The Complutense University, where I teach, was a battlefield during the Civil War. But what I didn't know was that the trenches, according to a piece in today's El País, were built partly by using sacksful of books taken from the university libraries, mainly those of Philosophy and Law. Some books were pierced by bullets, such as the one in the image above, a 1570 edition of San Agustin's Index Omnium, which was used as part of a barricade. During the war, Nationalist troops occupied various university buildings, including the Instituto de Higiene and the schools of Agriculture and Architecture. Many of their Republican opponents were to be found in the Parque del Oeste nearby - at their closest, the opposing forces were only 50m apart. The war destroyed 40% of the university buildings, many of which had been put up during the Republic.

Talking about bullets, I can think of a good place to put one. Today we found out that we have been paying Gas Natural (who I hereby denounce on PdS Blog) €7 a month for the last 11 months for a "maintenance service" that we never actually asked for. An "error", is what it'll be called. The system is simple: charge people for something they've never asked for, stick it on their invoice in the hope that they're have better things to do with their time than minutely examine all their invoices, and when they find out (if they ever do), call it an error before making it extremely tedious and time-consuming for them to get their money back. (We've spent an hour today trying to get through to them.) This is capitalism at its most savage. In some countries, perhaps, the state protects the consumer from this kind of behaviour. Also, Wannadoo (who I also here denounce) tried to continue charging me after I stopped using them a couple of months ago, and after I sent them the fax they requested informing them about it. Another error, no doubt - there must be a lot of errors being made out there.

But it could be worse, I suppose. We could be in a Civil War.
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