What, some have asked, can the economically-crippled Spanish government hope to achieve during its current six-month presidency of the EU? Well, it could use it to burnish its domestic image, even at the risk of more rebuffs like the one experienced last week. According to this article “Sr Zapatero, battered domestically in opinion polls by the conservative opposition and facing record unemployment, is hoping he can recover some lost ground by capturing the European spotlight.” I guess it’s possible this risky strategy could succeed nationally while failing internationally. Which would, perhaps, endorse Alfred Mittington’s point that Sr Z is a clever chap who knows what he’s about when it comes to manipulating Spanish opinion. Well, he’s won two elections on the back of very little by way of achievement, so who knows? We will see.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, they say. Well, certainly not in this case

Interesting item on today’s news wires – “Two Galician nationalists have been arrested after a home-made bomb was found in the car they were driving to Pontevedra in the early hours of Thursday.” It makes you wonder. Perhaps it’s time for me to stop making references to this subject. As luck would have it, the baton appears to have just been passed to my fellow-blogger, Xoán-Wahn, whose orthography may not be enough to save him.

Admirer as I am of the Spanish government’s achievement in halving the number of road deaths in the last decade, I do wonder about the just-announced intention of the Pontevedra council to limit the speed to 30kph (or just over 20mph) on all the approach roads to the city. They say it’ll only increase travel times by three minutes. Which is possibly an attempt at humour. No doubt there’ll be many more of those amusing speed humps as well. From one extreme to the other in ten years. Impressive, no?

Finally – but still on the subject of driving . . . Regular readers will know why I laughed at the cartoon of a traffic cop fining someone for driving past a rock-fall warning sign without wearing a safety helmet. Stranger things have happened. Believe me.