Negrito here with a mid-week Sports Special from Melbourne. I flew in last night after more than 24 hours in the air and boy! my arms are aching (boom boom!) but it was all worth it! Whilst Andy Murray's semi-final at the Aussie Open wasn't the best contest I've ever seen just being here in the sunshine puts some extra sheen on his victory for me. Tomas Berdych began strongly, looking imperious in his first 3 service games, not dropping a point and it seemed the odds against a Murray victory were widening. At the same time Murray was struggling to retain serve with each of his service game going to at least one deuce. To be fair I'm not overly familiar with Berdych other than being aware that he was perhaps a bit of bogey player for Murray on the circuit, and there was a bit of extra edge with Murray's school friend and ex-assistant coach, Daniel Vallevrdu, now being retained on team Berdych. However, even as he fired himself into a first set lead it was Berdych for me, who looked the more precarious of the two players. In the second set it was Murray who finally found his feet as he stormed through the est 6-0 to even the match up.
As the match continued neither player seemed able to maintain any sort of consistency with unforced errors peppering the play of both Berdych and Murray. But it was Murray who gradually applied the pressure as Berdych appeared to falter psychologically, his play and his demeanour seeming ever more fragile to me. In the end Murray triumphed to put himself into a 4th Aussie Open Final. As yet his opponent is unknown, the second semi taking place tomorrow morning between Stan Warwrinka, last years winner, and World No.1 Novak Djokovic. Murray must be hoping for a repeat of their last two meeting here which both ended being marathon contests. With an extra day's recovery Murray must be feeling pretty good about the final whoever he plays, but he will need to be much more consistent than he was today if he wants to come out on top on Sunday.
Make sure you don't miss it on BBC1 08.15am. Be there or be ....absent.
Now over to my sissy, Lola, for something completely different!
Now over to my sissy, Lola, for something completely different!
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Our in depth knowledge of Spanish politics is, in truth, not in depth (not least because of the Boss's imperfect Spanish) but that doesn't stop us having an opinion and getting involved. Since Franco died in 1975 Spanish party politics has been largely dominated by either the Popular Party (PP) or the Socialists (PSOE) with the PP currently in power with Mariano Rajoy (commonly known as 'the Tramp' in this household) as their party leader and Head of State.
When the PP swept to power almost 5 years ago Spain was in a horrible mess; high and rapidly rising unemployment, a massive budget deficit and an economy in deep depression. Now, as the next elections draw close things are marginally better. Last months unemployment figures showed the biggest drop since the current financial crisis began but remains high at just under 24%, whilst the World Bank have set a revised growth forecast for the Spanish economy next year at 2%, interestingly a fraction higher than that forecast for the UK.
However, from where we sit in the 'campo' (or countryside) things still look pretty glum. In the UK profitability, jobs and prosperity return to London first after crises and from there filter down to the rest of the country. Eventually! In Spain it seems things run a similar course. Speaking last year with some monied Londoners over on holiday they were only too happy to tell us how their daughter and friends were 'doing so well' working in Madrid for a Spanish TV company and they seemed to be under the wholly mistaken misapprehension that Spain was booming! I was laughing (ironically) because it amazes me sometimes how well money insulates those who have it from those who don't, but even so these were not what I would have said were stupid or unusually naive people. They merely pull the blinds down, as they most likely do at home in London, to the suffering and poverty around them. "Oh I say, but my daughter says everyone in Spain is doing terribly well!" Yes, maybe, but your daughter goes to expensive bars and restaurants where the vast majority of us wouldn't even get over the threshold let alone be able to pay for a starter! As hu-mans you mate and socialise assortatively (i.e. we marry and socialise within our own social and economic register) so your daughters chances of meeting an unemployed tractor driver in some fancy bistro in Madrid are practically zero. So, if you have a job, you tend to mix with others who are similarly employed. In the same way if you're unfortunate enough to be out of work, you tend to hang around with others in a similar predicament.
Here in the hinterlands of Valenciana I know only a hand full of people who actually have jobs. Everyone else loiters around the village bars (God alone only knows how they can afford it, but they do! But, in truth I can't ask God, cos I don't really think he exists, but if anyone knows then he would know....if he was real), drinking the occasional terceo (bottle of beer), carajillo (brandy & coffee) or just plain old coffee if funds don't run to the brandy! And they are all hopelessly pessimistic about ever working again. Something I touched on last week (see blog entry 18/1/15 'Children are our future, so blah blah blah') was high youth unemployment all over Europe and here in Spain the problem is no different. The Spanish nuclear family, traditionally so strong, is collapsing because for the first time the U25's are leaving home, leaving their families to go abroad and find work. And what's more, they won't come back, or if they do, they won't come back the same. Discontent is rife and widespread, and to be honest, it's a shame! Hopelessness is the new by-word for what the future holds. But it's not just Spain.
In Greece they now have the newly elected Syriza, a coalition of ultra left-wing parties that have swung to power on the back of promises to end the severe austerity imposed by the country's huge to debt to the EEC and the IMF. Now for me, as a political initiate and relative non-entity, it beggars belief that a nation can so publicly announce their intention to snub what they owe. The Greeks wish a return to the good times. They are not alone. But when push comes shove someone's gotta pay, and it seems that Greece and Syriza are looking to all of you non-Greek hu-mans to pay for their excesses. And it seems, not just for their excesses yesterday, but for todays, and for the future as well. I just cannot understand how such things can even be contemplated let alone be enough to get Alexis Tsipras's feet into the slippers of power in Athens!
In the run up to Syriza's victory we saw Pablo Iglesias, leader of Podemos in Spain, drumming up support (in Greek, which I must say, impressed me no end) for Tsipras. Two years ago Podemos didn't exist. Iglesias is no doubt a visionary and a very capable, if not unusual politician (his ponytailed look is a bit of a departure I feel from the norm) and he is mobilising massive support from a disillusioned and lost populous. Podemos is the sister party of Syriza, an anti-austerity party winning much acclaim with the latest polls putting him 3rd behind the PP & PSOE, but only just. And whilst I understand the appeal, especially from the disillusioned young and unemployed, I find it difficult to fall in line and swallow the message because I just cannot see how it can work.
Come the election in May we may well find Podemos winning out. I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised. But why is it that Iglesias and his supporters, like those of Tsipras in Greece, feel that they, above everyone else, deserves to live the high-life, earn the money, avoid the taxes (because that's largely how the Greek and Spanish economies have got into this mess) and get everyone else to pay for their health care, pension funds and infrastructure? Instead maybe they should be concentrating their energies on putting a stop to the Black economy and the innate corruption found in Mediterranean politics, because making a nation pay their own way, as they do everywhere else, is surely a much more profitable exercise than reneging on what you owe and giving those who have supported you the finger!
Lola Lush
Political Correspondent NN
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