Spanish Homework

I was just looking back at my early character précis of our Spanish teacher Victor...hmmm. After many conversation classes at his flat in Urguell, he has become progressively more militant in a pretty dogmatic socialist political ideology. He is on the verge of selling all the furniture and other items in his already spartan flat, and taking off on travels around the world. I think it is likely that he will end up living on an Ashram in India, and probably won't return to Barcelona.

Our weekly Spanish conversations tend to follow a predictable trajectory which begins with a world problem and then comes to rest with the evils of capitalism.We have had discussions about bull-fighting (Victor is not a fan of the unneccessary torture and slaughter of bulls in a pseudo Gladiatorial spectacle, nor am I). Social inequalities in London has been a topic, specifically Brixton. I ended up somewhat over-egging the gun and knife crime problem which unfairly ended up making Brixton sound like London's version of Mexican border-town, Juárez. 

Luckily, Victor ended up visiting Brixton, a few weeks later, and concluded instead that it was 'cheeky' which is an adjective that I have never heard applied to Brixton, but think is brilliant. Our conversations have become increasingly polarised into the banks v. the people and left-wing v. right-wing through conversations about the economic crisis in Spain, big business and the unemployed. So when Victor asked what we thought of Margaret Thatcher, it was already apparent what his opinion on her would be, and it wasn't that her quashing of trade-union powers, was on balance; a good thing.

As my husband and I commenced our verbal sparring match in crudely constructed Spanish sentences, I was reminded of the  lyrics to the Wombats' song 'Is this Christmas?'. They go a little something like this: 'And then it's right-wing versus left until the crowns fall off our heads.'

And the conclusion to this overly simplified political fall-out? My Spanish homework is to write an essay highlighting the bad points of Margaret Thatcher's 11 year stint as Prime Minister. John will, as ever, be enjoying the position of devil's advocate, and writing as an ambassador of Thatcherism and bullet pointing the plus points of the Iron Lady's dominion over the UK.