Equine Equivalence; Capital Crimes; Gift Giving; Ratty Rajoy; Tasty Taramasalata; and Everyday Errors

It's Grand National day in Liverpool on Saturday. This is a steeplechase involving as many as forty horses. And a similar number of jockeys. Although there'd been no fatalities for many years, two horses died in last year's race. This has led a group called Animal Aid to claim that the race is 'on a par with bullfighting'. Given the number of bulls killed each year, this is stretching things as far as stupidity, it seems to me.

According to a survey done in the UK, the average Brit can name only four capital cities correctly - London, Cardiff, Rome and Paris. For Spain, most of them plumped for Barcelona.

My younger daughter has in the past made donations to a few charities. This appears to have landed her on a suckers list and the begging letters come thick and fast. These days the letter is usually accompanied by a small gift, doubtless with the objective of shaming one into responding. She's had gardening gloves, a shopping bag, a personalised pen and notepad and, last but least, a penny coin. With a certain circularity, I've given these all to Oxfam.

Spain's Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, is more than displeased with his French and Italian opposite numbers. The French President for saying, yet again, that Spain is the basket-case France will become if the Socialist candidate is elected President in the upcoming elections. And the Italian President for saying Spain is the cause of the latest crisis in the eurozone. Standing on his dignity and without naming names, Sr Rajoy pronounced:- "We hope they are more cautious in their statements. We don't talk about other countries. We wish other EU and eurozone countries the best." A fine example of his Galician wit.

I mentioned the other day that Spain was planning to introduce new anti-protest measures. Click here for more info on these 'draconian' plans.

And click here for my friend Alfie Mittington on taramasalata.

Finally . . . Only one thing is guaranteed in my life; no matter how many times I read a post before publishing it, I'll alway find an error the next day. Bloody irritating. But short of getting myself a sub-editing slave, this is likely to continue.


Friday morning: Proving my point - and in the very paragraph alluding to it - I'd missed the 'is' between 'thing' and 'guaranteed'.