The Spanish Supreme Court has dealt the government a severe blow by ruling against the merger it was promoting of two utility companies. This also has the effect of kicking into touch the attempted takeover of one of these companies by the German giant, Eon. The matter, we read, may now take 2 years to be resolved. Interestingly, the left-of-centre newspaper, El Pais, pointed out that the people most prejudiced by this surprise development were the shareholders of the target company. First battalion Innocent Bystanders.

Meanwhile, up in Catalunia the President of the regional/national government has solved a 6 month long cabinet-composition crisis by appointing someone from a minority party who’s under investigation for extortion. I’m not clear what this says about Catalunian politics. If anything. Business as usual, perhaps.

Although I attend the occasional bullfight, I can’t claim I make a habit of reading the reports in the national papers. But the laudatory headline of one caught my eye today. The praise, though, was being heaped on the bull and not on the matador. And the opening paragraph ran:-
The second bull of the evening starred in one of the most beautiful moments of this fiesta – a spectacle of bravery, nobility and class, the qualities of a majestic animal, capable of generating the fiercest emotions.
But still dead, of course. Shame it couldn’t read its own fulsome obituary.

Penultimately, another bit of Spanglish:-
Mushing – Races in which sleds are pulled by dogs. Honest.

Finally, my thanks to all those who took a look at the first 2 chapters of my daughter’s first novel. I hope you all enjoyed them as much as I did this morning. Though I don’t suppose anyone else was as relieved as I was that the sex wasn’t explicit. At least not so far. For new readers not put off by this revelation, there’s a link to Stalking Time for the Moonboys on the right of this blog. Enjoy.