Another arrogant Anglo rag, The Financial Times, wonders whether President Zapatero hasn’t been a touch hubristic in boasting that the Spanish economy is now bigger per capita than Italy’s and promising to make the Spanish richer than the French. The paper sees a ‘serious correction’ as inevitable and also touches on some of Spain’s unaddressed underlying problems, such as low productivity. Finally, it makes a couple of recommendations as to how he might go if re-elected. You can read it all here. Incidentally, President Z has accused the Opposition of being ‘unpatriotic’ in endorsing doubts about the economy. This is surely a strange claim in a Western democracy. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear, say, President Chavez of Venezuela use it. But the President of Spain? Can he really think the voters are that unsophisticated? Or has he just lost touch with reality? Though in a different way from President Sarkozy. As far as we know.

If you were a Martian visiting Spain and wanted to be scandalised, you could do worse than shove yesterday’s El País into Google’s Spanish-to-Martian translation program and then read, firstly, the 2-page special on prostitution and, secondly, the article about the head of the Castellón council. The former tells us the already-huge sex industry is growing apace, fuelled by the ever-larger number of very visible establishments, the absence of social stigma and the demand for instant gratification on the part of young men who can’t even be bothered to chat up the women who these days are just as willing to sleep with them as even the notorious Swedes. But who might just expect a bit of commitment. And perhaps longer than 5 minutes. The second report relates to a hard-hitting election ad put out by the PSOE party in Castellón, pointing the finger at the current president of the council and asking the voters questions like:-
Do people make you gifts of land and houses?
Do you have more than a million euros in 39 separate bank accounts?
Did you forget to make tax return last year?

Truth to tell, prostitution and local government corruption are two massive stains on Spain’s national character but there seems to be little evidence that anyone wants to do much about them. My own view is that nothing will happen about the scandalous prostitution industry until Spanish women take up arms against it. But I see no sign of this happening. As for the corruption, I’m lost for a view and fear increasing devolution of power will only make it worse. At least in the short run. Maybe I’ll stand for mayor when my Spanish nationality comes through. And I am fluent in Gallego. Though I would, of course, be willing to be bought off.

Yesterday the wind and the rain came at us in full off-the-Atlantic force. Walking across the bridge into town – which acts as a wind tunnel – the thought struck me that it’d be good training for anyone who wanted to cross the Atlantic in a zinc bath. Especially as passing drivers decline to take the poncey option of slowing down to avoid drenching your legs and feet when they aquaplane through the puddles. And on the way back, it occurred to me that whoever invented the umbrella was probably the first person to realise human flight was possible. At times like this, the only compensation is the amusement afforded by the sight of dozens of twisted umbrellas abandoned in the town’s rubbish bins. Well, it make me smile anyway.