Poor old Zapatero.After agreeing to appear on a revolutionary live television Q&A (an idea cribbed from the French, we hear) where 100 ordinary people were to due to quiz the Spanish Prime Minister on whatever took their fancy, he didn't see it coming.
The obvious questions about the obvious subjects close to the hearts of Spaniards were asked - ETA, house prices, corruption, the beetroot industry etc. - and "thetta-pé" (as he is affectionately known to supporters and detractors alike) answered in the usual stiff, statistical way that politicians often do.
No-one could have accused the PM of not doing his homework, it was obvious that he had spent night after night swotting up on facts and figures (and watching videos of Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal struggling to answer questions in the same situation), but what he hadn't banked on was a question about the price of a cup of coffee, which Zapatero imagined cost "between 70 and 80 cents".
Obviously not a Starbucks double choc chip decaf capuccino frappé fan then.
This is how the English language papers saw it:
- Monsters and Critics
- Expatica (Holland)
- Typical Spanish (Spain)
- EiTB (Basque Country, Spain)
- International Herald Tribune (USA)
- Taipei Times (Taiwan)
Plus a great little observation on the great Thetta-pé coffee blunder is to be found on an ex-pat blog called The Spanish Cockpit. It's simply entitled "D'oh!"
...and those of you curious to see whether Zapatero's views have changed since he was elected in 2004 might like to peruse this TIME magazine article with the man himself in... er... 2004.
No mention of coffee though!
