Song For Europe - Roxy Music, a 48 hores de les eleccions

A pocs dies, hores, de les eleccions europees i veig que no hem apres gaire. En teoria, el concepte de la Unio Europea m'agrada, ha aconseguit que Anglaterra, França i Alemanya deixessen de lluitar (amb armes) entre ells per primer cop en mil anys, i l'objectiu de posar coses i idees en comú pel bé de tothom, pos, és bona.

Ara si, veig que el sistema que ens han introduït reprodueix els mals dels sistemes i parlaments nacionals, i fa poca cosa per a canviar. Fa falta una mica de brain-storming per inventar-nos un sistema que realment funciona i deixa enrere les corrupcions, interessos foscos, i la poca transparencia i eficacia.

En aquestes eleccions se suposa que ens explicarien els candidats que pensen de la legislació mediambiental, dels drets dels ciutadans, de la lluita seguretat vs privacitat, llibertats dels ciutadans, o control dels ciutadans, de com pensem mantenir la força economica d'Europea, o si estem disposats a deixar la nostra situació priveligada de smartphones, pantalles planes i 3 cotxes per familia, d'un pla de veritat per l'imigracio o Africa, de com volem que Europea reacciona davant guerres com Irak, Bosnia, Ukrania, com volem que reacciona i amb quin criteri, quins pla a 50 anys tenim pel probable final del petroli etc..... però crec que no s'ha parlat gaire.

En fi, votarem una mica en base de qui defensa més o menys l'auto-determinació de Catalunya i au. Jo també!

Almenys que algun partit proposa aixo com a himne europeu, i llavors els votaria...

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The English, and others, have already voted (apparently voting on a Thursday as on "pay-day" Friday they traditionally govt blinding drunk until Monday came round again), but we don`t vote in Catalona till Sunday. The European elections are important as the EU is important, in my opinion. If nothing else, this invention has stopped England, France and Germany from kicking the sh*t out of each other as they had been doing for a thousand years. What else has it achieved? Well, probably not half what we would like it to do as the EU bodies seem to have unfortunately copied all the bad habits of national political systems (corruption, inefficiency, beaurocracy, favouring "dark" interests over citizens rights...) and few of the good ones. It needs a good shake up if it is to be the body we want and deserve.

What is EU going to do about the climate change? Where are the plans for when the oil reserves run out? What should we do faced with wars and injustice in the world? Is it our role to step in in cases like Iraq, Ukraine, the Nigerian school girls? What about freedom and privacy vs control and security? Where's the long term plan to maintain European citizens priviliges (cash galore, smartphones, 3 cars...), or should we? All this and many more questions should be on the table but the debate seems to centre around Daily Mail headlines - shock, horror, we've found a Rumanian who's fooling the system, let's all vote for a posh populist racist party. Oh no, Europe won't let us put inches on our measurements (a lie) or eat wrongly-shaped bananas (another lie), let's all pull out of Europe and put millions of jobs at risk ...

And in Catalonia, basically we'll all vote depending on each party's opinions regarding the independence issue, and screw the pan-European politics for another 4 years. At least that's how I'll be voting anyway.

I would change my vote in a flash though, and vote for anyone who proposes this for the EU Official Anthem ...

Avalon - Roxy Music #Catalonia #PartyNotOver

Passat una setmana, poca cosa puc afegir als analisi de tothom dels resultats de les eleccions, però intentaré explicar els numeros en l’apartat en anglès pel public no-català. Només diré aquí que queda més que clar que hi ha una majoria clarissima de diputats que voldrien fer el referendum, i una majoria clar, però no tan, de diputats a favor de l’independencia. I si comptem vots, també sembla clarissim que es miri com es miri un 60% dels votants podrien votar per l’independencia.

I aixì és com es mira des de fora – o sigui, “a que espereu?”. Clar, això és facil de dir només mirant els numeros, i si no has llegit Homenatge a Catalunya de George Orwell. Des de fora, crec, que és dificil entendre les peleas menors entre partits, i el temps que s’està perdent. Clar que hi ha altres temes importants que aclarir, però el tema de l’independencia és el Number One, i és la que o s’agafa ara o no l’agafarem en una generació. Oblidem-nos d’altres temes unos mesos (6), posem mans a l’obra i ja vereu com una majoria encara més gran veurà al final que l’unic futur per Catalunya és per aquest camí.

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Dust settled on the Catalan elections, but not on the post-electoral bickering and whining and arguing and back-stabbing. The Catalan Parliament is a very different from the UK one, with many parties often leading to coalition governments. This time the votes went as follows:

CiU – centre-right Catalanist party = 50 MPs (down from 62)

ERC – left wing Catalanist party = 21 (up from 10)

PSC – socialists, favour a federal Spain = 20 (28)

PP – right-wing conservative “unionists” = 19 (18)

ICV – left wing Catalan ecologists = 13 (10)

Ciutadans – undefinable gang of unionists, I think = 9 (3)

CUP – left-wing alternative Catalanists = 3 (0)

And SI, another Catalanist group, lost their 3 seats.

Given the 135 seats in Parliament, 68 give a majority. Hence it’s clear that CiU+ERC+ICV+CUP = 87 MPs in favour of holding a referendum. ICV aren’t too sure how they’d vote in this referendum, but there would still be 74 MPs clearly in favour of independence, plus som ICV and a couple of PSC too apparently. Votes-wise, a similar situation – about 2/3 of votes went to pro-referendum parties, with only a 1/3 going to those against. So, what are we waiting for? Well, you obviously don’t know the workings of the minds of Catalan politicians, and perhaps a read of Orwell’s Homage To Catalonia would help out first. To cut a long story short, no one trusts the other party, or wants to miss a gear in the race to gain power. Instead of putting aside differences (albeit important ones) in the search for the greater good, they spend all their time – usually – bickering over the details. All very nice, and pure, but not very pragmatic. Yes, there are other problems, especially economic ones, but surely minimum agreements could be reached while the referendum process could go full speed ahead? In my opinion, they should accelerate the push for independence, as it’s the only thing which will allow for real solutions for the economic problems, as well as cultural and language-related ones. Now is not the time for dithering!

Luckily, it looks like the two leaders of CiU and ERC may have reached the same conclusion, but it’s still touch and go ... watch this space for further developments!

Jealous Guy - Roxy Music

Més aniversaris per fer-nos pensar com han volat els anys .... fa 30 anys avui, Roxy Music estaven al numero 1 de les llistes anglesos amb aquesta versió de Jealous Guy (Lennon).
No us agrada les cançóns que xiulen?
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Jealous Guy (Lennon) by Roxy Music reached number one 30 years ago.

More Than This - Bill Murray

Encara que penses que coneixes els partits politics, sempre guarden una sorpresa a la recambra per a donar més color a les nostres vides. Avui m’han sorprès ERC, PSC i PP recolsant la moció de CiU a favor de regular i, així, mantenir els “corre-bous” a Catalunya – o sigui, a les Terres de l’Ebre. Per contra-pes de la ràbia que em fa aquesta decisió, suposo que hauríem d’estar contents que avui ens conten com a part de Catalunya quan en altres ocasions sembla que les decisions del Parlament Català no ens afecten aquí baix!

Espero que realment només hi estan a favor perquè tenen temor de perdre vots, ja que si realment pensen que és una “tradició” no-cruel que no fa mal a cap animal, pos, ja poden esborrar el color verd dels seus discursos – per a mi.

Una altra gent que no entenien res del que veien eren els protagonistes de Lost In Translation, i d’aquesta forma arribarem a la banda sonora d’avui! Aquesta pel·lícula, del 2003, és increïble - Bill Murray i Scarlett Johansson són immillorables. I la directora, i l’historia, els diàlegs, la música, la fotografia ... he triat el vídeo de l’escena del karaoke amb Bill Murray cantant More Than This (Ferry), originalment dels Roxy Music del seu LP Avalon, 1982. A més a més, un vídeo de la pel·lí amb la mateixa cançó versionada pels 10,000 Maniacs - aquesta no surt a la pel·lícula però val la pena sentir-la.

There are two bull issues in Catalonia. The (in)famous bull fights where the matador eventually kills or is killed – the former option much more frequently seen than the latter – are fortunately on their way out here, although still common in Spain. The other bull “sport” is the one carried out in the south of Catalonia, in an area around the river Ebro known as the Terres de l’Ebre. This one involves a smaller, and much less dangerous, bull, or, more often, a cow. There are various “games” to be played; chasing them up and down the street, and being chased; fastening a rope around their horns before playing tug-of-war with them; draping flaming oil-soaked cloths around their horns before setting them loose around the village at night; setting up a makeshift bullring and running around with them, jumping over them, provoking them etc.

Personally I share the view of animal-welfare groups that, even though the animal does not die, this is a cruel tradition which should be abolished. Well, surprisingly, today’s news was that nearly every major political party in Catalonia had voted to regulate and support this tradition – with only the Greens against it! Presumably this is because these “corre-bous” are very popular, and vote-winners, here in the Terres de l’Ebre. It never fails to amaze me what politicians will do for a handful of votes!

Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson did not understand the world around them either, in Lost In Translation, which brings us neatly, and none too subtly, on to today’s soundtrack. Bill Murray singing the Roxy Music track, More Than This (Ferry) in a karaoke bar. Excellent film, acting, direction, photography, music, by the way!

Also including another video with clips from the film and 10,000 Maniacs' version of the same song.

Do The Strand - Roxy Music

Un altre grup que va començar amb Island Records son els Roxy Music, en els seus principis una barreja boja de rock-pop-glam-art que després s’aniria diluint amb el temps per convertir-los en alguna cosa més “normal”.

Do The Strand (Ferry), single del seu segon LP For Your Pleasure, quan encara estava Brian Eno en el grup, de l’any 1973 – com passen els anys, ei!