My fellow blogger, Trevor ap Simon, writes that El Pais has refused to show an ad for the Catalunian pro-Spanish party, Ciutadans, in its regional edition there. If you click here, the intro will give you the Catalunia-is-Spain flavour of the ad. I’ve been wondering about a non-Spanish parallel and have decided this wouldn’t be The Guardian rejecting an ad from the British National Party. Or Le Monde doing the same to an ad from Le Pen’s equally right-wing party. After all, papers must be free to decline to promote what they consider extreme views. Then I thought of a paper in Nazi Germany refusing to run an ad from the German Jewish Party saying something like “If you prick us, do we not bleed?”. Possibly an inexact analogy too. But closer. You can decide. I merely pose the question whether the Ciutadans stance could be considered extreme anywhere other than in Catalunia. Serbia, perhaps.

Back to the mundane issue of noise and the question of whether Britain is turning into Spain. I’ve now read that 3 million families there are affected by noisy neighbours and the majority are too frightened to report them to police. An increase of 31%, it’s said, over the last 5 years, with 1 in 10 homeowners now suffering from the problem. The most common complaints are loud music [read TV here], raised voices and barking dogs. And the worst places [oh, dear] were Liverpool, Bradford, Leeds, London and Edinburgh. Well, I’ve never thought about going back there anyway. If, as it seems, I’ve got to endure noise, I prefer it with a Latin flavour.

One of the perennial features of Spanish newspapers is the ‘tombstone’ announcements of recent deaths of loved ones. In the Diario de Pontevedra, these usually come just before the 3 or 4 pages of small but explicit ads for male and female prostitutes and local brothels. A nice juxtapositioning, you might think. Anyway, it intrigued me to read that many people here die ‘Christianly’. This turns out to mean after receiving the Last Rights. Everyone else, I guess, dies with the risk of going straight to Hell. On the other hand, with heaven as your goal, I suspect you don’t need to have lived ‘Christianly’, so long as you manage to pop off in this mode. It’s all in the timing.

Today is the last day for [official] campaigning around Sunday’s elections. And for this relief, much thanks. Here’s a piece from yesterday’s Voz de Galicia which reflects the sentiments I’ve displayed more than once. This is a quick and rather literal translation and, as it’s only 10am, I haven’t had a chance to talk to Spanish friends about the meaning of some obscure phrases and metaphors. Nonetheless, if you’re interested enough to read it, you’ll surely get the point . .

Fed up, exhausted, sated, bored, and so on through all the 60 meanings which the entire set of dictionaries of synonyms offer us from the great richness of Spanish tongues. All of us citizens are worn out after the tedious election campaign. Worn out to the very limit of exhaustion.

We are the survivors of the reality show which besieged this old island full of slogans as empty as they are repetitious relics of previous campaigns. The messages get mixed up in a couple of brain cells which still seem willing to be surprised. And the torture – the pile driver of the primaries – is transformed into the blind obstinacy of a primary school lecture.

The day of reflection [Saturday] could do with being transformed into a couple of weeks of recuperation so as to get over withdrawal symptoms after all the picturesque promises; the impossible – if not utopian – projects; the mafia network of the corrupting and perverse construction industry and its consequences; the ‘Yes but you’re worse than us’; the constant what’sinitforme; the lies mingled with half truths; and the economic raft navigating around failure, council by council, to find a secure harbour.

Jacuzzis for everyone, golf courses in the garden, hospitals for pets, paradise in Dreamland – all announced at rallies along with electoral promises which convert the AVE* into a witch train travelling between industrial estates and business parks between adjacent townships – these are all part of everything on offer during this couple of weeks, leaving us gorged, knackered, assaulted by an avalanche of hard-to-achieve promises

Discussion of themes which seriously concern us has been avoided - the contamination of the countryside with fences which mark off plots made of recycled bedsprings; municipal finance in the new version of coffee for everyone; the scepticism of the very young who continue to see their future far from the village where they were born.

The old and useless formula has again been used, camouflaged as post-Photoshop banners hung on lampposts. Pass them and look at them. Pass them and vote even though it might be in Italian style, holding your nose. And when we recover we must find ways to reflect so as to revive our dreams through offers that rejuvenate, through leaders who are closer to us and less arrogant, through more professional managers who take a business-like approach to public administration and who will provide benefits for citizens as part of a satisfactory account of results which obliges us to appreciate the difference between exhaustion and annoyance.

May you vote well.

* High speed train