There is in the Spanish character a strain - almost certainly confined to males – which induces dogmatic – and aggressive - argumentation even when it’s clear to all that a contention has been proved wrong. In the worst cases, this continues even when the protagonist knows he’s wrong. I guess it’s all to do with loss of face. I first saw this in my teenage stepson, who’d been brought up in Spain, but I’ve seen it many times since. And I write this as someone who doesn’t like to lose an argument himself. But there comes a point when gracious defeat is the only respectable route. In theory, if not in Spanish practice.

Talking of difficult folk . . . I heard this wonderful injunction – aimed at teenagers – on a BBC podcast yesterday:- Fed up with being ordered around by your parents? Why not get a job, leave home and pay for everything yourself? Do it NOW, while you still know everything.

Britain is said to be suffering a net brain drain. If you want one columnist’s view on why this is happening, click here. In my case, my elder daughter lives in Madrid but my younger daughter prefers to stay in Leeds. However, as she works a 12-hour, paper-hounded day as a teacher and had her car stolen for the third time last night, I suspect it won’t be long before her brain emigrates as well.

It’s been snowing in Athens and in Crete. And even in Saudi Arabia. The British gadfly, Christopher Booker writes that, though it may be too early to draw conclusions as to what this says about changing climate patterns, the fact remains that such drastic cooling hardly accords with classic global warming theory. . . It accords better with the predictions of that growing body of scientists who argue that climate change is caused less by CO2 emissions than by magnetic activity on the Sun. His contention is that, given the vast amounts of money projected to deal with the CO2 challenge, perhaps it would be better to be a bit more sure of things. On this, he quotes the Yale Professor William Nordhaus’s estimate of 34 trillion [€23 trillion] for the measures proposed by Al Gore. I think he has a point. But doubt that many will listen to a heretic.

By the way, if you go to this article, you can also read about an illustrative example of dual standards in the EU parliament.

Galicia Facts

The Pontevedra town council has introduced a new law aimed at stopping the binge drinking in the old quarter every Thursday and Friday night. Perhaps because of differences of view within the governing Socialist-Nationalist coalition, the measure is loosely drawn and no one appears to know what it really means. The only thing we can be sure of is that the option of moving the entire ‘event’ to an empty space on the edge of the new town has been rejected. The new law does provide, at the insistence of the Socialists, for the fining of parents of convicted minors. But it will be interesting to see whether much of this is done. My guess is not a lot.

Spain has had coast-protecting laws on its statute books for almost twenty years. And there's been a raft of new laws tightening the restrictions over the last four or five years. At least, that was my impression. But now I read there are to be 1,153 properties built within 100 metres of the beach in Sanxenxo - The Marbella of Galicia, as I wrote yesterday. Quite how this is possible I don’t know. Perhaps it has something to do with the way local and regional governments – as with the anti-smoking laws – can stick one or two fingers up to Madrid. A local politician was quoted as saying yesterday the new laws had ‘arrived too late for Sanxenxo’ but I’ve no idea what this means. That said, many laws in Spain seem to fit into this box.

Finally, the Vice President, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, has assured us the widespread view she’s a lesbian married to a female sports journalist is false. This may be good news for the rest of Spain but, for those of us terrified by her, it’s awful. I can’t imagine what forms my nightmares will take now.