Occasionally I feel a grudging respect for the Spanish reluctance to ignore personally inconvenient rules, whatever their religious or lay provenance. But then I read something like the news item that the 14 year-old kid from Cáceres gored through the lung in Mexico last week was due to make an illegal appearance in a corrida in La Coruña this week. And I wonder how such a blatant wrong can be widely tolerated in a developed society. I doubt it does much for Spain’s image. But I guess those involved on both sides of the boards consider this an inferior consideration to that of their enjoyment or profit. If they think about it at all.

The right-of-centre paper, El Mundo, persists in its campaign to prove there’s a government-police conspiracy around the investigation of the Madrid train bombings of 2004 which brought the socialists to power. Its purpose seems to be to prove the Aznar government was not stupid and/or dishonest in immediately pointing the finger at ETA. I don’t know whether this is a sign of desperation but I get the impression El Mundo’s latest claim is there was ‘at least’ a joint-venture between ETA and Islamic terrorists. This week a few ETA members are due to appear at the trial but my guess is El Mundo will claim they’re straw defendants deliberately set up by the government to falsely deny ETA involvement. It’s hard to let go of a conspiracy theory.

Hits to my blog have soared in the last 2 days, possibly reflecting automatic hits by machines tracking ‘nationalism’. But, since I’ve had no green-ink abusive comments, I must have stayed on the right side of the line. Or the Nationalists of various hues have all given up on me.

Fashion queries:-

1. Have dark brown tights/leggings suddenly become fashionable in other parts of the world? Possibly a while ago.

2. Are micro skirts really making an overdue comeback?

Finally, a history question – Can it be true that Incas poured molten gold down the throats of captured conquistadors. Or is this just someone’s thought as to what would have been a good idea at the time?