When her husband was in
Germany at some award ceremony last week, the lovely queen Letizia
had a night out in Malasaña with friends.
As I was there at the
same time - ostensibly visiting my daughter - I've naturally had to
deny media reports that we were together. After I'd generated them.
But, standing at a taxi rank in Madrid, I did see the undisputed star
of Spain's celebrity media - the execrable Belén Esteban. Pictured
here:-
And this is the taxi
she got into - displaying a picture of Spain's Mrs T-cum-Boris
Johnson - Esperanza Aguirre. Who's standing for mayor of Madrid. And as future succesor to President Rajoy. As a politician who speaks English, she's quite unique here.
Spain's investment is
high-speed trains - the AVE - has been truly impressive, resulting in
a network second only to that of China. Sadly, it's not profitable
and the consensus among experts is that it never will be. Which
re-raises the question of whether the humongous sums of money
wouldn't have been better spent on improving the country's
not-very-good traditional network. I mean, the commissions would have
been much the same.
Which reminds me . . .
70% of Spanish businessmen say corruption and bribery are common
practice in Spain. This is double the average for other European
countries and higher even than the 61% average for emerging markets.
A true cost of doing business here. With their high penalties for
this sort of thing outside their home countries, one wonders how
Anglo companies get on here. Presumably by always employing Spanish
directors.
An interesting finding
from linguistic researchers - language development is lead by young
women. Who'd have thought it?
Finally . . . Padornelo
is a tiny village in the hills close to the border between Castilla y
León and Galicia. It's in the middle of nowhere (El quinto pino) but I always stop there for a coffee en route to
Madrid, 2 hours or so after I've set out. I mention it simply because
the café has free wi-fi, with a download speed of 8Megas. Enough said.
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