Ponters Pensées: 16.8.16

Bullfighting: It's said to be losing support even here in Spain. The local papers reported yesterday that the Saturday and Sunday audiences filled only half and two-thirds of the terraces, respectively. And this year, of course, we only had 3 corridas, against the norm of 4.  Financial reasons??

The Richest Cities in Spain: I was rather surprised to see 2 Galician cities in a list of these. In descending order of per capita income, with the province or region in brackets:-

Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid)

Majadahonda (Madrid)

Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona)

Alcobendas (Madrid)

Las Rozas (Madrid)

Madrid

San Sebastián de los Reyes (Madrid)

Castelldefels(Barcelona)

Barcelona

The north African city-province of Ceuta

Toledo (Castilla-La Mancha)

Santiago de Compostela (Galicia) [Centre of the Catholic camino/pilgrimage industry]

Cerdañola del Vallès (Barcelona province), 

The other north African city-province of Melilla

Coslada (Madrid)

Burgos (Castilla y León)

Viladecans (Barcelona province)

Alcalá de Henares  (Madrid)

Alcorcón (Madrid)

Zaragoza (Aragón)

El Prat de Llobregat (Barcelona province)

A Coruña (Galicia)  [The HQ of Inditex/Zara]

The name 'Osborne': If you're Anglo, you'll recognise this as a surname. One of Viking origin, it says here. You may even know it's the name of the famous Osborne sherry house. Which was originally English but is now very Spanish. To today's Spaniards, it also means both a large black bull on a  hilltop and a crooner and TV celebrity called Bertín Osborne. I mention this because he was doing his impressions of Engelbert Humperdinck in Pontevedra last night. So, either his career is in freefall or the city council has got more money than ever to spend/waste on its 15 August fiesta. How impressed the Assumed Virgin must be by this honour. The locals certainly were, as they packed the Plaza de España and surrounding streets to listen to his (deafening) 10.30-12.00pm concert.

RT News: Did I really here the German Foreign Minister - visiting Moscow - say his government was waiting for a report from Russian investigators on the troubles in Eastern Ukraine before commenting on the situation? Or was it merely the Russian translation/interpretation of what he said?

Ants. I've always been fascinated by these little workers. Or at least since I used to watch them march up and down the walls and across the ceiling of my room when I was teaching in the Seychelles as a young man. And now I've discovered that, while it's hard to keep them out of white sugar, they totally disdain brown sugar. One wonders why. By the way . . . Should you want to soften hard honey by heating it in the microwave, don't flip open the top of the (expanded) plastic container when you take it out. Or, alternatively, don safety glasses before you do so. Even reading glasses are a help, I can advise.

Finally . . . My 'Common' rose-finches: Impressively, they never leave each other's side. Where one goes, the other immediately follows. More importantly, they might be nesting in my bougainvillea, if it's not too late in the year for this.

THE GALLERY

This could be the street in which the revellers urinate during the post-corrida bacchanal. But isn't.

And this is what I call a bacon sandwich! Minus the top half of the loaf. Costing around €2.

Erratum: The 'snail' shown yesterday on the point of being devoured by a 'slow worm' was, in fact, a slug. I think.

Finally, finally . . . . A friend's house for sale in Newton Abbott . . . . Click here.