Hypocrisy; Please & Thank-you; RC defection; Bloody cyclists; Bloody pedallists; Seen on the net x 3; & RIP

I listened to a discussion on hypocrisy on the BBC the other day. It made me laugh as the Spanish think all Brits are hypocrites. Essentially because they're over-polite and don't give straight answers to questions such as "Does my bum look big in this?". As if all Spaniards do.

Which reminds me . . . Do the locals look round when I order Un con leche, por favor because my accent is bad or because I say 'please'? I suspect (and hope) it's the latter. 

The Catholic Church is fond of of quoting a global membership of around 1.9m. As it well knows, this is false. A lie, even. For it includes everyone, like me, who was baptised a Catholic but has since left the faith. Up until 2010 you could officially defect from the Church by going through an apostasy process via a formal request to 'your' bishop. Even then you remained baptised as the Church regards baptism as a gift direct from God which can never be taken away from you. But, anyway, I mention this after being told that, under the Franco regime, if you'd been baptised, you could only have even a civil wedding with a non-Catholic by going through the apostasía process and getting a certificate at the end of it. During this, would you believe, you were compelled to undergo an interview with a psychologist. This reflected Franco's belief, incorporated in the law, that you'd have to be insane not to want to be a Catholic. It's a rum world. Though perhaps not as rum as it was only 70 years ago in Spain. 

Well, I've finally seen a maniac on a bike crash into a child in a pedestrianised area. Or just about. Screeching to a halt and swerving, he actually just brushed the poor 4 year old. As is customary in live-and-let-live Spain, no one expressed anger at the cyclist. But good news! The local council is going to ban cyclists from the bridge I use twice a day. The foto with yesterday's article was a gem: The cyclist (illegally) on the pavement had on a helmet while the legal cyclist on the road (illegally) didn't. The police, of course, aren't interested in implementing such trivial laws. Or won't be until someone is killed there. When they won't be prosecuted or sued for negligence. Rules are not always rules here. 

Which reminds me . . . The company which hires out 3 and 4-wheel vehicles to kids in Plaza España in Tiffintown has now added adult karts its range. One of these is essentially a beach buggy you can pedal. And they're everywhere, taking up entire lanes in the old quarter. So I've now asked a certain dentist if he'll sell (give?) me the rifle he probably no longer has any use for. Except for suicide, I guess.

Finally . . . Seen on the net:- 
 1: A cigarette - A fire at one end, and a fool at the other? 
 2: A maniac impregnated a roll of money with a strong poison and sent it to an orphanage. This led to the deaths of 12 deputies, 2 mayors and a minister. No child was harmed. 
 3: If you worry about the shooting of a lion or a giraffe, are you an animalist? And, if you worry more about the death of a battered child, are you a humanist? 

 RIP: So, Cilla's gone. Prematurely. But, if there really is a heaven, those lucky celestials are surely in for a lorra, lorra Scouse laffs. In perpetuity.