Well, the institution of the siesta may well be dying here in Spain but in France the government wants to introduce it. Presumably it’s not content with having the shortest working week in the world, a stuttering economy and falling productivity levels. If they still existed, I’d sell Francs now.

In one of their excellent Spanish podcasts, the fine people from Notes from Spain talk about the merits of Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Hmm. . . I’m perfectly prepared to accept this is a seminal, groundbreaking work, showing great creativity and ingenuity but, my God, is it long. I’m currently on p. 409 of 940 and it’s taken me 2 years to get here. As this implies, it’s not always a hard-to-put-down book. Especially as I read it in bed. But the worst news – as I approach the end of Part One – is that the second part is even longer but allegedly ‘not as good’ as the first. I wonder if I’ll ever find out whether this is true or not. Meanwhile, I’ve probably annoyed even those Spanish readers not yet upset by my views on Galician nationalism.

The state statistics organisation reports that in 2005 suicides in Spain marginally outnumbered road deaths – 3,381 against 3,332. This is rather surprising but a quick search suggests the UK rate of 8.56 per 100,000 gives a total of around 5,200. This is certainly far higher than the total of c. 3,500 deaths on UK roads. Which is not very surprising.

Still on statistics - we’re told the federal states of Germany, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland and the USA have an average percentage pattern of central-regional-local government of 55, 27 and 18. For Spain, the numbers are 51, 36, and 13 and some say this is too much government at the regional level and not enough at the local level. Possibly but it’s often said the more local the government, the greater the corruption. And we probably have enough of this right now. Maybe things can be left until after the end of the construction bum.

These were the strangest routes to this blog during January . . .
Blindfolded and tied up women - This was on p. 91 of 100, so clearly an assiduous enquirer.
False Friends and Reckless Guesses - From a reader [the reader?] in Latvia.
animals sex women cow bull Portugal – Presumably from a Brit on the Algarve

Galicia Facts

The Xunta has announced state secondary school pupils will soon have to select a second obligatory foreign language. They don’t have a choice about the first – English – but French is expected to massively outperform German, Russian, Chinese, etc. when it comes to the second choice. This means Galician kids will leave school speaking 4 languages – Gallego, Spanish [‘Castellano’], English and, probably, French. Very impressive but quite a burden and one wonders what will have to give to accommodate it. Probably not Religion just yet, though the current [‘anti-clerical’] government has taken strides in this direction.