Spain revels in gastronomic symbols for its many feast days. For All Souls, this takes the form of small pastries in the form of bones. I suppose it could be worse. Little coffins perhaps. The feast is also a Big Flowers Day, as graves are visited and adorned throughout the country. Though not as much as they used to be. Spain’s florists are expecting yesterday’s sales to have continued the decline of the last few years, reflecting the ‘change in the customs of young people and in the character of this feast day’. Rather sad, really.

The results of a topical survey suggest 72% of Spaniards believe in God and an afterlife. But since 80% of the population claim to be Catholic, there must be an awful lot of idiosyncratic Catholics in the country. My guess is they don’t go to confession too often. And there are clearly some who think God moves in mysterious ways; within a couple of hours yesterday, several thousand Christmas lottery tickets were bought with the number 311005, the day of the royal birth. Unless you are American. If it comes up, I will certainly be born again.

The Great Spanish Paper Chase: I mentioned that I’m having to underwrite my daughter’s mortgage as – being 28 – she’s still considered dependent in Spain. The sackload of paper provided last week inevitably wasn’t enough and so I had to make another 2 bank visits today and provide another 15 pages of data. If you’re coming to live here, don’t say you haven’t been warned.

In Spain, un kamikaze is a driver who goes down the wrong side of a motorway/freeway. They are not exactly rare. The latest I’ve read about caused havoc in the outskirts of Madrid in the early hours of yesterday. Fittingly, it was a Pratna white van.

The Spanish state comprises 17 Autonomous Communities. One or two of these - possibly more – would like to be called ‘nations’ and this is causing a few problems for the central government. The simple solution would be to label all the communities ‘nations’ and change Spain’s name to The United Nations of Spain. But as United Nations is already taken, this isn’t an option. But what’s wrong with The United Communities of Spain? And since there’s no one else with a similar title, this could be shortened - as with the United States and the United Kingdom – to the United Communities. Which would be The UC in English and Los CCUU in Spanish. Problem solved. You heard it here first.

Quote of the Day

The German coalition government is like a loaded dynamite cartridge with a lighted match at each end.
[Take me to your] Leader in today’s El Pais.

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