bil

How does it go on?

I went to Taffy's house,
But Taffy wasn't home.
Taffy went to my house
And stole a mutton bone.


I don't know a lot about gypsies in Spain.

In the UK, yeah I know a lot more. Friends who were farmers were constantly having stuff stolen and damaged by gypsies, and the statistics given to me by a couple of friends in the police force would turn your hair white.

The arrest of 4 Gypsies in one area caused car crime to drop by (note, not to, but by) 75 %.

They also figured the 16 gypsies were comitting 60% of all car crime in the whole of Cambridgeshire, which is a pretty big area with a lot of car crime.

I know of no-one in the UK who would have a good word for them, and my own personal opinion of them is the same as any immigrant. Pay your taxes, don't break the law, and if you can't do those two simple things you should get a free one way ticket out of the country.

agoreira

Class will out every time.
This guy writes very romantically about the gitanos in Montefrío, near Granada, and we once spent a week there in the gypsy quarter. (by mistake, it was described as "a typical Spanish street!) I have to say I neither shared his great love of the place or of the gypsies.
http://www.xmission.com/~dderhak/monte/gypsies.htm

bil

Interesting. Of course the gypsies commit the cardinal sin of failing to integrate, which of course lays you open to being isolated, and thus creating a vicious circle.

Also, the reason why the guy got on well with the gypsies may well be that they saw him as non Spanish, not local and thus more likely to treat them fairly.

Who knows?

A woman I knew once told me how she had worked with black families in the southern states of the US, and area where bigotry and seperatism still held sway even tho this wasn't so long ago. She was still comparatively young when she told me of this 10 or 20 years ago.

She got on well with them as she was english and thus seen to be unconnected with the racist whites that were endemic there. She told me that when she laughed because they barred the doors and shutters at night and wouldn't ever go out in the dark, they told her that to that day if you went out after dark then there was a real danger that you might not come back.

Lenox

A similar thing happened to me - I once spent a few months in Newark, New Jersey (most of which had been burnt down in riots a couple of years earlier). The black people there saw me as a fellow minority (I'm English), and were friendly. Maybe it helped that the English had taken to the Blues (Clapton, Rolling Stones, John Mayall etc).

Relampago

Why he was not spanish? No, Bill, no

I could tell you many cases, but I know one, of a Russian boy, and a gipsy kid I believe that he said to his parents at that the Russian boy was looking him. And this was enough to kill him. And it is only an example of what they are able to make...

I advise you that if you run over a gipsy, although it is hard, don't stay to aid him if are near their parents, their family, friends, etc. If you appreciate your life, you escape. With the white population to you would not happen anything, but with the gipsies it is another thing, because there same they kill you. Or you can already see the shows that they offer in the hospitals...

One of the big errors that has been able to make this country, is to allow that enter this people. It is a misfortune, but we have made it the other way around. Jews brought prosperity, but they were expelled, and however, this plague that has only brought delinquency, has been able to enter

Relampago

I tell you the same thing that I have said to Bill...And you don't confuse the things. I speak of a friction with them in the street or the simple coexistence with them

This would not happen to you with the white population:

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/19981...0en%20Valencia

http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/7968...nal/atropello/

jackytoo

Read yesterday that the BBC's Children in Need" charity have given a £28,000 grant to "Travellers" in the UK

Many ex-pats bought cheap houses in andalucian pueblos not knowing the area and found out they were living next door to Gypsies. I know I am not very PC and maybe generalising but they are scum!

bil

Sheesh. I did not say that all non spanish will be welcomed with open arms.

What I said was that THIS person may have been helped by the fact that he was not spanish.

Different times, different places, different results. OK?

Mitzyboy

It's a good job that Xtreme is not with us now. He lives in a house in the middle of them, and he has always said they have been wonderful towards him

jackytoo

It's a good job my friend isn't a forum member either. She could write a horror book about her Gipsy neighbours in AEG

Relampago

And I have said that not to be Spanish, it is not determinant with the gipsies. And I have given examples about this

superskib

They're all Taffys love

PS so do I admire Senor Zapatero even if I couldn't remember his other three names!

HBG

I've always considered France as being a typical European country, without the extremes of Germany or the UK reluctance to acknowledge membership. Spain hasn't been a democracy for long enough to count on this particular discussion. (Maybe I'm wrong about Spain.)

And our typical European country has just started to send its Roma population back to Romania.

Reading about it earlier, it seems that the great majority of Europeans agree with France.

elspeth sinclair

What nationality are you Mr Relampago? You watch too many films and your English is bizarre. Read "Bury Me Standing", A fascinating book about gypsies.

Relampago

I try to understand in your language (I would like to see that you make it in Spanish), enough so that you thank me, not so that you criticize me. I don't need to watch movies about gipsies (maybe you see them you), because I have worked with them, I have played with them, etc...

You try to understand what people tell you