The Spanish love paper. I can’t decide whether paper represents the chicken and bureaucracy the egg, or vice versa, but I can tell you there’s a word for excess paper in Spanish - papeleo. A good example is the loose slip I get with my library books, giving the ultimate return date. OK, it’s one thing to do without a barcode system but I would’ve thought there was a better manual system than a stack of pieces of paper for each item which every morning have to be cut out with scissors, stamped with the seal of the library and finally date-stamped. Actually, there are 2 piles of these on the counter, one for books and one for audiovisual items. Since there was, indeed, a more efficient system operating at least 40 years ago in my home town, one’s forced to ask why no one here recommends something less consumptive of paper and labour. My suspicion is it reflects an age-old fear of unemployment. To top everything, if my experience is anything to go by, it’s all quite pointless as nothing happens if you’re late returning the item. But this can be said of much of Spain’s papeleo.

My Faithful Ferrol Friend, Fernando, has suggested Anglos make the worst speakers of Spanish, even though the vowels sounds are [theoretically at least] easy for them. While I’ve certainly heard some atrocious Spanish spoken, I can’t say whether or not this is true. One obvious question is whether American Anglos are worse than British Anglos. If it is true, my theory would be that it’s because, like the Portuguese, we ‘eat’ and elide our words, whereas Spanish sounds are always well articulated. And perhaps we’re less good than other Latin-language speakers at getting the ‘music’ of Spanish. Views very welcome.

More reports about mini motor-bikes being impounded. And lots of reasons being given as to why they need to be removed from the market. None of these comes anywhere near ‘because they’re very fast and intrinsically dangerous for the kids they’re aimed at’. Just as road accidents are never attributed to ‘bad driving’.

Thank God for another of those sex surveys the Spanish love so much! The major finding of this one is that a staggering 96% of Spanish males believe it’s ‘important’ or ‘essential’ to give pleasure to one’s partner. The researchers have coined the term hombre vitasexual for such paragons. The odd thing is that every other survey I’ve seen reports a significant percentage of Spanish women have never had an orgasm. Three possible explanations for this dichotomy are:- 1. Los hombres vitasexuales are not getting round to everyone, 2. They have a different definition of ‘giving pleasure’ than the women, or 3. The greatest skill developed by hombre vitasexual is giving the right answer to questions about his sexual performance.