As it’s Saturday and the Galician nationalists who love to hate my blog may be taking a day off, I’m citing an article on Scottish nationalism from a Scottish member of the British government. For new readers, my long-standing view is that, though I support the promotion of Galician culture and language, I’m against any degree of direct or indirect compulsion when it comes to the language. But, above all else, I regard nationalism as quintessentially divisive. And destructive of what should be a two-faceted sense of pride. So it’s hardly surprising I would sympathise with sentiments such as these - Spare us this ghastly nationalism . . . Scotland is succumbing to a shallow, narrow-minded, narcissistic attitude that does it no favours. It should stop. . . I am unequivocally against narrow-minded nationalism in all its guises for the simple reason that it is divisive rather than unifying. For the full article, click here.

By the way, I suspect one would never hear a Catalan, Basque or Galician member of President Zapatero’s cabinet weighing in against any of the Spanish brands of nationalism. Or should that be ‘non-Spanish’? Simply put, without the support of the nationalist parties, the PSOE party could not retain power - nationally or regionally. Herein lies Spain’s problem. How to appease these supporters without breaking up the state. A nice challenge.

I joked yesterday that, for the Spanish, reading gets in the way of having fun. Smack on cue, a Spanish friend has sent me a set of photos on the theme Spain is different. One of these shows a T-shirt on which is written The Spanish Triathlon - Drinking. Eating. Fucking.

On a morning when I was jolted from sleep by Nice-but-Noisy Tony bawling at his kids, I happened to read this post from Ben Curtis over at Notes from Spain. So, if you’re coming to live here, you’ve been warned. Yet again. Ironically, though, my daughter’s attic flat in the heart of Madrid is quieter than my townhouse up above Pontevedra. Perhaps her flat was built before the critical date of 1923 cited by Ben.

Weather-wise, December in Galicia has opened with the return of the Atlantic Blanket. However, it must be said November was almost as sunny as September and October, though naturally somewhat colder at night. Incidentally, I read yesterday that all this dry weather had been good for burglaries. From the criminal’s point of view, of course. This has certainly been true in my neck of the woods. Which possibly explains the fortuitous appearance at my gate yesterday of a representative of a major burglar alarm company. Perhaps they get a copy of the police reports.