The education Bill passed it first stage of the parliamentary process on Monday night, with concessions on all sides. One interesting change made late in the process was that teachers of religion [paid for by the state but hired and fired by Catholic archbishops] would henceforth have the same protection against unfair dismissal as other teachers. This possibly results from the celebrated peremptory sacking a year or so a go of a teacher simply for divorcing and remarrying.

I was explaining to a Spanish friend yesterday that, though I love living here, Spain can be a frustratingly inefficient place and I wouldn’t want to be in business here. A good example of this was my attempt today to find which of the just-introduced digital TV stations I can receive. I won’t bore you with details of the difficulties I had trying to get information from the relevant web page. Suffice to say, I conceded defeat after 45 minutes. What I should have done, of course, is give up as soon as I met problems just accessing the site and gone off for a drink. No self-respecting Spaniard would have been dumb enough to persist. Pointlessly, as it turned out.

The beauty of languages. Vito Gonzaga has suggested the Spanish word exequias for the English obsequy. But it turns out English has stolen this word as well! As with exequias in Spanish and obsequy in English, the English word exequies also means funeral rites. We British are nothing if not thorough in our poaching. No wonder we boast of the world’s largest vocabulary. Not that we actually invented much of it.

Well, I’m not sure I’ll make it to gloat over my pedestrian mortality prediction. Last night I was almost hit twice crossing a zebra crossing. And I do mean ‘a’ zebra crossing. In a new low for me, having just missed being crushed on one side, I was then nearly plastered on the other. I suspect Pontevedra would be a much safer place if we shot all the policemen now busy directing us to these places of specious security.

Languageism + Localism: In a newspaper report today, witnesses to a bank robbery were reported as saying ‘They spoke Spanish is a Spanish accent’. This, of course, means ‘They weren’t from round ‘ere; they was “foreigners”.’

I took my new, bank-donated umbrella for its debut today. Within 5 minutes a not-particularly-strong gust of wind had blown it inside out and broken two of the spokes. So, when the rain had stopped, I broke the shaft in two, folded it up and shoved it in the bin beside the ATM in the entrance to the bank. I do hope the cleaners don’t remove it before the manager arrives tomorrow morning. Not, of course, that he’ll have the presence of mind to appreciate the significance of my gesture. But it left me feeling a lot better.