The Spanish President has insisted Spain is open to foreign investment but that ‘in the energy sector there must be equality under the EU rules’. De-codified, this means ‘If France can break the rules with impunity, so can we.’

I’m reminded of an article I read a year or two ago in which a senior French politician said that, if France could no longer control the EU in its own interests as it had done for 50 years, she should really leave it, rather than be subjected to rule by perfidious, free-market Anglo-Saxons and their East European allies. As of now, it seems France has opted for the midway strategy of staying in but ignoring the rules when she finds them inconvenient. This will be readily understood in Spain since, as it happens, it’s much the same arrangement as the one every Spanish citizen has with the state.

A year ago, the government set up a ‘Committee of the Wise’ to review the state television set-up. Earlier this week, a journalist member commented that nothing in Spain could compete with it for corruption. But now he’s confessed to having put his foot in it, as all he meant to say was the TV companies were excessively extravagant. Which sounds plausible, doesn’t it?

A performance artist in, I think, Belgium is outraged he’s being prosecuted because some philistines didn’t recognise that his urinating against a wall was actually a work of art. One can sympathise with him, of course, but this is the trouble with so much modern art; it’s hard to tell whether the piss is being taken. And, if so, by whom.

Everyone knows you can’t please all the people all the time. But it is possible to displease all the people all the time. And so it is with Spain’s new anti-smoking law, now into its 3rd month. The aim, of course, was to effect a wholesale change in the smoking patterns of Spanish citizenry but here’s what a survey has just thrown up:-
- More than 90% of small bars still permit smoking
- 95% of people in discos ignore the law
- Only a very small minority of large bars have so far met the requirement of providing a no-smoking area
So, roll on September, which is the deadline for compliance by the large bars.

I’ve now discovered that the political spat around Ravachol stems from the fact his effigy is adorned with the slogan ‘A pure Lerez’. This is a reference to the mayor’s campaign to rid the mouth of the river Lerez of the paper mill which is the town’s biggest employer. The opposition party, understandably, feels the celebrations have been high-jacked for political purposes. And this is a crime in Spain, where it’s just not done to be serious when it’s fun time.

You won’t actually see this slogan on the photo of the effigy I posted yesterday as I cheated and used last year’s model. That one was dressed in the colours of the town’s football team and didn’t cause any controversy. Except when Chelsea offered 30 million pounds for him.