In the university of Vigo, more than 50% of undergraduates don’t attend the classes. They give a wide range of reasons for this but the general drift is that things are just too hard for them. So the lecturers and professors have been told to make a huge effort to make things easier. I wonder if this is unconnected with earlier reports that the university has had lower numbers in each of the last few years. Perhaps the students could write – and even mark – their own exams.

Talking of Vigo, the port there is reported to handle more fish that all of Spain’s other 28 ports put together. So some of it must surely be of a legal size.

A visitor last week asked if the Spanish police always went round in twos, whether in the car or on foot. I hadn’t noticed this before but subsequent observation suggests they really do. Unless there are three of them. In the latter case, to quote the old communist- regime joke, this might be because one can read, one can write and the other one likes the company of intellectuals….

I visited La Guardia today, which at the estuary of the river Miño that divides Spain and Portugal. As this picture shows, this is a magnificent spot.















But this is not really why I mention the place. The real reason is to record my surprise [and consternation] at finding myself at a junction where there was a telegraph pole blocking the exit. There is a large STOP sign at the side of the road but one could be forgiven for regarding this as rather superfluous. GO BACK would be a lot more useful.
















This email from my daughter in Madrid merits wider exposure:-

One of the British national daily newspapers is asking readers "What does it mean means to be British?" This is from a chap in Switzerland ...

Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for A Belgian beer, then travelling home - grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way - to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV.

And the most British thing of all? Suspicion of anything foreign.