I’ve long since given up trying to understand what happens in the pits of Formula 1 racing teams. So I‘m not even bothering to try to get to grips with the issue of culpability for yesterday’s incident involving team-mates Alonso and Hamilton. The former has been moved from pole to 6^th position for today’s Grand Prix in Hungary and the Spanish press will probably go berserk. They usually attribute his set-backs to favouritism towards Hamilton so I wonder what conspiracy theory they’ll come up with to explain the team owner putting the blame squarely on Hamilton and exculpating Alonso for the incident. It’ll have to be pretty clever. Meanwhile, there must be some risk the two protagonists will kill each other in an attempt to prove who’s best. Which should do wonders for viewing figures.

I touched on the nightmare of Heathrow yesterday and this led to a dialogue in the Comments around the issues of British arrogance and antipathy to Spanish ownership of British companies. Personally, I think these are unrelated and can accept the former while denying the latter. It so happens the Sunday Telegraph has an article on the airport this morning, containing the following comment - The Government was right to allow a Spanish owner to take over BAA last year. For the full text, click here.

For obvious reasons, unemployment in Spain usually falls during the summer. But not this year. The reason is said to be the loss of 12,000 jobs in the construction sector, which I mention just en passant. Surprisingly, Galicia is bucking this year’s trend, as unemployment here fell during July. This foxed me until a saw a headline in today’s Voz de Galicia to the effect that the region is ‘enjoying’ a ‘fever’ of construction which sets it apart from the rest of Spain. As most of this appears to be taking place close to my house, I am ambivalent about this stroke of good/bad luck. And time will tell whether this is a smart move on the part of the construction companies from Madrid and Valencia who piled into Galicia a couple of years back and whose properties are now coming on stream.

In my first post of 15 May, I noted that two collared doves had built a nest between my study and bedroom windows. They later abandoned the nest, with two eggs in it. But they returned two weeks or so ago and laid another two eggs. Since then for I’ve been careful not to put my head out of either window or to raise or lower the blind of my bedroom window, as it’s only 12 inches [30cm] away from the nest. As a result, two chicks have now hatched . . .

I think I’ll see what sort of personality they have before I name them.