Sunday, May 20, 2007

Las elecciones

Next Sunday, there are municipal elections throughout Spain, including here in Madrid, so there's a lot of this kind of exchange to be found in the papers:

9.000 euros en una línea erótica desde el teléfono municipal


Marina Alfaro, Secretaria General del PSOE en la localidad pontevedresa de Mondariz ha explicado que detectaron el envío de 5.000 mensajes (SMS) y 400 llamadas, en total 300 horas al teléfono a una "línea pervertida".

Preguntado por la denuncia, el alcalde asegura que todo se trata de un "error de Telefónica" o de un "virus informático".

[Roughly translated: Marina Alfaro, of Mondariz, would like an explanation for the 9.000 euros of municipal funds used to make 400 calls and send 5.000 text messages, over a total of 300 hours, to a "perverted phone line". Responding to the charge, the mayor said that he was "shocked, shocked to find that there was gambling going on", the explanation had to be an error by the phone company, or an internet virus].


Two weeks ago, Madrid had its own election-related kerfuffle. An updated metro plan was published (right hand side of the picture), in which the subway station Simancas had mysteriously been airbrushed from the map. This did not sit well with one of the main candidates for mayor, Rafael Simancas, who immediately engaged in public conspiracy-theory-mongering of the darkest kind.
This brouhaha reached a natural conclusion when a revised subway map was issued two days later, with the Simancas station restored to its rightful place on the grid.
The elections take place next Sunday. One senses that people here in Madrid, at least, will be relieved when the campaigning is over.

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