I see that someone is claiming Christopher Columbus was born in Aragón. And this in the same week as our celebrated local author (Alfonso Philippot Abeledo) was giving a lecture on his origins right here in the parish of Poio, where his ship, La Gallega, was built. Only to be later re-named the Santa Maria. The conclusion of the American researcher was based on an analysis of CC’s allegedly poor Spanish. But everyone knows that the marginal notes on his document were not in this language but in Gallego. What tosh some people speak at times.

More bad news for the Spanish economy – British tourists are, it seems, failing to return. But how can this be a surprise? A good menu del dia meal for 8 quid was a bargain but it’s not at 12. Or even 13, the way things are going. Despite continuing deflation here in Spain.

And more bad news for the Spanish consumer. Or at least for those who have a mortgage on their principal residence. The government says it'll be cancelling mortgage relief from 2011 - a move some say will add more than 20,000 euros to the cost of a new property. And this at a time when there’ll still be hundreds of thousands of unsold places on the market. Though quite possibly mostly in locations along the coast where nobody wants to buy them at any price.

As for the UK . . . Here and here are two trenchant commentaries on how things are there, in the Age of the Bureaucrat, the Celebrity and the Self-confessed Ignoramus. Probably a bit exaggerated, of course.

Back in Spain . . . I’ve mentioned a few times in the last few months a rowdy group of young adults who’ve regularly made it impossible to hear oneself think in my favourite wi-fi café, especially the woman who thinks it necessary to scream whenever she opens her mouth. I’d speculated they were funcionarios from the nearby town-hall taking their statutory hour-long morning break. But I realised today they haven’t been seen (or heard!) since the start of the winter term. So teachers, then. Great example.

Finally . . . The Word of the Decade: Scend. No, not a misprint – though it can also be written as send – but a word meaning “The carrying or driving influence of the sea”. And talking of words . . . I will take great pleasure in telling all my Galician friends at dinner tomorrow night that I read this phrase today in the book I cited yesterday:- Al llegar a la Puerta del Sol, me topé con una manifestación contra del nuevo Estatut.


Comments Note: I can’t recall ever moderating comments to this blog but there’ve been three spam comments in the last two days and, if this continues, I will have to resort to this boring chore. Especially as designating them spam has resulted in Google treating my own replies to comments as spam. My apologies in advance.