I mentioned a few days ago that shellfish used to be the food of the poor in Galicia. According to Roy Adkins’ fine book on Trafalgar, this was also true of oysters in the UK in the early 19th century, so plentiful were they then.

A final titbit from this book – at the time of Trafalgar no woman of any class wore knickers, these being considered unhealthy and the preserve of prostitutes. One wonders why.

An American reader has pointed out that, despite many years of campaigning, the road casualty rate in the USA is higher in than in Spain. This is intriguing as the opposite is true of the UK and this is usually attributed to similar investment in safety campaigns. In fact, I recall reading only last week that UK rates are now at their lowest ever level, less than half of those of Spain. I wonder, then, how US figures compare if expressed as accidents per mile/kilometre driven.

I caught the end of Madrid’s 2012 presentation on TV this morning. Indeed, I could hardly avoid it as it was live on 4 of the 5 channels. Anyway, I was impressed by it and disappointed that they didn’t win. And I felt a tinge of compassion for France. Honest.

Ryan has clearly taken offence at my posting of his nude picture in this blog. I saw yesterday he’d chewed up a piece of black plastic in the garden but thought nothing of it. But, when I came down this morning, I saw he’d deposited the contents of his stomach on the lounge floor. The proof that all this was intentional lay in the fact that he’d carefully avoided the wooden floor and treated each of my 3 rugs to its own pile of vomit.