You can't live in Spain long before you become aware of nationalist aspirations around the country's [northern] periphery - what others have called Spain's tribal rivalries. I was reminded of this - as if I needed to be - when reading this comment from an interesting article on the issue of the world's zeitgeist:- Here is the paradox of the modern world. Money, people, culture, business and electronic information cross porous frontiers in ever-increasing volume. But as national boundaries dissolve in cyberspace, so everywhere the sense of nationhood and national interest strengthens.

Which naturally leads into the question of how that anti-national creature, the EU, yesterday decided to shape up to Russian initiatives around bits of what used to be Georgia. Well, The Times refers to a 'flight to ambiguity' [which some would say is the specialité sans pareil of Brussels], as well as to proposals that are 'weak beyond parody.' The article ends with the line - 'Russia’s behaviour shows it knows how to make good use of others’ indecision.' The Guardian - being of the 'jaw not war' school - takes a more positive line, saying that 'Brussels delivered a strong signal of support for Georgia'. However, it added that 'The EU is reluctant to punish the world's biggest energy supplier at a time of record prices. But the leaders agreed to send dozens of EU military ceasefire monitors to Georgia. EU leaders had previously floated the idea of European armed peacekeepers but that option was ditched.' On the EU's decision to freeze 'strategic partnership negotiations', the paper noted this had angered the Russians and that it 'could be seen as counter-productive since the EU is keener than Russia on the new pact.' So perhaps a Pyrrhic victory there. Or maybe a holed foot. Over at The Independent, they headline their article with Europe issues cautious warning to Russia. Which says it all really. Making the best of a bad job - and probably lying - President Sarkozy is quoted as saying that the Brussels meeting was not intended as a threat to Russia but as proof that the EU was "entirely united" in defence of its values and international law. Well, I think we all are. But the question is what are we going to do when they're ignored. No answers from the EU on this yet. Except perhaps to talk more in Brussels and less in Moscow. Here in Spain, I noted that El Mundo dismissed the EU as pusillanimous. And then I got fed up with reading about it.

Meanwhile, in an even madder world, it's reported that the Brazilian football player, Robinho, has signed a deal with a British club [Man City!] worth £95,000 a week after tax. This, it's said, means he'll be earning three times more than at Real Madrid. Of course, the really funny aspect of the Robinho saga was that Real Madrid - fresh from the failure of their aggressive attempts to get Ronaldo to break his contract with Man United - had complained about Chelsea's approach to their player. Que cara!

The really good news of the moment is that road traffic deaths this summer plummeted in both Galicia and in Spain as a whole. There can't be much doubt that tougher laws have helped - or rather their implementation - but I do wonder how much of this welcome development is due to drivers slowing down so as to preserve the liquid gold in their tanks.

Seeing the kids returning to school, I was reminded of how much of a fashion challenge this clearly is for teenage girls in non-uniform schools. At least for the first few days, I guess.

Galicia

My style of cooking calls for quite a lot of ginger. This can be tough to find in a region which eschews anything spicey apart from the ubiquitous pimentón picante [paprika]. Even the local Chinese restaurants don't include it as an ingredient in their dishes. It tends to be feast or famine, with one of three or four shops occasionally having a pile of it and then nothing for a while. I can imagine the chat down at the wholesalers:-
Well, that's it for me. Unless you've got any special offers.
I've got ginger on offer at a knockdown price.
OK, I'll take 5 kilos in case some crap-eating foreigner comes looking for it.
How about a regular order?
Are you kidding? None of my regulars will touch the stuff.

Which reminds me . . . Bizarre developments down at the Chinese Bazaar. I'm buying so much small stuff down at the one en route to my daily Rioja & tapas that the owner has started to greet me not only with a loud Hola! but also with a smile. This is unprecedented but may have something to do with the fact I chat with his young son in a mixture of Spanish and English as we locate my requirements.

The lady on the Xunta responsible for Language Policy has lashed out both Right and Left to criticise the PP for saying there's a language war here and the Galician Nationalist Party for saying that anyone who doesn't support the 'normalisation' of language is guilty of 'racism'. There's no war, she insists, but there certainly are areas in which more needs to be done to make Gallego equal to Spanish. And herein lies the rub. If people prefer to use Spanish, you can't stop them simply by issuing all publications in Gallego or by having all default web pages in this language. You have to make them use Gallego. Or, to put it another way, stop them using Spanish. Thus crossing the line between promotion and compulsion. Right on cue, the Vigo-based Club Financiero has expressed the view that insistence on the use of Gallego is damaging local businesses. I imagine this will be dismissed as gratuitous trouble-making from people who don't know what they're talking about and who are only interested in money. Even if there is a recession.

Reverting to the subject of nostalgic music - Driving yesterday with Ryan in his customary [and apparently illegal] position in the well of the passenger seat, I put on a CD of Booker T and the MGs, specifically their wonderful calypso long used by the BBC as the intro to their cricket program. At which Ryan - for the first time in his 15 years - began to howl in apparent agony. Not a cricket lover, then.