For reasons which will become clear, this is an early Saturday post, following a late Friday post last night . . . .

A couple of weeks ago, having decided I’d like to attend one of this year’s bullfights, I called a friend who’s a member of the biggest local peña. In true Spanish form, he rang me at 11pm last night to say he’d arranged this and that we’d be meeting for lunch at 2.30 today. And that, also in true Spanish fashion, this would go on until the corrida began at 7pm. Worryingly, he also advised me not to wear any good clothes. I guess this is connected with his initial comment that I’d have to be prepared to hacer el ganso. Or play the fool. Ya veremos.

I see that petrol has risen to 1.07 a litre in other parts of Spain. Not so here in Galicia, where - as ever - our prices are 6% higher. Perhaps someone will one day explain this to me in a sentence which doesn’t use the word ‘cartel’.

The Spanish savings banks (the Cajas/Caixas) are widely thought to be in trouble, thanks essentially to foolish loans during the long construction boom. A few mergers have already taken place and more are surely in the offing. Here in Galicia for example, and notwithstanding ‘localist’ rivalry between the respective cities in which they have their HQs, our two leading Caixas have long been reported to be talking about fusion. More recently, there’ve been rumours that one of them is being eyed up by Caja Madrid. Addressing this theme, a columnist on the right-of-centre paper, ABC, yesterday began an article as follows:-
Cataluña and Galicia are threatening to take advantage of the bank rescue fund. Andalucia doesn’t need to. It’s already consummated the intra-regional merger of its Cajas. A political cycle has ended. Spain no longer exists, only the Communities. The unanimity is total – Don’t touch the Cajas; they’re ours. Nothing unites more than a good external enemy. A rumour that Caja Madrid was thinking about a merger with Caixa Galicia was enough for the socialists, conservatives and nationalists to sink their irreconcilable differences in defence of their land - that of the savings of we Gallegos and the sweat of our emigrants.
Of course, the Cajas/Caixas are not true banks. They are cash-rich organisations controlled by local politicians and their operations are less than fully transparent. So I guess it’s hardly surprising that the politicos want to protect their multi-purpose fiefdoms. Even if it means allying with people whom they routinely label ‘liars’. Strange bedfellows indeed. One can’t help sympathising with the columnist’s view that power - if not yet all the money – has moved to the Spanish periphery. In UK terms, I guess it’s rather like the Yorkshire County Council having a veto over all commercial activities involving companies in their region. Or the Scottish government being able to stop the merger of Lloyds and the Royal Bank of Scotland. With hindsight, of course, this might not have been a bad thing . . . And not just for the Scots.

Finally . . . I promised you George Borrow’s comments on the Catalans, or at least their language. And here they are:- Sunday morning came, and I was on board the steamer by six o'clock. As I ascended the side, the harsh sound of the Catalan dialect assailed my ears. In fact, the vessel was Catalan built, and the captain and crew were of that nation; the greater part of the passengers already on board, or who subsequently arrived, appeared to be Catalans, and seemed to vie with each other in producing disagreeable sounds. A burly merchant, however, with a red face, peaked chin, sharp eyes, and hooked nose, clearly bore off the palm; he conversed with astonishing eagerness on seemingly the most indifferent subjects, or rather on no subject at all; his voice would have sounded exactly like a coffee-mill but for a vile nasal twang: he poured forth his Catalan incessantly till we arrived at Gibraltar. Such people are never sea-sick, though they frequently produce or aggravate the malady in others.

Tomorrow - Spanish women. In which he usuallys seems rather less interested in describing than the men he meets. It seems to me. Perhaps the former kept out of his way. Wisely.