In the USA, the 23rd of November is 11.23.08, whereas in most [all?] of the rest of the world it’s 23.11.08. Similarly, in most of the world the Left is red and the Right is blue. But not in the USA, where the Democrats are blue and the Republicans are red. This dichotomy is, I suspect, the main obstacle in the way of dealing with the world’s financial problems. It should be the main objective of the next G20 to bring the US into line, before anything else is tried.

To be more serious, the truth is that the global situation is so bad no one really has any idea what to do next. Or, more accurately, which measures will succeed and which fail. According to one British columnist – “The IMF has ditched half a century of fiscal orthodoxy and called for a global spending blitz equal to 2% of world output, or $1.25 trillion. We are all Keynesians now. There are no atheists in a foxhole and no ideologues in a liquidity trap.”

Here in Spain, there’s been little take-up of the huge pile of cash the government has made available to the banks. This is either very good news or very bad news but I’m not convinced anyone really knows which. I certainly don’t.

In the UK, Gordon Brown – “the architect of our particularly British debacle” – is about to announce massive tax decreases, on the basis of which he may call an early election and win a further four years in power. And this despite the fact/claim “it was he who ran a budget deficit of 3% of GDP at the top of the economic cycle, when we should have been in surplus like Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland and Spain. We start this slump disarmed. Our budget deficit may soon balloon to £120bn. This, at 9% of GDP, is banana-land.”

And in that banana-land, while the private sector has been losing 300,000 jobs over the last few months, the public sector has continued to recruit and to take on 30,000 new well-paid, well-pensioned folk with job titles such as “principal nuisance response officer” or “integrated whole systems care pathway manager”. It’s a rum world. But who will bet against the profligate Mr Brown defying the odds and winning the election? I suspect the only thing sure to stop him is continuing praise from France, where he seems to be regarded as some sort of economic genius right now. Presumably because of his dirigiste tendencies. And because M Sarkozy believes this will be useful in his challenge of capitalising on the turmoil to reformulate the EU along French lines. A prospect which seemed to have disappeared for ever only a year or two ago.

Galicia

Today's front page of the Voz de Galicia headlines the good news that, notwithstanding the recession, the region’s entrepreneurs are setting up an average of 13 new businesses a day. This remarkable fact really is something to be celebrated, of course, but in the Pontevedra section inside the paper, it’s reported that twice as many businesses are closing in the city as are being started up. Which is not such good news. Though more in keeping with the evidence of my own eyes.

Anyway, here are a few more pictures of the excavations near the basilica of Santa Maria in Pontevedra. The first two show the medieval walls which have been unearthed. Literally.


And this one shows either a large mouse-hole or a cat ‘door’ in the wall close to where I was taking the snaps from . . .


Whether it's a cat or a mouse, it appears to be a smoker. Very Spanish.