Dangerous Statistics

Statistics: branch of mathematics that deals with the collection and interpretation of numerical information

In the last ten years it has been an increasing interest in statistics in this country. So, as it's something new to Spaniards, it can be dangerous. Stats give a new chance to them to say again "There's no better place than Spain". The problem is Spaniards don't generally know the meaning of all those numbers and their meaning. It's really easy to see on a newspaper "Mediterranean diet is good for the hearth" so then they assume Mediterranean Diet is the best, I'll analize this particular case:

It can be true that the mediterranean diet is good for the hearth, I won't argue about that, but of course it's not the best and, of course there's some others in the world and not all of them are so bad. Anyway and just as an example I'll say to you that the places in wich it's general to have that kind of diet are those in South Spain. And it's true that the hearth diseases are fewer there. But, if we look at another stat, it's also true that South Spain is the place where most women are killed by their husbands. So interpollating both stats I could say that Mediterranean Diet causes your husband to kill you.

The meaning of that is Stats could be dangerous sometimes, they depend on the chosed popullation, the place, and all the backgrounds. And also it depends on the meaning the analizer gives to all those data. But most spaniards don't know anything about that. And the newspapers contribute to make a mess of all that.

Another example, but this time with another country, and a bit rude in fact. Those really interesting stats about penises sizes all the Condom manufacturers like to show sometimes. It's said in USA they have really big penises. The real fact is that the number of Afro-Americans there is much longer than in Spain and the fact that most statistics say they have really big ones makes the USA medium size quite long. So I'm sure most Americans believe their penises are big, but if they're white skin I bet they don't have a bigger one than me. (I'm sorry for the rudeness).

And continuing, about Spain, politics and stats I should say the polls made the day before elections are never rigth, amazingly wrong in fact.

Another point is, as we all know now Spaniards never tell the truth, it's easy to see stats aren't never rigth here. But when there's nothing else to do, to expend the public money in, just let's do some nonsense stats to make the people happier as they see Spain is the best country in the world in spite of the sizes of our penises , they aren't that big (we hope the arriving of moroccans would solve that).

There's one group of people that loves stats, and it's the middle aged bored males, clerks and retired. They not only love to read them but also makes their owns.

Have a nice time. Hope I'll write again.

Manoel.

PS: Now it's 1 moth and 2 weeks before I leave.

Chaspotting

I am the eggman, they're the eggman, I am the walrus, goo, goo, goo job...

I am the Walrus - Beatles, Magical Mistery Tour 1967 John Lennon

In my last post I spoke a bit about "Marulos" (Chavs, in the future I'll refer them as "marulos"). That was just to explain in a few words what a chav is. But if we speak about Spain and more especificly about my town Pontevedra I'll have to describe them better 'cause they're different from the UK chavs.

The back of a marulo car

Everybody in certain stages of their lives had been a marulo. When we're teenagers we want to dress as famous music stars (and some TV of course) do. But that maked us look terrible as they looked terrible (specially if we look backwards to the eighties, it's awful). But now we're old, or at least older and when we see them dressing with that huge trainers or boots, small t-shirts that don't cover the bellies, tight trousers or loose trousers (actually it happens it could be both tight and loose at the same time), or showing us their tangas or underwear (boys do the same putting their trousers lower than normal so we can see their underwear), or whatever they dress, we think they look horrible and even that it can be dangerous to our minds. So I migth say, for those teenagers wearing those clothes, stay wearing them, I won't bother you. The problem is when we see a guy (or a bird) of our own age (or older) dressing like them, that's what we call chav (and some of the youth as well).

Anyway, here we have a special kind of them. The marulo dress like I said before but he's more than 20 years old. They want to make as much noise as possible. For that purpose they'll buy either a marulo car or a marulo motorbike (I guess the poorest have motorbikes). If you're a girl you don't need that, you only need to find a boyfriend with it, but you can still shout. It doesn't matter if the moto or the car is good or not, the really important thing is that it makes noise. So, if your motorbike is not really noisy you'll remove the exhaust so it can be noisier. Of course some stickers would help the motorbike to be faster, or at least that's what they believe. Speaking about cars it's almost the same thing but they have more add-ons. You can remove the exhaust as with motos, but you can add neon lights, more stickers (as there's more space on a car to put them), spoilers, and everything you want to make it look like a really bad copy of a 24Hrs Lemans car, of course all those would make the car faster, or at least that's what they believe. I forgot to mention an add-on you can put on a car to make it noisier and perhaps faster, who knows, in a car you can install huge good looking speakers, an amplifier and a stolen car-radio system to play Techno music at the highest volume.

For a marulo is really important to look and sound like the best marulo ever. I live on the first floor in a street where the marulos pass with their motorbikes and cars at nigth. My walls are crap and I don't have double glass windows. So you can imagine what a Sunday nigth is (they go out on sundays as I guess they don't really have a job). And as you would know if you read Colin's blogspot police doesn't really care about such noises, they only care about parking fines. I forgot to tell you that helmets aren't suitable for marulos, and of course the police don't stop them for not wearing one.

I can't wait to see British chavs, I'm so excited...

Manoel.

Chav and Fiesta

The second Sunday of August local Fiesta starts in Pontevedra (more info about this in Colin's Website). If you're planning to come here it migth not be a good idea to come at that time. The city gets full of people, parking is almost impossible and driving as well. Walking in certain streets can be awful and sometimes painful (psychologically, I mean). But, if you're interested in human beings and like to be an anthropologist, it migth be wonderful. I started this year a new hobby I call "chavspotting" and it consists on having a coffee in a terrace on a crowdy street and oberve the people that cross the street. It's really funny, I enjoy it a lot. Of course it's better to be with somebody else that likes the same hobby so you can comment the different dresses, attitudes, etc...

I migth explain what a chav is for anybody that don't know what a chav is. In my town we call them "marulos" and the origins of that name escapes my knoledge, anyway I'll try to find out. I have stolen a definition from the Babylon Online Glossary, here it is:

chav:
So-called peasant underclass.

History, etymology, synonyms:
The press in Britain has recently been having fun mocking a group called "non-educated delinquents" and "the burgeoning peasant underclass". The subjects of these derogatory descriptions are said to be set apart by ignorance, fecklessness, mindless violence and bad taste. Thus, critics point to their style of dress: a love of flashy gold jewellery; the wearing of white trainers; clothes in fashionable brands with very prominent logos; and baseball caps, frequently in Burberry check, a favourite style. The women, the Daily Mail wrote, "pull their shoddily dyed hair back in that ultra-tight bun known as a 'council-house facelift', wear skirts too short for their mottled blue thighs, and expose too much of their distressingly flabby midriffs".

Much of the attention is due to the experience of a Web site http://www.chavscum.co.uk. There is the wide variety of local names given to the type. Scots call them "neds" (an acronym of "non-educated delinquents", as folk etymology suppose; but it is probably from a nickname for "Edward", linked to yobbish youths through a previous generation of young louts, the teddy boys, "teddy" being an abbreviated form of "Edwardian"). Liverpudlians prefer "scallies" (a term of long-standing for a boisterous, disruptive or irresponsible young man); "Kev" is common around London (presumably from Kevin, popularised through the portrayal on his television show by the comedian Harry Enfield of an idiotic teenager with that name). Other terms are "janners" (from Plymouth), "smicks", "spides", "moakes" and "steeks" (all from Belfast), plus "bazzas", "scuffheads", "stigs", "stangers", "yarcos", and "kappa slappers" (girls who wear Kappa brand tracksuits, "slapper" being British slang for a promiscuous or vulgar woman). The term that has become especially widely known is borrowed for the name of the Web site, "chav". Maybe, it derived from the name of the town of Chatham in Kent. But it seems that the word is from a much older underclass, the gypsies, many of whom have lived in that area for generations.

"Chav" is almost certainly from the Romany word for a child, "chavi", recorded from the middle of the nineteenth century. It was being used as a term of address to an adult man a little later in the century, but it hasn't often been recorded in print since and its derivative "chav" is quite new to most people. Other terms for the class also have Romany connections; another is "charver", Romany for prostitute. Yet another is the deeply insulting "pikey", presumably from the Kentish dialect term for gypsy that was borrowed from "turnpike", so a person who travels the roads. And so, a term that has been in active but low-level use for the last 150 years suddenly bursting out into wider popular use in a new sense through circumstances we don't fully understand.

Now, that you know what a chav is I'll tell you about the recent talks I had with my english friends. They're always saying that youth dresses really badly in England (marulo style) and I can't wait to practice my favourite hobby there, but I had a lot of practice here 'cause I guess we're having the same marulo stylished youth. My friend Faye was saying her sister told her about the increasing bad taste in Pontevedra's youth dressing, and as for me the change must be slow 'cause I didn't realize it yet. But now I see, it's true. They have those new fashionable jeans with short t-shirts allowing the rest of the mortals to see what we shouldn't see. All that fat, bellies, tatoos, tangas, ... Completed with the most horrible trainers. Colors that my mum never allowed me to wear (she's sensible).

All these makes me think about women liberation. All those feminists fought to allow our daughters to dress like whores (actually the whores don't dress like that). I know it sounds really hard, but it's true, just try and practice CHAVSPOTTING.

I promise I'll speak about London chavs.

Anyway, more info about chavs in http://www.chavscum.co.uk

A Foreigner in your own Country

I'm an alien I'm a legal alien, I'm an Englishman in New York, I'm an alien I'm a legal alien, I'm an Englishman in New York...

Sting

One of the main reasons why I leave (I have so many...) it's the feeling of being an Alien in my own Planet. I spoke a bit (I'll say more about that in the future) about Spaniards. In fact I made my own definition about them, but I'm sure I miss some more verbs. I should and will say that we are unpunctual, not really reliable, incompetents (that's something I'll explain in the future), lazy, arrogant, and even dangerous to ourselves sometimes (you'll have to read Colin's Blog to know more about that), and I could continue If my knowledge of English verbs was enough. I don't want to say we're the most horrible people in the entire human kind, of course other countries are mostly the same but, at least, those are more concentrated in some social nucleos (precisely the most powerfull and richest), but I won't speak about social classes and the human beings, that belong to philosophy.

But we, Spaniards, have something special that makes us special compared to other countries. We truly believe our behaviour is the right one, we understand each others behaviours so we don't give a shit when somebody is lying or misbehaving upon us because we'll do the same. I believe that's our most remarkable characteristic. As I said in latest posts "We know the rules".

I have really good reasons to move to another country and, in fact, England is just one of the countries I thought about, but the easiest to be moved in. Some personal reasons, some professional, some psicological, and so on. But the last two years in Spanish history made my decision stronger. For those who read the news (and not only the local ones) you should know we had the "Prestige" catastrofe, the terrorist attack on 11-M, the Iraquian conflict, and our last elections. I was horrified to see how malleable is the human kind.

I guess every country is the same shit, but speaking about Spain I have to explain. In all those problems nobody gave a bloody shit about what was going on. Everybody said something different the day before the event happened but, the next day, after speaking with somebody, or just hearing the news (controlled by political parties) changed completely their minds about what was really happening. I will just give some examples about any of the events:

1.- The Prestige: The ship was broken. Sailing the sea going nowhere. What to do with it? It's full of petrol. I heard everybody saing "just take it away from here", they really said that I promise. So the government said "take it away from the coast" and everybody agreed. I promise I'm not inventing anything, the TV, the radio, the people on the street they all agreed it was the right thing to do. The ship collapsed and the oil slick was just started. Some days of suspense, some days of hard work. And, suddenly, as we heard the radio again, the opposite partie, the TV, the newspaper (all media controlled by the opposite partie) said the governemt taked the wrong deccision. Some lies from the governemt made it worst and then began the demonstrations (controlled by the opposite parties), and everybody changed their minds. I've been in the beaches and the islands affected by the fuel trying to do my best, but I couldn't stand hearing the same political shit again and again while we should be cleaning the fuel from them. There's something very interesting about this event. The citizens of the most affected towns voted the actual governemt on local elections, the answer of the question "Why?" is really simple, the government paid them good salaries while they couldn't work on the sea, fishing.

After some months everybody in this country forgot anything about what happened, now it was just another old news.

2.- Iraquian conflict, terrorist attack in Madrid and elections: The same shit. Everybody in this country was perfectly quiet about Irak, Sadam Hussein and Al-Quaeda before the 11 of March. They were going to vote the same government we had for last 8 years, the polls were clear (even after the Prestige event) giving a clear victory to the PP (the conservative party). But then 200 people died because of an Al-Quaeda attack in Madrid. It was a repetition of the Prestige thing. We were 3 days before general elections. And, as it happened before, some days after the horrifying attack everything started again. Demonstrations (controlled again by the opposition parties). That wasn't that bad, at least the reason was good. But just before the election, in the reflexion day (as we call here the day before elections in wich any kind of political show is strictly forbidden) new demonstrations, and not nice and quiet ones, started in any city and town of Spain (I guess, and I mean guess, they were controlled by the opposition parties). So, as it happened before, the Spaniards changed their minds and voted in a different direction. As a result of this Spain was divided and we had a new socialist governemt.

I won't say anything about politics, personally I don't agree with any of the parties we have here. Some are too conservative and the others too "trying to be modern". What I don't agree is the malleable attitude of the Spaniards. So, when they're in a group and the most of them thinks "yes" the rest would say "yes" even if they don't agree with that, but just because they don't want to "quedar mal" (I'll translate this into "lose face", but I'm not sure if it's the right expresion).

I didn't change my mind about what was happening. I just saw it was a horrible catastrophe. All those killings, all those beaches and sea destroyed, everything was just bad news. I was concerned about what was happening, I went to clean the beaches, I went to the demonstrations when they were just to show how angry we were (not controlled by anybody). And, if I would believed in god, I would prayed for all those lives. But I didn't change my mind. So I guess I'm a monster here, an Alien in a strange country were I was born and in wich I'm not sure to believe in.

I apologize to be so horrible this time, but I felt quite angry today, it migth say it's the horrible weather we're having this summer what makes me so angry (global warming???).

I hope next time I'd be more funny.

Manoel