Proof of Spain’s increasing wealth has come from a survey of per capita GDP among the 25 EU nations. Actually, 24 as the UK was not included. With the average set at 100, the range is from 248 [Luxembourg] to 50 [Latvia]. Germany and France are both at 110 and Italy at 103. Spain is at 99. In each of the latter two cases, I’m left wondering whether this includes the large ‘submerged’ economies as well as those above the water line.

A current ad for a Spanish travel agency has the strap line “The only thing small we have is the price’. This runs along the top of a large picture of part of a man’s or woman’s body. The former centres on a large bicep and the latter on – well, you don’t really need me to tell you, do you? This is Spain.

In Santa Cruz de Tenerife yesterday, the traffic police stopped a motor bike with 3 riders, all in regulation helmets. The middle one turned out to be a goat and the fore and aft humans were duly arrested. They took this calmly but the goat is reported to be seeking clarification of whether the mooted extension of human rights to primates will stretch to selected quadrupeds.

One of our local papers reports today the recent university entrance exam in the subject of Gallego threw up some horrific errors. But, then, where there is an Academy changing accepted practice every year, this is hardly surprising. No, what really interested me was the comment that people had written not just in Gallego and Spanish but also in ‘Castrapo’. This turns out to be Gallego bastardised by Spanish and is, naturally, disdained by all true sons of Galiza, especially those with ambitions of independence. I now wonder whether there are any Castrapo nationalists that I can gratuitously offend. If so, they may offer a higher standard of insult to what I’ve been used to recently. At least, if they were partly in Spanish, I’d have a better chance of understanding them.

Plagiarised Quote of the Week.

Massenet's work ‘Thaïs’ inspired, at its 1894 Paris première, the best shout from the gallery in the history of opera. The story: a monk refuses a courtesan's advances; she converts to Christianity; by that time, he has renounced it. He advances to seduce her. Refusing him, she dies as the curtain falls. The gallery cry? "Quick. While she's still warm!”.