so many of its citizens are from other parts of Spain, and the very different priorities of people living in small towns or rural areas from those in larger cities.
But we have ended up with the worst of both worlds with one side pretending that independence is the 'settled will' of the Catalan people while the other insists that no change is possible without the agreement of the rest of Spain.
