The woman who heads up the Ministry of Development is still under fire for Catalunia’s widespread infrastructure problems. Not that this region has a monopoly of these; just maximum visibility. Plus, of course, highly vocal groups of Nationalists who’ve been taking Victimhood lessons since birth. At a recent grilling in parliament, the Minister was labelled by one of these an ‘Andalucian señorita’, implying she was haughty, arrogant and disrespectful towards the hard-working Catalans. To say the least, she was not well pleased. I guess the British equivalent would be someone from the Scottish Nationalist party claiming a UK minister was unfit for her job simply because she was from the Welsh or English landed aristocracy. Tribal nonsense in other words. But it plays well back home, I guess. Anyway, I suspect the lady in question is not long for the chop, if only because Catalunia is now seen as President Zapatero’s biggest challenge ahead of the March general elections. And ‘something has to be done’. I give her a month, max.

The Spanish state television and radio broadcaster has announced that for the first time in 51 years it won’t be covering the imminent bullfighting season. I’m not sure of the significance of this but it follows hard on the heels of news that a campaign has begun in France against the corridas that take place there. So, will Pontevedra’s bullring close in my lifetime? I rather doubt it.

Talking of France, I see it’s grabbed both first and second places in a survey conducted among British holidaymakers. The theme of this, though, was the world’s most disappointing tourist traps. Here’s the top ten:-

1. The Eiffel Tower

2. The Louvre (Mona Lisa)

3. Times Square

4. Las Ramblas, Barcelona

5. The Statue of Liberty

6. The Spanish Steps, Rome

7. The White House

8. The Pyramids, Egypt

9. The Brandenburg Gate, Germany

10. The Leaning Tower of Pisa

It’s good to see this gives the Catalans another reason to bitch. Ironically, though, if you take the Catalan Nationalist view that ‘Catalunia is not Spain’, Spanish involvement in this black list is otherwise only tangential. So, Spain is different; it never disappoints. Stay with that thought. Unless you regard sleeping as an essential element of a good holiday.

BTW, both Friday and Saturday's posts were very late. So may have been missed . . .