In a British newspaper this morning I read that "Tzipi Livni, the 50-year-old Israeli foreign minister and mother of two" may be the country's next prime minister. Funny, but I don't recall ever reading of Sr. Zapatero as 'the childless' president of Spain. Or even of Mrs Thatcher as "the mother of two". En passant, I guess it's a good thing she's not called Lippy Tzivni.

Spain has a great many 'blood festivals', some of which are of only pretty recent origin. One of the most notorious is held in Toro de la Vega and involves hundreds of men on horseback and on foot lancing a bull with spears until it expires. It would be wrong to say there's no unhappiness about these festivals in Spain but it could be a while before they stop. However long the process is, it's sure to be accelerated by articles such as the two-page spread in El País today asking "Why do we continue to be such savages?" Maybe El Mundo will have an answer tomorrow. By the way, I would have said 'until it expires in agony" except I know this would provoke a comment along the lines that it's been scientifically proven that the bull feels no pain. Even if this were true, it wouldn't be the point, of course.

There's a lot of talk about saving things at the moment, particularly in the banking sector. Downscale in the washing-up sector, both my visiting sister and visiting elder daughter have taken it upon themselves to buy pan scourers for my kitchen. There may be a message here but, anyway, these turn out to be called salvaúñas in Spanish. Or nail-savers.

Cycling with said daughter in the hills last evening, we came around a corner to see a young man standing on a granite outcrop, gazing into the setting sun. I was touched he'd parked his 4x4 and scrambled across rocks for twenty metres to commune with nature. Until I realised he was engaged in a more traditional male pursuit.

I thought I'd seen the strangest bank name in Banco del Espiritu Santo [Bank of the Holy Ghost] but I suspect Caja Inmaculada [The Immaculate Savings Bank] might just take the biscuit. And I guess it might be the safest bet should the American tsunami reach Spain.

Galicia

President Zapatero said in Parliament yesterday he was in favour of doing more to ensure that people here in Galicia can enjoy their right to be dealt with in Gallego. Fair enough but, as there are two official languages here, this really shouldn't be a zero-sum game.

Employees of the Pontevedra provincial council held a demonstration yesterday against the employment practices of their leader. More than 75% of the staff, they say, come from his locality of Salnés. Actually, I'd be prepared to bet a large proportion of these come from his astonishingly well-equipped village of Barrantes.

Looking to buy a new SCART cable last night, I discovered that both of the small outlets I've used in the past were boarded up. And one of my two cyber-café options has also gone out of business. However, in this case the premises have been converted into yet another place selling expensive spectacles and sunglasses. By my reckoning, Pontevedra has at least fifteen of these for a population of 80,000. Perhaps there really are a lot of eye problems here. Or maybe it's a very efficient way to wash cash. Customers can plausibly claim they sit on a thousand pairs of Gucci specs every year.

Finally, at the pharmacy today I saw they were promoting three medicated shaving products at the counter - pre-shave gel at 7.50; shaving gel at 7.95; and after-shave at 12.20. For someone who's yet to figure out why on earth we have even a special soap to shave with, this is all too much. We are, after all, supposed to be deep into an economic crisis. If not a full recession.