Global warming has yet to reach us here in Galicia. At least on the evidence of today and, indeed, the first six months of this year. There are some who believe that it won’t be here for 10 or 15 years yet and that, more importantly, it ain’t due to carbon monoxide emissions. Here is an article by one such person and it makes fascinating reading. “It is becoming clear, “ he says “that all the costly measures so far proposed to cut carbon emissions are pie-in-the-sky. Even the environmentalists have realised that biofuels are a farce, needing more CO2 to produce than they save. The EU's much-vaunted "emissions trading scheme", so far costing us all an estimated £40 billion, has not resulted in any reductions of CO2 emissions whatever”. He goes on to say that “This infatuation with cutting carbon emissions is beginning to look extraordinarily reckless as the whole scientific theory on which it is based now appears distinctly questionable”. You’ll have to read the whole article if you want to know his evidence for this.

So Frank Lampard of Chelsea says he won’t stay unless they pay him ₤140,000 a week. Say, €168,000. The only thing more obscene about this is that Inter Milan are apparently willing to pay it, presumably on the back of, inter alia, huge ticket prices for the punters. But I guess no one forces them to attend.

More football madness has come from a man – Sep Blatter - who’s apparently already famous for doing what was called the George Brown Tango when I was a kid. GB was an eccentric senior Labour politician who couldn’t control his mouth, even when he was sober. To dance his tango, you put one foot forward, open your mouth, and then stick your second foot in it. Anyway, despite Blatter’s position as head of UEFA, commenting on the Ronaldo spat between Man United and Real Madrid, he says the interests of the player must come first and that he should be free to do what he likes, regardless of his contract - so long as he merely compensates Man United.

Talking of ignoring rules and regulations . . .

Photo Gallery: A Primer on Parking in Poio and Pontevedra

Armed with my new camera - of which I will soon tire - I yesterday took pictures of standard Spanish parking on my walks into and out of town. Here are the results from the 10 minute walk in. Tomorrow, I shall post the rest.

I have to admit this is rather like shooting fish in a barrel. You could get these pictures - or worse - in just about any Spanish town, I guess.

I leave it to others - especially Spaniards - to decide whether this is evidence of my contention that one has little duty of consideration towards strangers in this land of self-regarding individualists . . . .

We start with some pretty normal parking on a solid yellow line. Nothing particularly dangerous about this - except that they block one's vision of the zebra crossing.


This is the example which most gets my goat. The four cars in the centre are all illegally parked at a bus-stop. Not only that, they 1. make it impossible for large vehicles to get round the roundabout; 2. they block the view of cars coming up to the roundabout in front of them; and 3. worst of all, they block the view of pedestrians using the zebra crossing behind them. But nothing is ever done about this, even by cops on traffic duty. But, then, you can drive past these using your mobile phone.


Down in the Carrefour car-park below the bridge, the driver of this car has decided the yellow lines don't apply to him/her.


Another example from the Carrefour car-park. The owners of the 3 cars parked in the road simply can't be bothered to use the spaces provided.


Another common-or-garden occurrence. Two drivers have decided not to bother to look for a space or to go into their underground car-park but to leave it to others to blow their horn, as and when they want to depart. One of the latter may be waiting next to the rearmost car to have a word with its owner. But I rather doubt it.


The owner of this car has decided that the way to deal with inadequate space is simply to use some of the pavement/sidewalk.


Again, pretty standard stuff. All the cars in the middle line are actually idle and double parked. You don't have to be Einstein to realise what happens when a large vehicle tries to comes down the far left side and one of the perpetrators declines to abandon his/her coffee. Or to desist from making love on the 4th floor of a flat block


Here's a car which is in the pedestrian area and parked entirely on the pavement. The driver is probably in the bank. You can't see it but its hazard warning lights are on, making everything OK by Spanish standards.


And, finally for today, here's one of the two cops who drove right past the car in the previous picture without giving it a first glance, never mind a second one. What, you may ask, is the point of the law?


More tomorrow, on the way out of town.