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In this blogposting…
* AGM XXX
* Andorra
Onward and upward…

AGM XXX
Our next AGM - the last of 2011 - will be very special indeed.

The awe-inspiring Kev has invited us to hold it at his workplace, so that’s where it’s going to be.

It will take place at 1100 this upcoming Monday 19 December at South Tyneside College.

If you miss it, you’ve only got yourself to blame - because a splendid time is guaranteed for all.

THE WORLD - A TRUCKSHUNTER GEOGRAPHY
ANDORRA

As in life, so in geography:  it is in the little places that our sense of wonder and curiosity find delight and intellectual refreshment.  And, as independent countries go, you can’t get much smaller than the Principality of Andorra.

At less than 500sq km, it is the sixth smallest country in Europe.  It would, in fact, fit into County Durham four times - and still leave plenty of room for Weardale. 
 
And it has fewer inhabitants than South Shields.

‘Strength United is Stronger’ thus seems to be an unnecessarily muscular motto for a country quite as small as Andorra.

It might be as well, at this point, to fix its location on the mental map most of us carry in our heads.  France and Spain are separated by the formidable barrier of the Pyrenees and, deep in the midst of the mountains, lies tiny Andorra. 

You cannot fly there because it has no airport.  Nor can you reach it by train - unless you get off the Barcelona express near the border and walk a few kilometres along one of its three roads, all of which lead to its throbbing capital:  Andorra la Vella, population 24,000 (smaller than Durham City).

The Parliament Building in Andorra la Vella

It might well be worth the effort, though.  Andorra has no television stations, no armed forces, no unemployment and no income tax.  All internal mail is delivered free of charge.

All this - and, presumably, the surfeit of healthy mountain air - means that Andorrans are the longest-living people on Earth.  On average, they can expect to reach well over 82 years of age.

(Thanks to diligent truckshunter research, we can actually compare the average lifespan of an Andorran to that of various other of the world’s creatures.  The world’s oldest-ever dog was a beagle who lived to be 28.  The oldest cat lived to be 36.  The oldest bird - a cockatoo - reached 77.  The oldest verifiable human age was 122 (a Frenchwoman called Jeanne; so Andorrans still have some way to go).  The oldest known mammal was a bowhead whale that reached 210.  The oldest vertebrate was a scarlet koi that died at the age of 226.  And, in a hidden, sea-bed location, there’s a clam which is known to be at least 405 years old and still going strong.

But back to the subject at hand….)

I know what you’re thinking.  ‘There must be a down side to life in Andorra’.  My researchers have been able to find only two.

Firstly, Andorra is the only country in the world whose native population is permanently outnumbered by incomers.  At any given time, over 60% of the people there are either Spanish or French, which must be awful.

Amongst other things, this means that the native language - Catalan - is rarely heard there.

(Should you need them, or even just be casually interested, here are the numbers from one to ten in Catalan:

un dos tres quatre cinc sis set vuit nou déu

‘Please’ is si us plau and ‘thankyou’ is mercies.)

Then there’s its system of government.

Andorra is a ‘co-principality’ - it is ruled jointly by the Bishop of Urgell (in Spain; he is appointed by the Pope and his diocese actually owns Andorra outright) and by the French President.  This means that, notwithstanding the political proclivities of the Bishop of Urgell, Andorrans have to suffer the unimaginable indignity of calling Nicolas Sarkozy ‘Your Majesty’.

His Majesty

Undeserved exaltation is not all that Sarko gets for being Co-Prince.  Every two years, he receives 4 hams, 40 loaves of bread and an unspecified amount of wine.

It would of course be unreasonable for Andorrans to expect their country ever to be at the centre of the world’s stage.  On the other hand, they didn’t deserve the neglect that befell them at the end of World War One. 

In 1914, Andorra bravely declared war on the Kaiser (although its army of 10 part-time officers, and no other ranks, was never called upon to actually fight).  At the end of the war, this valour was overlooked; the 1919 Treaty of Versailles omitted Andorra altogether.  A peace treaty between Andorra and Germany wasn’t signed until September 1939, by which time the rest of Europe was 24 days into World War Two.

This means that the National Anthem - below - has never really been heard in anger.

‘The great Charlemagne, my Father, from the Saracens liberated me,
And from heaven he gave me life of Meritxell the great mother….’

- which is perhaps just as well.

(Despite considerable research, I have not been able to find out who Meritxell was.)

It would be easy to be humorously and smugly patronising about ‘innocent’ little Andorra were it not for the fact that its main cash-earner, after tourism, is smuggling and that it is used by all sorts of unmentionable hypocrites as a shameless tax-haven.

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So….having made your flightless and trainless way to Andorra, what - apart from skiing - is there to occupy a curious truckshunter?

You could start at the National Tobacco Museum, a converted cigarette factory that celebrates the now-dying decadence of smoking as well as the very-much-alive decadence of smuggling.

Afterwards you could explore one - or even all - of the country’s famous ‘Three Valleys’ before hurrying to one of its hot thermal spas.  You’ll need to relax before an evening repast of Andorra’s favourite dishes - trinxat (‘trinshat’) (bacon, potatoes and cabbage) and/or escudella (chicken, sausage and meatball stew).

Follow this with a traditional digestif of red wine laced with lemon, apple, raisins, cinnamon and cognac and you won’t care - or even know - what country you’re in.

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My thanks to everyone who sent me the surprisingly large amount of information about this special little country.  Our next port-of-call is Angola….

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CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or email me:  truckshunters@googlemail.com