The Bull run in Pamplona, Spain has been going on for decades, immortalised by Ernest Hemingway in 1926. Thousands come from all over Spain, (and Europe), to participate in the Festival of St Fermin.
Can you imagine it going on in Britain? We are so tied up in Health and Safety, that we cancel rolling cheeses down a hill, for fuck's sake. Murray Mound at Wimbledon was closed off when it rained in case someone slipped! What is it about this country. Employers complain that they are so tied up in H&S legislation that they can't operate their businesses and are not employing as many people as they could.
The animal rights people will say that it's cruelty to the bulls. Bollox, they're cows. We eat the bastards, how cruel can that be? I like animals as much as the next man and have always kept either dogs or cats, which I spoil, but they don't have rights, unless I give them some. In Spain, they have a novel approach. Unlike here, they actually treat their children better than their animals, whereas here, it's often the other way round. I'll tell you one thing about Spain. Their dogs might have fleas now and again, but you don't get the same levels of child abuse as you get here and when do you ever remember in Spain, coming up against cheeky wee bastards, like you find here?
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| OUCH! THAT HAS TO HURT! |
23 comments:
This story is just a load of bull.
The one time "Feely Horny" isn't pleasurable.
The H&S Execs are active these days in attacking those who seek to hide behind them in persueing their own lazy self serving agendas and refuse to take the blame when cheese rolling is banned.
"do you ever remember in Spain, coming up against cheeky wee bastards, like you find here?" You are living in a fallacious zone DL, since the demise of General Franco the behaviour of Spains youth has been in decline.
You don't get the same level of child abuse as you do here.
Name of source?
Anoymous1, I think you forgot 'shit'.
Publes, that would bring tears to a glass eye!
Anonymous 2, the abuse of children report in the EU, 2009. http://tinyurl.com/346ymkw I never make statements without being able to back up my assertions, unlike someone who posts as 'Anonymous'!
Ha, that link to the abuse of children report goes to this blog. Why am I not surprised the source of your information is youself?
And why would posting as anonymous mean I can't back up my assertions? Facts are facts. I can't find anything online to suggest levels are child abuse are lower in Spain and I certainly can't finds anything that links the causality to bullfighting.
Anonymous, OK what about http://www.clicp.ed.ac.uk/publications/briefings/briefing03.pdf and this http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/apr/01/baby-p-abuse-children-care-statistics#data and this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8528811. You did not do your research very well and maybe this will give you something to do for the next two hours.
It's taken me 5 minutes to see that the first report is a comparison of numbers of child abuse cases across the UK, the second is number of cases of children going into care in different cities in the UK and the third is entitled 'Prevalence of childhood sexual abuse in Spain' and deals in percentages (quite high ones too - 22% of females were sexually abused before the age of 17 in Spain), no numbers so it's impossible to compare with the other reports. And even if you could, it's measuring sexual abuse and the others are measuring all types of child abuse.
Where are your actual figures comparing exactly the same type of child abuse in the UK and Spain which proves that they don't have the same levels of child abuse as we do in the UK?
Fine if it's just something you think based on how you think Spanish people are with their kids and how well behaved their kids are. But it's a bit of a sweeping statement to say you don't get the same levels of child abuse there. And more importantly, it's not even true.
Anonymous, that's as may be, but I have educated you about child abuse in Spain and that is the purpose of a blog to educate, inform and at times amuse. The point about not posting as 'Anonymous' BTW, has nothing to do with your opinions which are as valid as any one else's, but more to do with the fact that I then don't know you from all the other 'Anonymouses' that post on here and can't adequately discuss your arguments.
Please feel free to discuss any other concerns you may have, but next time please make up a name, you lazy bastard!
Fine - well you have informed me on your lack of empathy for living creatures, whether we eat them or not, but I didn't find it that amusing, more a bit mean that you seem to think cows don't have the same pain receptors as dogs. And a bit disturbing that you think torturing animals for entertainment might lead to a reduction in violence against kids. And I've put my name now just to make it more confusing - happy?!
I agree with you totally Kate - Any chance of a shag?
Kate, well done you, see how easy it was.
I don't think that was what the blogpost was actually about. It was about the fact that Health and Safety would not allow us to have bulls running amok in the street.
"And a bit disturbing that you think torturing animals for entertainment might lead to a reduction in violence against kids."
Where did I make that assertion? Now I'm all for criticism, but please don't make up your own words that I've haven't said. If you mean that there are actually high levels of child abuse in Spain, Which appears to be the case, then I will concede the point. I stand corrected. However how much of that is due to Spain being a very Catholic country with a lot of Priests, I don't know, I am only making an assumption that that might have something to do with it, if current rumours about the Catholic church are true.
Now whether you think that coos are sentient beings as compared to dogs, that is a matter for conjecture. I know I eat cows and very tasty they are too but I have never eaten a dog or a cat, although if there was nothing else, due to war or famine, I would eat them before I started on humans. I have eaten horse, (unknowingly) and it too was very tasty. I don't think that bull fighting or running bulls is probably right but I respect the traditions of the Spaniards and it's up to them, it has fuck all to do with the British, same as IMO, third world cultures. Let them evolve to our level of 'civilisation' in their own time. There now, plenty to get your teeth into.
Anonymous - ha! Only if you bring a matador's head on a stick with you. It would be a turn on to have its angry little face watching us.
Dark Lochnager - you were the one who made some crazy link with the bull running and the Spanish having lower levels of child abuse not me.
And I would sort of agree with you about it having fuck all to do with us, except it does because they use EU farming subsidies to pay for raising the bulls - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1034484/How-family-Britain-paying-alive-barbarism-bullfighting.html
Basically we're paying for them to rear these massive animals (and I imagine they eat a lot of food to get to that size) just so the Spanish can go and have a laugh at them having spears stuck in them.
And also, we (rightly) get involved in other countries' business when they're out of order - like Saudi Arabia stoning women to death for adultery. We don't just go, oh it's tradition, let them get on with it.
So I say they're out of order and we should at the very least declare war on them. (That is a joke. Sort of).
Kate, I was in a restaurant once in Madrid with a guy I did business with. He insisted on ordering the speciality of the house which when they came were about the size of a large apple. I asked what they were and he told me they were the bulls balls that had been cut off the dead bulls in the bullring that afternoon and delicious they were too.
The next week I was back in myself and ordered in my poor Spanish the house speciality, once again. When they came however they were only the size of marbles. I called over the Head Waiter and complained that the last week I had been in they were the size of apples and was this because I was a foreigner etc etc. (I can complain for Scotland).
He told me, "you have to remember Senor, the Matador does not always win"!
Kate 2,
Aye well you have to remember, I sometimes go off on a tangent and quite often say what I am feeling at that time, (which can be affected by mood and if I've had a glass of wine or two)!
I didn't realise we subsidised them, that's wrong, however you miss the purpose of bullfighting if you think it's done for a laugh. I don't agree with it, although I have watched it on Spanish TV, but it is to do with tradition and is more akin to ballet than fighting and remember sometimes the bull wins and then it can live out it's life on a farm.
I don't think stoning women is right but you have to remember that some societies are hundreds of years behind us. I think we should let them evolve at their own pace. The World is global enough now that their attitudes will change, quickly. No one told us that sending weans down chimneys or slavery were wrong, we as a society realised it and changed and they should be allowed to do the same because if they don't realise themselves it's wrong and it's done by outside pressure from the West, it will only cause resentment and maybe ultimately, more suicide bombers.
Ha, I like the joke. If only that was the outcome more often...
My last word on it - I know they say it's art, and I know there's an argument that says if something's a tradition it's okay.
I think though that if I wanted to create some art out of another person's skin then it wouldn't be okay. The rights of the person who I wanted to skin for my art would override my right to make art.
Likewise, I think the rights of a bull (you don't think they have any, I do) override their right to create art by stabbing them repeatedly.
On animals' rights, I think that if humans domesticate an animal and keep it captive, the very least they can provide it with is food, water and as clean a death at the end of its life as possible.
Anything else is just cruel and basic bullying.
Tradition - lots of things that were once traditional now aren't acceptable. Throwing Christians to the lions, fox hunting, there are loads I can't think of now. I don't think it's a decent reason to keep doing something.
I also don't think the bull has good odds. They'll have killed 48 bulls - 6 a day for 8 days - by the end of Pamplona festival alone. I doubt anyone will die, and if they do it'll be some pissed up Australian tourist not a matador. Matadors rarely die - according to this website (http://iberianature.com/spain_culture/tag/how-many-bullfighters-have-been-killed/) 52 have been killed in the arena since 1700.
Spain kills around 11,000 bulls every year in bullfights. That's at least 3.5 million bulls killed since 1700. My maths is shit so I can't work out the odds - but I'd say it's probably not worth betting your house on a bull ever winning a fight.
Kate, I take all of your points and very sensible they are too in a sort of woolly way. I don't think animals have rights. The only rights they have are the ones that we give them. However, you are right when you domesticate an animal it must be treated with some sort of dignity and believe me when I say mine are spoiled. I just spent £650 on my wee cat in the vets for one week, when I suppose most people would have put it down. Again if you stick them in a field you have to look after them properly, so of course that extends to cows, sheep, horses, etc.
I don't kill any being with the exception of anything that threatens me and in this country that only includes wasps and the occasional fly. I don't kill anything else, but that is a personal choice and is a right that I give to other beings on this planet. The same would apply to other human beings.
I don't agree with bullfighting either as I said, but IMO it is up to the Spaniards. They didn't come bleating to us about fox hunting, which takes us on to another subject. Since they stopped hunting the bastards in my area we are overrun with them and I am afraid one of them will go for my cats and if they did they would then make it onto my killing list!
Kate, have a look at this from April, last year, same joke I'm afraid but a good story about bullfighting!
Kate, sorry I forgot the link!
http://darklochnagar.blogspot.com/2010/04/cmon-bull.html
DL,
I don't know where in Spain it is, but they throw a live goat out of a tower after being blessed by a Bishop. Personally I'd rather be blessed by the goat and through out the fucking Bishop.
Stephen.
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