Old habits die hard. Especially for old men. As if the opposition PP party didn’t have a big enough challenge ahead of next spring’s general elections, the ex-Franco minister and retired president of the Galician Xunta, Manuel Fraga [now approaching 150] has stuck his oar into the debate on the party’s leadership, effectively undermining the current incumbent. Feathers all over the dovecote now, of course, with leading party members straining to keep their response to this gratuitous interference within diplomatic limits.

Housing is a major issue in Spain, one factor being the low level of rental properties available. The relevant Minister has said she’s going to introduce tax measures to incentivise owners to rent out empty properties but, unless something is done about the major disincentive of poor legal redress against defaulting tenants, I doubt these will achieve much. Incidentally, am I being ‘youthist’ to wonder whether someone aged 36 has enough experience to run such an important ministry? Or just old?

A Spanish reader recently made a positive comment or two about the Arab [‘Moorish’] influence on Spain. Apparently – though not very surprisingly - this didn’t go down well with some of his compatriots. Undaunted, I quote here the start of a blog post from a non-Spaniard on this subject - Were I a Spaniard with a name denoting Arab blood, my pride would be insufferable because of the cultivation brought to Spain by the Saracen. What was Europe in the Eighth and Ninth Century? A waste in which crouched dumb races, either fallen from the recently banished Roman Culture or never having developed. If you want to read the rest, click here.

The Voz de Galicia seems to me to be a fine newspaper but I noticed this morning its internet edition has the following order for its sections:-

The front page

Galicia

Sport

Society

Finance

Spain

The world

So, I’m left wondering what this says, if anything, about the priorities of Galician readers.

Talking of the Voz, there was an article in yesterday’s edition on the issue of teaching the Galician national anthem to kids in kindergartens. The writer questioned whether there could be any other reason for this than the sort of indoctrination previously associated with proselytising religions and well known political regimes. Which seems a fair question to me.

The writer/journalist Francisco Umbral was given fulsome praise in all newspapers yesterday, regardless of political stamp. El Pais called him the voice of irony and said he filled his prose with lyricism, a cheeky irreverence, humour, sarcasm and irony. Which, apart from my imperfect Spanish, explains why I could hardly ever understand what he was going on about. Unless you’re fluent in a language, irony is a hard thing to get. As I know only too well from the angry comments I get in English broken enough to suggest the writer has the same problem with my stuff as I had with Umbral’s. I’ll probably now be accused of arrogantly equating them. Hey ho.

Finally, here’s another article which might help to enlighten non-Brits on the breakdown of authority and respect in the UK. Spanish readers will possibly be confused by the fact that riding bicycles on the pavement is considered wrong in Britain, as here it never takes place anywhere else. It may even be legal, as it is in Japan. Though I doubt it; just permitted.