Easter news.

Spanish Amazon: I'm getting the impression this isn't quite as efficient as Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. Having recently bought a Kindle – after 4 years of consideration – I accepted an offer for a free e-book. And was then invoiced for it. Amazon.com told me Amazon.es would reply to my query within 24 hours. They didn't. Four days later, I wrote again, to get an apology and the same assurance. Which again hasn't been fulfilled. I assume the entire organisation is on holiday for Semana Santa and I might get a reply – almost certainly in Spanish – some time next week. Unless they're even more inefficient than I fear.

Norway: This small country is usually among the top 3 of all those surveys of Lucky-One-Way-Or-Another countries. It certainly seems to have got education right. Largely, it seems, by ignoring all modern, trendy nostrums. See here for more on this. As it happens, Norway has just become the first European country where atheists(39%) outnumber both theists(37%) and don'tknows(23%). Significant? Of course it is. When you're an atheist, you concentrate on improving this life for yourself and for others.

Which reminds me . . .

Gullibility:

• In the 16th century – until the Reformation – Canterbury Cathedral boasted the dust from which Adam was created. (Or am I being gullible to believe anyone with a brain could believe this? Especially as I can't find any reference to this claim on the net.)
• It's a money maker, of course. Click here to see one of the best of the many, many religious shysters in action.

Follow-Ups:

• Leather jackets: In contrast to my Inditex/Massimo Dutti jacket, the US bomber jacket I bought more than 20 years ago still has nary a tear.
• Shakespeare: Dr Johnson: Trying to persuade anyone of Shakespeare’s genius by dangling quotations before them is like a man trying to sell you his house by carrying a brick in his pocket as a specimen.

Galicia/Pontevedra Tidbits:

• 46,000 'pilgrims' passed through Ponters last year, on the Camino Portugués. They're expecting 80,000 a year by 2021. Bloody 'ell.
• During Semana Santa, diesel prices in Ourense and Ponters have been the highest in Spain. But this isn't exactly news, of course.
• Wolves are increasingly attacking livestock in our hills. So they're being increasingly poisoned. Along with itinerant dogs.
• House evictions by the law-backed ruthless banks are now decreasing but there are still 6 a day here in Galicia.
• Galicia is consistently bottom of the list when it comes to the marks of Spain's university entry exams (the Selectividad). At the top of the list, the regulars are the Basque Country(very rich), Asturias(not rich), Extremadura(very poor) and, of course, Cataluña(pretty rich). Pick the bones out of that. Education is, of course, a hot political issue in every region here but especially so where there are 2 official languages and, so, nationalist aspirations to have Spanish subordinated to the local language. Whether the lessons necessary to assure this are a good or a bad thing, depends on where you stand on the nationalist spectrum. At one extreme here, people aspire for both Galician and Portugueses to be taught in preference to Castellano. And for Galicia to adopt Portuguese spelling. It takes all sorts.

Finally . . . Being down with the kids, I am naturally on Instagram. Essentially to send fotos of my granddaughter - Graciña - around the world. Strangely, she's very popular with Russian models, who regularly start following me. Who'd have thought it?

THE BREXIT SUPPLEMENT

Here's the ineffable Don Quijones with his take on the subject of Project Fear and the aspirations of all our lovely banks. And the differences of view between the current and the previous head of the Bank of England.

And now, what else but the latest foto of the wonderful Graciña:

The poor child is felt by most to resemble her doting grandfather. But not because of her lack of hair!