English language film titles are regularly savaged in Spain. The latest is Wallace and Gromit’s ‘The Curse of the Were-rabbit’. Here, this is being shown as ‘The Curse of the Vegetables’. Not so far away in Portugal, though, it’s entitled ‘The Curse of the Coelhomem’. You won’t find this word in a Portuguese dictionary; it’s a clever overlapping of ‘coelho’ [rabbit] and ‘homem’ [man]. This trick isn’t possible in Spanish but ‘Conejo- hombre’ [Rabbit Man] surely is. Or should have been.

Watching Frank Skinner tonight, it dawned on me that chat shows are not big on Spanish TV. But then a format in which just one person talks and everyone listens in silence is never going to catch on here. They much prefer panels of ‘celebrities’ who talk/shout/
fight all at the same time.

I spoke a little too soon about Spain not being quite as commercial as, say, the UK. Going into a couple of shops this afternoon, I could find little that was unconnected with this great religious feast. It’s the start of the rot. I must check out North Portugal. Which reminds me - I mentioned a brochure from an organisation called Eixo Atlántico. ‘Eixo’ means ‘axis’ in both Galician and Portuguese. I always feel this is a bit of a dangerous label to give yourself. But perhaps memories are shorter these days and it no longer matters.

A summit was held in Salamanca this week for head honchos of all the world’s Hispanic states. As ever, President Castro failed to show up, claiming [at the last moment] that he was needed in Havana to personally supervise arrangements for helping victims of the recent floods in South America. This didn’t stop the final communiqué containing a ‘unanimous‘ demand that the USA end its embargo on Cuba. Fair enough but what it didn’t contain, of course, was any reference at all to Castro’s repressive regime.

For new readers – If you’ve arrived here because of an interest in Galicia or Pontevedra, you might find my non-commercial guides interesting – at colindavies.net