There was an odd connection between the bizarre El Mundo article I quoted in full yesterday and the earlier article [also in El Mundo] about solving the problem of prostitution. The latter had a large cartoon in the middle of it, essentially composed of a woman’s legs with chains around them. But, in the bottom right-hand corner, there was a silhouette of a man. Not a man with a sombrero and a guitar, however, but a man in a suit wearing a bowler hat and leaning on a furled umbrella. Quite what the hackneyed stereotype of a English gentleman has got to do things is anyone’s guess.

For those with an interest in the original Spanish of the final paragraph of the celebrated article [by one Francisco Umbral], here it is. I’ll have no complaints if someone wants to improve on my Spanish. I’ve already checked ‘cerril’ with a bigger dictionary and found that, rather than ‘mountainous’, it means 1. ‘untamed/ unbroken’ or 2. ‘rough/uncouth’ or 3. ‘small-minded’. Take your pick. By the way, the writer’s surname [‘Umbral’] means ‘threshold’. Seems to me he’s way beyond it…

Inglaterra tiene pulgas porque Inglaterra es húmeda, isleña, y contra eso de pulgas no vemos otra cosa que darle carné familiar a cada pulga. La democracia no es una panoplia de familia ni un detergente contra las pulgas. La democracia es parecer de Irlanda si eres de Londres y a la inversa. Todo esto sería muy aplicable a la cerril España, donde cada uno quiere ser de su pueblo para tirar del campanario su propia cabra. Una cabra que jamás monologará como Molly Bloom porque las cabras dublinesas están todas en el rabaño de Joyce esperando a Virginia Wolf para hacer un poco de lesbianismo. Al Señor Blair lo que gustaría es ser europeo del continente, una cosa así como Zapatero.

In the square near my daughter’s flat in Madrid [Dos de mayo] there’s a statue dedicated to two Spanish military heroes. As you can see below, they’re attired as Greeks. This square is the centre of the Thursday/Friday botellón [binge drinking without the violence] of this part of Madrid. If you look closely at the photo, you’ll see some joker has replaced the original sword with a couple of inverted beer bottles. Which I have to admit I found both disgusting and rather amusing.