We’re regularly told by the media here that Spanish state education is amongst the poorest in Europe. Not surprisingly, therefore, every administration attempts a major reform. Each of these goes under the heading of an acronym and the latest is the LOE. This was introduced recently as a Bill by the socialist government and vigorously attacked by the opposition as a measure which weakens the rights of both parents and the Catholic Church. Further, they insist it will worsen, not ameliorate, the so-called ‘Scholastic failure’ of having the highest number of A level/baccalaureate drop-outs in the EU. As ever, in this not-quite-federal state, an already contentious subject is further complicated by regional and language factors. This being the nature of the beast, several, if not all, regional governments would like more say over local education. These naturally include those where the obligatory number of hours to be spent on the national curriculum is reduced because pupils there are obliged to take lessons in the local language as well as Spanish. Who’d be the Spanish President? Or even the Minister for Education.

And talking of language issues, Spain is naturally annoyed that Spanish is treated by Brussels as only an ‘official language’, of lower status than English, German and French, the ‘working languages’ of the EU. Now Brussels has fanned the linguistic flames by announcing the number of Spanish interpreters will be reduced by a third. Can this possibly be connected with Spain’s success in having Catalan, Basque and Gallego treated as official languages, on a par with Spanish? Swings and roundabouts, perhaps. ‘Chickens’ and ‘roost’ spring to mind. In a nice touch, Spain’s Minister of Industry yesterday stressed in the European parliament that Spanish is the language of over 300m people. But he did so whilst speaking in Catalan.

Another Galician fishing boat has been arrested. This time by the Irish, for illegal trawling for hake. Can we now expect to see one EU country threatening to take another to the International Court at the Hague? Hake, by the way, is considered the king of fish in Spain and, truth to tell, untold tons of illegal young hake [cariocas in Galicia] are sold in tapas bars throughout the country. Strangely, across the Pyrenees, they regard it as rather tasteless. But that’s fish fashions for you.

I went to my bank today to pick up the gift of the weather gauge. What I was given was a bloody umbrella, costing about a tenth of the price. Or perhaps a twentieth, if they bought a job lot from the gypsies selling them in town at 5 euros for two last week. Needless to say, even to get this trinket I was obliged to sign a receipt and give them my identity number. A few days ago, for some reason I decided not to record my opinion that banks here treat prospective customers as suckers and actual customers as idiots. I wonder why.

Only in Galicia?: A local association of telephone tarot card readers is taking legal action against their boss, accusing her of pressuring them to sign a new work agreement by using black magic and voodoo. I wonder why they never saw it coming.