It's not often you get the chance to quote the English philosopher Francis Bacon twice in a week. OK, twice in a lifetime. But I was reminded of something he'd said by a columnist who wrote - in the context of cheap laptops - that La crisis aguda el ingenio. The crisis is sharpening inventiveness. Or as Bacon put it a few centuries ago - If miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in adversity.

In the UK, the percentage of kids in private education is around 9%, I think. But 51% of parents say they’d resort to it, if only they could afford to. Fat chance. The cost has reportedly risen 40% in only five years. This must reflect demand and so presumably says quite a lot about the public sector at which so much money has been hurled to little effect during the last 10 years or so. As someone educated in the state sector – by sadistic Christian Brothers, as it happens – but who paid for two daughters to be privately educated, I’m left wondering what on earth I would or could do now, if 20 years younger. Emigration aside.

Strangely enough, the above paragraph echoes with a sentence from an article cited today by reader Moscow - 50 per cent of Russia’s best-educated and most prosperous citizens would emigrate if they could. But I guess they have bigger problems than poor quality state education.

As you may know, Spain permits same-sex marriages. What you may not know is that both men in such a marriage are called marido [husband] here. Logical but odd on the ear. Why not that multi-purpose word pareja [partner]?

The Spanish [Catalan] chain Mango has opened a store in Erbil, in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Impressively ambitious.

Galicia Facts

I’ve mentioned the problem of predatory seagulls in Pontevedra and suggested they’ve at least driven out the pigeons. Well, last night the latter got their revenge. One of them – attempting to get at my peanuts – landed on my glass of Rioja, scattering its contents over my newspaper, my trousers, my light blue shirt and my beige jacket. I suspect my involuntary Anglo-Saxon oath rather upset the other customers of the bar. Or at least surprised them. I was forced to order another glass of wine, just to calm down. And will now proceed with my plan to carry a plastic owl around with me.

A few more photos taken during my short survey of Spanish parking . . .

The first is of a new block of flats being erected around the facade of the previous block. Nice idea but what a shame there are now 7 floors instead of 4. And that the new granite not only differs from the original but also between the the lower and [ugly] higher new floors.


This photo - of the door of Pontevedra's oldest [11th century] building - shows that idiotic graffiti is not confined to Madrid.


Finally - I've said several times I'm an admirer of what the Nationalist mayor has done for Pontevedra, as regards its pedestrianisation at least. But there has been a price to pay during the 8-year process. And it's still being paid. Here are a couple of photos showing, first, one entire street blocked off and, secondly, the state of the square in front of the town hall.




Things will stay like this for at least the predicted two years, as they expand the car park under the Alameda. Neither of these obras does much to ease Pontevedra's traffic chaos but, then, I'm not daft enough to take a car into the city. And, frankly, I'd rather the mayor did something about the bloody pigeons.