Smoking; The polls; The Judicial system; Castellón airport; House demolitions; & Franco.

According to someone, 169,000 Spaniards started smoking cannabis in 2013, against 142,000 for ciggies. As someone else put it, more tokers than smokers. Which was new to me. God knows how they measure these things.

Just in case you're interested . . . In the 'most closely run election in the history of Spanish democracy', the parties are running thus:- Podemos 23%, Socialists 20%, PP 19% and Ciudadanos 18%. So parties of the Left 43% and parties of the Right 37%. Things are so desperate for the governing PP party that noises are already being made about post-election pacts. I may even have seen reference to a Unity Coalition, allowing the 2 big parties to keep their hands on the levers of their traditional power. With the ability to keep on influencing the outcome of corruption trials, inter alia.

Which reminds me . . . The judge investigating corruption in the royal family has been told he must retire when he hits 70 later this year - young by British standards - even though he won't have finished his work. One wonders if this will impact on the trial and, if so, how. Not really; one knows.

The entire Spanish judicial system is having a lot of unfavourable light shone on it, for one reason and another, and has fallen to a new low in the appreciation of the populace. In an international assessment of its independence, it scored only 3.2, against 6.2 for the UK and 5.9 for Germany. Presumably out of 10. And this rating is also falling. Just what a country needs - widespread political corruption and an inadequate judiciary. Bring back benign despotism?

You'll all recall Castellón airport, the huge white elephant to and from which nothing has been flying. Well, Ryanair has announced it'll be flying from London (Stansted) and Bristol from September. Possibly for ever, possibly just for a few months.

You'll also recall the saga of house demolitions down in Andalucia, particularly the case of the garage-living Priors. Well, against the odds, the 2 organisations fighting against demolition and in favour of compensation if they are to take place - AUAN and SOHA - have achieved victory both in the courts and in the Spanish senate. Congrats all round.

Finally . . . On the day Franco died, the newspaper Arriba headlined it hugely thus: HA MUERTO FRANCISCO FRANCO (CAUDILLO DE ESPAÑA). How touching they felt the need to give his title (Spain's Big Vegetable) in brackets. Lest you thought it was Francisco Franco on the 4th floor. The paper also noted he'd had 41 days of agony. Which will be nothing compared to what the murderer will be suffering right now in purgatory. Presupposing it exists. Or that he didn't go straight to hell.