Today was another día festivo here in Pontevedra. This one was in honour of San Benito, who may well be the chap after whom the large, hairy Swiss dog is named. Naturally, all the shops were closed, except the cake shops, but all the cafés and bars were open. As I took a coffee in one of the former I wondered whether the shopkeepers regard these religious holidays as lost business or a great excuse to down tools and go to the beach. I suspect it's the latter.

Anyway, I went to Vigo today, where it wasn't a holiday. This was rather fortunate as my mission was essentially to survey TVs in El Corte Inglés and in a large electronics place. I can now reel off all the features a decent TV should boast, though I have no idea what most of them mean. I suspect the confusion caused by the manufacturers' long and diverse specifications is not an accident. But, anyway, someone wrote a week or two ago that Vigo was, for him, one of the best 10 cities in Spain to visit. Now, I like the place but I wouldn't go that far. Down along the Arenal - 'The Strand'? - there are some fine buildings, as in these fotos. But they are cheek and jowl with some pretty ugly blocks of flats. 

On my way to the port - or Maritime Centre - where the cruise liners dock, I decided to cut through what turned out to be a government precinct. As I entered it, I came across this bizarre metal structure which - resembling the arm of someone who's asking for a backhander - I thought was rather appropriate.

But as I walked round the thing it became clear it was one arm of a swimmer doing the crawl.

Down at the port I came across another structure, apparently of the same swimmer, and I recalled that someone had told me the locals called this 'The drowning man'.

The port is where the cruise liners dock, some of them as large and as tall as a Manhattan skyscraper. But today there was only a tiddler. 

Sad to say, the first sight of those who stream off these boats is a building which puts every Vigo politician to shame, for it is so ugly and intrusive it can only have been approved after wheels had been greased.

Ironically, much as I detest this place, it was where I was heading for the electronics supermarket.

On a wider front. . . Without saying a single word, Sr Rajoy has made it clear he won't be going to parliament to answer the allegations of corruption against him before everyone goes off on their summer holidays. No special session - as requested by the Opposition; no commission of inquiry; and not even a single Prime Minister's Question Time. Just a contemptuous shrug. I wonder how he'll be treated when he comes to his home town of Pontevedra for the annual bullfights in August. If he comes.