One of the things I like about Spain is that, as in France, it’s taken for granted that the country should have an elite. In the UK these days not only the concept but the very word is proscribed. That said, the columnist I quoted the other day about the widespread disenchantment with politicians in Spain said a major factor was that the country’s elite simply wasn’t up to the job. Does this imply that – at least in politics - they’re elite because of money and position, rather than talent? The wrong sort of elite. And possibly even worse than no elite at all.

The British have a poor reputation for learning foreign languages and it seems the Spanish are not far behind them. Perhaps because they both benefit from being native speakers of a world language. Anyway, it’s reported than only 1.7% of Spanish undergraduates are bi-lingual in Spanish and English, even though a good proportion of jobs these days call for this. A profit opportunity for someone, I would have thought. Outside the UK and Spain, 56% of EU students are said to be fluent in 2 languages. Which rather puts things in perspective. Of course, what’s really embarrassing is that 90% of people in Holland speak English better than most Brits.

Still on this theme, a BBC program the other day revealed that foreign language learning is so poor in the UK now that employers such as Newcastle airport authority are having to bring in foreigners to make flight announcements. All to do with achieving high grades in ‘easy’ subjects, it’s said, so that the school can rise up the league tables. I’m not sure I should reveal this but the point was also made that the only foreign language making headway was Spanish, because it’s ‘easier than German or French’. Which leaves Chinese absolutely nowhere, I guess.

Galicia Facts and Perspectives

My township of Poio is planning a museum in honour of what it says is its most illustrious son – Christopher Columbus. An historian with the wondrous name of Alfonso Philippot Abeledo has confirmed he really was born here. And not in Genoa or any of the other lying claimant cities. What’s really ironic about this is that Alfonso is half Italian. Must be the Philippot bit.

Travel: Ryanair has started its flights to Santiago from the East Midlands airport in Nottingham. And from Dublin, I think.

And finally, for those interested, . . .

The Great Galician Language Wars

I chatted yesterday to the director of the docudrama in which I played the captain of a British ship that sank off the Galician coast in the 19th century. As this is subtitled in Gallego, I asked which variant had been used. He laughed and said that, as some finance had come from the Xunta, they’d had to have the entire script approved as they went along to ensure compliance with the normativa - the guidelines on the top-down form of Gallego coming from the Academy and government apparatchiks. This had involved a young woman sitting with them in the studio, checking the script word by word. It would take Orwell to do justice to this, I suspect.

When I asked him how his kids felt about learning some subjects in this form of Gallego, he said they hated it, especially as they tended to fail in these because of the added difficulty involved. Is this really what the Nationalists want? Will they be victims of the Law of Unintended Consequences - a whole swathe of well-educated, middle class kids utterly turned away from the language? Or is this of no consequence to class warriors on a linguistic mission and armed with a grudge and a thirst for post-Franco revenge?