I see the Pope believes the future of mankind is at stake over gay marriage. Since it looks unlikely that gays will outbreed and destroy all the straights, one wonders what he means by this? That shocked and sickened straights will eschew both marriage and procreation and so die out? If you know, please tell the rest of us. Or me, at least.

I went to pick up my framed fotos at the picture-framers' shop yesterday. But it was closed again. Maybe it never opens on a Saturday morning. Or always closes earlier than 1.15. It'd be nice to be able to tell from an horario on the door but there isn't one. Possibly deliberately.

Talking of things that are framed . . . I have a nine-panel artefact on the wall near the guests' bathroom. It portrays the process for making Javanese batik cloth. Wiping it this morning, it struck me that in 12 years not a single visitor has asked what it was. Maybe it's obvious.

The latest example of an English gerund entering the Spanish language as a noun seems to be un spanking. No prizes for guessing which literary phenomenon lies behind this. Or in front of it, if you prefer.

It's a fact that male reindeer lose their antlers in the winter, whereas female deer don't. So all those millions of pictures of Rudolph and his hearty mates are really of their wives. Unless, of course, their antlers were screwed on. Like the roots of an Xmas tree I once bought in Jakarta. As they were with the replacement they gave me when I took it back.

Some Random Quotes:-

• Most diplomats need only to hear the noise in their own kitchen to conclude that, if two Englishmen constitute a club, three Serbs constitute a civil war.
  Sir Archibald Wilson, Ambassador to Yugoslavia, 1964
• The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.
  William Osler

Today's papers feature a foto or two of a model called Eugenia Silva, who is 36 and has just come out of her 8^th failed relationship. Since she's getting on a bit now, she could do worse than give me a call. Life can be increasingly cruel to (once) beautiful women.

In the bar I took my midday wine in yesterday – after finishing my Xmas shopping – there was a list of 36 gins, ranging in price from 6 to 11 euros a shot. Which is quite pricey but, believe me, Spanish shots are a lot bigger than British ones. Anyway, the gins came from the UK, France and Spain. But not, apparently, from Holland. Which was a tad ironic. One of them was made from grapes and one – Platú – hailed from Pontevedra. Understandably, the Spanish gin – Larios – was down at the bottom of the price range. But so was Bombay Sapphire. Which won't have gone down well with the makers back in the UK.

Finally . . . This is a site where Brits make fun of national foibles. Non-Brits can laugh at it and Brits with it.