First the football and now the tennis! But that’s not all . . . The first stage of the Tour de France was won by a Spaniard. And, in Budapest yesterday, another was named Mister Gay Pride Europa 2008. What a week! Thank God Hamilton managed to win the British Grand Prix yesterday to restore some British pride. Not to mention the 14 year old young lady who won the junior championship. And whom we may never hear of again.

The last big flourish of the PSOE conference was to announce the appointment of another 31 year old woman – Leire Pajín - to the position of number 3 in the party’s ranks. My impression is there’s some sort of bidding war going on for the country’s female vote, with the opposition conservative PP party moving leftwards towards the centre and the governing socialist PSOE party moving leftwards towards . . . well, more socialism, I guess. Certainly, if it has any ‘right wing’ measures planned for dealing with Spain’s economic situation, it’s keeping them well under wraps. All the talk is of maintaining public expenditure and protecting workers from the harsh winds of an economic downturn. Which, naturally, doesn’t go down well with everyone.

The Spanish Royal Academy had pronounced on English words ending in ‘ing’. I can’t swear to this but I think there are three categories:-

1. Words not yet admitted into Spanish – Big bang, for example.

2. Words admitted into Spanish and now regarded as Spanish – gong and pimpón [ping-pong] but not dumpin [dumping]

3. Words for which there are irregular plurals that might need to be thought further about – cáterin/cáterines, márquetin, ranquin/ranquines.

But I’m not at all sure on this. Someone might want to help out.

Galicia Facts

In the recent university entrance exams here, the lowest average marks were recorded in the subjects of Spanish and Galician languages. I wonder what this portends, if anything. I suppose it’s possible to see prima facie evidence of the negative impact of compelling kids to study their subjects in both languages. Or perhaps, as some say, it’s just the SMS/texting generation dispensing with grammar – on which there is a huge emphasis in Spain – and finding it difficult to string together a proper sentence in any language.

More details have been announced of a new autovia to run from Portugal in the south to A Coruña in the north. As there is already a national road [the N550] and a toll-charging autopista [the A9] covering this ground, I for one am unsure as to the rationale. Especially as traffic on the A9 is light. I may have said this before but it might have something to do with the availability of EU funds. And the fact that, as Francis Bacon said, ‘Money is like muck. No good unless you spread it’. No, not the artist.

I’ve never been able to understand how all eleven [ yes, eleven] Galician daily newspapers can stay in profitable circulation. And I’ve been advised a few times not to pay too much attention to the circulation figures as it’s apparently possible that town hall funds are allocated to the purchase of ghost subscriptions. Anyway, for what it’s worth, the leading rag is the Voz de Galicia, at 587,000 copies, and bringing up the rear is the Diario de Arousa, with 15,000. I forgot to note whether these were per year, per month or per day. Not that it really matters.

A meeting will take place in Madrid this month with two main purposes:- 1. To guarantee that the AVE high speed train will be running in Galicia in 2012, in line with long-standing assurances from the politicians; and 2. To decide which of Galicia’s three small, competing airports is to get the runway needed to cope with legions of flying pigs.