A columnist on a major UK newspaper notes that – after a period of rampant feminism – things there have turned full circle. According to her, men are once again men and women, women. Or, as she puts it, “The dungarees have been put back in the cupboard. Even our role models are once more masculine or feminine”. Well, in Spain there never was a wheel to turn. Just as the country missed out on the Catholic Reformation, so it seems to have been bypassed by the feminist revolution. Here, there aren’t now and never have been many women prepared to wear figure-killing dungarees. Men are invariably masculine and women invariably feminine. As just as things are simpler when it comes to religion [you are Catholic or you aren’t], so they are when it comes to sex. Men are always guapo and women guapa. Unless, of course, they’re guapisima.

The determination of Spanish women to remain glamorous until they pop their clogs does at least give us the satisfaction of witnessing some sights to which words simply can’t do justice. The TV, of course, is full of them, forever reminding me of my brother’s dictum that it’s amazing what you see when you don’t have your rifle with you.

And talking of the TV, I noticed last night national TV has now adopted the practices of their cash-strapped regional inferiors and started to put banner adverts at the bottom of the screen even during the action of a football match. But the nadir was reached when in the 87th minute, a [female] commentator was introduced to give us the deathless [and breathless] comment that “Only three minutes remain for Spain to equalise against Northern Ireland. And also for you to call or text the numbers on your screen to win 10,000 euros!”. Is there no end to the tolerance of Spanish viewers?

Earlier this week, Ryanair called for a public demonstration in Madrid against Iberia, offering to give free tickets to those who came with appropriate banners. Thousands promptly did so, only to discover the hapless Director of Marketing had only 500 tickets in her handbag. A mini-riot ensued and the airline is now being prosecuted. But I doubt it will be much concerned by the adverse[?] publicity.

I recently changed my mobile phone so as to avoid the problem of a 2-key security guard failing to stop it making calls on its own in my pocket. I got one with a lid. This works very well but the bloody thing has a camera with a switch on the side. Yesterday, on a short car journey, I took 42 pictures of the inside of my trouser pocket. It was great fun deleting these one by one, when the Delete All option refused to work. Don’t you just love technology.

Galicia Facts

There are said to be 10,000 prostitutes operating here, with 97% of them being foreign. In this case, I assume ‘foreign’ means they come from overseas and not just from one of Spain’s other regions. So whores are not like banks. And banks are not like whores?

Over the summer, road deaths in Galicia fell by just under 6%. This, of course, is great news. But it compares badly with a national average of 22%. Which would be higher without the Galician component, of course.


Finally, hits to my blog rose by 50% yesterday. Either Galicia is in the news or the mere mention of Catalunia, the Basque Country or independistas means I’m hit by all those cybernauts around the world automatically tracking these words. If so, it’s about to happen again.