Spanish politicians of both the government and the opposition are regularly assessed for their popularity ratings and rankings with the public. As with other things here - such as the marks for the university entrance exam - these are expressed out of ten, not as percentages. So, for example, President Zapatero might rate 5.1 and the Leader of the Opposition 4.8. Or vice versa this week. And each of these may be more or less effective (or popular) than their colleagues. These comments have been prompted by a photo of Gordon Brown with Peter Mandelson at his shoulder. Despite the fact the latter has twice had to leave the government in disgrace, he’s now back as the most powerful member of Brown’s entourage. Given that, thanks to his skills in the black arts of political spin, he’s widely known as The Prince of Darkness, this says quite a lot about Gordon Brown’s situation. Anyway, it would be interesting to see what marks each of them would get from the British public under the Spanish system. Even though it’s not possible to get a negative number. Theoretically, at least.

If you’re interested in knowing how corrupt Spain is, the University of Essex has pronounced on the subject. I can’t find their actual document but here’s a press report. In line with my own perception, the main conclusion seems to be that Spain is ‘relatively corrupt’ but that corruption is not so much widespread as very deep in certain spheres. Town halls and the construction industry, for example. And now more than ever, if a snapshot of last year is still relevant, after the collapse of said sector.

Here in Galicia, our weather is, shall we say, variable. We had unseasonable sun for long periods in February and March and my younger daughter and her friends recently enjoyed a great week of temperatures in the 30s here. But the Atlantic is again showing us who’s boss by smothering us with its blanket of cloud and rain. It was miserable again today – for the 6th day in succession and - and I’m now wondering whether the charity cricket match I’m due to play in on Saturday will be possible. The good news is that the sun is forecast to return on Friday and to linger for Saturday, before heading off for another holiday, warming d*****s down in Timbuktu, as they used to sing. Actually, I’ve just googled this and found that the word originally used was even less acceptable than the one I thought it was. Apparently it’s ‘roasting peanuts’ now. The things you learn here!

Hell! Just when I leave my notes at home and so have to write a post – yesterday’s - off the top of my head in a wifi café, I get more than 200 hits. I don’t suppose many of the new ones will return. Unless they’re interested in head gasket problems with the Rover K series engine.

Spanish politicians of both the government and the opposition are regularly assessed for their popularity ratings and rankings with the public. As with other things here - such as the marks for the university entrance exam - these are expressed out of ten, not as percentages. So, for example, President Zapatero might rate 5.1 and the Leader of the Opposition 4.8. Or vice versa this week. And each of these may be more or less effective (or popular) than their colleagues. These comments have been prompted by a photo of Gordon Brown with Peter Mandelson at his shoulder. Despite the fact the latter has twice had to leave the government in disgrace, he’s now back as the most powerful member of Brown’s entourage. Given that, thanks to his skills in the black arts of political spin, he’s widely known as The Prince of Darkness, this says quite a lot about Gordon Brown’s situation. Anyway, it would be interesting to see what marks each of them would get from the British public under the Spanish system. Even though it’s not possible to get a negative number. Theoretically, at least.

If you’re interested in knowing how corrupt Spain is, the University of Essex has pronounced on the subject. I can’t find their actual document but here’s a press report. In line with my own perception, the main conclusion seems to be that Spain is ‘relatively corrupt’ but that corruption is not so much widespread as very deep in certain spheres. Town halls and the construction industry, for example. And now more than ever, if a snapshot of last year is still relevant, after the collapse of said sector.

Here in Galicia, our weather is, shall we say, variable. We had unseasonable sun for long periods in February and March and my younger daughter and her friends recently enjoyed a great week of temperatures in the 30s here. But the Atlantic is again showing us who’s boss by smothering us with its blanket of cloud and rain. It was miserable again today – for the 6th day in succession and - and I’m now wondering whether the charity cricket match I’m due to play in on Saturday will be possible. The good news is that the sun is forecast to return on Friday and to linger for Saturday, before heading off for another holiday, warming d*****s down in Timbuktu, as they used to sing. Actually, I’ve just googled this and found that the word originally used was even less acceptable than the one I thought it was. Apparently it’s ‘roasting peanuts’ now. The things you learn here!

Hell! Just when I leave my notes at home and so have to write a post – yesterday’s - off the top of my head in a wifi café, I get more than 200 hits. I don’t suppose many of the new ones will return. Unless they’re interested in head gasket problems with the Rover K series engine.

In today’s Times, their Economics Correspondent, Anatole Kaletsky, begins his article with this bit of punch-pulling – “Last Friday the European Commission published what were arguably the most catastrophic economic statistics produced by any official institution in the capitalist world since 1945. These showed that Germany has suffered the steepest economic collapse ever recorded in a major industrialised country; and that several of the countries in Central Europe and on the periphery of the eurozone are now in a state of economic and financial meltdown comparable with Argentina, Indonesia and Russia in the 1990s or with Iceland last year.” So . . . . why is the pound still trading at only 1.12 to the euro?

Another question I’ve had for a while and which I think El Pais voiced yesterday – If Spain’s GDP hasn’t fallen as much as that of the countries above, how come unemployment here has soared so much more than elsewhere? Can it really just be the loss of high numbers of low-wage jobs in the construction industry? El País, by the way, has joined the ranks of those calling for labour and pensions reform, even though it’s left-of-centre and considered the mouthpiece of the ‘No U-turn’ socialist government. Something appears to be going on by way of softening-up treatment. Perhaps as a prelude to Edward Hugh’s “budget from Hell”

If you’ve read the above AK article and are wondering how his fear of sovereign loan defaults fits with the recent news of the EU’s decision to buy up the toxic assets of Spanish banks so as to avoid collapse and loan default here, join the club. We need your help, Charles. Meanwhile, AK’s view is that Germany will end up guaranteeing the debts of all its delinquent partners. Which is surely what the EU Commission intends. I wonder when the poor Germans will stop paying for Adolf Hitler. En passant, the name Adolf isn’t recognised by Word’s spell check. Nonetheless, I bet there’s still a few of them around in South America.

Addressing the scandal of MP expenses in the UK, the Daily Telegraph today intones that “The public's gloomy but wholly justifiable verdict is that this country can no longer claim to have higher standards of honesty and integrity in politics than other countries.” True but it manifestly still has a public that can be surprised and infuriated at this state of affairs. Which wouldn’t necessarily be the case in all its shoulder-shrugging European partners.

Closer to home, as traffic numbers plummet and competition from Oporto grows, Galicia’s three small, uncompetitive airports have responded with a master-class in folly. Each of them is going to expand so as to take customers from the others. Talk about localism. I fear it will be a while before the likes of Ryanair and EasyJet take any of them seriously. Thank God I only live 90 minutes away from Oporto’s magnificent facility.

As I’ve mentioned Galician rain a few times, I should redress the balance and say we do also get quite a lot of sun. In February and March of this year, for example, we saw little else. And today has been lovely. It’s just that, living in the Atlantic, it’s hard to know what it will be from week to week. Day to day even.

Finally, I see that Sky TV now has a Twitter Correspondent. Who is appropriately vapid. Another reason for the public to revolt.

It’s a regular complaint of the Galician tourist industry that the weather forecasts on the national news all too often have a rain cloud over the entire region when the sun is shining in at least the south of it. And so it was yesterday, when it was a gloriously sunny day until late in the evening, despite a prediction of rain for all of Galicia from early morning. Mind you, today has been horribly drizzly and I’m wondering what tomorrow will bring. And I’m not remotely alone in this as we have an international triathlon event here in the morning. This has been moved from April to May as last year the temperature was only 9 degrees and several competitors had to retire because of hypothermia. It’s only around 11 right now so there must be some worried folk in the town’s hotel rooms and bars.

Of course, as someone in this article says, the sun might be nice but it doesn’t pay any bills. And so Brits are said to be fleeing the south of Spain in droves, as one thing and another bite into their ability to survive and prosper here. Some Spanish commentators seem to think this is a good thing. Perhaps they believe the Brits are leaving their money behind.

I’ve moaned about having to pay speeding and parking fines of 100 euros as the local councils go to unethical lengths to secure revenues alternative to those lost with the disappearance of huge property transfer taxes. My Vigo friend, Anthea, reports on another development which may well have the same stimulus. The council there has begun to implement the law against letting you dog foul the pavement. And, at a eye-blinking minimum of 750 euros, this rather puts my fines in context.

I joke about standing as a Euro-deputy but here’s interesting news from Lenox of some foreigners who do. Some of the smaller parties look very appealing. I wonder if I could get outlandish expenses for setting up a Galicia branch of each of them.

One of the counter-crisis measures of the Spanish government is to transfer large sums of dosh to the regions, to be spent on public works. Each of these then has a huge hoarding alongside it, saying it’s being carried out under Plan E. This is in red, presumably to differentiate it from the ubiquitous blue hoardings telling us that it’s EU funds being spent. I don’t know what the E stands for. Perhaps España. Or Emergencia. There’s actually no hoarding at the new bus-stop being slowly built down at the roundabout. But, if there were, I guess we could rule out Exprés.

At last a non-partisan article in the Spanish national press on corruption. In El País today, Rosa María Artal spares no blushes in attacking Spanish practices and attitudes and calls for an end to this huge stain on the country’s reputation. What she’s up against is the statistic she quotes herself – Only 2% of Spaniards think corruption is a national problem. But, hey, it’s a start.

As it happens, I hear there’s a program tonight on British TV about land abuses down south. This should further postpone the day when Brits start re-investing in property here. I guess it’s just possible that economic distress will cause something of a re-think here. But it’s hard to be confident.

Talking of the economy . . . The eminent economist, Paul Krugman, came to Madrid over the weekend and re-acquainted President Zapatero with some truths about his room for fiscal manoeuvre within the eurozone and the pain which must be inflicted on Spain, if she is to resume convergence towards EU norms. In brief, ‘Very deep and unpopular structural reforms’. Hard times. Some, of course, have argued that this is exactly why Spain is in the eurozone. But this may take some explaining to the man in the street.

The north west of Spain is naturally not as hot and dry as the south of the country. Indeed, I recently described Galicia’s maritime climate to friends as ‘like living in the Atlantic but without the bobbing up and down’. And in winter we usually get a lot of rain. And I do mean a lot of rain. Though it’s not so wet right up in the hills, I believe. All that said, we’ve just had a month of superb sun and the temperatures today are again up in the 20s. In fact, at 29 degrees, the Galician city of Ourense was set to have the highest temperature of the day for all Spain. This city up in the mountains sits in a natural bowl, alongside the river Miño. As a result, it’s the only city in the country capable of achieving the national extreme at both ends of the temperature scale. Though not on the same day, of course.

It’s not unusual in Pontevedra to see two women coming towards you of similar height and build, wearing an identical style of clothes and sporting the same hairstyle, despite the fact there’s about 20 years between them. These, of course, are mother and daughter and it makes me smile to think how much of an anathema this would be for young British women. From the back, these be-jeaned mothers look like their daughters’ sisters and are referred to by my own sharp-tongued elder daughter as 17/60s. Seventeen from the back and 60 from the front. This is because she’s still nearer 17 than 60 and I guess her attitude could change.

A bar owner in Barcelona has been jailed for several years for driving his neighbours mad with noise. And down in Malaga new laws are being introduced to prevent one practising one’s guitar at home. The local authority says it’s imposing a max of 45 decibels generally and only 40 in bedrooms, which is described as being as loud as a library. I wonder if that’s a Spanish library or, say, a Japanese library. I’m left wondering by how far Tony’s bawling would exceed these. Not to mention every moped in every street in Spain.

Finally, an interesting article on that modern sham, the Irish Pub.

I occasionally talk of corruption. Of drug smuggling. Of Politicians. And, last but not least, of Galicia’s airports. But it’s rare I can get them all in one short sentence. But here we go – The police here have broken up a gang of criminals which has been using diplomatic flights to import cocaine into Spain via Vigo airport.

I recently admitted I may have been wrong to be sceptical about the strength of Spanish banks. But this article suggests I might have been a tad premature. As does this one. Time will tell.

It’s not exactly a secret that the concept of time here in Spain can be slightly different from elsewhere. And that one possibly needs more patience here than one is normally called on to display in more frenetic Anglo Saxon cultures. Frankly, I’m not convinced I’m much better at this than when I left the UK to live in Tehran 35 years ago. Otherwise, why would I have pointlessly abandoned my two tins of dog food at the supermarket check-out yesterday simply because I’d had to wait ten minutes while the woman in front of me and the cashier dealt first with her ten items and then her form-filling request to have them delivered to her nearby flat. Perhaps I'll have completely adjusted after another eight years.

Reading of the chaos in the UK because of the shortage of salt to throw on the iced-up roads, I was taken back to a visit I made to Cheshire’s salt mines around 1989. Outside the entrance to the pits, there were tonnes of a dirty substance that turned out to be rock salt, which goes black when sprayed with acid to give it a hard cap to protect it from the rain. As opposed to the pink colour it had in its original state down these particular mines. Anyway, it was there – I was told - because ICI couldn’t sell it, as winters were no longer as cold and as icy as they’d been in my childhood. Unless the pits later closed down, these salt mountains must have become a lot higher in the last 20 years but it seems this still wasn’t enough. And so the country closed down.

Talking of the weather . . . I thought I’d give you a shot of the Atlantic Blanket I refer to from time to time. The view from my window normally takes in the river Lerez, the entire city of Pontevedra and the mountains behind it, festooned in wind turbines. Today, it was restricted to the house 50 metres below mine. But, believe me, this is not quite as bad as it gets. Sometimes I can’t even see the palm tree for drizzle-filled cloud. Or clizzle, as I once called it.


As for tomorrow’s weather, we’re warned that we’ll be having our third major storm in about two weeks, with gusts of up to 140kph. And just when I’d managed to get my central heating boiler to stay on for two days in a row. Hey ho.

I wrote the other day about Anglo-Saxon - well, British - drinking habits. These, it seems, have now crossed the Channel. Will they now wend their way south over the Pyrenees? Have they already done so with the institution of the botellón, which lacks only mindless violence to make it truly authentic?

I sent emails to both a British and a Spanish company today. By pure coincidence, they were both architectural firms. I expect I'll get a reply from the former but not from the latter. This says something about the respective 'impersonal'/at-a-distance and 'personal'/face-to-face cultures but I also wonder whether it doesn't explain why things can be so much cheaper here. They don't employ so many people that every letter - however trivial - can be answered quickly. The staff are all hard at work, doing more serious things.

Russia - What to do? How to respond? One UK commentator's view - The US and EU must be tough. But can the EU meet such a challenge or must it be left to the US? The Russians are not going to be impressed by rhetoric from Brussels. It was, after all, Stalin who asked "How many divisions has the Pope?"The truth is that Europe remains terribly weak militarily. Only Britain and France are significant military powers and they are both overstretched. Furthermore, on oil and gas, Europe is deeply divided, with Germany too dependent on Russian gas to be prepared to fight for a really tough European energy policy.There has also been a disinclination by the EU to consider the use of hard power to achieve political ends. The EU has seen itself as the champion of "soft diplomacy" just as Russia has reverted to its historic role as an expansionist empire. So, it will be interesting to see what 'EU position' emerges from tomorrow's emergency meeting. And how amusing Russia finds it.

Is this today's most depressing headline - Is Chelsea the next President Clinton?

Christopher Booker is rather sceptical about Global Warming. As he puts it today - As the estimated cost of measures proposed by politicians to "combat global warming" soars ever higher, "fighting climate change" has become the single most expensive item on the world's political agenda. As Senators Obama and McCain vie with the leaders of the European Union to promise 50, 60, even 80 per cent cuts in "carbon emissions", it is clear that to realise even half their imaginary targets would necessitate a dramatic change in how we all live, and a drastic reduction in living standards. . . But a new "counter-consensus" has been emerging among thousands of scientists across the world. Given expression in last March's Manhattan Declaration by the so-called Non-Governmental Panel on Climate Change. This wholly repudiates the IPCC process, showing how its computer models are hopelessly biased, based on unreliable data and programmed to ignore many of the genuine drivers of climate change, from variations in solar activity to those cyclical shifts in ocean currents. It really is time for that "counter-consensus" to be taken seriously. You can read more here, if you want to hear both sides of the story. Feel free to disagree.

Less seriously - When I write a message on my phone, the predictive text facility always gives me if for he. Not too bad but what about P33 for see? Can anyone explain this irritating occurrence? Or how to stop it?

Galicia

Weatherwise, the general feeling is this hasn't been a good summer. Statistically, though, it's well in line with the 30 year averages. We think otherwise because we've been spoiled by a recent spate of hotter/drier summers. One consequence of this year's wetter weather is that the price of that ridiculous delicacy, the percebe [goose barnacle], has risen to €148 a kilo.

Specifically, Thursday and Friday nights saw some terrific thunderstorm activity along this coast. I thought I'd paid a high enough price in the loss of both sleep and electricity but then I read that cars down in Pontevedra had had their windscreens smashed by 3cm hailstones. Today's local papers report that more than 200 people have made denuncias at the police station about damage done by the ice. I wondered why they had to go through this bureaucratic step and then realised the insurance companies wouldn't believe them if they just made a simple claim.

Finally - the next bush for identification. I believe these are the same variety. The small yellow flower is just visible on the first . . .

If Graeme over at South of Watford is to be believed, El Mundo is little more than the Spanish equivalent of a Rupert Murdoch tabloid. If so, I don't know whether it had a more illustrious past. But I do know that Britain's Daily Telegraph did. And this makes all the more depressing its relentless slide downmarket towards tabloid status. So great is this, I've been forced to start reading Murdoch's Times. Anyway, I thought I'd seen incontrovertible evidence of the Telegraph's decline this morning when it printed the phrase after his whereabouts was discovered. But, I have to confess I was wrong. As this site says, this is a word that can be treated as singular or plural. And just because I've never seen or heard the former doesn't mean that the Telegraph is now rubbish. Other things do.

Although it doesn't matter to me - firstly, because I'm retired and, secondly, because I don't go to the beach - I've long held the suspicion that the weather, here in Galicia at least, is worse at the weekends than during the week. And now comes evidence that this is actually so. According to a UK report - "Scientists say the mechanism by which Spanish rainfall comes in weekend clumps depends on weekday cycles of atmospheric pollution." Which is no consolation, of course. No wonder you can't move on the coast roads for lemmings when the sun does actually appear at a weekend.

But, in fact, I did go to the beach today, as my visiting daughter wanted to visit one of the Islas Atlanticas. The day didn't start well as we parked at least a mile away from the embarcation point and so had to leg it to be sure of getting aboard the 12 noon boat. Then the heavens opened within five minutes of the boat arriving and we found ourselves sharing a small bar-café with several hundred shouting, smoking, table-and-floor- space-stealing Spaniards. But the sun finally emerged, things gradually got better and my daughter ultimately professed herself well pleased with the day. Three conversations worth relating:-

Me: [To two Spanish women near where we parked the car]. Excuse me. Can you tell me where we board the boat for the islands?
1st woman: Oh, what is your native language?
Me: English
1st woman: Oh, I only speak French, apart from Spanish.
Me: Well, we can try it in French, if you really want.
2nd woman: It won't make a difference. We're not from around here. We haven't the faintest idea where the boat goes from.

Me: [To said daughter] It looks like another thunderstorm is coming on.
Daughter: We can shelter under these trees.
Me: Not a good idea when there's lightening.
Daughter: Well, we've both got rubber-soled shoes on.

As I stretch out on the sand with a piece of clothing over my face:-
Daughter: Are you having a siesta, Dad?
Me: No. I thought I'd just suffocate myself with this sweatshirt.
Daughter: Don't let me stop you, you grumpy sod.

The boat to the island left from Vigo and picked us up in Cangas. On the way back, it naturally stopped first at Cangas. So, the most amusing sight of the day . . . The various couples who got off at Cangas, walked to the end of the quay, looked quizzically at their surroundings, then at each other and then raced back towards the boat before it left for Vigo.

Finally - Tuesday's photo was identified by Maria [Not Martin, her husband!] as an anenome. Yesterday's is provoking a bit of controversy . . . Maria says it is an oleander [nerium oleander], whereas Midnight Golfer feels sure it's a bottlebrush [or callistemon]. Having been to the cited web page, I wonder whether the one below isn't, in fact, the said bottlebrush. Albeit without its very characteristic red flowers.

I throw this open to the jury . . .

The cartoonist of the ABC newspaper has something of the Gerald Scarfe about him, in that he can make any of his politician targets look pretty horrific. Today's portrayal of the VP Maria Teresa Fernández de la Vega [to use the short form of her name] is particularly cruel. But she is, to say the least, not terribly photogenic so it's not a particularly tough challenge to make her look grotesque. I appreciate this is not very gallant of me and, of course, none of it is relevant to her political views and her performance. Strange and headmistressy as they are.

En passant, MTFdlV's latest proposal is that 1.2m Spanish emigrants should be given the right to vote by internet in the 2012 elections. I wonder if this will be more or less open to fraud than the current system. But what I don't wonder about is whether the majority are likely to be PSOE [socialist] or PP [conservative] voters. The lady is of the PSOE.

There's a TV channel here which shows local programs throughout Spain. Naturally enough, it's called Localia. One of its ads last night showed a glamorous young woman parking her car below her house and then walking up the connecting stairs first to a sitting room and then to a bedroom, both furnished in a style rather too modern and garish for my tastes. Anyway, in the bedroom, the young lady lay down on a double bed and opened a book. The camera then panned to a second double bed, which struck me as an odd feature for a private bedroom. Until the voice-over revealed the ad wasn't for a furniture company but for a 'motel' on the outskirts of Pontevedra. Which is painted the traditional pink, has a high wall around its car-park, and is called Motel Venus. Only in Spain? By the way, take a second to ponder the incongruity of the young woman throwing herself onto the bed and opening a book. Possibly the first and last time this has happened there. And, if the ladies I've seen crossing the bridge to go into town are anything to go by, I suspect Motel Venus could be prosecuted under Spain's equivalent of the UK's Misrepresentation Act. If there is one. If so, I imagine the place's well-heeled denizens would pay me not to initiate court action. Or have me exiled. If I were lucky.

I've been advised that the name Penitencia that I thought I might have unintentionally fabricated is, in fact, a real one. Readers have since provided some even more unusual - not to say quite incredible - additions.

Galicia Facts

When I was in Madrid a month ago, I was impressed to see some bits of apparatus had been installed in Dos de Mayo square for senior citizens to exercise their muscles on. There's a similar Park Biosaludable in the nearby town of Pontecaldelas, though this one has apparently been commandeered by uppity kids.

The Poio/Pontevedra gypsy spat has continued without a let-up over the past few months, with the families displaced from shacks on the site near my house being vehemently rejected like foreign bodies by one local town after another. The mayor of Poio has now offered them houses close to where their shacks used to be. Leaving one wondering why this couldn't have been done in the first place. No doubt there's a simple answer.

My plea for new members for the Forum of the Anglo Galician Association [AGA] led to a massive increase of three. So the big prize is still available. Looking at the forum this morning, I noted that the ranking for subject views was:-
Food and drink - 175
ISP suggestions - 103
Schools in Pontevedra and La Coruña - 95
Advice about Vigo - 62
Architects - 57
How do I post on the Swapshop? - 46
Joining AGA - 45
British TV - 42
Galician Celtic jewellery - 24

Nice to know that all my exhortations have led to only 45 people being interested in knowing how to join the AGA. But encouraging to see that bon vivants have led to Food & Drink being number 1. Unless they were all looking for ways to get hold of salad cream. Or, worse, Marmite.

Finally, as today is the last day of July, it's appropriate to bid the month a less-than-fond farewell. For the weather has not been great. And today we've had its parting shot in the form of the Atlantic Blanket again. August should be better. But, then, my younger daughter is coming and she's a bit of a jinx. Hey ho. September's usually nice. And quiet, after the end of the first week's Medieval Fair in the old quarter. Which has been a tradition for eight years now.

Global warming has yet to reach us here in Galicia. At least on the evidence of today and, indeed, the first six months of this year. There are some who believe that it won’t be here for 10 or 15 years yet and that, more importantly, it ain’t due to carbon monoxide emissions. Here is an article by one such person and it makes fascinating reading. “It is becoming clear, “ he says “that all the costly measures so far proposed to cut carbon emissions are pie-in-the-sky. Even the environmentalists have realised that biofuels are a farce, needing more CO2 to produce than they save. The EU's much-vaunted "emissions trading scheme", so far costing us all an estimated £40 billion, has not resulted in any reductions of CO2 emissions whatever”. He goes on to say that “This infatuation with cutting carbon emissions is beginning to look extraordinarily reckless as the whole scientific theory on which it is based now appears distinctly questionable”. You’ll have to read the whole article if you want to know his evidence for this.

So Frank Lampard of Chelsea says he won’t stay unless they pay him ₤140,000 a week. Say, €168,000. The only thing more obscene about this is that Inter Milan are apparently willing to pay it, presumably on the back of, inter alia, huge ticket prices for the punters. But I guess no one forces them to attend.

More football madness has come from a man – Sep Blatter - who’s apparently already famous for doing what was called the George Brown Tango when I was a kid. GB was an eccentric senior Labour politician who couldn’t control his mouth, even when he was sober. To dance his tango, you put one foot forward, open your mouth, and then stick your second foot in it. Anyway, despite Blatter’s position as head of UEFA, commenting on the Ronaldo spat between Man United and Real Madrid, he says the interests of the player must come first and that he should be free to do what he likes, regardless of his contract - so long as he merely compensates Man United.

Talking of ignoring rules and regulations . . .

Photo Gallery: A Primer on Parking in Poio and Pontevedra

Armed with my new camera - of which I will soon tire - I yesterday took pictures of standard Spanish parking on my walks into and out of town. Here are the results from the 10 minute walk in. Tomorrow, I shall post the rest.

I have to admit this is rather like shooting fish in a barrel. You could get these pictures - or worse - in just about any Spanish town, I guess.

I leave it to others - especially Spaniards - to decide whether this is evidence of my contention that one has little duty of consideration towards strangers in this land of self-regarding individualists . . . .

We start with some pretty normal parking on a solid yellow line. Nothing particularly dangerous about this - except that they block one's vision of the zebra crossing.


This is the example which most gets my goat. The four cars in the centre are all illegally parked at a bus-stop. Not only that, they 1. make it impossible for large vehicles to get round the roundabout; 2. they block the view of cars coming up to the roundabout in front of them; and 3. worst of all, they block the view of pedestrians using the zebra crossing behind them. But nothing is ever done about this, even by cops on traffic duty. But, then, you can drive past these using your mobile phone.


Down in the Carrefour car-park below the bridge, the driver of this car has decided the yellow lines don't apply to him/her.


Another example from the Carrefour car-park. The owners of the 3 cars parked in the road simply can't be bothered to use the spaces provided.


Another common-or-garden occurrence. Two drivers have decided not to bother to look for a space or to go into their underground car-park but to leave it to others to blow their horn, as and when they want to depart. One of the latter may be waiting next to the rearmost car to have a word with its owner. But I rather doubt it.


The owner of this car has decided that the way to deal with inadequate space is simply to use some of the pavement/sidewalk.


Again, pretty standard stuff. All the cars in the middle line are actually idle and double parked. You don't have to be Einstein to realise what happens when a large vehicle tries to comes down the far left side and one of the perpetrators declines to abandon his/her coffee. Or to desist from making love on the 4th floor of a flat block


Here's a car which is in the pedestrian area and parked entirely on the pavement. The driver is probably in the bank. You can't see it but its hazard warning lights are on, making everything OK by Spanish standards.


And, finally for today, here's one of the two cops who drove right past the car in the previous picture without giving it a first glance, never mind a second one. What, you may ask, is the point of the law?


More tomorrow, on the way out of town.

Oh, dear. Media mention of the R word [recession] has immediately been followed - logically enough - by that of the S word [stagflation]. Except that it’s the E word in Spanish - for estanflación. As a leader in El Mundo put it – “It’s not as if just some of the economic indicators were bad. They’re all bad. And at the same time”. In fact, it’s now being suggested Spain’s economic woes will be worse than anywhere else in Europe. And the pain in Spain is refusing to stay mainly on the plain. Consumer confidence is almost off the bottom of the chart, possibly because most Spanish knew in their heart-of- hearts how flimsily based their economic boom was. And they bow to no one in their ability to shift overnight from excessive optimism to panic-edged pessimism. Mind you, they do have good cause. For a start, inflation here is higher than elsewhere, partly because the increases in foodstuff prices outstrip those in other European countries. For which I’ve yet to see an explanation. All in all, the feelbad factor at the moment is in danger of becoming self-servingly overwhelming. They’ve even switched off the air conditioning in my regular bar-café. So I now sweat over my reduced-quality tapas. Was the London blitz this bad?

Fascinating – The dangerous Venezuelan buffoon, President Chavez, has actually replaced President Bush as the most disliked American politico in Spain. Quite an achievement. But thoroughly merited. Especially in view of his financial support for the FARC terrorist group in Colombia.

As I reported at the time, Telefonica recently announced it's scrapping its existing [piss-poor] broadband service to Spain’s rural communities and replacing it with something better. Asked whether they believed this would happen in Galicia, 94% of the readers of the Voz de Galicia said they didn’t. That’s a reputation to be proud of, isn’t it? But, if you’re a highly profitable quasi-monopoly used to doing exactly what you liked, why should you care?. Even if the EU is trying to get you to pay a humongous fine, levied for abuse of a dominant position. Over in the UK, that other highly unpopular Spanish monopoly - Ferrovial – looks like being less fortunate, as it faces the break-up of the BAA airports operation it bought a year or two back. But, as this was financed by ever-more expensive debt totalling almost €12 billion, this might actually be a bit of relief for them. Especially as the credit crunch has closed off refinancing options. Meanwhile, they’ve made a handsome turn on flogging off the duty-free shops to an Italian company and so turned in highly increased profits for 2007. Which looks rather like poor timing to me. But probably inescapable.

An enterprising thief recently used the scaffolding around the lovely Peregrina church in central Pontevedra to get access to and then make off with the copper wire that ran up to the lightening conductor. I guess he was eventually caught as, otherwise, we wouldn’t know he was a dastardly Frenchman. Is there any other sort?

Finally – My commiserations to those in the UK who experienced floods yesterday after I’d said May had been a very dry month there. And my congratulations to the good folk of southern Galicia, who had sun yesterday and who awoke [or returned home] this morning to a glorious dawn. Time to cut the overgrown lawns and hedges. Under one of which, incidentally, one of the local semi-wild felines has given birth to three kittens. Well, they wouldn’t be puppies, would they? Nice for the rats to have something to compete with.

Just to follow up one item in yesterday’s blog – There was, in fact, at least one very funny item in yesterday’s Spanish press. It was a cartoon in ABC which made the point that the internal manoeuvrings in the fissiparous, right-of-centre PP party are essentially onanistic. I wanted to reproduce it in my blog but it didn’t show up on yesterday’s internet edition [though other cartoons did] and I can’t get it from the archives today. I wonder why. Too hard-hitting?

And following up on the subject of British hypocrisy, here’s a teaser article by David Runciman ahead of the publication of his book on the subject. It contains some marvellous quotations from Orwell, who – says Runciman – shows us that the only escape from the most corrosive forms of hypocrisy is to ensure that other forms of hypocrisy are unavoidable.

Here in Spain, autovia [motorway] exit lanes sometimes serve as access lanes as well. As I’m a tad confused on this, I’d welcome advice from someone who’s recently passed his/her test as to who has priority when a clash looms. In theory, at least. An insight into roundabout protocol would also be of interest. And a bit of a laugh, I suspect.

By and large, I’m very impressed by Google and use their services extensively. But the organisation is clearly not perfect and it irritates me by quoting my blog output [in Google Reader] as a measly 6.1 a week. And that’s not all! When I use Google Alerts for weekly updates on news articles and blogs on Galicia, it regularly fails to cite mine. If I were paying anything for their services, I might just go elsewhere. Though this would mean foregoing the 60c a day I make from the ads. Better think about it.

Finally – Rumour has it the UK has had its best May since records began. Here in Spain, it’s been one of the worst. I guess it’s the old high pressure-low pressure thing; the former is stuck over the UK and the latter over us, inviting the water-laden south west winds to visit us on a daily basis. The Spanish meteorological office tells us today, doubtless with smug satisfaction, that this May has not been as wet as that of 1971. Which is bugger-all consolation when you’ve sat under the Atlantic Blanket for an entire month. Ryan says he’s contemplating suicide. I’ve told him he has a point. And phoned the galgo rescue centre in Benavente.

The Anglo Galician Association – open to all who speak English – now has a Forum on the web. If you have a query about Galicia, why not register and post it.

Two items on Spain appear in today’s British press, which is unusual. Firstly, there’s a report on plans to test bulls which don’t act bravely in the ring. This will be to check if they’ve been doped so as to make them act ‘more like gatitos [kittens] than toros bravos. Secondly, there’s a report that the Competition Commission is almost certain to recommend the break-up of BAA. This is the company which owns 7 UK airports and which now belongs to the Spanish group, Ferrovial. The provisional report of the CC says that “BAA currently shows a lack of responsiveness to the interests of airlines and passengers that we would not expect to see in a business competing in a well-functioning market.” And it adds that they’re “inclined to the view that common ownership of the BAA airports is a feature of the market which adversely affects competition between airports and/or airlines”. Los días están contados, it seems to me.

Today is St George’s Day, which will probably be celebrated more in Georgia than in England. Those who feel it’s time for a truly English parliament have set up a new web page to further this cause. And, with nice timing, it’s reported that the EU has published another of those maps showing new regions that cut across national boundaries. This one included the Manche Region – Bits of southern England and northern France; the Atlantic Region – bits of west England, Wales, Portugal and Spain; and the North Sea Region – bits of England, all of Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands and parts of Germany. Allegedly, “Each zone will have a ‘transnational regional assembly’, although they will not have extensive powers”. Fascinating. If only as evidence of pipe-dreaming among Brussels bureaucrats with time on their hands.

The driver who killed 9 Finns and seriously injured more than 20 others at the weekend is said to be facing a jail term of 15 years. Well, we’ll see. Meanwhile, witnesses have said he was travelling way above the 120kph limit on wet and winding roads. This is not uncommon in Galicia. Hence our mortality statistics. And our insurance premiums.

Galicia Facts

The new leader of Paraguay is a Catholic bishop called Fernando Armindo Lugo Méndez. I’m just guessing that his family emigrated from somewhere near Lugo here in Galicia. Perhaps to get better weather . . .

Samuel Johnson once said "To call upon the sun for peace and gaiety or deprecate the clouds lest sorrow should overwhelm us is the cowardice of idleness and the idolatry of folly." Well, as I sit here contemplating the thick fog outside my window – or is it a low cloud? - I feel very tempted to indulge in a little idleness and folly worship. I think I preferred the rain. At least I could see beyond the end of my garden. But they say this will all change tomorrow. Snow?

For the year to end-march, house prices in Spain rose at a rate lower than our believed-by-no one official inflation rate of 4.5%. But not in the north west regions of Asturias and Galicia, where the figure was 7%. However, a columnist in the Voz de Galicia, discounts these numbers, claiming they’re a statistical artefact. I’d put it down to Brits continuing to buy properties in Green Spain despite the fall in the pound. But apparently not.

When I was young and the mortgage world was sane, whenever the rate rose you were given the choice by your provider to either extend the term or pay the higher rate. It seems the Spanish government is to manage a return to these days by subsidising the banks so the pain for their customers can be eased. This, it seems to me, is to reward profligacy and, as the phrase has it, to ‘privatise profit and nationalise risk’. The banks must be delighted. But I guess it could be worse; the government could be promising to compensate you for any negative equity you suddenly find yourself with. Or to help the greedy and once-highly-profitable construction industry to survive the bad times. Oh, sorry. It’s already said it will do the latter.

Counting the stars on one of the numerous EU flags one sees around Spain adorning Cohesion Fund projects, I noticed there were only thirteen, against a membership of twenty seven. Odd. Not a number I would have chosen.

If, like me, you’re continually struggling to get a balanced view on today’s key issues/religions of Climate Change and Global Warming, here’s something that’s a must-read. It’s said to be a devastating analysis of the case put forward by the International Panel on Climate Change. Reportedly, it is “Intended for a lay audience and signed by scientists from 15 countries. It takes all the key points of the IPCC's ‘consensus’ case and tears them expertly apart, showing how it has either exaggerated, distorted or suppressed the evidence available to it, or has imputed much greater certainty to its findings than is justified by the data”. If you can't face the whole report, just read the Conclusion on p. 26

Galicia Facts

Well, the weather improved a little for the start of yesterday’s international triathlon events here in Pontevedra and there were a couple of hundred spectators, including me, gathered at the start point. But, by the time the women competitors had climbed out of the [dirty, 14 degrees] river Lerez to get on their bikes, the cold and the rain had returned with a vengeance. As they were dressed in scarcely more than bikinis, I wondered whether the ambulance on stand-by was there to treat pneumonia cases. However, I’m delighted to report the winner of the men’s event was the local hero, Javier Gómez Noya. In the women’s race, the favourite, Vanessa Fernandes, retired because of hypothermia - possibly because she was used to warmer things in her native Portugal. The laurels went to Kathrin Mueller, from the more northern climes of Germany. But at least Fernandes got a lot further than the two ladies who dove into the river and then promptly got out after a mere 10 metres. To a wave of sympathy. From me at least. As the Voz de Galicia put it this morning – The public had a chance to see the hardest and most dramatic side of the triathlon challenge. I’ll say!

It’s reported that the Scottish highland bagpipe is a “recent invention, developed in the early 1800s for nostalgic Scottish émigrés.” Just like the kilt and most tartans. However, “Although the Highland bagpipe may be a phoney, there is a genuine tradition of piping in Scotland. A simpler type of pipe, which has its roots in the Islamic world, the Mediterranean and eastern Europe, was popular throughout the Highlands until the battle of Culloden in 1745. . . The first documented bagpipe dates to a 1,000BC Hittite carving from modern Turkey. . . The instrument spread through the near east, Europe and the Mediterranean to become a traditional folk instrument in dozens of countries.” So, I wonder where this leaves the Galician gaita? And our national costume. Probably more genuine and not designed for nostalgic émigrés. Even though there were a lot of these.

Talking of invention, I see that the British equivalent of the stories of a Galician Golden Age was the 19^th century Romantic Nationalist British insistence that pre-Norman-invasion Anglo-Saxons lived in a truly democratic society where, for example, women had equal rights to men and you could with impunity tell the king where you thought he was going wrong. Tripe, apparently. There’s a lot of it around.

Just picking up on a couple of things from yesterday’s post:-

Ministers and crucifixes: I wonder what will happen when Spain, as in Britain and France, has a Muslim appointee.

Two year estimates: I forgot to mention that this is also the predicted time frame for the car park project which has obliterated the square in front of Pontevedra’s town hall. We will see.

The roundabout with the useless side: I imagine this will become a car parking space. Illegal, of course. Spanish urban nature abhors a tarmaced vacuum.

I wonder what the odds are on hearing within 10 minutes 1. A BBC podcast on corruption and organised crime in Bulgaria, and 2. A plea from the ex President of the Galician Xunta that some election or other – presumably Rajoy’s – is not done a la búlgara. Friends tell me this description is applied to elections in which a candidate gets 100% of the vote. Something which President Mugabe is trying to achieve retrospectively, it seems. Perhaps he has Bulgarian advisers.

There is some sort of ‘water war’ taking place between Cataluña, Murcia, Valencia and Madrid. This is about government plans to pipe Ebro water to Barcelona, despite its opposition to its predecessor’s plans to send [rather more] liquid to the south of the country. Needless to say, whatever the core issue is, it's overlain with considerations of, firstly, the centre v. the regions and, secondly, the PSOE v. the PP. I imagine the only thing agreed on by most participants is that everything is the fault of incompetent, thieving, Castilian bastards in Madrid. It’s at times like this that I’m reminded that the solidarity and cohesion so lauded by Spain when it comes to EU funds simply evaporate when domestic issues are on the table.

Galicia Facts

We have two international triathlon races in Pontevedra today and the Weather Gods have decided to take the piss. Temperatures have dropped considerably and the rain is bucketing down. I imagine the event’s spectatorship will be around nil. Poor buggers. But at least they’re professional and so are getting paid for suffering.

Carrefour: Well, something must have worked. They called this morning to say they’re going to give me a new printer. But, No, I can’t pick it up with proof of my identity; I have to first get the receipt they gave to my friend who delivered it to them after I’d left for the UK. Actually, I lied about them calling me; of course they didn’t. Nonetheless, I have temporarily suspended the cif4c.com web page. But it will be resurrected if I find that my old printer is in a new box . . .

The report I cited yesterday about wind power said that – impressively – Spain had become a global leader in this field. And that, one day last week, the wind provided around 50% of the country’s electricity needs. Looking out of the window as I write this, I imagine the figure today might be 110. But, on balance, I suppose this achievement is some compensation for the despoliation of vast tracts in the hills of Galicia, Asturias and elsewhere in Spain.

In the UK, there’s a battle taking place between London and Edinburgh over whether the [minority] government in Scotland can introduce a local income tax. The British government has pronounced this unconstitutional and so has naturally had a good deal of criticism levelled at it from north of the border. As one commentator put it this morning - As the icing on her confection of invective, Ms Sturgeon played to the anti-colonial masses in her party's ranks by accusing the Treasury of behaving like a "proconsul". When all else fails, accusing the "Brits" of reverting to imperialist type always works for the Nats. If you live in Galicia – and even more so if you reside in Catalunia or the Basque Country - you’ll already be boringly familiar with this inflammatory strategy. I guess it must work.

Anyone who doesn’t take Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez too seriously might enjoy this. As might some who do.

Two classic searches which brought readers to my blog this morning:-
throwing donkeys off church towers, and
motorway brothels in Spain
I think I’ll start a rumour that, here in Galicia, they chuck a vast rage of farmyard animals off brothel roofs. Should do wonders for my statistics. And we do have a lot of both farmyard animals and brothels. Quite possibly on the same site.

Galicia Facts

Returning to the weather theme - If you chose this week to check out Galicia as a holiday/retirement option, I do hope you like wind and rain. If not, I hope it wasn’t anything I said that attracted you here. It could be worse; you could – like me – have your neighbours knocking down their interior walls 8 hours a day while you are stuck in the house.

Finally, I’m not having too much luck with multinational companies whose products I’ve bought. While in the UK, I mailed a camera to Nikon for a repair they assured me would probably be free. But now they say it will cost ₤183 [€228] to fix, plus 59 quid [€74] to send back to me. As I paid only ₤6 to send it to them special rate, I’m rather nonplussed by this. But I think I know what I’m going to tell them to do with the camera. If I can be bothered. Another famous name off my shopping list.

As it says on the can – random thoughts on arriving home in Pontevedra, after 3 weeks in the UK . . . .

I was unaware that, if you ask for an extra pillow at the reception desk of any posh hotel in London, your coded message means “I’d like a whore sent up to my room, please”. If you’re not British, you can dispense with the ‘please’.

It’s reported that in the UK it can take up to 15 days to get your broadband switched to another provider, against the 10 days it should be. Unless things have changed recently, either of these would be considered miraculous in Spain. Likewise 4 and 2 days for mobile phones.

I was impressed to see that a local newspaper in an Asturian restaurant this afternoon had the photos shown in the UK press of the bizarre outfits worn by some of the ladies at Liverpool's Grand National race on Saturday. This can’t have done much for the international image of British women. And it would be hard to imagine Mrs Sarkozy in any of them. Or, given the size of the women, two Mrs Sarkozys in most cases.

The paper also reported on the Alonso-Hamilton bump in yesterday’s Formula One race. No prizes for guessing where it laid the blame. A clue – It wasn’t the same person fingered in the UK media, it seems.

But there is a prize for correctly guessing how long it took for me to witness the following after I drove off the ferry at midday today:-
A. A near-miss at a roundabout.
B. A car coming from a slip-road failing to yield and thus forcing another car [mine] to swerve left into oncoming traffic
C. A car shooting past at about 160kph.
D. An accident involving a car upside down in a ditch.
E. A second accident, involving a van which had run into the guard-rail at the bottom of a bendy slope.

Only kidding about the prize. The answers are:- A. 30 seconds; B. 5 minutes; C. 10 minutes; D. About 2 hours, and E. About 3 hours.

I went to see There will be Blood in Liverpool last week and enjoyed it immensely. However, I missed the first 10 minutes as I was getting over the shock of paying ₤5.50 [more than 7 euros] for a glass of wine in the bar beforehand. Perhaps Daniel Day Lewis got most of this. And possibly deserved it.

If you see Designed in Britain on any article purchased in the UK, it means it was made in China. In three weeks, I’m not sure I bought anything that wasn’t. Including the loaves of bread.

It was a great pleasure to leave the British Midlands early yesterday morning to drive down to Plymouth. This was not merely because I was leaving the Midlands but because there was 3 inches [7.5cm] of snow on everything. The countryside was spectacularly beautiful, though the road signs were a tad hard to read. In contrast, the Atlantic Blanket greeted me as I drove into Galicia from Asturias. Now wonder April is known here as The month of a thousand waters. It sounds better in Gallego. And Spanish.

Another arrogant Anglo rag, The Financial Times, wonders whether President Zapatero hasn’t been a touch hubristic in boasting that the Spanish economy is now bigger per capita than Italy’s and promising to make the Spanish richer than the French. The paper sees a ‘serious correction’ as inevitable and also touches on some of Spain’s unaddressed underlying problems, such as low productivity. Finally, it makes a couple of recommendations as to how he might go if re-elected. You can read it all here. Incidentally, President Z has accused the Opposition of being ‘unpatriotic’ in endorsing doubts about the economy. This is surely a strange claim in a Western democracy. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear, say, President Chavez of Venezuela use it. But the President of Spain? Can he really think the voters are that unsophisticated? Or has he just lost touch with reality? Though in a different way from President Sarkozy. As far as we know.

If you were a Martian visiting Spain and wanted to be scandalised, you could do worse than shove yesterday’s El País into Google’s Spanish-to-Martian translation program and then read, firstly, the 2-page special on prostitution and, secondly, the article about the head of the Castellón council. The former tells us the already-huge sex industry is growing apace, fuelled by the ever-larger number of very visible establishments, the absence of social stigma and the demand for instant gratification on the part of young men who can’t even be bothered to chat up the women who these days are just as willing to sleep with them as even the notorious Swedes. But who might just expect a bit of commitment. And perhaps longer than 5 minutes. The second report relates to a hard-hitting election ad put out by the PSOE party in Castellón, pointing the finger at the current president of the council and asking the voters questions like:-
Do people make you gifts of land and houses?
Do you have more than a million euros in 39 separate bank accounts?
Did you forget to make tax return last year?

Truth to tell, prostitution and local government corruption are two massive stains on Spain’s national character but there seems to be little evidence that anyone wants to do much about them. My own view is that nothing will happen about the scandalous prostitution industry until Spanish women take up arms against it. But I see no sign of this happening. As for the corruption, I’m lost for a view and fear increasing devolution of power will only make it worse. At least in the short run. Maybe I’ll stand for mayor when my Spanish nationality comes through. And I am fluent in Gallego. Though I would, of course, be willing to be bought off.

Yesterday the wind and the rain came at us in full off-the-Atlantic force. Walking across the bridge into town – which acts as a wind tunnel – the thought struck me that it’d be good training for anyone who wanted to cross the Atlantic in a zinc bath. Especially as passing drivers decline to take the poncey option of slowing down to avoid drenching your legs and feet when they aquaplane through the puddles. And on the way back, it occurred to me that whoever invented the umbrella was probably the first person to realise human flight was possible. At times like this, the only compensation is the amusement afforded by the sight of dozens of twisted umbrellas abandoned in the town’s rubbish bins. Well, it make me smile anyway.

Saturday morning is probably not the best time to announce this to a slumbering world but I’d like to introduce you to a new word – clizzle. This describes the fine, clothes-soaking rain that falls relentlessly when you’re enveloped in a cloud. There is, apparently, a similar word - crizzel – which is a ‘kind of roughness on the surface of glass, which clouds its transparency’. Remarkably, the word cloud appears in both definitions and there is, of course, a connection in reduced visibility. But, anyway, I think it’s very apt that a Brit living in Galicia should coin a new word for rain. By the way, it is el clízel in Spanish and o clíxel in Gallego. But I fear the respective Royal Academies will take some time to catch up with this.

The x in Gallego is pronounced sh in English [and in Gallego!] and is usually substituted for the harsh j of Spanish. So, for example, our local town of Sanjenjo [‘The Marbella of Galicia’] is a lot easier to say for Brits in Gallego than in throat-ripping Spanish. As is the title of Cervantes’ famous novel. This advice is relevant not only for the previous paragraph but also for the news that Galicia is home to a thriving animation industry and that the latest feature film being prepared here is all about a donkey. It’s entitled Donkey Xote, which I think is a stroke of genius. Though Spanish friends are not so sure.

Finally - The EU and Telefonica are still engaged in a war of words over the former’s claim that broadband here is expensive and of a quality inferior to that promised. Defending Telefonica – which, if I had one, would lose it my vote - the Spanish government claims the speed obtained by users is very close to that purchased. Well, I know a market research sample of one is useless but I pay for 1000 something-or-others but never get more than 650. Personally, I don’t rate two thirds of what I’m entitled to as fidelity to the service offered. Others may differ. Especially if they’re employed by either the government or Telefonica. Neither of whom would win a popularity contest.

As it’s Saturday and the Galician nationalists who love to hate my blog may be taking a day off, I’m citing an article on Scottish nationalism from a Scottish member of the British government. For new readers, my long-standing view is that, though I support the promotion of Galician culture and language, I’m against any degree of direct or indirect compulsion when it comes to the language. But, above all else, I regard nationalism as quintessentially divisive. And destructive of what should be a two-faceted sense of pride. So it’s hardly surprising I would sympathise with sentiments such as these - Spare us this ghastly nationalism . . . Scotland is succumbing to a shallow, narrow-minded, narcissistic attitude that does it no favours. It should stop. . . I am unequivocally against narrow-minded nationalism in all its guises for the simple reason that it is divisive rather than unifying. For the full article, click here.

By the way, I suspect one would never hear a Catalan, Basque or Galician member of President Zapatero’s cabinet weighing in against any of the Spanish brands of nationalism. Or should that be ‘non-Spanish’? Simply put, without the support of the nationalist parties, the PSOE party could not retain power - nationally or regionally. Herein lies Spain’s problem. How to appease these supporters without breaking up the state. A nice challenge.

I joked yesterday that, for the Spanish, reading gets in the way of having fun. Smack on cue, a Spanish friend has sent me a set of photos on the theme Spain is different. One of these shows a T-shirt on which is written The Spanish Triathlon - Drinking. Eating. Fucking.

On a morning when I was jolted from sleep by Nice-but-Noisy Tony bawling at his kids, I happened to read this post from Ben Curtis over at Notes from Spain. So, if you’re coming to live here, you’ve been warned. Yet again. Ironically, though, my daughter’s attic flat in the heart of Madrid is quieter than my townhouse up above Pontevedra. Perhaps her flat was built before the critical date of 1923 cited by Ben.

Weather-wise, December in Galicia has opened with the return of the Atlantic Blanket. However, it must be said November was almost as sunny as September and October, though naturally somewhat colder at night. Incidentally, I read yesterday that all this dry weather had been good for burglaries. From the criminal’s point of view, of course. This has certainly been true in my neck of the woods. Which possibly explains the fortuitous appearance at my gate yesterday of a representative of a major burglar alarm company. Perhaps they get a copy of the police reports.