It's been whispered occasionally in the last few months that Spanish banks are perhaps not quite as well protected against the current downturn as they [and the government] have claimed they are. And, specifically, that they've been bending the rules by borrowing money from the European Central Bank for purposes other than that for which the loans are meant. If this is true, I guess they'll find things a little tougher now that M. Trichet has tightened up the process. On a far more parochial level, I'm bracing myself for another argument with my my own bank as to why they've not followed normal practice and charged all my credit card items to my current account at the start of this month, leaving me with a large residue on which, no doubt, I've already been charged interest.

I don't suppose many of us will have been surprised to hear that the Valencian government has found it doesn't have enough qualified teachers to be able to offer the region's pupils the new Citizenship course in English. Which rather makes President Zapatero's pre-election promise to bring us 120,000 native speakers of English for country-wide bilingual education look even more fanciful than it did only a few months ago.

You may or may not be aware of the Odyssey saga. This centres on an American ship which has been bringing up treasure from a old galleon somewhere off the Spanish coast. The Spanish government maintains this booty belongs to Spain and now, in a fascinating twist, has said that - if it really is the ship they say it is - the descendants of more than 600,000 Spanish merchants will have a claim to bits of it. The story already had enough elements to make it a favourite - duplicitous English men-of-war, greedy Americans and the involvement of the perfidious Gibraltarians - but this development will surely ratchet things up a notch or two.

Quote of theWeek [With thanks to Private Eye]
My wife never liked going down in the low seat of the Jaguar XJS - John "Two Jags" Prescott, ex UK Deputy Prime Minister. And Tracey?

Galicia

Well, the Medieval Fair in Pontevedra this weekend was the biggest and most splendid so far.Thanks to further urban pedestrianisation, the stalls offering a vast array of artefacts now extend way beyond the old quarter. It surely can't be long before, in its search for space, the council resorts to airships hovering a few metres above the city. The Voz de Galicia gives us 3 pages of reportage and photos in its Pontevedra section today. But this is easily outclassed by the Diario de Pontevedra's 32 pages of photos. Happily, I am in none of them.

As is the way here, the police have announced in advance that they're going to have a week-long campaign against the individualists who illegally use parking spaces for the disabled. I do hope they manage to catch up with the guy who parked his company's white van across two such places outside a major store last week.

Gallego speakers might like to know that the President of the Nationalist BNG has launched his own video blog - at www.quin.tv I guess I can use it to get stuff from the horse's mouth. As recommended by some of my readers.

Which reminds me - In a letter in today's paper, a Voz de Galicia reader writes [in Gallego] that Gallego should have the same position here as Castilian [castelán] has in Castile [castelá]. This raises the question of whether he thinks that all of the rest of Spain can be called Castile, even the Basque and Catalan bits. Unless, he really was thinking only of Castile, even though Castillian [Spanish] is spoken elsewhere. As I've said, all very confusing.

Finally - Surveyed on the subject of the arrival of the AVE high speed train in Galicia, 66% of the Voz readers proved even more pessimistic than me. They don't see it being here until 2020. Meanwhile, the leader of the PP Opposition party here has told the President of the Xunta that he must be the only person in the whole of Galicia who believes we'll have it by 2012. Which certainly has the ring of truth about it. But "What is truth?", asked Pilate.