As always, New Year's Eve on Spanish television leaves behind its gossip and scandals. But perhaps one of the more memorable celebrity presentations of the midnight chimes to ring in this new year in the Spanish state was one of the least watched: that of the Canary Islands, on the Spanish public network TVE. The Canaries are in a different time zone, and start the new year an hour after the Iberian Peninsula. So the public TV network broadcasts two end of year ceremonies: the most famous one from Madrid, and the one from the Canary Islands at 1 o'clock in the morning. And this year the presenter was Jose Toledo, who just days earlier had entombed her mother-in-law: Carmen Franco, the daughter of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who died aged 91 on December 29th. Carmen had seven children and one of them married this television presenter. Sadly, the marriage between Cristóbal Martínez Bordiú, grandson of the dictator, and Toledo is not navigating particularly smooth waters at the moment; months ago there were news stories of their break-up after 30 years of marriage. But to the funeral home they both did go, to pay their respects to Carmencita Franco. Toledo, two steps behind the grandson of the dictator:
GTRES
After saying their farewells to the daughter of Spain's caudillo, Jose Toledo caught a plane to the island of Gran Canària and had a few hours to rehearse the words she would use to welcome in the new year from the town of Agüimes. She had a carefully selected dress, not quite yellow - the colour of the political prisoners - but rather, an opulent golden.
Espectacular #josetoledo de #Malne para las #campanadas2017 pic.twitter.com/mMKItzX757
— MALNE (@Malne_Official) 31 of December 2017
But she went off script. She left a memory of the 20th century in which her grandfather and her in-laws made a fortune under fascism. Instead of raising a toast with viewers in the Canary Islands to a happy 2018, she somehow went astray - perhaps subconsciously affected by the still-heard adage that "Under Franco, we lived better" - and ended up wishing them a great year nineteen-hundred-and-something:
TVE (click in the image to see the video. The moment is at 22:40)
They're one hour behind in the Canary Islands, but not one century behind. A blooper, a memory lapse, whatever. In any case the blunder reminds us that a member of the dictator's family is still receiving a salary paid by our taxes through a public broadcaster. And not only paid to make a spectacle of herself by forgetting the only line that she had to learn ("Happy 2018") but also because she has her own programme on TVE's international network, the magazine Buenos días, Buenas tardes. Another embarrassment from Spain's public broadcaster.