Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain- Excellent news from Madrid, where I'll shortly be spending 10 days, smack in the centre.
- Spain's main political challenge, as Bloomberg see it.
- If you've read the article I cited yesterday on bureaucracy in Spain, you'll know that it's said not to be as bad as in France. Mon dieu/chien.
- I recently moaned about the web page of Spain's train operator, Renfe. And am doing so again now, having suffered this familiar refrain yesterday when trying to book a ticket for trip my Madrid next Sunday: En estos momentos no podemos atenderle. Por favor vuelva a intentarlo pasado unos minutos. Disculpe las molestias.
- It must be spring - the name of Ana Obregón - an ageing 'celebrity' - has begun to appear in the media, as it has done for each of at least the last 19 years.
- Galicia is ramping up its rabbit breeding business - which might not be difficult - as the market for them is growing rapidly. Though not as pets, of course. I am partial to a good rabbit stew and know a good place for it, en route to Santander, in Villaviciosa. It being Spain, it comes with chips(French fries).
- The Dutch PM has, nicely, likened British politicians to passengers on the Titanic voting to remove the iceberg.
- Richard North today: If they have taken nearly 3 years to make a pig's ear of Brexit, then another 21 months is unlikely to make much of a difference. The greater danger is that the breathing space is used to engineer a consensus not for a Brexit strategy, but for the Article 50 notice revocation, with or without a second referendum. That might be seen as a solution to the Brexit problem, but the political impact would be less predictable. Possibly, it would so damage relations between the political classes and the public that what Mrs May called the "fragile bonds of trust" might be irreparably shattered.
- Meanwhile, adds RN: Never have so many been so badly served by so few.
- Anything is possible, of course, but the break-up of the current political system and the emergence of new parties looks like a strong probability now. Not for the first time in the last 400 years, of course. But it's unprecedented, I think, for 2 long-standing main parties to suffer schisms simultaneously. So . . interesting times.
- I can't help wondering if a government of national unity wouldn't be possible if Jeremy Corby and the ('far Left') Momentum group weren't running the Labour Party. Astonishingly, in the polls this is still several points behind the worst Conservative government in living memory.
- A nice cartoon, from a right-of-centre UK paper, which would normally support a Conservative prime minister . . .
- Can this be true?
- An infertile continent.
- Fresh from his negotiating triumphs in Vietnam and at home over his damn wall, Fart has announced that Brexit is a failure because Mrs May didn't listen to him on how to do a deal. The man is a legend in his own mind.
- Word of the Day: Cunícular: 'Relating to the breeding of rabbits'. You should have seen this coming.
- Odd word of the Day: Aeromancy: 'Formerly the art of divining by the air but now used for foretelling the changes in the weather, either by experience or by instruments.'
- An understandable crime of passion.
- Which reminds me . . . This kid I could happily kill . . .
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