Looking out of my bedroom window yesterday morning, I spied a man digging in the corner of my garden. As he’d cut down part of my hedge, uprooted my bamboo plant and taken up several of the stones in a terrace I lovingly created a few years ago, I was not well pleased. So, I opened the window and called down to him. This is the conversation that ensued:-

Hola. Who are you and what are you doing?

There’s a problem with one of the lamps in the communal garden and we need to examine the cable that runs from the street through your garden.

OK but you’re doing this without my permission.

We didn’t think there was anyone in the house.

Well, there obviously is. Did you ring the bell?

Well, no because we’re at the back of the house and it’s a long way to go round the communal garden and get to the front of your house.

That’s not a good reason.

No. Very sorry.

I don’t know what you think but this has rather strengthened my suspicion the Spanish are not great at thinking about you in advance but are the world’s best apologisers after the event. And – like my Spanish-raised [ex]stepson – quite possibly the least sincere.

On to even more serious matters . . .

It’s not uncommon for Spanish friends to tell you they’re certainly not racist but they detest gypsies. As I live close to two permanent gypsy encampments, I have enough experience of their anti-social attitudes to be able to say that – however complex the reasons for the situation – it’s not too difficult to understand why the gypsies get a bad press. And they’ve been in the local news twice this week. Firstly, my local council has finally started to do what the courts long ago ordered them to do and knock down the illegal shacks in one encampment. Secondly, more than a hundred neighbours in a village up in the hills have leaped at the offer from a local bank of a 40 year, low interest loan of 2,000 euros each so as to prevent gypsies buying a 250,000 house there. As a [Spanish] friend said, given how difficult it is to get two or more Spaniards to act in unison, this is surely testament to the level of their fear as to what would happen next. See the Voz de Galicia for a comment of the issue of integration. Or, rather, the absence of it.

The Minister of Health feels that the regions of Madrid, La Rioja, Castile y León, Valencia and the Balearics have not obeyed the spirit of last year’s anti-smoking legislation. So they will be denied the central finance aimed at helping them implement it. Which should do the trick.

Galicia Facts

Weather-wise, October here has been as good as September. Given how dull and wet the 7 months of autumn and winter can be, this is excellent news. Especially for my bougainvillea, which appears to have decided to re-blossom.

A total of 1.75 million tourists came to Galicia this summer, 4% up on last year. However, hotel occupancy fell to 48%, continuing the trend of the last 3 years. This presumably means too many new hotels have been built.

Finally . .

British Lunacy Section

A couple of years ago, the British Library had a single set of signs outside the reading rooms, telling you to show your reader's pass. Now there are several sets of signs before you reach the reading rooms, announcing the prohibition of scissors, cleaning fluid, glue, umbrellas, knives; notices are also pasted to pillars inside the library, and on each desk. When it rains, the library forecourt now becomes a maze of barriers and cones; when it gets cold, there are oversize yellow thermometers to indicate that it is indeed cold. A similar shift has occurred in public spaces across the country. Streets are cluttered with statements of the obvious ("warning: vehicles in road", "trip hazard", "moving object") or incomprehensible ("trees removed"). Cones and safety tape get wound around any object that could conceivably obstruct pedestrians, be it a tree stump, a small hole or a shorn-off lamppost. And even if there is no cause for concern, the cones are left hanging around, just in case.. . . Perhaps it is fear of litigation but it is also an indication that safety is becoming a national ethic, and one of the main ways in which institutions relate to the public. Apparently there is never a good reason not to put up a caution sign, and somehow this is more urgent than the task of providing a useful public service. . . Needless warnings rob citizens of their independence and self-respect: we are addressed as irresponsible morons, requiring instructions for how to put one foot in front of the other.