On becoming a nuisance...

AOG, Madrid

My seventy something father called me the other day. His wife had passed away just hours before.

It had all been very sudden. He was still in shock. When I last spoke with him about 12 days ago, he was still in shock.

Before I continue, let me just say that I have not seen my father since 1988.

A few years ago, when I was still in London, he started to call.

He was then, and always, hungry for news.

However, our conversations seem to be a very repetitive affair. 



• How are you?
• How’s work?
• Your partner?
• Your mother?
• Your sister?

My sister is always a tricky conversation. She is hardly at home and, when he calls, she is never to be found. So he complains to me about her.

He lives in Florida, and my sister is still in the UK.

Time differences aside, she does lead a very busy life.

Dog walks, training, and the usual hustle and bustle of living in the social milieu that is British country life.

So when he calls, she is hardly ever there to pick up the phone. Of course, when I call, she is hardly ever there either, so it is nothing personal.

Which is what I always tell him. Again and again.

Still, he complains.

When his wife was still alive, that is to say, the last time I spoke with her, she always enquired about my sister, my mother, and me.

As with my father, the conversation was always a repeat performance of the previous phone call.

I never met my father’s wife, but she seemed very sweet on the phone. I was glad that he had her in his life and, to be honest, I never considered the idea that he would outlive her, quite the contrary.

So when he called with his news, I too was shocked. The woman my father left my mother for had departed.

I had always known about her but, thankfully, my mother was not one of those women who blamed the other woman for her husband leaving, she was intelligent enough to realise it was my father who was to blame for that. But she never really blamed him for that.

So the years passed, and when my father called the first time, he was keen, for whatever reason, to ensure his wife and my sister and I spoke to each other. It was always a strange, and mostly unilateral, conversation.

“I love you both so very much”, she often said.

To which I could only politely say “that is very sweet of you”, or something like that, but little else.


And whenever she said those words, I cringed slightly.

It always felt so odd. I did think she was a very sweet woman, and a saint for taking care of my father. But I felt strange.

Almost as strange as when my father says he loves my sister and I. To this day I have not said it back.

And the reason why is because I don’t love him.

When I talk about my father to other people I always use this stock sentence: “I don’t love him, and I don’t hate him. I just don’t have any feelings”.

Maybe it is a cliché, but I do think it sums up perfectly how I feel. I don’t know if other people understand what I mean.

He has not been in my life much. Not physically. He has been absent from it for a ridiculous percentage of it, so if I ever had feelings towards my father, they dissipated.

In a way I think I am quite lucky since, at least, I didn’t develop hatred towards him. I think I just developed a huge sentiment of indifference, and that is what is with me these days.

When he called me the other day to tell me about the passing of his wife, my first reaction was 'And you are telling me this because…?'.

Of course, I didn’t say that to him, but I didn’t say much of anything then. He was in pain and I did what I could to give him whatever support I could, which I think was very little.

I have called him a couple of times since, to see how he is, and he is well, but lonely. He has a large uphill journey which more than likely he will face alone.

His wife had children of her own, but , although they live near him, they have their own father to take care of (I assume, I have never spoken with them).

Certainly they have their own lives to live. He told me this already.

Still, my father values his independence, such as it is. He is almost blind now, due to about 20-30 years of unsupervised diabetes. He has also developed cataracts, but when we last spoke he said he was going to see his doctor about them.

He has said very clearly he does not want to go and live with his brother, nor does he want to become a nuisance to his family or anyone else.




The news when in crisis

AOG, Madrid

One of the worst aspects of Spain’s current socio-economic situation is the effect it is having on the news. 

Last week I met up with a man who told me about his youth during the Franco years. 

He told me about the time he traveled to Italy, in the early 1970s, and about a small incident which told me a lot about the power of freedom of speech and information. 

It appears that at the time, Franco was having the last people he would order killed, killed. 

This man told me he was traveling with a small group of people, all from Spain, and that, when visiting the Vatican, their bus had to be diverted so as to stop them from seen a large anti-Franco banner which was hanging from a building. 

"That is when I first realised that Franco was not as loved outside of Spain as we had been told", he said.  

I was surprised to hear this, since I would have thought that people in Spain would have realised by then that the Regime was very in tune with propaganda.
 

But obviously not.  
 

A few days ago, J.L. Cebrián, CEO of Grupo Prisa, and owner of Spain’s top daily, El País, declared publicly that the paper had to lay off several members of staff.

In Spain, any large-scale lay offs have to be pre-approved and coordinated with the Spanish authorities.

Thus far, Mr. Cebrián, who it is rumoured earned over 11 million Euros in 2011, after declaring that “we can't continue to live so well”, has dismissed 150 journalists, and forced many over the age of 59 to early retirement –and sparked a public outcry for declaring that people over 50 (he himself is over 60) are “incapable” of producing the type of paper Grupo Prisa want to publish.

The remaining staff has to accept a 15% reduction in salary.

To this, the paper’s labor committee has responded by decided not to sign their work.  

Much like what goes on at The Economist, but as protest, not editorial policy.
 

In other words, anyone could be writing for the paper. 
 

In Spain, as elsewhere, signing your name to your work as a journalist is what gives it its value.

Unfortunately, Mr. Javier Moreno, Editor of El País, has threatened the  paper's foreign correspondents with unemployment, or with closing down their foreign post altogether.

The paper's newsroom will respond by taking him to court for coercion, threats, and bullying. And some articles have been published unsigned. 

For all intents and purposes there is an internal struggle going on at the paper and, unfortunately, the greater damage, aside from those people affected by unemployment, is the country at large.

You see, Spain, like anywhere else on Earth, needs reliable quality information, and media like El País ensured that it does.

Not long ago Spain’s current Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, when talking about Spain’s possible EU bailout, or not, declared that Spain was not Uganda.

However, information-wise, his party has done its best to ensure that free speech in the media approaches third-world levels.

RTVE

 

A few years ago, Spain’s Socialist government decided to ‘free’ the country’s public radio and television broadcasting network, RTVE, from government control, in a move seen by many as akin to turning it into  something as close to the BBC as possible.

Shortly after Spain’s Conservative party (the Partido Popular, or PP) took office last November, several changes at RTVE were implemented.

After having been questioned by some of the country’s top television journalist live on air by RTVE during the period immediately after its new charter was implemented, many at the PP felt that they needed to be taught a lesson, and they were removed.

Soon after, the Government repealed the Socialist Government’s law and, once again, turned RTVE into a Government mouthpiece by appointing one of its trusted men as Director of the public corporation: Leopoldo González-Echenique.

He in turn appointed as News Director a man in charge of doing that same job at TeleMadrid, a regional broadcaster criticised even by its own staff for manipulating the news.

As you may know, Spain is divided into 17 semi-autonomous regions, each with its own regional television and radio stations.

Of course, out of all of Spain’s news programs, those of TeleMadrid had of late (and for several years) experienced the lowest audiences, and its News Director is now in charge of the country’s largest broadcaster news programs.

Needless to say, where once TVE’s news shows had the highest ratings in the country, it now trails the private broadcasters. 

Not by much, but the trend is not about to change anytime soon.

It is not surprising that this is the case. 

Watching the news now is similar to watching a continuous party political broadcast. 

I'll give you an example.

Last September, when there were public riots in Madrid, on the day of the riots, TVE (although, to be fair it did mention the on-going riots at the start), spent 15 minutes talking about the Catalan President’s move to call for early elections (and the subsequent referendum concerning the independence of Catalonia) before it turned its attention to the situation on Madrid’s streets. 

 Fifteen minutes.

All the while the country’s other news channels, to say nothing of foreign channels like Al Jazeera, Russia Today, CNN Europe or the BBC, were broadcasting the riots live from Madrid’s streets.

But it is not just television. RTVE’s radio stations have also taken a turn for the worse. 

The Corporation’s president has also decided to swap radio presenters for people closer to his, and the PP’s, way of thinking. 

A case in point is  RTVE's Radio5, an all-news radio station. 

Popular presenter Juan Ramón Lucas was removed from his morning news talk show (En días como hoy – 'On days such as today') and replaced by Manuel Hernández Hurtado, who worked with him on the same morning show but, according to many, has different political views.

The morning news show in question has turned into, not surprisingly, a pro-Government three ring circus.

Whereas once you could expect to hear different voices arguing different sides of a particular story, these days you are expected to believe that what they serve as partisan views represents the view of  ‘most people’.

If you want to know what the official Government posture is on any issue  you need just tune your radio to them and you will hear it. 

In other words, they are biased.

Fortunately for Spain, there are still independent media struggling to give a voice to the other half of the country. 

Unfortunately, Spain’s current economic crisis, paired with unscrupulous businessmen like Mr. Cebrián, is ensuring that the country’s free voices may not remain free for much longer. 
 

Not so much because the Government will do their best to keep them quiet, which they will, but because the news, after all, are a business, and at present the economy is looking less than rosy.
 

And free speech is the biggest loser.

Travelling with Americans

AOG, Madrid

Last weekend, after spending a few days with my partner, I flew from Barcelona back to Madrid. 

As I waited to board the plane, I noticed a man and his young son watching a soccer match between Germany and Greece on television. Because it was soccer, at first I thought that they were German. 

However, after a while, I overheard them speak and realised they were American. Yes, I was slightly shocked that somebody from the US would like soccer.

As luck would have it, they sat next to me on the plane, and we spent the entire flight, from take off to landing, talking about Europe and the US.

It was very interesting to hear him speak. After a few minutes he realised I was for Obama and never liked Bush, and I realised that he didn’t like President Obama at all and was very pro Bush.

We spoke, however, without acrimony, and listening to what the other had to say in a very amicable way. 

I was very surprised about what he said. It was like his views were taken from an alternative reality. From a parallel-universe America. 

“But President Obama is destroying our economy!”

“Of course we did nation-building in Iraq. Look at how grateful they all are.”

“How are American oil companies benefitting from the invasion of Iraq They have not received one dollar. How can you say that when ,today in the US, a gallon of gas is over $5.00?”

“We had to invade Afghanistan because they were harbouring and protecting Osama Bin Laden. What were we supposed to do?”

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, or even half the answers, but I was surprised that a man who grew up and lived in California was so misinformed. So one-sided. 

Here and there I would point out the general European view about America and its policies, both at home and abroad to the father.

“I have been reading the European media, and they only concentrate on the bad side, they never tell you about the good stuff in America”, he said at one point.

I have to say that the conversation was very challenging. His son, who was 15, had just spent an entire year studying Spanish in Salamanca, Spain’s Oxford. And his son loved soccer, so he loved soccer too.

I say this because this man was a nice person who loved his family and had worked hard to support it. 

I say this because he told me and his son so during the flight.

“How many birthdays did I miss? How many games?”

His son nodded in silence.

This man was now in semi-retirement but he must have been in his early to mid 50s. 

As the conversation went on, I tried to tell him about the other side of the spectrum when it came to some of the things he spoke about.

And I have to say that, to his credit, he went quiet very often and didn’t fly off the handle at any one point. 

Perhaps what I was telling him he had heard already, or maybe he is capable of independent thought and, when given new data, he processed it in silence. 

Or maybe he was ultra polite and thought I was just a stupid liberal living in Europe. 

His son, by contrast, did not really join in to defend his father's views. He would nod, however, whenever the European side was expressed. 

I don't know if he fully agreed with it, but, at least, he had been exposed to a different perspective for one year of his life. Unilateral views, for this boy, were no longer an option. 

I mentioned that, in the case of 9-11 and what happened in Afghanistan, perhaps invading an entire country to eventually kill one guy was not the best thing we could have done. That entire families had been killed by Western soldiers in the pursuit of one man. That I didn’t see the justification.

"But they, the Taliban, were harboring a terrorist!"

I mentioned that, as he had mentioned, the middle class in America was shrinking, and that this was very strange since, in the 1960s, when America was not as rich as it is today, the middle class was not shrinking, in fact, it had been growing steadily since WWII. 

That back then, and for many years afterwards, the world looked to America for guidance. But that was not the case today.

“So people hate us?”

“Some do, but then our foreign policy gives them little choice.”

“So what are we meant to do?”

“Not invade countries would be a good way to start.”

“So, are you saying invading Iraq was a mistake? Look at all the good we did.”

“We did good when, after WWII, we took up the cause of nation-building in Germany and Japan. But we didn’t do that, and have not done that, in Iraq.”

He was very surprised to hear this. His facial expressions were very interesting to watch. I think that at times he had a hard time taking in this new perspective. 

And then we went on to speak about his son’s future; and his own future.

“If you want to open a restaurant, why don’t you go to college? Take some courses; you have experience, how about some economic theory and new business concepts?”

“Dad I told you to do that!”

And then he told me about his new “job”, managing his younger son who wants to act.

And about how he needs to help his wife out, and look out for his  soccer-loving 15 year old’s college career.

And that of his other son from another marriage, but which they never talked about.

And I realised what a great father this guy probably was, and how unfortunate that he was a bit of a poster child for the dangers of misinformation and a lacking education. 

At one point he asked me if the sun was a planet just like the Earth and about how European countries managed to have free health care and not break the bank.

“Socialism just does not work, look at the Euro!”

And, when I got home, I turned on my television and, during my channel surf in search of BBC World, chanced upon Fox News.

Left out and left behind

AOG, Madrid

Yesterday I was doing some shopping on the way home.  I had gone to the local supermarket with my headphones on and was looking to buy some dinner.
 

I noticed this woman fellow shopper as I went to the canned vegetables isle. I didn’t give her much thought since she looked very unfriendly and, quite frankly, these days I have zero time for unfriendly-looking people. 

I went about my business and stood in line to pay for a few minutes (it still amazes me how in Europe cash tills are usually kept at minimum with huge lines at any one time on any one register).
 

Suddenly, the angry woman in black rushed out of the supermarket with her huge over-the-shoulder bag.
 

The cashier was too busy and didn’t see her leave. The security guard was nowhere to be seen (maybe he was on a break). And the people in line in front of me where too preoccupied with having to wait for so long to pay.
 

So what is my gripe? Well, when I had last seen her, her hands were filled with items. When she saw me perhaps she got defensive that I had come to her isle when she was about to do some creative ‘discounting’ in her favor.
 

I did see her a couple more times in the store, and at all times she had her hands full.
 

So when she rushed out, I could only think the worse. Especially after, as I was leaving, the security guard came asking the cashier about her.
 

So why is this particular ‘potential’ shoplifter of any interest? Many reasons.
 

First of all, this woman was, in appearance anyway, middle class.  Almost trendy. She was well dressed and had an elegant manner to her.
 

Second of all, she was old. Maybe early to mid sixties. Although I know that people of all ages shoplift, it is true that she went against type. Middle class elderly women in Spain do not, as a general rule, shoplift. 

Especially not food.
 

But here it was, the real and ugly face of Spain’s current economic crisis.
 

The media in Spain, and I find this surprising, continuously go on and on about youth unemployment. With good reason, it is true. However, Spain suffers from a much more modern (yet antiquated in its inception) malaise. 

Unlike the US, or other more forward-thinking countries, in Spain, once you are past the age of 40, you may as well forget about working. 

In the labor market you are pretty much invisible and unemployable. 

And no, I am not exaggerating. 

Last year, about 40% of people unemployed in Spain were over the age of 40. The number is higher for those over 50. 

It is true that, generally, in Spain most employers prefer to hire younger and cheaper workers than those with greater experience. 

The first time I saw an advert which stated very explicitly “People over the age of 40 need not apply” I was shocked. That was 5 years ago, but those adverts have not stopped popping up. 

And yes, in theory, Spanish law forbids age discrimination. But this is one of those instances where the law is much more advanced than the society it is meant to serve.

Whereas in the UK such adverts would create an outrage, here they merely reflect the current state of affairs.

And I have another example. Years ago a friend of mine from Barcelona had just gotten back from the US. 

He is not exactly anti-American, but he does have that strange superiority complex which most Europeans seem to don whenever it comes to American culture and American practices and things they don’t know anything about.

He was telling us at a bar about his trip. About how wonderful it all was, how cheap things are in the US, and about how, in America, old people are exploited.

“I went to Wal-Mart, and the guy bagging my shopping was an old guy! Why do Americans exploit the elderly like that?”

Most people kept quiet and some laughed. Where he saw exploitation I saw respite from life and poverty.

And then I said that unlike in Spain, where old people are not even hired, at least in the US the elderly are not discarded and they are allowed to remain productive if they wish to be.

My friend was not convinced. Neither were the others, although some did say that, as usual, the US was more advanced than Spain in these matters and that Spain had “a long way to go still”.

But you see, in Spain, most old people don’t work not because they don’t want to, they don’t work because they are either retired, or they can't find a job. 

Of course, Spain being Spain, the family plays a very large part in this scenario. 

Most retired people in Spain have a state pension, and many financial benefits, however most does not mean all. 

When that happens, the family tends to fill in the gaps which the State leaves open (and there’s many of those). 

Although access to free health is guaranteed, many other things are not, and that is where most people rely on their families. 

For example, it is not at all uncommon for married couples to take in their elderly parents to live with them. Less so these days, especially in large cities like Madrid or Barcelona. 

But it is not uncommon, nor unheard of, nor strange. Nor is it strange to go on vacation with the entire family, grandparents included. 

Personally I find this one of the more endearing traits of Spanish society. 

There was a story in the papers a couple of years ago which talked about an elderly couple, one of whom (the wife) had been made homeless when the building they lived in was about to be refurbished. They had been living there for over 40 years. 

“There” was a one room studio apartment the walls of which could be touched at the same time if you stretched out both your arms. 

In Spain this is known as “infra-vivienda”, or substandard housing. Unfortunately they are not the only couple living in such conditions. 

On the one hand you could blame social services, but on the other you can also blame these people’s culture.
It is unsightly to ask for help, or complain publicly. Or at least it is for their generation. Younger people do complain more, though there is not much of a culture of asking for help. Ironically, there is a culture of demanding a particular right.

This I usually put down to their rights being trampled during the Franco dictatorship. 

So when that elderly woman left with, probably, some shopping in her bag, it dawned on me just how bad things are beginning to get. And although Spain’s economy is much larger than Greece’s (and Portugal, Ireland and Iceland put together), if things get worse, then people’s lives will suffer because of it. 

Although there is a large underground economy in the country, it is obvious that not everyone participates in it. 

That lady last night did not seem to be participating in it.

America's gay problem

 AOG, Madrid

A few days ago, US President, Barack Obama, said that he had changed his mind about gay marriage. He said that he "supported" it. 

"At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married", he said in an interview on television.

At present, it is difficult to know what this conclusion actually means for gay couples wishing to marry. Will he support it enough that he will legalize it at a federal level, equating it to marriage between heterosexual couples? 

Will we have to wait until his next Administration for this to happen? Of course, it bears thinking that if he were to loose the election (unlikely but not impossible), his good wishes will remain just that: good wishes. Nothing more.

It is very interesting to note that this new civil rights movement, the movement for equality under the law for gay couples, is called anything but that. 

That it is attracting the same sort of hate from religious groups that black people had to face during the civil rights movement in the 60s (and before). 

That whereas it might be hard to identify the death of a black youth who committed suicide because he or she was black (though not impossible), we are increasingly seeing in the media how some young gay people are doing just that, because the society they live in does not give them the right to live in peace. 

Because everywhere they look, all they see is hate, insults, abuse. And still in the US we don't classify hate crimes as hate crimes when directed against gay people. Freedom of speech, many say. 

Because we see people who look far removed from sanity picketing the funerals of soldiers, claiming that "God hates fags".

Because a woman in Nebraska  stood up to publicly declare her graphic homophobic views during Lincoln's Anti-Discrimination Law hearings, saying things like "a huge percent of gay men in school grounds molest boys, partly because they don't have AIDS yet" and "Jesus was kissed by Judas, a homo, who tried to sabotage Jesus' kind ideas. Do you choose Jesus, a celibate, or Judas, a homo? You have to choose!".

I would not say that she has the freedom of speech to proclaim such hateful statements.

And I feel very unprotected by American law when people like her are allowed to spew forth such hate and ignorance. 

Of course, when I listened to what she was saying, I immediately realized that this lady was either, a) extremely ignorant and uneducated, or b) suffering from some sort of mental illness, which, in spite of everything, makes me feel sorry for her. 

However, I know too well that she is not alone. I know that many people in America feel like they can justify their blood-curling hatred of gay people because, according to them, it says so in their Bible. 

Just like their Bible was used as justification for discrimination of black people not too long ago. 

Ironically, all of these "studious" religious leaders, who say things like marriage is a sacrament, and that God dislikes homosexuals, seem to ignore the history of their own faith. 

A history that would tell them that the Christian church, among other things, didn't really have an official marriage rite until about the XI century, and that, believe it or not, did marry people of the same sex.

And it did so for a very long time. And married a lot of people. It was not a one-off. It was not a weird thing, or an abomination. 

It just was. 

So of course, when they say things like that,  you can't help but think, 'how dare you?'. 

How dare you ignore your own history and pretend that what I'm asking for is something your faith has always deplored, when it clearly is not the case?

How dare you invoke a text written by a primitive people with very little relevance in the XXI century to justify your hate?

How dare you speak of love for everyone, unless they are gay? 

Does this make sense to you? 

It doesn't make sense to me.

America has a problem with gay people, yes. But it also has a problem with hate. And a problem with religion. 

And the America we think (or like to think) the world admires, is just fiction and has been for a long time now. 

Why do I say this? I have a friend who is from Africa. He came to Spain a couple of years ago. 

He speaks English, some Spanish, and his native Bantu language. 

He is not gay and can read and write a little. And he is fascinated by the US and has been since he was a child he told me when we first met.

I spoke with him last night when I came across him on the street at 2AM. He makes a living by working for a Chinese mafia which runs a pirate CD & DVD operation. 

He was amazed by Obama's words and asked me to explain what exactly he meant.

"It means that he favors gay people getting married".

"What do you mean favors? Was the law going to be changed?"

At this point I had not realized yet what he was asking.

"No, the law is not going to change yet. We may have to wait until his second Administration for that to happen".

"But, he is going to change the law? Why? If he favors it, why is he going to forbid it?"

And then I realized that my friend's view of America belonged to another era.

I explained to him that gay marriage in America was illegal. To say he was surprised would be an understatement. 

"So Spain has more advanced laws than America?"

"Some laws, yes".

"So how can America be the most advanced country in the world if it forbids that?"

And I didn't know what to say.

HuffPost Social Reading

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Disturbing

AOG, Madrid

Tonight I left home and headed to my usual coffee place: Diurno. It has been raining all day and Madrid felt cool, wet. 

On the way over, I saw a mattress. On the street. With a stain. Propped against the trash containers.

It caught my eye immediately. 

A mattress outside its natural habitat is a visual abomination. It challenges your sensibilities. Why is it there? Well, that question is not really as important as: What is it doing there?

We seek an answer to a strange question because of the horror that an abandoned mattress causes us.

Perhaps it was not abandoned. Perhaps it was discarded. And we can't help but wonder about the cause.

The owner moved home. Or, worse, died. 

That red stain near the edge, resembling a wound to the shoulder; or the heart.

Perhaps the owner bought a new one. No, that can't be right. Because when they deliver the new one they take the old one with them. But not this time. This mattress is there because it is no longer needed.

But it isn't something you can give away. Who'd want an old stained mattress? And yet, surely someone, somewhere, would like it. Would take it and use it.

I remember reading long ago that in the past, when someone died, their mattress, or their whole bed, would be thrown out. In most cases, burnt. Thrown into the fire.  

Perhaps not those of the poor, only the beds of those with money, and mattresses, to burn.

A sort of cleansing perhaps?

So, to see such a personal item just thrown out is, was, disturbing.

Of elephants and the King of Spain

AOG, Madrid

It is often difficult to pinpoint the starting point of a man-made catastrophe.  Literary tragedies are often built around such events, and they often make for interesting reading. 

To the stories surrounding events like the Watergate scandal and what it did to Nixon, the Dreyfus affair in France in the XIX century, or, more recently, the whole Dominique Strauss-Kahn drama, soon there may be another, no less disgusting, event. 

One involving King Juan Carlos I of Spain, the state of Spain's economy and the Spanish Government's austerity plans, the African nation of Botswana, and elephants.

You see, up until now, most people in Spain were somewhat content with the idea of living in a Kingdom, having a parliamentary monarchy, enjoying democracy, and having a king who, so the story goes, 'saved' Spain from an anti-democratic coup d'état in 1981 when he ordered a group of rebellious generals to put their weapons down because he was ordering them to do so.

Ever since then, the Spanish Royal family has been more or less tolerated by the people of Spain. Yes, there have been those who are asking for Spain to be a republic, and those who would love for the 2nd Republic, the one that General Franco destroyed via a coup d'état -and the ensuing civil war which would not end until 1939-, in 1936.

But by and large, most people in Spain would say that their royal family had avoided the scandal which seems to plague other European royal houses (read Monaco, the UK, Sweden, Norway) because of the king's character and their behavior as normal people. Normal people who happen to live in a small palace and represent the country when they travel abroad in official trips. 

But this has changed, and not for the better. 

Not so long ago, people in Spain began to be aware of the fact that, although the Spanish royals were not living in the lap of luxury like their British and European cousins, they were, indeed, living quite well, and all at the taxpayers expense. 

So slowly, the Spanish people have begun to ask privately, and publicly, for the Royal Household's accounts to be made public. 

Not so long ago, December 2011, it was announced  that the King's household received an annual Government stipend of around 8 million euros to cover its expenses (and the King receiving a salary of US$ 382,677).

Ok, so far so good. Nobody believed they were 'poor', as people would often say in the 80s, but certainly it did not seem like a huge amount of money.

But the small tragedy which is developing in Zarzuela palace, the King's official residence, began to unravel sometime before that.

First of all, there was the matter of the Crown Prince, Felipe, marrying a commoner, and a divorced commoner at that. 

You see, when Prince Charles married Lady Diana in the UK, a lot was said in Spain, and other countries, surrounding a royal marriage between a prince and a commoner. 

And Spain at the time began to toy with the idea that that sort of thing would not happen in their royal family.

Well, fast forward to 2004: here was the Prince of the Asturias doing much the same thing, but with a somewhat less ideal candidate in the eyes of the king. 

It appears that Felipe gave his parents an ultimatum at the time: either you let me marry, or I abdicate my position. 

Yes, it was Wallis Simpon all over again, but a bit further South and somewhere just as Royal.

Things have settled since, and most people in Spain are ok with his chosen wife. Previously divorced or not. They now have two daughters.

 A few years later there was the matter of the king's eldest daughter, the Infanta Elena, now divorced, official separation from her husband. 

No big deal in a protestant country, and certainly no big deal in modern Spain. 

But the royal family behaved in a very strange way around this separation. As if that was what was really important in this day and age. 

A very odd euphemism was made public at the time to explain what was happening: "temporary cessation of cohabitation". Or just a separation to you and me. 

But last year, something much more serious and much more important hit the headlines: an alleged case of corruption perpetrated by the king's son-in-law, the Duke of Palma, Iñaki Urdangarin, married to the Infanta Cristina, the king's second daughter. 

A regular fraud scandal carried out by someone who, for all intents and purposes, had it made. 

 Why would someone like that bother with cashing in on the family name when, basically, you would not want for anything for the rest of your days? Yes, Fergie would do something like this, and she has, but then she is not really part of the royal family in the UK any longer. And she has bills to pay. 

He probably did to. Except these should not include the purchase of a small palace in Barcelona.

As of now, the princess and her husband have been separated from the royal limelight and will conduct no official royal business until the whole matter is cleared up.  

And, in theory, they are getting no money to carry out their duties, whatever these may be. 

But thus far, the Spanish public were pretty much sort of on the king's side. 

Sort of, because a lot of people think that the Duke in question will not serve any jail time whatsoever because of who he is. 

The Spanish royal family would probably think that would be a scandal, whereas the people who pay for their upkeep think just the opposite, that the real scandal would be for him, if found guilty, not to go to jail.

During his Christmas message, King Juan Carlos -now 74 years old- said that nobody was above the law, or words to that effect. 

Although when probed further, the king said he was not referring to anyone in particular, many saw it as a veiled message. 

If Iñaki Urdangarin were indeed guilty, as it looks at present like he is, the Crown would not step in to defend him.

And the people were ok, sort of, with their monarch and his apparent distaste of judicial privilege. 

And then last November the Conservatives won the general election and have ever since done their best to do away with most worker's rights in Spain, alleging that this will get Spain out of the economic crisis it is going through, to the chagrin of most everyone in the country.

With over 5 million people unemployed, and the highest unemployment rate in the OECD for young people, a couple of weeks ago the king said publicly that youth unemployment would sometimes "keep me up at night". 

No he did not need to say that, but then, here's a man who's always said that he wanted to be not the king of Spain, but the king of all the Spanish people. Meaning he was for bipartisan politics and a fraternal status quo in Spain after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco, in power until his death 1975. 

During the king's Christmas message, after saying in August that, given the current economic situation, we all had to tighten our belt a little, and referring to no one in particular, but with his son-in-law in mind, he declared that "We need rigor, seriousness and an exemplary behavior in every way. We all, especially those of us with public responsibilities, have a duty to observe a proper behavior, an exemplary behavior".

Then a couple of weeks ago, his majesty went on to say that "You need to pitch in to create jobs, because the situation is very serious".

Then some people began to say a bit more loudly that in Spain, the Royal Household was just getting that little bit more expensive. 

That the Catholic Church in Spain does not pay taxes and gets a lot of handouts of public money, that bankers are getting a bit of a free ride,  etc etc etc.

In other words, it appears that a lot of people began question exactly who in Spain is paying for the mistakes of the people responsible for throwing the country into the economic dire straits its in, and who is not.

And then, just yesterday, April 14, anniversary of the 2nd Spanish Republic, the news hit the airways.

The King of Spain, His Majesty Juan Carlos I, had fractured his hip during an elephant hunt in Botswana, a country Spain has no diplomatic relations with. 

And the shit hit the fan. 

The king is the honorary president of the Spanish branch of the WWF.

The king was down in Africa on a 'personal' trip.

The Government was not informed.

And then, aside from the unfathomable idea of a European monarch, one from a modern and, up until last November anyway, forward thinking country, hunting elephants in a third world African country, there was the cost.

Although the numbers are still being published by the Spanish media, it appears that one must pay around €20,000 per hunt. Plus all the expenses.

Some companies in Spain offer 15 day hunting safaris geared towards the elephant hunt for a price ranging from €37,000 to 45,000 ($50,000 to $60,000 US), depending on where they hunt.

To say there is public outrage is cutting it short. 

Was this "exemplary behavior"? Is this the sort of thing the monarch should be doing?

The word on the street is, "Why are we paying for this man's hunting trip?" quickly followed by "Why are we paying for these people?" and then finally "Why don't we get rid of them, become a republic, and have these parasites get a real job?"

That is pretty much the word on the street.

I cannot tell  you where the king of Spain's downfall began, but, today at least, it pretty much looks like it started in Botswana.