According to a British Sunday newspaper - 'First there was our looks. And then our weight. Now, the new western obsession is sleep - or a lack of it. Last week there were at least 4 reports saying that we're all suffering a sleep crisis.' Not in Spain, I imagine, where both adults and children have long managed with much less sleep than the rest of us. Indeed, given the crazy Spanish timetable - not shared by their Portuguese neighbours - this is inescapable. Hence the recent proposals that the schools start 2 hours later. Not that the kids go to bed earlier, you note.

As I've said before, the Spanish have many acquaintances but few really good friends on the Anglo-Saxon model. This, of course, is because few of them stray from their place of birth and so can always rely on nearby family for support. Now comes a report that, first in the USA and more recently in the UK, young people in particular are forming a framily to provide their core support network. This, of course, is a mixture of family and friends. 'Within these groups', we are assured, 'individuals play key roles that they would otherwise play within a family - an organiser, a mother figure and someone playing a child-like role'. This is another thing I can't see happening in Spain. Everybody would want to be boss.

It's the middle of April and I had to scrape ice off the car windows this morning. This global warming is really beginning to worry me.