Changing Spain? At the end of a large restaurant meal on Saturday, I asked the waiter if he’d give me the ample remains for the abandoned dogs which are a feature of the woods behind my house, especially after Christmas. He expressed regret and said the heath laws precluded this. I wondered later whether he’d have said the same if I’d asked for the meat for myself. If so, we now have the situation where you can get ‘doggy bags’ in the ultra-litigious USA but not in the somewhat more laissez-faire Spain. What is the world coming to?

Which is a question which raised itself again yesterday when I read that the ‘modernised’ Scouting Association in the UK has introduced a proficiency badge for Public Relations.

The word maruja [maruxa in Gallego] is defined in my dictionary as ‘traditional housewife’ but I’m told it usually conveys the pejorative meaning of ‘gossip’ and/or ‘obsessed with housework’. Or even ‘dedicated to serving the males of the household’. I mention this because last night in the old quarter of Pontevedra I passed a clothing shop with Maruxa above its door. Looking at the items in the window, I felt it'd be hard to imagine contents more in keeping with the negative connotations of the word. So, could the name of the shop be ironic? Or an example of the Galician humour called retranca? I suspect not.

Seeing the headline Sicko above a column in a local paper last night, I assumed it was a clever allusion to the antics of the love-sick President Sarkozy, often called Sarko in France. But it turned out to be a reference to some film by Michael Moore. So, a wasted opportunity.

Galicia Facts

Foreigners represent 4% of the population of Pontevedra province. Of the Non-EU variety, the list is headed by Colombians, followed by Brazilians, Moroccans, Venezuelans, Argentinians, Ecuadorians and Uruguayans. In descending order, the EU foreigners hale from Portugal, Italy, Romania, France and Germany. We Brits don’t even rate a mention. But I imagine the situation is rather different up in Lugo and Ourense provinces, where we will outnumber the reducing natives by 2050. By which time the area will be known as the La Costa del Miño y del Sil.

There is not much namby-pambiness about ‘cute’ foxes here. This weekend saw the Provincial fox-hunting championships and a total of 39 carcasses were featured prominently in the local press. As ever, there were vets on hand to verify that some of them hadn’t actually been shot a couple of days previously.

There was a road accident in Vigo over the weekend which had all the usual elements – early hours of Saturday morning; two youths in their 20s; an Audi and a BMW; speeds in excess of 100kph in a 50 zone; and, finally, the death of two people. Except the corpses weren’t of the two young cretins but of a middle aged couple whose Citroen AX was hit head-on by the Audi. The very Spanish elements of this tragedy were that the youths were engaged in an illegal road race in the middle of the city and the accident happened when they both swerved to avoid a car which was illegally double-parked. There has since been a massive street demonstration by residents against the races they say have long been a feature of their barrio. The police will now presumably do something to stop these, leaving me wondering – as I regularly do – why it often seems to take a death in Spain before the authorities act like they have some authority. I doubt that a cost-benefit analysis lies behind their inaction and continue to wonder whether it’s the fear of appearing ‘fascist’. Which may well be nonsense on my part but I struggle to come up with anything else. Possibly the absence of an ability to sue the local police chief for culpable negligence or something similar. Anyway, the Voz de Galicia is now asking readers to report other illegal races so perhaps action will now be taken before more deaths occur. Let’s hope so anyway.