The five minute interview: Tammo Rennies

Every once in a while Thomasenmadrid publishes a short interview with one of the Key figures of my life here in Spain. This week it's the turn of Tammo Rennies (27) hailing from Oldenburg, Germany. Now he resides in London with his Spanish girlfriend but was very important to me – and for office morale in general – during my internship at a well-known internet mobility portal. I will never forget when we were struggling to fold massive carton boxes into a recycle bin and a small group of onlookers started to form. Sweating and visibly annoyed Tammo snapped angrily “have you never seen an intern before?!”. The group shuffled away. His answers are short, but to the point, perfectly painting the picture of a man on a mission.

The first time I saw Thomas was: At Just Landed Global Headquarters in Madrid

My favorite place in Madrid is: On a terrace in Malasaña

Something I say too often is: I am not in the mood

I am not a politician, but: hungry for cash

People know me from being a lazy bastard, but in a truer life I would be: a business philosopher

If I weren't talking to you right now I would be: chilling somewhere

Normally, my breakfast consists of: cigarette, coffee, newspaper and a king size plain chocolate cookie, not the other way round!

I passionately have confidence in: developing business ideas, unlike to put them into action.

At the moment the most played on my MP3 player is: not in possession

In moments of weakness I: focus on my roots and look forward

I'm good at: autosuggestion

I'm very bad at: discipline

The ideal night out is: the night in with friends

In a nutshell, my philosophy is this: Todo se reduce a querer y se quieran.

Super Tuesday

“It’s Super Tuesday!” screams a headline as I tuck into my French Chorizo Omelette. No wait. Two lines into the article it gets even better: Super-duper-Tuesday! This is fantastic, this is great. What a way to start a day! I wish every Tuesday would be a Super Tuesday. Heck, I wish every day would be Super-duper! Although I have always felt that Tuesday needed some extra encouragement, I didn’t think the Americans would go this far!

Super Tuesday, it just sounds cool. What would its Super powers be? Can it fly? Can it make Monday disappear? Can it turn Friday into ice? Let’s ask the Americans!

Unfortunately, Tuesday has historically been my least favourite day. This is strange because when I was young I normally had cricket practice on Tuesdays, but Tuesday practice was always less fun than Thursday practice. People complain more on Tuesdays, the weekend excitement has past and it is the most typical day for a bar to be closed. Atletico never plays on Tuesdays. The best we can ever get is UEFA cup which is shown on Thursday which doesn’t really need this extra boost – being so close to the weekend. There is just very little going for Tuesday. It is no wonder that the Americans are trying to repackage it.

In my current agenda it is Tuesday which again is spoiling my week. I leave home at 08.45 only to arrive back at 22.30 – by far the latest in the week, leaving no time for cooking or that other favourite pastime of mine: jogging. This happens on the far classier Wednesday. It’s just all impossible on Tuesday. So, I therefore applaud the Americans who have finally got it right. From now on, every Tuesday is going to be called Super Tuesday. Super-duper-Tuesday.

On Politics (Part 3): The Church

Has he gone mad? After naming King Juan Carlos as a political player surely Thomas is not going to include the Catholic Church into the political debate. Well, unfortunately the answer is no to the first one and yes to the second. This morning I read in the newspaper that the Conferencia Episcopal Española (CEE) – which represents the Church – has urged the people of Spain to vote for the party which fights against gay-marriage, negotiating with terrorists and the Memory Law I mentioned in my last article on politics. In other words, kick out Prime Minister Rodrigo Zapatero and bring back the good old boys who reigned over Spain for 40 years (and a rather shorter spell of 8 years later on).

To make sure the Church was not breeching the long standing Montesquieu ideology Auxiliary Bishop Juan Antonio Martínez Camino wanted to make clear, however, that the Church was not backing any political party. In stead of explicitly breaching the Trias Politicas he pointed to a list of 10 points which worry the Church. Conveniently, all 10 points are in favour of the PP and not one supports the political plans set out by the governing socialist party the PSOE.

Using terrorism
At a press conference Mr. Martínez Camino urged Catholics - and all Spanish citizens who want to act responsibly - to vote those parties who do not explicitly nor implicitly recognize terrorist organizations as political entities. Of course the Bishop did not mention ETA as this would be political foul play, but he was blatantly referring to PSOE’s efforts to end ETA’s bloody hold on Spain.

In a farcical attempt to attract voters to the political right the Bishop went on attacking the rights of the nationalists (who want more autonomy for Spain’s provinces, such as Galicia, Catalonia and Basque Country) who were according to the Church seeking to modify the unity of Spain and reminding everybody of the dangers of the new Memory Law, seeing it as a great risk for the stability in Spain. Further more traditional points concerning euthanasia, abortion and gay marriage I leave unspoken. Better that way.

The sad thing is that the Church still wields considerable power over Spain’s citizens. This was once again confirmed when the Church and its supporters took to the street in their thousands (Plaza Colon, where else?) demonstrating against PSOE politics on the National Day of the Family. During all the key speeches government policies where attacked. Something which – I am told – was not done during Aznar’s period in office.

Hypocrisy
In its defence the PSOE hurried out a statement claiming it immoral that the Church – following the PP – uses terrorism for political gain. They pointed out that every legislation up to date has held talks with ETA in an attempt to broker a peace deal. Adolfo Suárez, Felipe González and José María Aznar all approached ETA for talks, the latter even using a Bishop (Bishop Juan María Uriarte) as intermediate. Hypocrisy at its worst.

So there it is. The Church is entering the political campaign supporting the right-wing opposition. Sad, but true, that they felt this was necessary although I feel the impact will not be very big. Those for who the message was intended – hard line Catholics – have probably already made up their minds.