Rankings, records and romances

We often complain that people are just numbers, but ultimately everything, absolutely everything, ends up being quantified. The saying "what's important is quality, not quantity" becomes as empty a phrase as "what's important is participation." This week has been especially significant in terms of numbers, starting with Easter, which is also measured by the sale of monas (monks) and their price, and the increase in flights, 11% compared to last year at El Prat, if that were necessary. And also, if that were necessary, more visitors to Catalonia, in this case 10%. The same numbers that satisfy some, so the economy must move forward, worry others, so if the decline doesn't start now, we'll all go to hell, also massively. But then you never know who's going to pass. accounts.

Records and rankings don't escape the happiest Catalan day of the year, a thriving Sant Jordi that this year didn't even have to suffer from the weather, but, given the suffering, expressed concern about the proximity to Easter, so that some expenses wouldn't spoil others. Nothing. There's no need to suffer. Sant Jordi is as assured as its contaminated lists, which take nothing away. You don't have to be a literary romantic to see that this isn't the day, that it's not the day for competition or to see who has more or less good taste in reading, writing, or buying. The best-sellers of the day are roses and books, and let everyone choose the one they like best, which is why so many are published that we'll never read. And congratulations to the winners. Asking to eradicate competition has nothing to do with suspicion, nor with the consideration that reading makes us better people, nor even the best person. Interesting, and I'm not giving any examples. These figures, which some find necessary information—and perhaps they are, because who knows what each person's needs are—for me, they darken an otherwise radiant day, whatever the weather. And on top of that, this Sant Jordi, there was another figure, the one that always dances, the one that dances excessively: the demonstrations. The one called for the defense of the language brought thousands of people to the center of Barcelona, 15,000 according to the organizers, 2,000 according to the Guardia Urbana. I, who've always been a math failure, would say they send the repeaters to count at the demonstrations. In any case, the language must continue to be defended, from home, from work, from reading and from writing.

But while some of us defend the language, others attack each other for, supposedly, defending it. The Spanish government, which has decided to increase defense spending, has gotten into an internal mess over the purchase of 15 million bullets from an Israeli company that were supposed to be for the Civil Guard. It seems you can't criticize Israel's position on Gaza and then buy weapons from them. But I say the Civil Guard won't run out of bullets, so they'll have to come from somewhere else. The cynicism surrounding the arms industry is so enormous that it can't be quantified with numbers. Something like this thing about good and bad popes. These days we're also counting the hours spent in line to see the dead pope and the number of people who have already seen it—many, adding cardinals and conspiracies. Although if we have to make a ranking of reds, I'd put the rose of Sant Jordi and the carnations of the Portuguese revolution at the top, which, speaking of weapons, after 50 years remains the best image a rifle can give.