It’s reported that the number of sharks off the Barcelona coast has risen significantly in the last few years. If this is a good thing, this will be down to excellent Catalan government. If it’s bad, it’ll surely be the fault of Madrid. With a nationalist government in power, the Scots are going to see a lot of this sort of thing over the coming years.

The ‘two week’ election period is drawing to a close. By Monday morning we’ll know the stamp of the government which is going to have to wrestle with the challenges of an economy growing considerably less rapidly than in the past 10 years or so and which will no longer mask other important problems. I quoted a few days ago the figures for new property permits over the last three years. And now we have those for housing starts over the last five, plus the construction industry’s forecast for this year. So . . .
03: 690k
04: 740k
05: 786k
06: 910k
07: 689k
08: 200k
It’s hardly surprising, then, that forecasts of unemployment in the construction sector are particularly bad. In fact, over the last six months they’ve gone from 239,000 to 305,000.

John Chappell over at Iberia Notes yesterday gave links to many of the Anglo takes on Spain’s election, and on the TV debates in particular. And you can get a trenchant view of the latter at the Puerta del Sol blog. I particularly liked this comment from Newsweek:- The two parties and their leaders behave "like 17th-century armies where one side shoots, then reloads while the other side shoots," says a political analyst at a Spanish bank. As a consequence, says William Chislett, the author of several books on Spain, "the level of disenchantment with the political system is at an all-time high." All in all, it hasn’t been an edifying spectacle and, if the right-of-centre PP party fails to win, it will have no one else to blame but itself for a poor campaign. Doubtless, there will then be blood on the carpet. Apart from that, perhaps the economy bombed too soon. As it were. People are still only too willing to blame the nasty, stupid Americans for the downturn, rather than Mr Z.

But, hey ho, someone else is always worse off. The Zimbabwean dollar has fallen to 25 million to one US dollar. With inflation at 100,000%, Zimbabweans now need to exchange about 19 kilos in weight of their own currency to secure just one $100 note. It would be funny if people weren’t dying of starvation there.

And talking of people suffering – though this time from self-inflicted wounds – here’s a bizarre site where you indulge a macabre desire to place a bet on the date at which Amy Winehouse finally pays the price for her own indulgences. As you can see, it has a Chose your ‘girlfriend’ link. I’m rather doubtful about this, while appreciating its appeal to some of those who hit this blog.

One gets used to reading and hearing of the extraordinary lengths to which Spanish parents will go to mollycoddle their offspring but I have to admit I was a tad surprised to see the Director of Prisons had built a flat for her daughter in the HQ of the relevant organisation. Her defence was even more astonishing – “It’s only a small flat. And I’ve got a right to live with my daughter". So it’s a good job she doesn’t have five or ten kids. Not that traditional, then.

If the EU now has a concerted foreign policy, what on earth is the French President doing trying to mediate between Colombia and Venezuela? Is he really only there because the lifts in his shoes make him taller than most of the people he will meet? Or is he compensating for the fact that Mrs Merkel has recently hit his Mediterranean Union firmly on the head?

Galicia Facts

Yet another kamikaze driver was arrested on the A6 between La Coruña and Lugo yesterday, after going 13km down the wrong side of the motorway. As he was only 42, we can probably rule out senility in this case. He was, of course, three times over the drink limit. But we can probably add tiredness to inebriation as a likely cause, as it was 6 in the morning when he was stopped.

In one of those endless region v. region comparisons which fill Spanish papers, we learn that Galicia is at the top end of the scale for wasp and bee stings. You’ve been warned. Property stings, on the other hand, tend to take place at the other end of the country. Or nation of nations, if you prefer.