Dawn

Dawn

Tuesday, May 28, 2013


70% of Spanish parents don't want Religion (i. e. Catholicism) included as a subject which counts towards students' university entrance mark. This is more than one would have expected, especially when María and José (Joseph) remain the most popular forenames in the country. But the current administration is pretty right-of-centre and beholden to the RC Church. So the electorate can probably go hang. But it'll all be reversed when the the Socialist PSOE returns to power.

Talking of the Faith . . . Some late-night TV viewing last week taught me that you can now buy an electronic rosary that gives you John Paul II, telling his beads along with you. Whether this makes your prayers more acceptable to God, I wouldn't know. But I do know that fleecing the faithful remains as popular as ever, as the gadget will set you back 50 euros.

Talking of late-night TV . . . Somewhere along The Way, I was (re?)introduced to the pleasures of the Nova channel. This seems to specialise in South American soap operas (culebrones) which are so bad they're rivetingly good. Especially as they feature some of the world's most beautiful women. They can't act for toffee, but who cares?

The last stage of last week's camino approaches and goes round Santiago airport. In the 3 hours it took us to navigate this bit, we saw a mere 2 planes. Though, in fact, I suspect it was really only one, arriving and leaving 30 minutes later. So I wasn't too surprised to read yesterday that, whereas the single airport of Oporto down in North Portugal offers 63 destination and had 6.1m passengers in 2012, the three Galician airports only muster 27 destinations between them and had a mere 3.9m passengers last year. So, what are they doing about it? Well, they're thinking of having just one director for all three airports. Should it ever happen, it'd be a start on rationalisation, I guess.

Finally . . . I walked 66 miles last week but gained weight. It could be muscle replacing fat, I suppose, but I fear it's more likely to be the wine that my companions felt compelled to pour me during each lunch and dinner. Thank God I breakfasted alone.

No comments: