El Pais is a left-of-centre newspaper so it was a little surprising to see it today praising the British government for not intervening in the purchase of BAA by a Spanish consortium. This contrasted, they said, this with the ‘economic patriotism’ of Spain and other countries around utility companies. Mind you, I can’t recall where El Pais stood a few weeks ago on the issue of the purchase of a Spanish energy company by a German giant. Quite possibly on the same ground.

Save only for the Greeks and the Portuguese, the Spanish are said to be the European nation least interested in politics. But the most active at demonstrating in the street. This rather put me in mind of a comment written by Gerald Brenan in the 1930s – ‘It is a characteristic of Spaniards to be satisfied with gestures and with petty acts of defiance and courage and to neglect the real heart of the matter.’ Perhaps he was right, if a little harsh.

Not all appears to be well in the world of bullfighting. I see little but critical headlines these days and this opening sentence caught my eye today- ‘Fraud, deceit, betrayal of all those who’ve paid to attend and a ragman’s knife[sic] in the very heart of the fiesta of the bulls.’ And then the writer went on to become quite critical.

It wouldn’t be a show without Punch. Gerry Adams was in Bilbao again yesterday, giving advice to ETA’s political arm, Batasuna. Representatives of the latter may or may not be about to meet with the Spanish government, despite it being illegal. My guess is Mr Adams’ advice was ‘Hold out for everything you want and don’t be too scrupulous about fulfilling your side of any bargain.’

THE TOWER OF BABEL

Circumstances change principles. When the Spanish government had the EU Constitution printed in Valencian, the Catalan government objected and insisted this wasn’t necessary, as they were the same language. Today we read it has banned the use in Catalunian schools of something written in Valencian, as only Catalan is allowed for education purposes. Or something like that.

SPANISH/GALICIAN POLITICS AND CULTURE

Duardón has written from Albaredo [near Lugo] to say:-

1. Many people just cannot accept that Spain is a multinational state. There are 4 nations. Even Spain admits this in the Spanish constitution.

Well, this reluctance may arise because, according to Wikipedia at least, “The Spanish Constitution, although affirming the sovereignty of the Spanish Nation, recognises historical nationalities.” And to most people, ‘historical nationalities’ is simply not the same as ‘nations’. Or to quote Wikipedia again –“The Spanish Constitution of 1978 … recognizes historic entities (‘nationalities’, a carefully chosen word in order to avoid ‘nations’) and regions, inside the unity of the Spanish nation.” All that said, I doubt that anyone outside Spain really cares abut these word games. If you want to believe there is one supra-nation and four nations, no one is going to stop you. And this is because it doesn’t really matter to anyone except you.

2. The image I and others have of Spain is a Francoist invention and that it’s our problem, not Spain’s.

Hmm. I wonder if he’s read any books written by foreign authors long before Franco announced - via fellow Gallego Sr. Fraga - that Spain was ‘different’. He could, perhaps, start with Galicia vista por un inglés, which is available in Gallego and written in the 1920s. Then there’s The Bible in Spain, written in the 1830s. Or The Spanish Labyrinth, written in the 1930’s by an Englishman [Gerard Brenan] who detested the Fascists but who – as you know if you’ve got this far - made remarks about Spanish traits rather similar to those one hears today.

3. Spain is recovering its soul.

I presume he means after its semi-destruction by the Fascists. I don’t really know what he’s saying here but I’m all for the erasure of the last traces of Fascism. Unless this means re-establishing kingdoms not seen for several hundred years.