I regularly say British and Spanish societies seem to be converging. 39% of Brits below 30 are now said to receive help from their parents in buying their first home - a figure which rises to 76% for those under 25. And this will allegedly get worse over the next two decades, unless there’s a dramatic increase in the number of houses built. As one commentator puts it – “All the indications are we’re creating a lost generation, saddled with credit card debts, mortgaged to the hilt if they can afford it and expected to work into their seventies to fund a half-way acceptable retirement. Their parents have stopped congratulating themselves on their good luck in living in a house that has trebled in value. Instead they notice with alarm their children cannot afford a house of the type they’d hoped to see them occupy as they prepare to provide the first grandchild”. Helping your kids throughout their lives has long, I think, been a feature of Spanish society but I wonder what the effects are going to be of the property boom of the last 10 years. Perhaps parents here should be praying the pessimistic forecasts of a crash come to fruition. Meanwhile, maybe it’s time to wheel out the Spanish maxim “You should live off your parents until you’re old enough to live off your children”.

By my rule of thumb, 8am in most other countries is 6am in Spain, and so on through the day. Why do I mention this? Because my house-guests hoping for a Sunday sleep-in, were brutally shocked out of repose this morning by the thunderous firecrackers heralding a [very] local fiesta. What fun. And, now that they’re up and about, they only have to wait 6 hours until lunch at the usual time of 3pm. Unless I take pity on them.

As it’s Sunday. . . Another of those odd film title translations:-
English title: My stepmother is an alien.
Spanish title: My girlfriend is an alien. Why??

President Sarkozy is reported to have worried the Academie Francaise by threatening to stop using the subjunctive mood in his discourses. This, of course, has virtually died out in English. Would that this would happen in Spanish too. Then I wouldn’t have to wonder whether [and why] it’s needed in sentences like Dos días después de que ETA anunciara el fin de la tregua . . . And which one of the two imperfect subjunctive options to go for. Life is already too short. Especially at my age.

Finally, Spanish speakers may be tickled to know there’s a river Gallo in our local town of Cuntis. But only if, like me, they have an adolescent sense of humour. They may also be amused to hear the English translation of gallo is now officially proscribed in the UK, in favour of the longer version of the word. This probably happened in the USA ten years ago.