In contrast to troubled France, the situation here is that very few young people are employed on anything other than short term contracts. And these can usually be terminated easily. The government and the unions have reportedly reached an agreement which will result in an obligation to give a ‘permanent’ contract to anyone who’s been working for 2 years in the same job. So, watch out for a lot of sackings around the 23 month point.

My impression from casual observation is that seat belt compliance has risen significantly here in the last couple of years. Though I’m only talking about the front seats. Not many people are yet taking seriously the legal obligation to use them in the back seat too. Even for kids. We obviously need more stories – with gory pictures, of course – of children being catapulted through windscreens.

Streepers is what the Spanish call strippers. In the past couple of days my blog has been hit by people looking for streepers for women and reality shows for streepers. Perhaps it’s a TV executive doing some research fir a new prime-time program.