The EU’s Latest Export

Mala leche (nothing to do with the CAP) we would probably call it here in Spain, bad blood (again not connected with mad cows) might be the English expression. We’re all off to Singapore apparently, and the fair ground side-show seems to be up and running. On this one I’m impartial, I’m being very pc and rooting for Madrid. Results known tomorrow.

I think the Paris stadium is a wonderful stadium. I really like going there to watch rugby but unfortunately rugby is not part of the Olympics

“I think that to deserve victory you have to respect the Olympic spirit and demonstrate fair play…..One good thing about the Stade de France is that it exists”

The only thing they have done for European agriculture is ‘mad cow (disease)…”You can’t trust people who have such lousy cooking” labelling British cooking the worst in Europe apart from that of Finland. (No, this wasn’t Berlusconi :)).

Paris is the bookies’ favourite at 4-9 right now.

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About Edward Hugh

Edward 'the bonobo is a Catalan economist of British extraction. After being born, brought-up and educated in the United Kingdom, Edward subsequently settled in Barcelona where he has now lived for over 15 years. As a consequence Edward considers himself to be "Catalan by adoption". He has also to some extent been "adopted by Catalonia", since throughout the current economic crisis he has been a constant voice on TV, radio and in the press arguing in favor of the need for some kind of internal devaluation if Spain wants to stay inside the Euro. By inclination he is a macro economist, but his obsession with trying to understand the economic impact of demographic changes has often taken him far from home, off and away from the more tranquil and placid pastures of the dismal science, into the bracken and thicket of demography, anthropology, biology, sociology and systems theory. All of which has lead him to ask himself whether Thomas Wolfe was not in fact right when he asserted that the fact of the matter is "you can never go home again".

7 thoughts on “The EU’s Latest Export

  1. Badly. Our food might be a bit bland, that we admit, but we are calling Chirac lots of mean names, and wondering if this man is fit for his job at all. It’s the same as with Berlusconi. He’s even more reviled.

  2. i hope London will won this ridiculous prize :
    useless for a famous city
    hugely expensive
    bad for the tourism and the inhabitants

    Totally STUPID, but i will be clear that lot of politicians’s friends will make some huge bunch of money 🙁

  3. “useless for a famous city,hugely expensive, bad for the tourism and the inhabitants”

    All I can say, Fredouil, is that this wasn’t the case in Barcelona. It was, of course, expensive. But there is a general consensus that the money was intelligently spent on infra-structural reforms, making the city long term much more pleasant for its inhabitants. We even got access to the beach thrown in.

    Also since 92 a virtuous cycle has been created with the wealth brought to the city by the increase in tourism being in part re-invested to make it more attractive to visitors in summer, and a nicer place for the locals during the rest of the year.

    Whether this would be the case in London or Paris is much more questionable of course, since the profile is already pretty high. Madrid would probably be the one to benefit most, since it is much less well-known touristically speaking, however my impression is they don’t have much chance.

    Of course Paris and London

  4. Anyone know of a country where Chirac is not reviled? (In France, he was merely preferred to Le Pen, which is no great shakes…)

    Oddly enough, Moscow might be the city most likely to benefit from the Barcelona effect. It’s not really on the main tourist map now, but it ought to be. An amazing city; the energy level makes New York appear placid by comparison.

  5. Yahoooooooo London won the stupidity prize 😉

    paris dont needs more infrastructures (especialy useless stadium) but need accommodations !!!

    The money didnt wasted they can build 50,000 houses and solve the problem and make people much more happy (accommodation is a huge difficulty and make the life harder and harder at paris, look at their face, they dont smile there )

    Edward, the Barcelone’s case was totally different, barcelona had lot of to build, and they spend much less than Paris or London wanted to burn !!!

    look at Athen, it s pathetic.

  6. “look at Athen, it s pathetic.”

    Anyone who had been to Greece could have told them that things would be a little chaotic.

    The model Olympics is, and will remain for decades, the Australian effort in Sydney. One thing Sydney and London have in common is a messy street system and sometimes chaotic public transport. In Sydney’s case the Olympics gave the government a push and they made significant improvements to the public transport system that are still enjoyed today.

    Good on London- Chirac can go back to trying to divert attention away from his inexcusable policy on ag subsidies by making schoolyard jokes- to anyone bored and irrelevant enough to listen.

    At a time when world attention is focussed on African development, and Africans have explicitly called for the ending of such 1st world welfare in agriculture, his trite and offensive jeers sound a little like another classic Gallic faux par:
    “let them eat cake”.

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