Is has to be said there’s quite a lot of ‘bad language’ in everyday Spanish discourse. Likewise in Gallego, where a common word is carallo. Or carajo in Spanish. Its basic meaning is the male member but its numerous derivatives make it an astonishingly versatile word. Rather than upset anyone by listing them here, I’m happy to send a little dissertation – in Spanish, ironically – to anyone who writes to me at colindavies@terra.es

I suggested the other day that a recession was normally a good time for students to keep their heads down and apply themselves to their studies. Reports of the sudden rise in applications to the Spanish Open University indicate that more people than ever are at least willing to take the first step of signing up for a course.

I’m not sure it’s the same people but the Galician Traffic Department up in Lugo has recently been implicated in a couple of perversions of process. Firstly, there was the announcement that an awful lot of people were being let off motoring fines in return for a contribution to someone’s benevolent fund. And, more recently, there was the uncovering of an elaborate set-up dedicated to the provision of un-merited driving licences to large numbers of Asians from all over Spain. So, if you’re hit by, say, a Chinese, Indian or Korean who doesn’t seem to know much about driving, you’ll now have some idea how he got a licence. Especially if he shows no understanding of spoken or written Spanish.

Here’s The Baldie with some pertinent comments on respective attitudes to race in Spain and the UK. On which issue there is mutual incomprehension, if not downright antagonism. In a nutshell, the Spanish see the Brits as obsessive, holier-than-thou, inverted racists, while the Brits just see the Spanish as simple racists - though often unwittingly and naively so. Which, in turn, the Spanish see as insufferable arrogance. All in all, it’s probably best not to raise the subject in public. Unless you’re Trevor. I steer clear of it, of course.

Here in Galicia, the serious loss of electorate support has finally persuaded the president of the Galician Nationalist Block – Anxel “Cock of the Walk” Quintana – to hand over the reins to someone else. Though the consensus is he jumped before he was pushed by what one writer today called his ‘cannibalistic’ colleagues. And, talking of the recent regional elections, the count of the overseas vote has now deprived the PP party of one of the seats won by them on the purely domestic vote. This won’t change anything as they still have - just - an absolute majority. But it seems a rum turn of events to me when local elections are decided on the votes of people who’ve possibly never even visited here. Especially, I guess, when some of us who pay taxes here don’t have a say in the matter.

Finally . . . While some Brits go native when they arrive here in Spain, it seems some of us only achieve it when we leave.

I’m getting a little tired of having my sentiments stolen by paid journalists. An editorial in El País today points out it’s one thing to use the excuse of ‘cultural heritage’ to stave of excess bureaucratic interference in Spain’s risk-ridden fiestas but quite another to use it to justify the chucking of goats off the top of towers. I suppose, though, it’s quite possible this thought occurred to the writer independently . . . Incidentally, the article mentioned the ‘aquatic sport’ of strangling live geese. Which is a new one on me.

Another thing which caught my eye in today’s El País was a long letter which essentially said that no country which had joined the wonderful EU should be allowed to criticise whatever came down from the decision makers. And this from someone who saw the institution as a welcome advance on the despotism of the Franco era. Que ironía. Or not, in this correspondent’s case.

Last week my younger daughter and one of her friends enjoyed four days here and spent each of them on the beach, relaxing in the sun we’d not seen for at least three weeks. When I mention this to Spanish friends, they virtually scream in astonishment that anyone could go to the beach in February, regardless of the temperature. This, though, is not a real surprise. After you’ve lived here a while, you appreciate that – while the Spanish can demonstrate an irritating individualismo – they’re really not very individualistic all. In fact, they can demonstrate something of a herd instinct. Which can, of course, be used to one’s advantage. For example, in these parts at least, it’s not done to go to the beach except between the 15th of July and the 31st of August. And then never between 2.30 and 5.30. So, chose accordingly and you can have a mile-long beach to yourself.

And while I’m pontificating about the natives . . . The Spanish like to see themselves as non-racist. One can differ with this take but it’s true they don’t mean to be insulting when they indulge in casual racism. Such as this remark from one of the Galician pensioners furious about being tricked into listening to a political address instead of getting the trip to Portugal he’d paid for – “They conned us like we were [stupid] Chinese.”

More seriously, the evidence continues to rise that, as the recession bites, the massive immigration of the last five years – leading to a 10% population increase – is beginning to generate high levels of racist antipathy. Sadly, I guess we could soon find out whether the Spanish belief that they’re not really racist is well-founded or not.

Switching on the TV this morning for news from the UK, I found that both the BBC and Sky were leading with the story of the dying 'celebrity' who’s being paid a fortune both to get married and to die in front of the cameras. In contrast, I read this afternoon, that on the evening of the first post-war elections in Britain, your radio choice was between a political commentary and the Benjamin Britten opera, Peter Grimes. Times certainly change.

Back to Spain . . . Come the end of the hunting season, come the abandonment of unwanted hounds. Here in Galicia, there were more than a hundred in the Lugo province alone. Something of a ritual, I guess. As is the recent announcement from the Galician Supreme Court that a huge block of flats in the centre of Vigo must be demolished as being illegal. This happens every two or three years and has been going on for twenty years now. And it will probably continue for another twenty, as various legal niceties are discussed in one forum or another. All very Jarndyce v. Jarndyce.

But to end on a positive note . . . The beginning of Lent brings us the Galician celebration of Entroido and, of course, the sort of processions associated with Mardi Gras in Rio. For the first time in years, I went down to have at look at Pontevedra’s last evening. It was huge fun and a tribute to the creativity and industry of a great many people. There’ll be more tomorrow but here’s a snap of one of the winners.


As you’ll all recall, Jules Verne had the Nautilus sail into one of the bays near Vigo, in search of the gold and silver bullion long-rumoured to lie on its muddy bottom. However, I bet he never had Captain Nemo indulge in the Spanish custom of parking his craft on a zebra crossing.

The British economy is now is such a parlous state I wonder how long it will be before there are calls for a ‘national’ government, comprising at least the two main parties. This would present the Conservative opposition with something of a dilemma, I suspect. They’d not want to be seen as ‘unpatriotic’ in resisting this but, less than two years away from a general election, neither would they want to be drawn into copping some of the blame for the mistakes of the last decade and the next twelve months. If it ever happens, it will be fascinating to watch.

Meanwhile, the pound continues its downwards progress from a mere ‘competitive devaluation’ to a full-blown run on the currency. For an insight into the reasons why, click here.

In the Byzantine world of Spanish regional-national politics, something deeply odd is taking place in the Madrid Autonomous Community. The President of the latter – who seems to be at constant war with the same-party mayor of Madrid city – is now accused of setting up a special service to spy on one of her same-party colleagues who wasn’t doing her bidding around political control of the regional savings bank, Caja Madrid. At least, I think that’s the situation but you’d need a degree in Spanish politics to really understand it all. Anyway, the hapless President of the right-of-centre PP party – there are a lot of presidents in Spain – has now initiated an investigation into the claims about the behaviour of the Madrid region president. With whom there’ve been sharp clashes in the past. This may be unfair but, taken with the fact that Spain’s judges are about to go on strike, this rather gives the impression that neither government nor opposition are doing their jobs and that no one in this fun-loving country is terribly concerned about its serious economic plight. Perhaps they all think that the EU 7th cavalry will always be there to ride to the rescue. I mean, if France and Germany can bend the rules and remain good members, why not Spain?

And, of course, the Spanish might be right. This article endorses reader Moscow’s view that exit of the EU would be extremely difficult, if not downright impossible. As the author says, “The costs imposed on country leaving the euro would be overwhelming. The markets would take fright and demand a far higher premium for holding the government's debts.” However, the writer adds the rider that “If the situation continues to worsen, electorates may ultimately demand nothing less.” This, of course, is because they don’t understand economics. But are very aware that economic expertise didn’t prevent the current global malaise. And that for every economic forecast, there’s at least another one round the corner. Then there’s the credibility of politicians. About which it’s probably best to say little.

A man from Barcelona is suing his British employer for racial discrimination, claiming his boss poked fun at him using quotations from Fawlty Towers. American readers might find it strange to see the word ‘race’ used for discrete European peoples but it’s certainly possible, I believe, for an Irishman to win a case in the British courts based on the telling of traditional scurrilous English jokes about their neighbours. Though I’m not sure a Belgian would succeed in a French court. Or a Canadian in either a French or an American court.

It comes to something when an Italian newspaper openly claims your country is happily harbouring its most corrupt nationals. But, sadly, La Repubblica says a large part of the construction along the Costa del Sol was carried out, with the full knowledge of local politicians, by companies linked to the mafia. Allegedly, Spain is the favoured destination of the Naples Camorra because it is a ‘more tolerant state, not afflicted by homicides or anti-mafia vigilance’. Or, as the paper puts it, ‘An Eden for organised crime.’ So, not much change since Noel Coward labelled the Costa del Sol ‘A sunny place for shady people’. Except he didn’t. It was the Riviera he was talking about. But he could have done.

The Catalan savings bank, La Caixa, has a new cultural centre in the heart of Madrid – El Forum. And an impressive place it is. I do wonder why Spain depends on its banks for such places but this is by the by. I enjoyed the Estruscan exhibition on the first floor yesterday but my elder daughter suggested I didn’t waste my time climbing to the second to see the contemporary Chinese art. So I didn’t. And I was surprised and impressed to see that all the Caixa’s phone numbers in Madrid are local numbers. With the exception of the one you need to call to sign up to be a volunteer for one altruistic association or another. For some reason, this is one of the now ubiquitous premium rate numbers. Perhaps voluntary service is only for rich folk.

There’s been a lot of fuss in the UK about Prince Charles calling an Asian polo-playing friend ‘Sooty’. My suspicion is that most Spaniards would argue that, as the guy is not white – making the term accurate - and because he says he doesn’t mind, then there’s nothing to get uptight about and the whole affair is just another example of Anglo-Saxon political correctness gone mad. Or even inverse racism. But a British columnist makes the right point in writing that the days are long gone when one could buy a jacket that was “unselfconsciously called nigger brown”. As she says - “Such words were truly not a sign of racism. They were simply signs of an entirely different and ethnocentric world view. And, although political correctness has led to some disastrous extremes, it has at its roots a belief in courtesy, in good manners and in avoiding unnecessary offence.” Which is the point many Spaniards give the impression of simply not grasping. Leading to the accusations of racism which so infuriate them. To them it matters only that the words – ‘Just a joke’ - were not intended to cause offence. Even if they did. So, not just ethnocentric but self-centric too.

Finally . . . Telefónica has full-page ads in today’s papers, boasting of a market capitalisation of 105 something or others, putting it between Electricité Francais and Coca Cola. You might think such a successful company would be able to give you a rural phone line in days rather than years. But, if so, you’d be wrong. On the other hand, you’d be right not to be very surprised at the claim from the Spanish Association of Internet Users that the ADSL service we get here is the slowest and most expensive in Europe. This accolade has to go to some country, of course, but it’s hard to see why it has to be Spain.

Blogger David Jackson - who lives down in Andalucia - recently vented his spleen at the use of Gallego as the default language for tourism sites. One can certainly empathise with him while still finding his headline - Eh? Galician? That's not a language! - rather provocative. Naturally enough, it prompted a thread which was both illuminating because of the exchanges between David and [another Brit?] Axe Grinder and depressing because of the sheer volume of invective spewed out by angry Gallegos and others. I did, of course, refer to an apparent Spanish fondness for personal abuse yesterday but, when I was researching something else this afternoon, I came across these comments in John Hooper's book "The Spaniards". The stresses are mine:- The characteristic that the Spaniards themselves are most aware of is their 'individualismo'. By this they don’t mean what Anglo Saxons mean by ‘individualism’, i. e. something like eccentricity. They mean self-centredness. Their traditionally egotistical outlook on life helps to explain two of the recurring themes in Spanish history – their reluctance to sacrifice any part of their own interests to the common good and their intolerance of other people’s views. The 'individualismo' of the Spaniards is still one of their most obvious traits. But the vindictive edge to it is progressively less evident.

Anyway, here is but one example of what I'm talking about, on the [retaliatory] question of whether English is a language. Sadly, the author vitiates his [essentially correct] opinion by larding it with gratuitous abuse:- Is English really a language? No, it is not. It is just a creole, a mixture of two dialects: a Germanic dialect spoken only by barbarian and rustic people (Old Saxon) and the pathetic Latin dialect spoken by the Normans (some sort of extremely corrupted French, which, in turn, is another extremely corrupted form of Latin spoken by another barbarian tribe, the Francs). In fact, during the Norman domination of England, the Germanic dialects were about to disappear completely in favour of, let’s call it, "French". When "English" was (re)imposed as the language of the Kingdom, it was already an ineffable creole, as it is today, more similar to spitting than to actual speaking. Of course, he's wrong that English was [re]imposed but this is hardly his main point. Which is not only that English is a bastard language [true] but also horrible to listen to [a matter of opinion]. I'm guessing this is because he's heard someone on the radio say "Khello. Khave joo khad any Khome English classes jet?"

For those who speak Spanish or Gallego, there are [?]better examples in the thread. Trawling through them, I had to marvel once again at the vast range of personal insults favoured by those Spanish contributors who seem to think hurling these is equivalent to putting forward an eloquent counter-argument. Amidst all the vitriol the word 'troll' popped up several times, giving the impression this is a Spanish favourite. Though it's not yet recognised by the Royal Academy. I wonder if it has this degree of celebrity in the Anglo bit of the blogosphere. And I also wonder whether Hooper was right to suggest vindictiveness is less evident in Spain these days. But perhaps it's just on the internet that it isn't.

Which, naturally, takes us back to the racism storm of the last week . . . In an article about some Argentinean athletes showing their affection for the Chinese by making the famous slant-eyed gesture, there appeared this comment about this:- The rows sparked by the [Spanish] photos have highlighted how standards about the acceptability of racial stereotyping vary widely between countries, even in the West. Much of the criticism of the Spanish teams has come from the English-speaking blogosphere, prompting complaints from Spain about alleged Anglo-Saxon hostility to Madrid’s 2016 Olympic bid. Actually, there were also suggestions the row had been manufactured to help the US basketball team against its Spanish opponents last Saturday. But anyone watching the game and noticing the margin between them might well have concluded this conspiracy lacked a certain plausibility.

News today of how the economic crisis is hitting home. And away:-
1. According to El País, the number of buyers backing out of purchases of new property developments and forfeiting their deposits is causing new problems for cash-strapped developers, and
2. A spokesperson for the prostitutes' collective, Hetaira, has said working girls are complaining about the lack of clients as the slowdown reduces the number of men availing themselves of their services.

Quote of the Olympic Week

The Russian pole-vaulter proved that she is more than just a chick on a stick.

Galicia

The Galician National Block [BNG] must believe the rumours that the socialist president of the Xunta is about to announce that - 'in the interests of Galicia' - he's going to call the elections for this autumn rather than next spring. For it's taken the pre-emptive step of issuing what amounts to its manifesto without notifying its socialist partner in government. I'm on record as predicting the BNG will see its 18% share of the vote fall and it looks as if we won't have long to wait to see if this is accurate or not.

Hats off to the honorary Gallego, Amancio Ortega, who set up his first Zara shop in A Coruña twenty years ago and has just steered it past its major rival Gap. Whoever they are. Ortega is said to be a shy, humble workaholic. So he must have been outstanding even before he started Zara. I'd guess he's not vindictive either.

Well, it's gone the middle of August and I've yet to receive any mail. Which tends to substantiate the formal complaint of the residents of my Poio barrio that all the staff of the local post office go on vacation at the same time. Worse, the guys who collect the rubbish have gone out on strike. Which is not a good thing at the height of summer in a place where a lot of fish and seafood is consumed. I only have the bottle and paper bins outside my front door but I may have to move up-country for a while. Especially if the wind changes.

My younger daughter - the weather jinx - arrives on Thursday. Needless to say, it's forecast to rain all day. I daren't look at the prediction for Friday and beyond.

It's one of life's major ironies that, although the description 'liberal' was first coined in Spain in the sense which it still generally bears around the world, here it has come to mean red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalism at worst, or Thatcherism at best. It can be quite confusing when left-of-centre newspapers summarily reject 'liberal' economic proposals as if they were redolent of the worst excesses of the 19 century US robber barons. Sometimes accompanied by the hackneyed cartoon of a fat, cigar-chomping businessman in a frock coat and stove-pipe hat, brandishing a cloth bag with a big dollar sign on it. But it all adds to the gaiety of life, I guess.

Talking about economic proposals, the right-of-centre El Mundo has dismissed the government's package of emergency measures as mere 'marketing'. By which I suppose it means majoring on presentation rather than substance. From left-of-centre, El País tells us that "The coexistence of perturbations of different natures requiring solutions that are at least in part contradictory complicates politico-economic decisions." And who could argue with that? The problem is that not many people seem to think the government is up to the task. Possibly because it is still doing an excellent impression of a rabbit caught in the glare of a car's headlights.

The slanty eyes ad: My comments have naturally generated a Spanish response and the essence of the reaction is - as predicted - that it couldn't possibly be offensive or racist since intentions were 100% good. Here's an elegant attempt by David Jackson - an Englishman born and bred in Andalucia, I believe - to be fair to both sides. And, of course, I agree with him - having already said it - that the most pertinent contribution to this, er, debate would be a reliable survey of how Chinese folk living in Spain found it. My final comment is that this afternoon I asked a good Spanish friend - married to an Anglo - what she thought of it. She smiled, ducked the issue of whether it was racist, and said "Well, it's just one of those stupid things that the Spanish thoughtlessly do and then defend to the death when criticised for it." So, perhaps we can leave it at that, with the question of whether it was subjectively or objectively racist hanging in the air. To be positive, it was good that forgiveness was sought for any unintended slant. Sorry, slight.

Tomorrow's controversy will be the presentation of my considered view of Nationalists.

Galicia

If you'd been sunning yourself on the wonderful Lalanzada beach near O Grove yesterday, you'd have been treated to the sight of an 18 metre speedboat being beached there by drug traffickers who felt it'd best to set fire to it and jump ship rather than hang around for the pursuing helicopter and boats of the Guardia Civil. Leaving behind 1,400 kilos of cocaine. It would all have made an unusual postcard home. If anyone in Spain ever sent one. But a camera in a mobile phone is an excellent substitute, it seems.

I referred the other day to the almighty mess around the basilica of Santa Maria in Pontevedra and ventured the view that neither residents nor tourists were too concerned about things. It seems I was wrong; one tourist - pressed for his views on the city by the Diario de Pontevedra - asked "How can things around the emblematic basilica have been allowed to come to such a pass." But, since he was Catalan, we're probably entitled to tell him to push off back to his own nation and to solve the well known civil engineering problems there before he comes here shooting his mouth off about what pleases and displeases real Spanish tourists. Of course, this would be best done in Castellano as he might not understand it in Gallego. Sometimes you have to make an exception.

So, are the Spanish racist?

Well, here are the items I found in today's papers on the subject of the photos of both the male and female basketball teams making slanty-eyed gestures:-

First, a letter in El Mundo:-
I read with shock the criticisms of the Spanish teams for the supposed racist content of the ads in which they stretched their eyes so as to imitate the Chinese. The ad is of dubious taste, infantile and unimaginative. But racist? I can neither believe nor was expecting such a facile journalistic response from various foreign media.

Secondly, the comments of the one of the team members:-
It doesn't make sense that in the USA and the UK they think we're offending the Chinese people. It wouldn't offend me if someone made an ad showing himself as Spanish.

Thirdly, the comments of the President of the Spanish Sports Federation [who is not, by the way, Luis Aragonés]:-
The criticisms in some British and American journals such as the Guardian and the New York Post are malintencional and are designed to try to damage the image of the Spanish basketball teams. They are clearly inappropriate. The gesture was affectionate. The twisted intentions of the English and the Americans would be worth more if they worried more about the racist antecedents of their own countries.

Fourthly, the view of the leading Spanish player [Gasol], who actually plays and lives in the USA:-
Well, I thought at the time it was both funny and offensive. I would not have taken part if I'd known what reaction it would cause.

And, finally, some comments from non-Spanish observers, together with a long Spanish response that is typical in that what it says is not incorrect while, at the same time, the writer misses the point. Thus justifying the headline I saw somewhere - The Spanish just don't get it. Which is true; they don't. Hence the screams of pain and the counter-accusations.

So, the answer to my opening question - Are the Spanish racist? - is possibly No, the Spanish are not racist. Or, rather, they don't think they are because they don't mean to upset anyone. But in this, as in other things, they show a remarkable inability to empathise with other cultures. And so can come across as racist. Just as they can come across at times as being exceptionally rude whereas they think of themselves as very polite. Which, on a one-to-one basis, they always are.

Some would say that, as regards sensitivity to racism, things have gone too far in Anglo countries but not far enough in Spain. And others would say, I guess, that it's a waste of time hoping that that a balance will be struck between the extremes. But you never know.

Galicia

And now for two 'positive' photos taken in Pontevedra this week . . .

Although this is a mess, it's a legitimate mess as it's the excavation of the Roman approach to the original Burgos bridge, across which runs the Portuguese Road to Santiago. The council is to be commended not only for doing this work but also for keeping it open permanently and for changing the traffic flow so this could be achieved. Bloody nuisance as the roadworks have been for at least a year now. Especially for anyone trying to find the Parador. Which was tough enough before.


Secondly - The Pontevedra council has recently removed the granite blocks used to stop drivers going into this part of the old quarter and replaced them by more-attractive-but-still-granite large words such as this one - VILA. Its mate [albeit a few hundred metres away] is BOA, and together they mean Pretty City. In Gallego, of course. And also Portuguese, I suspect. A bit self-congratulatory, perhaps, but acceptable.


Finally - and reverting to negativity - here's the parking offence that annoys and mystifies me in equal amounts.


Let me explain . . .
1. Those who park like this - to go to the pharmacy - can't be bothered to drive 15 metres to a side road.
2. They park either on or [as here] right next to a crossing, obscuring the view for both drivers and pedestrians.
3. They park just after/between two bends, creating risks for other drivers going either down or up the hill.
4. They force drivers coming down to overtake on a crossing AND to move into the middle of the road - across a solid white line - into the path of cars going up the hill as they are negotiating their bend.

I like to think the people who do this must belong to one or two categories of folk who disdain others - 1. the rich pijos who live at the top of the hill, or 2. the gypsies who live at the bottom. But perhaps I'm being too kind. Maybe you just have to be stupid. Or excessively 'individualistic'.

And I guess the police could stop this if they levied some punitive fines. But the signs are they don't care either.

Later . . .

Well, that was going to be that but, as I drove down to the bridge midday today, I came upon the spot featured above, only to find that not only was a car was parked on the zebra crossing but there was also a delivery van on the other side of the road. This, of course, obliged me to pass through a small gap between them. As I did so, I blew my horn in protest - only to have the [gypsy] driver of the parked car blow his in response and the van driver to throw up his arms in a protest of innocence. However, when I parked and walked back, I found that the van had driven into the unloading bay and the car had taken its place on the other side of the road. And, since it now had its hazard lights on, by Spanish convention everything was now alright. Safe, even. I leave you with the photo . . .

Spain's savings banks - the cajas [or caixas here in Galicia] - have always been a bit of a mystery to me. My dealings with the tax office - by which I mean the regional Facenda and not the national Hacienda - have shown me that there's something of a favoured relationship between the Xunta and at least one of our caixas but I'm grateful to Charles Butler for an amusing insight into the origins and operations of these [pseudo?]banks. And I have, belatedly, added a link to his Ibex Salad site.

It's commonplace to say that, by the time Franco shuffled off this mortal coil in 1976, Spain was 30 or 40 years culturally adrift from even its closest neighbours in Europe. In many ways, though, Spain has not just caught up since then but sped* past. That said, in a race-sensitive world, you almost have to laugh at how naive the Spanish can be. I've said several times that the fundamental Spanish attitude is that one can't possibly be racist if it was all just a bit of a joke and there was no intention whatsoever to upset the person who's nonetheless demonstrably upset. Which used to be the traditional English defence against Irish jokes, of course. And now we have the latest example of this in the ad featured in this Guardian article. I can guarantee, firstly, that no one involved intended to insult the Chinese; secondly, that they'll be astonished at any criticism; thirdly, that it will all be defended as humour; fourthly, that the Spanish will be genuinely miffed at the suggestion they're racist; and, finally, that it'll be implied that, if anyone really is upset, then [like Arsenal's Henry] it's their problem, not that of the Spanish perpetrators.**

* I originally wrote 'raced past' but, after reading it several times finally realised why it didn't feel right . . . .

** It gets worse. Since I wrote this, I've learned that we're now expected to see this as a 'respectful' tribute to the Chinese. Cynical or just very, very stupid?

Galicia

I said the other day that parts of Pontevedra were a mess. This is not strictly true; parts of the old quarter are an almighty mess. And have been for some time. I'm not sure whether anyone cares much - resident or tourist - but here are some illustrative pix taken around and near one of the main attractions - the basilica of Santa Maria la Mayor. I know the quality of the workmanship is high and I'm sure things will eventually look wonderful. But, my God, is it taking time!

This one is of the spot very close to the basilica where the botellón used to begin:-


And here's what faces you if you want to go down the side of the basilica or to visit the tapas bar just on the left. Believe me, it's been a lot worse than this. At a time when the poor owner of the bar has been trying to sell it!


The front of the basilica


And down the other side


This is where they've yet to finish re-paving the main route to the the basilica from the town centre


Behind these pipes lies the little ex Jewish cemetery I mentioned last week


And this - would you believe? - is the entrance to the Rias Baixas Tourist Board offices.


Here's what it looks like behind the town hall

And down one side of it


Nicer pix tomorrow.

I'm not sure I believe this but it was reported yesterday that a survey of Spanish young people showed they were averse to working with the following groups of people, in the cited percentages:-
Gypsies - 67%
Moroccans - 64%
Jews - 57%
East Europeans 49%
Latin Americans - 44%
Asians - 43%
North Americans - 29%
Western Europeans - 23%
I mean, do as many as 23% of young Spaniards really object to working with Western Europeans? And as few as 29% to sharing an office with an American?

I wonder if it would be possible to pick a worse moment to try to discuss and modify the system for financing the regions than when both central and local administrations are suffering a catastrophic fall in tax revenue. It's certainly true that Madrid has shown once again that, while it's not possible to please all the people all the time, you can surely displease them all at the same time.

El País tells us today that the government - harshly criticised by even this left-of-centre paper for doing little in the face of the economic downturn/crisis - has decided on the bold step of calling a congress of economic experts so they can discuss things in the round and come up with some good advice. I can think of no greater recipe for doubt and indecision. Not to mention analysis paralysis. On the one hand . . . . . But on the other . . .

Galicia Facts

All three political parties have reacted badly both to the government's publication of 'national solidarity' balances and to the Finance Minister's proposal for a new system of financing the regions. The President of the Galician Nationalist Party has gone so far as to claim it's all a fabrication to try to show that Galicia is a region of malingering beggars. Of course, the real problem is that everyone wants what Cataluña wants. And Cataluña wants more.


Finally - and boringly - I'm still having problems with my computer. A corrupt registry, apparently. The machine functions and I appear to have all my files but several programs have ceased to function and won't re-install. Any advice very welcome.

Opening with a smile – I got these two hits to my blog yesterday, within a few minutes of each other. I wonder if they are related . . .
the Anglo Galician Association
the brothel association of Spain

OK, another smile before the serious stuff – A quote from an English newspaper this morning:- The new film of Brideshead Revisited is to include a love triangle between Charles Ryder, Sebastian Flyte and his sister Julia - a scene that Waugh carelessly omitted to pen. Is nothing sacred these days?

Enough levity. On to weightier matters . . . I guess the best that can be said about Spanish racism is that it’s born of naivety and a simple lack of cultural awareness - assisted by a deep-seated Spanish belief that, if you don’t mean to hurt anyone by your words, then they’ve no real cause to be upset. My latest musing on this theme is prompted by this cartoon from yesterday’s Correo Gallego, which relates to the Nigerian episode in the recent life of our senior VP. I’m quite sure the artist would be horrified to be told it’s insulting as this is the standard way negroes are depicted here in Spain:-

The irony here is that the cartoonist is being critical of the VP for not obeying equality rules. Equality and race apparently being differently-entitled things in Spain.

The Spanish property market: A couple of years back, my good net-friend Biopolitical alerted me to the huge stake which the central and regional governments had in the continuation of a construction boom, even if it were driven by little more than speculative greed. This stems primarily from the tax streams that follow in the wake of property transfers. More recently, I’ve commented on the dreadful prospect facing town halls across the country now that the golden goose has shuffled off this mortal coil far more rapidly than either the national or any regional government seems to have even contemplated. I’m once again indebted to Mark Stucklin for putting all this in a nutshell:-Local authorities are totally unprepared for a slump in revenues, even though the present situation could be seen coming a long way off. The growth model and urban planning model many employed was short-termist and unsustainable, and failed to nourish long term wealth creation. Whilst the construction sector boomed, town halls used the revenues to finance a dramatic increase in municipal infrastructure and services that are now fixed costs that have to be paid. Increasing your fixed costs in response to a temporary rise in income is always a recipe for disaster. This municipal finance crunch will squeeze coastal towns the hardest, as construction fever during the boom raged the most on the coast. Town councils in the Valencia Region have been warned to prepare for 3 “very difficult” years. Oh, dear. Here come the increases in our annual municipal taxes, the IBI. Amongst other things. Even more public works down in town, I guess.

Meanwhile, the Association of Developers is still begging for taxpayer-sponsored aid to keep them at the level of luxury to which they’ve become accustomed. Or to quote Mark again:- The association of leading Spanish developers has called on the government to inject an extra €40 billion into the economy to stimulate the housing market and soften the “excessive downturn in the construction sector.” The general secretary of the association argues that, if present trends continue, there will only be 200,000 housing starts in Spain this year, well below a real housing demand he estimates at 350,000, and far below the 600,000 plus in recent years. Rather than drop their own inflated prices to stimulate demand and shift some of the 500,000 newly built properties they have in stock, the developers are, as usual, calling on the government to make it easier and cheaper, in the short term, for buyers to load up with debt. Vamos a ver.

But it’s not all gloom. As I say, I may have a massive, ugly concrete skeleton in front of my house [picture soon] but I can at last again park my car in front of my gate. My garage even. And my picture window is at the back of the house, giving me a rather superior view. If I ignore the unsold monstrosities in funeral parlour style to the far right. Which are not shown here . . .

Waiting in the council offices yesterday, I had a chance to read the application form my mother must complete to get another Disabled Parking badge. For reasons, I can’t immediately understand, you’re asked to give your racial/ethnic group. There are quite a few categories to chose from but one of these is Black or Black British. In which case you're asked to say whether you’re Caribbean, African or Any other Black background. You’ll note the word Black is capitalised, as is Irish, Asian and Chinese. I guess this the new compulsory usage to avoid allegations of racism. I don’t suppose a new continent or country has just been discovered. I guess it would be possible [necessary?] to write:- As A Chinese man is yellow and an Englishman pink, so a Black man is black.

I’ve referred a couple of times to Orwell’s essay on the abuse of language by politicians. This was penned in 1946 and, of course, things have got a lot worse since then. Here’s an extract from an article which addresses how the Left has cranked things up in the last 10 years or so here in the UK:- After a fourth consecutive election defeat in 1992, Labour finally cottoned on to the power of re-branding and has been at it ever since. The party machinery has developed a mastery of language distortion to achieve goals that it knows would be rejected by the electorate were they set out in plain English. Labour became New Labour. The red flag had already been swapped for the red rose. Tony Blair never dismantled our civic institutions: he "modernised" them. Gordon Brown did not sign up for a European constitution: it was just "a treaty". The Government's latest fraud was unveiled yesterday with a shortlist of 15 locations for new towns in England. But these will not be just any old towns, they will be "eco-towns" and therefore, in Labour-speak, undeniably a good thing. By stamping "eco" on their plans, ministers expect, indeed demand, universal approval. Woe betide those who reject them; you will be accused of ruining the planet.

As I drove past numerous warning signs and cameras this morning, I wondered whether a recession wouldn’t bring blessed relief for the citizens of a nannying state which - absent more critical issues to deal with - has spent the last 10 ‘fat cow’ years interfering in personal lives on an unprecedented scale. The Age of the Bureaucrat, as I’ve labelled it. I say ‘absent more critical issues’ but, of course, the [New] Labour government has manifestly failed to deliver on its 1997 promises to improve the situation as regards road and rail travel, education, public health, excessive welfare payments, social mobility, benefit fraud, etc., etc. Not to mention the continuing breakdown of family life. The British are famously tolerant and patient but I, for one, would be surprised if Labour wins the next general election. New or Old.

Talking of British society . . . One commentator writes this morning: The British are a nation of volunteers. It has defined us more than egg sandwiches, queueing, warm beer or Marmite. Like good sportsmanship or tolerance, it is one of the characteristics foreigners tend to admire even while they are slating us for our rampaging teenagers or dire cooking. In his third report on welfare, published in 1948, William Beveridge explained: "In a totalitarian society, all action outside the citizen's home is directed or controlled by the state. By contrast, vigour and abundance of voluntary action outside one's home, individually and in association with other citizens, for bettering one's own life and that of one's fellows, are the distinguishing marks of a free society. They have been outstanding features of British life." I suspect that, if Beveridge were living now, he’d be rather more conscious of the aspects of a totalitarian regime that now blight life in the UK than his Labour successors appear to be. New or Old.

Finally, here’s the comment of a Spanish blogger who links to mine. Clearly a bright and sensible chap. Mirar la vida diaria a traves de los ojos extraños de estos conciudadanos venidos de lejos me ha hecho considerar de una forma más cariñosa nuestras propias carencias y limitaciones. Gracias por haber elegido España para vivir y, sobre todo, gracias por escribir sobre vuestras vidas para disfrute de todos. You can see more here.

A British parliamentary commission says the government’s claim that immigrants contribute 6 billion pounds a year to the UK economy is pure, unsubstantiated hokum. Or words to that effect. I fancy I’ve heard much the same claim of economic benefit regularly made in Spain about its own massive influx of foreigners over the last 5 to 10 years. So I wonder whether this, too, is questionable. It’s possible that the fact Spain doesn’t have more than a million [two million?] people claiming they can’t work because they’ve got a bad back differentiates the cases.

The legal maximum for alcohol for driving in Britain is 0.8 per mg, which is a lot higher than most other European countries. Nonetheless, UK road fatalities are lower than elsewhere. But this couldn’t last, of course, and the government says it plans to bring the limit in line with its EU partners, at 0.5mg. They say this will save ‘up to 65’ lives a year. I wonder how they do these calculations. And whether they use the same Mickey Mouse economics apparently used to justify levels of immigration way above anything they forecast only a few years ago.

Quote of the Week

There’ll be an uprising in this country soon.

My mother - after reading a tabloid article about a veiled Muslim woman who’s claiming thousands of pounds in compensation for the ‘racial discrimination’ behind her failure to land a job in a hairdressing salon. She’s totally wrong, of course - my mother I mean - but I can’t help wondering whether her concerns are more akin to those of the electorate than Gordon Brown appreciates. Especially in those sectors of the economy where - according to the same Parliamentary commission - immigration has led to wage erosion.

The good thing about this debate in the UK is that it is a debate. As others have commented, even the British government is now saying things for which they themselves would have labelled you racist five years ago. Maybe we have to ‘thank’ the London tube and bus bombings for this.

A certain C. Fernandez writing for one of the British papers says that men are hopeless at recognising when women are flirting with them. I like this notion. It’s greatly preferable to the conclusion that I’ve never been chatted up because I’m ugly. Or because - in the view of one reader at least - I look like Brian Sewell.

You can’t stay in Hoylake without playing a round of golf on the world famous Royal Liverpool course. Or, in my case, on the municipal course across the road from it. But at least Tiger Woods and his colleagues used the latter for practice sessions. So we may have sworn at the same bloody magpies. Though I doubt he lost as many balls.

It strikes me that Cataluña and Scotland have more than a couple of things in common right now, apart from the fact they’re best buddies because of shared independence goals within their governments. The left-of-centre central governments in both Spain and the UK only retain power because of seats held in Cataluña and Scotland, respectively. I guess if it weren’t for fear of the power of precedent, the PP and Tory parties would be kissing them goodbye.

The Palma politico who spent €50,000 on male prostitutes in two years, turns out to have been a pillar of the Catholic church and a man who refused to preside over gay marriages. I’d be prepared to bet he is/was a member of the Opus Dei secret society. Nice to see that hypocrisy is not confined, as the Spaniards appear to think, to Brits. By the way, his name is de Santos. Or Saintly, I guess. This explains why he has re-paid the money. Which was just lying around, it seems.

Things change. Views change. Societies change. Listening to a BBC discussion of the classic 1914 American film Birth of a Nation, I heard one critic say the people who’d made it hadn’t the slightest appreciation it was not just racist but appallingly so. Albeit astonishingly well directed. I shall think of this whenever in future anyone tells me here they’re not racist and were merely joking when they upset whomever they upset.

Galicia Facts

With the elections well over, life has returned to normal. The spat over the re-location of displaced gypsies between the mayors of Pontevedra and neighbouring Poio appears to be shifting towards outright war. The street demonstrations against gypsies – more accurately against ‘drug trafficking’ – have moved to the centre of Pontevedra. Meanwhile, the gypsies in question have moved back to the encampment near me, into houses erected where their illegal homes were knocked down a month or so ago.

The new Indian restaurant here in Pontevedra was a disappointment. Not bad in some ways but, as in the Vigo Indian, dishes described as sweet on the menu were unbearingly so. I wonder if this is an attempt to Hispanicise/Galicianise them. The usual way, of course, is to remove anything that makes the dishes hot [picante].

I seem to have got my wishes about the Portuguese workers who’ve been clogging up the street with their cars for more than two years. They appear to have disappeared from the building site opposite my house. But whether this is because their work is done, or because money has run out or because we’re in a holiday week, I can’t tell. For whatever reason, work appears to have ground to a near-halt.

The Portuguese economy has been in a bad way for some time now. So I wasn’t surprised to read that more than 50% of the workers on the nearby tracks for the twelfth-of-never high speed train [the AVE] are from Portugal. Not did I fall over when reading that 1. they’re paid a third less than their Spanish colleagues, 2. they’re denied the benefits given to the latter, and 3. the site boss was reluctant to let them be interviewed.

Asked whether they thought zebra crossing provided enough protection for pedestrians, 95% of the readers of the Voz de Galicia opined that they didn’t. Of the 5% who thought they did, 50% have since been run over.

See – Two days now without news of the printer. Which is, of course, because there isn’t any.

A reader has written to offer a house valued at €300,000 for only 100,000. This is because it’s close to a gypsy camp. As the writer is anonymous, I don’t know if he/she is Spanish but I guess the purpose of the exercise is to prove that, as no one will seize the opportunity, we are all no different from the Spanish - racists at heart. In fact, what the writer has done – unwittingly I suspect – is to clearly display the difficulty many [most?] Spaniards have in differentiating between an understandable aversion to anti-social behaviour and an unacceptable antipathy to people based merely on the colour of their skin. As I’ve said, the real risk here is that it will take a few race riots in Barcelona or Madrid to force them to review this stance and to accept that the rest of the world is never going to sympathise with the Spanish view that there’s no harm in insults of any stamp, provided only that the insultor didn’t really mean to upset the insultee, whatever words were used. Or because the Spanish just love to dress up as negros and don’t mean to suggest all black people are monkeys. None of this would matter if Spain were a self-sufficient island for which the views of others in the world didn’t matter. But it isn’t. All that said, it’s for the Spaniards to decide where they go on this. No one else. And they’re right that no one can dictate to them. I doubt that anyone really wants to but, unfortunately, this is how things are seen here. And riled Spaniards tend to be obstreperous Spaniards.

Talking of gypsies – My local council of Poio knew what it was doing when it dragged its feet for years over the demolition of several illegal houses in a camp not far from me. For they knew they’d have real difficulties re-housing the occupants. I’ve touched on this a couple of times but the latest developments are:- 1. The tenants of a council flat block 200 metres from me are refusing to pay their rent because a gypsy family has been moved in. And 2: The mayor of Pontevedra has cut off the water from a flat block on his patch into which the mayor of Poio had moved several displaced families. In this case, the irony is that the barrio is famous for being a harmonious mix of gitanos [gypsies] and payos [non-gypsies]. But the former are the good ones who work as traders and send their kids to school. The displaced gypsies are all seen – with some justification - as drug dealers. There’s actually a bigger irony in that both mayors are from the Galician Nationalist Party, which sees itself as more socialist than the PSOE party of the left. But both have a lot of concerned middle class voters to worry about. Of course, this problem would never have arisen if the Poio council had not turned a blind eye to the establishment of a camp and the construction of more than 20 illegal houses but perhaps this was always too much to ask. Seems very short-sighted now.

If you’re coming to live in Spain, you need to know there’s little recognition here that smoking is injurious to non-smokers. Or, to put this another way, the right of a non-smoker not to be injured is at best equal to the right of a smoker to do whatever he or she likes. I write this because I had lunch with three Spanish friends on Friday, all in their 30’s and all heavy smokers. The restaurant was booked from the car and a smoking table requested. Although they all knew I’m a non-smoker, into no-one’s head did the thought enter that my view was worth consideration. Of course, if I’d been less stupidly British and more devil-take-the-hindmost Spanish, I’d have upset them by insisting we ate away from the swirling fumes that gave my jacket the stench of nicotine. But I chickened out and so have no one to blame but myself. It’s their society and I choose to live here.

In the UK, the head of the Church of England has suggested bits of the Islamic Sharia law be incorporated into the British judicial system. For a good response to this astonishingly unhelpful [to everybody] notion, see here. As someone as commented, the proposal may well be mad but at least the making of it has ensured it will never happen.

Nearer home in Portugal, it’s reported the police are about to admit they have no evidence against the McCanns and that their agudo label will soon be removed. This should put an end to the preposterous theories by which we’ve been assailed for the last year but I don’t suppose it will. For many in Portugal and here in Spain – and not a few in the UK - they will always be guilty because ‘She didn’t cry enough’.

What a world.

End of Sunday sermon.

El Pais carried a good article on racism in Spain yesterday, headed I’m not a racist but you’re a black bastard. The writer – Daniel Borasteros – says that “Here in Spain there’s an essential explanation – deep and well-hidden – which transforms crude insults into something else”. And he quotes ‘the veteran researcher and sociologist, Juan Diez Nicolás’ as saying “It’s a question of offending, of hurting another. At heart, there’s no racism associated with this. Spain isn’t racist; all the studies prove this. It’s a lack of imagination, loutish behaviour. It’s bad, of course. But we mustn’t confuse our terms. It’s like when they call someone fat or a dwarf.” Borasteros adds that all the psychologists he consulted took this line, always stressing that “The English don’t understand this.” Or as Borasteros himself puts it sardonically - “These subtleties aren’t understood in other European countries, especially the UK.”

Not everyone in Spain thinks like this, of course, and Borasteros quotes a very different view from the President of the Campaign against Intolerance. But what are we to conclude? That what Spanish academics see as a failure of cultural understanding on the part of the British is actually a failure on the part of many Spanish to understand how most other cultures operate, even in Europe alone? Is this belief that everything goes in a ‘culture of insults’ - accompanied by the refusal or inability to recognise, never mind empathise with, the legitimate sensibilities of others - the very essence of the famed Spanish individualism? If even academics take this line, do most Spaniards really believe that they are the only ones marching to the beat of an innocuous drum and that everyone else is out of step? And fuck ‘em, if they are? If so, then with the immigrant population now at 10% of the total here, God help the future of race relations here. The Spanish appear to have learned nothing from the mistakes of both the British and French attempts to establish effective multiculturalism. Not to mention the USA.

Anyway, here's the article. And here’s a link to the site of John Chappell in Barcelona, who’s done what I intended to do for you and translated the article. Or most of it at least. And he’s added his own trenchant riposte. As he and I agreed the other day – all very depressing. So I think I’ll sign off for today as there are no smiles in this saga.

I mentioned yesterday the telling responses to my survey of Spanish friends on the likelihood of a female President here. [By the way, I overlooked the redoubtable Mrs Merkel]. So it was a tad ironic to read that Hispanic voters had helped Mrs Clinton to her victory/draw [tie] on Super Duper Tuesday. The second irony was that perceived Spanish racism was the main topic of yesterday’s blog and that Hillary’s opponent was black. So, all in all, it’s impossible to draw any hard conclusions. As if I’d try.

I wrote recently that the salary of many [most?] young people in Spain is around €12,000 a year. This is not quite true as it was also claimed that Arts graduates get as little as 7,200 - because the business world regards them as poor team players who additionally fall short in English and IT skills. One wonders why they bother to attend university in the first place. Unless it’s just to spend 3 to 15 years failing exams while having a good time at your parents’ expense. Perhaps some Arts undergraduates never actually graduate. Or even try to. You could hardly blame them when there is no stigma attached to this life of leisure. And someone else is prepared to go on funding it. Plus give you a car in which to bring home your washing at the weekend.

Despite government measures, crimes of violence in Spain continue their upwards trajectory. I don’t know whether the rate is higher than in other developed countries but I do get the impression Galicia’s speciality is men above 60 killing wives to whom they’ve been wed for 40 years or more. Often these are retired fishermen and one wonders whether spending an unaccustomed amount of time together proves fatal for one of them.

The percentage of Spaniards interested in bullfighting is reported to have fallen from 55% in 1971 to 27% in 2006. And within the latter group, the vast majority are over 55. Not a good trend for those who make a handsome income from this cultural event. It’s actually possible to see it dying out in the whole of Spain, as it already has done in Cataluña.

French farmers have once again been demonstrating their particular understanding of the free trade essence of the common market by destroying Spanish fruit and vegetables on the border. And taxi drivers have been blocking the frontier because of a dispute about their fees. And why not; they’ve been pulling this sort of stunt with impunity at the Channel ports for decades now.

There are stock market upheavals all over the world but from Asia comes the news that theirs have been unsettled by the arrival of the Year of the Rat. Astrologers have said the Chinese new year will be unstable. Well, it certainly will be if everyone fears it will and acts accordingly. A one-way bet. Surely these people can be bribed to change their opinion. Where is corruption when you need it?

GALICIA FACTS

I wouldn’t have thought it clever just before a general election but the Socialist/ Nationalist coalition which runs Pontevedra appears to be falling out in public on an increasing basis. In the last week, much has been written of their differences on how to address the problem of binge drinking in the street and on street furniture in the city. Good knockabout stuff.

Tuesday evening saw the one of the main Carnaval [Entroido] events on the fringes of Pontevedra’s old quarter. Well, I say ‘evening’ but the start time was 11.30. It was billed as an evening of satirical performances, taking place on the back of large flat-bed trucks, and it was the first time in seven years I’d attended. But probably the last. It’s always a joy to mingle with fun-loving Spanish crowds but the performances left me rather cold. For the most part, they were by men indulging the strange Spanish male penchant for cross- dressing - either as women or as flamboyant homosexuals. This is reciprocated by members of the audience, as it will be on Friday, when we have the funeral cortege for Ravachol. But more of that later.

En passant, the binge drinking mentioned above – or even that which accompanies fiesta events such as Tuesday night's - produces UK levels of raucous behaviour, vomit and urine. What it doesn’t have is any violence. This is truly impressive but the pessimist within me wonders whether it can continue.

Finally - An Anglo Galician Association has been formed. Membership merely requires an ability to speak good English and a connection with Galicia. The one in Spain, not Poland. Anyone interested should write to angalass@gmail.com

I wrote yesterday that only the Spanish can increase their self-belief and change the negative perception of the country that holds sway elsewhere. Actually, I’d go further and say all depends on whether Spanish women move to improve things. So, I think I’ll do my bit by voting only for women candidates from now. This is despite the fact I’m more terrified at the prospect of being ruled by María Teresa Fernández de la Vega than Graeme over at South of Watford is in respect of Esperanza Aguirre. But things could be worse; my elder daughter could take Spanish nationality in a few years and rise to become President. Or take the quick but horizontal route by doing a Bruni. God forbid.

Talking of Spain’s external image . . . . The Spanish can be a bit confused – and confusing - when it comes to race and racism. Possibly because their innate sense of fun and their live-and-let live attitude are taken to extremes. It’s commonplace here to hear comments like “I’m certainly not a racist, though I hate gypsies.” Then the speaker goes on to explain that something the rest of the world regards as racist really can’t be as:- 1. It wasn’t meant to hurt, and 2. Anyway, it was funny. Having penned that, I’ve just seen this prime example of the genre from a Spanish commentator on a Times article about the weekend taunting of Lewis Hamilton in Barcelona:- Dressing up for fun is part of the Spanish culture, so what is wrong with dressing up as a black person? If Hamilton were to be blonde, they would have carried blonde wigs. There is no racism in that picture. I imagine we’ll now get quite a lot of what might be called the Luis Aragones defence in respect of the insults hurled at Hamilton. By which I don’t mean the [acceptable] banners calling him a bigmouth. More seriously, with immigration having very rapidly reached the level it is now in Spain, I fear the racism problem here will get worse before it gets better. Especially if the economic downturn becomes a recession. There are testing times ahead for the Spanish view of themselves on this issue. Perhaps it’s illustrative that the media here seemed to pretty much ignore the Hamilton episode until the threat of cancellation of the Spanish Grand Prix.

During a BBC Radio 4 discussion of the current credit crisis, two comments were made about the City of London which made me think of Spain’s property boom. Not sure why but here they are:--
When greed becomes rampant, fear of risk is anaesthetised, and
There never has been a boom which stopped at the right time.

Another Radio 4 program talked of the astonishing scientific advances in the Arab world a thousand years ago, including a theory on natural selection which foreshadowed Darwin’s. Coincidentally, BBC 4’s TV series on Spanish Art began last week with a eulogy to the fantastic Arabic architecture of Cordoba and Sevilla. I guess one day all Spaniards will be able to see this as a source of pride. Which I suspect is not quite true right now.

Finally . . . There are two more links on this blog today. These are to new offerings from me, entitled How to Drive in Spain and How to treat Strangers. I shall be adding to them as and when things happen to me during my daily grind. I prefer this option to the one of boring readers of this blog with my petty gripes. Honest. If you go to the one on driving, be sure to read the first entry of yesterday, as this gives a basic grounding.

Hot foot from the UK comes more evidence of the EU-required convergence of the British and Spanish economies. Fifty pound notes are being minted in ever larger quantities and then disappearing from view. The Bank of England fears the black economy is growing and the notes are being used for non-taxed wages and ending up in Poland. Who’s to say? In Spain, of course, it’s the 500 euro note which is associated with our ‘submerged economy’. Things like this are done on a larger scale here. Currently at least.

With the exception of Red Ken, the media-savvy mayor of London, it’s exceptionally rare for any regional politician to achieve national notoriety in Britain. I’d bet a lot of money no one there knows the name of, say, the mayor of Birmingham or the head of the Cheshire County Council. By contrast, in this country of a hundred presidents, many of the men and women who head the regional governments regularly appear in our news. Usually after they’ve picked a fight with Madrid - a depressingly frequent occurrence. And they dominate the pages of the numerous local papers. I guess all this reflects the greater devolution of power in Spain, not to mention stronger local identities.

Much as it pleases me Spain is less a victim of rampant commercialism than the UK, it always discomforts me to read the national or local government has made some new pronouncement about the days or hours at/on which shops can remain open. So I found myself in sympathy with a lady who wrote to El Pais last week saying things should be liberalised and the shops left to decide whether they wanted to open on Sundays or public holidays. Mind you, I couldn’t quite accept her rationale that, if this wasn’t done, the Chinese would end up dominating the commercial life of the country. Racist? Us?

And talking of Spanish customs, I also found myself agreeing with the letter-writer [perhaps the same one] who called last week for some sanity around the Spanish working day. He/she railed against the long hours, stressing that a 2 to 3 hour lunch was hardly essential. Nor four peak-hour traffic jams per day, I’d add. Just think of all that carbon.

I went to see the film Infamous in Madrid on Saturday night. Of course, it wasn’t called Infamous in Spanish but Story of a Crime. Why? Presumably because someone didn’t think a simple translation would be sufficiently job-justifying. But perhaps there’s another explanation that someone can let me in on.

And on Sunday, we went early to the Camden Market in La Latina. Just us and tout Madrid, even at 11 in the morning. Eventually we gave up on getting into the alleyway where the stalls were located and – after an excellent glass of white wine brought by the world’s most inefficient waiter – went for lunch at the Posada de La Villa in nearby Cava Baja. This place has a Michelin rating and one of the world’s most impressive head waiters. So your bill won’t be low. But the value for money will be high. Especially if you have their roast lamb.

Talking of food, I mentioned last Thursday I’d had an excellent Wednesday evening with Spanish friends. Later that day came the realisation [again] that eating shellfish isn’t always an unalloyed pleasure. And said realisation is still with me, as it was during three days in Madrid. Plus it started to rain not long after we re-entered Galicia last night. Thank-God the sun’s shining today. So I won’t get wet taking my tax declaration to the Hacienda’s offices.

Finally, does anyone understand what’s going on in Navarra around the formation of the new government? Or why the government of the Balearics will remain, I think, in the hands of a ‘luxury-loving’ woman whom all other parties have accused of corruption? The answer appears to be that, despite this, each of them is prepared to form a coalition with her. Strange bedfellows again, I guess. With a Spanish flavour.

Well, this was the weekend when the newly elected mayors and councillors took office around Spain. I’d like to be able to give a summary of the recent elections – for Galicia at the very least – but I’m just too confused to do this. My general impression is that – except for Madrid and Valencia - the left wing parties made considerable progress at the expense of the right-wing parties, even where the latter gained most votes. This is because of numerous pacts between the socialist PSOE party and further-to-the-left and/or ‘nationalist’ parties. The overall picture is one of frantic horse-trading, some of which wasn’t actually consummated by Saturday’s deadline. Unsurprisingly, some commentators are calling for a change to voting mechanics so as to avoid what they see as a fraud on the electorate.

As for said Madrid and Valencia exceptions, one El Pais columnist last week explained this as a result of the Americanisation of these cities. Or of Madrid, at least. The theory runs that the economic success of the city is built on influx of aspirational immigrants who move up the ladder and are replaced by more of the same. The traditional stable Spanish working class and its voting patterns have thus disappeared. Seems plausible to me. And it must be nice for the rabidly anti-American Left to have the Yankees to blame.

It may be that the current No. 1 preoccupation of the Spanish is resurgent terrorism - especially when we’re being regularly told another ETA atrocity is imminent - but you don’t have to be Einstein to realise that ‘Immigration’ is knocking at the door. The country’s population of 45m now includes more than 4m foreigners. As others have said, this is a relatively new phenomenon here and it will provide a severe test of the Spanish belief that – except when it comes to gypsies – they’re not racist. My own perception is there’s a lot of low-level, ‘old-fashioned’ racism around and it will challenge a government of any stamp to prevent this becoming something worse. But at least they’ve had the opportunity to learn from mistakes in both Britain and France.

An interesting immigration wrinkle - Rumania is about to overtake Morocco as the primary source of foreigners. So they can’t all be pickpockets in Madrid or beggars in Pontevedra.

As I recall, April and May were quite dry and bright here. For the first two weeks of June, though, the sun appears to have gone on vacation. But what can you expect when you live on the Atlantic coast?

As my daughters well know, as an ageing pedant I’m easily irritated by the use of ‘amount’ when it should be ‘number’. As in Mr Sousa says the amount of people in the room hampered forensic work. But what chance have I got when it’s the BBC which inflicts this error on us? Where is the Royal Academy of English when you need it?

Finally, it’s reported the British theatre director Sir Trevor Nunn paid £27,000 for a Damien Hirst painting that was actually the work of the artist's two-year-old son. You couldn’t make it up.

Interesting to see the great promoter of politics as theatre – Tony Blair – being out-hammed by the President of Iran, Mr I’madinnerjacket.

Today, like yesterday, is a public holiday here in Spain. So, as ever, this notoriously noisy country has sped to the other extreme and become a graveyard. No pile-drivers, no roaring trucks, no screeching cranes, no bawling neighbours and virtually no traffic. Even the dogs have taken a break from their incessant barking, presumably because there’s no one having the effrontery to use the pavements. As the sun is shining here in Galicia while it pours down everywhere else, it’s bliss to be alive. Unless you’re daft enough to take the road to the beaches.

The EU Commission – as part of its campaign to force airlines to meet their legal obligations – has published a list of complaints from respective countries. The UK heads this with around 6,000. Despite Iberia’s poor reputation, Spain is bottom of the list. More accurately, it doesn’t figure at all since its total was nil. This is because the Spanish government simply didn’t bother to comply with the instruction to pass on its number. Perhaps because it’s said to be around 18,000. What complaints? What customers?

Galicia Facts & Perspectives

A local author has re-published a book in which she claims Christopher Columbus was born in my township of Poio, across the river from Pontevedra. She says the confusion about his nationality stems from the fact that politico-religious factors of the time forced him to hide that he was both Jewish and Galician. And she insists he thought and wrote in Gallego, for example in the annotations to his charts and the like. Plus he gave local Poio names to the places he discovered, such as San Salvador [de Poio]. Maybe she’s right.

Finally, another short 3 year compilation, this time on the sensitive subject of RACISM . . .

2003/4

It’s frequently said that the Spanish are not racist but that they detest gypsies. In truth, the Spanish probably would be more racist if the immigrants already here were spread more widely throughout the country. On the other hand, the almost-daily reports of drowned Africans who didn’t make it alive it to the Spanish coast surely provoke at least a degree of compassion.

A spot of bother on the Sports pages today. The trainer of the Spanish soccer team was yesterday recorded suggesting the following to one of his players, in respect of a black member of the French team - ”Tell him ‘I’m better than you. I shit on your whore mother, nigger shit. I’m better than you, nigger.’”. But no problem, It was ‘only a bit of jocular motivation’ so we are not to take it too seriously. And, in fact, most newspapers don’t. One interesting aspect of this – though hardly the most important – was that the form of ‘you’ used by the trainer was ‘usted’, which is so formal, respectful and inconsistent with the rest of the diatribe that it almost makes you believe his story. Unless it was irony, of course.

The soccer race row rumbles on. Today’s papers report that only one Spanish journal and one brave person in the ‘football community’ have rejected the coach’s defence that he is not racist and that his comments were just a bit of fun. The captain of the Spanish team has gone even further and said that anyone who thinks the coach is a racist must be mad. This view is endorsed by the outraged sport commentators who point out that, whereas the French press has been quite muted, the British tabloid press has been rabid on the subject. Since these are known to be scabrous organs, they must be wrong, so what’s all the fuss? I never thought I would be siding with the British tabloid press, on the one hand, and sympathetic to political correctness, on the other, but ….. hang on a minute!

The trainer of the Spanish national football team has again dipped his toe – or possibly rather more – into the turbulent pool of race relations. He is now reported to have commented on the ‘colonial history’ of the English team. After the pure sophistry of his last efforts at defence, I am keen to see how he justifies his latest gratuitous comment.

Different cultures, different perceptions. Some observations on the clash last night between England and Spain:-

While the UK media regard the main issue as the racism displayed both before and during the game - by the trainer and the crowd respectively - this is a non-issue for 90% of their Spanish counterparts. The main take for them was the abject performance of the England team and the clear superiority of the Spanish eleven. The main subordinate issue was the madness of Rooney. Indeed, one paper went so far as to award the highest performance marks to the English trainer for taking Rooney off before he self-combusted.

One reason for this dichotomy is that the [rather more serious] Spanish media despise the UK tabloid press and regard any issue of importance to them as ‘sensationalist’. Their gut instinct is to reject it out of hand. One feels some sympathy for this, generally speaking.

Another, rather more serious, reason is that Spain appears to be now where the UK was about 30 years ago in terms of attitude to racial taunts and empathy with their effect. Here, a very acceptable defence to any suggestion of insult runs along the lines of – “It was all in good humour. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Don’t get upset….. Now you’re being hypersensitive and obsessive”. This helps to explain why both the Spanish trainer and the local media can’t understand why anyone reacted to him calling Henry “a shit of a nigger’. And why they were even more nonplussed about the entire UK media dismissing him as beyond the pale for later saying ‘I have black players round to dinner. They tell me there is racism in the UK whereas there is none here. And I know how the British treated people in their colonies.” As far as almost everyone in Spain is concerned, it was more than enough for him to say “Hey, it was all a bit of joke about Henry, to motivate my players. Let’s forget about it”. So, to keep on asking him questions smacks of a vicious witch hunt.

With the honourable exception of the left-of-centre El Pais, none of the national or local papers reported or commented on the disgraceful monkey-chanting of last night’s match. However, all the papers did report that the UK Football Association had formally complained to the international football authorities about the same thing at the previous night’s match between the junior teams. This was too much for both the ‘Presidents’ of the two stadiums, each of whom denied that there had been any racist chanting at all. Maybe they will change their mind when they listen to the soundtrack of the games. Or perhaps their lawyers have told them that making monkey grunts every time a black player touches the ball doesn’t technically qualify as racist chanting, unless a monkey is the claimant.

To bring this sad blog to a close, perhaps the wisest thing said about the affair was that both the dire quality of English football and the appalling behaviour of the Spanish fans should ensure that it will be a long, long time before they play each other in another ‘friendly’ match. And for such small mercies, O Lord, we are eternally grateful. Whichever country you come from, it was truly a night of shame. How ironic that this is a tabloid cliché.

Well, a much wider range of comments on the race issue in today’s Spanish press. Most impressively, several senior politicians – possibly aware now of the damage to Madrid’s Olympic ambitions – have expressed the sentiments to be expected of them. And it is even reported this afternoon that the Spanish football authority has finally expressed regret. At the other end of the spectrum, there are commentators who take the view that it didn’t happen; or, if it did, it was provoked by the British media off the field and Rooney on it; and that it was only a joke; and from a small part of the crowd; and the British are racists too, for calling the French ‘cheese-eating surrender monkeys’; and the orchestrated reaction of British politicians, especially Mr Blair, is a conspiracy to destroy Madrid’s competing bid for the 2012 Olympics. In between these two extremes, there have been some thoughtful columns and letters from people who have clearly grasped the full significance of the affair. One writer touchingly admitted that it had acquainted him with the ugly truth that he was a latent racist. So, perhaps some good will come out of it in the end.

2005

As John Hooper pointed out in The New Spaniards, although the Spanish think they aren’t racist, they certainly are. This is because they’re currently stuck in what we might call Phase 1 of Race Relations. This is when you believe that, just because you didn’t really mean to upset anyone, no words you used could possibly have caused annoyance. Phase 2 is when you accept that certain words are loaded and don’t use them. This is Spain’s next phase and it is anyone’s guess when it will be reached. At the moment, most everyone here still thinks like the Spanish national soccer coach who’s just been fined for insulting a black Arsenal player; he is furious at what others consider a paltry fine from the Spanish authorities, on the grounds that he is ‘certainly not a racist and never intended to hurt anyone’. Phase 3, of course, is when you use objectively innocuous words and someone decides that he or she is nonetheless upset and so you are guilty of a crime. The UK appears to have arrived at this point and one must hope that Spain never does. If I still lived in England, it could well have been an offence for me to have written this.

A friend has told me about a sign near the Royal Palace in Madrid which reads something like ‘People with bags should be careful as there are gangs of Moroccans and Romanians operating around here’. At least, it does in Spanish. In the English version no mention is made of nationality. “Racist, us? Nunca!’

Today is the last day of the Galician general election campaign, with voting taking place on Sunday. ‘Don Miguel’ Fraga appeared on national TV this morning and, when asked about his insulting remarks, gave the standard-missing-the-point-Spanish reply of ‘It was just a joke. No one should be upset as I didn’t intend to hurt them’. You may remember this stance from when the [equally unrepentant] Spanish soccer coach was tackled about racist remarks he’d made about Thierry Henri of Arsenal a month or so ago.

Spain likes to think of itself as a non-racist country, albeit on the basis that whatever you say can’t be racist if you really don’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings. I was reminded of this attitude today when I saw a cartoon about the Ceuta/Melilla problem in El Mundo. The caricature of a black African could have been commissioned by Josef Goebbels.

2006

In 2 weeks’ time, the Spanish football federation will hold a conference designed to assist in eradicating racism from the sport. Right on cue, the trainer of a major team – referring to a weekend incident involving a black player – has offered us this gem - ‘The only people who spit are those who’ve just come down from the trees.’ Doubtless, he’ll now give us the usual excuse that it wasn’t a racist comment, as he didn’t intend it to be.

Stop Press: The explanation given for the alleged racist remark reported above was he was merely talking about bad manners and meant that anyone, black or white, who spat had really just come down from the trees. Funny but I just can’t recall this analogy ever being used in respect of white folk. But maybe Spain is, as they say, different.

In the Alice in Wonderland world of the Welsh police, anyone and everyone is investigated at the slightest suggestion of a 'racist' remark. This not only includes you, me and the occasional TV reporter but also the British Prime Minister himself. For, truth to tell, he has been written to about some disparaging aside he's alleged to have made. I wonder, firstly, how the crime statistics are moving in Wales and, secondly, if I am guilty of a 'race crime' merely by asking this about a nation's police force. And would my 25% Welsh blood be an adequate defence?

Interesting reading for Brits is the sight of UK government ministers falling over themselves to stress it’s no longer considered racist or politically incorrect to question whether unlimited immigration and blind multiculturalism have been an unqualified success for the country. These are the same people, of course, who screamed ‘Racist!’, whenever the last government tried to question liberal orthodoxy. The implausible excuse given for this massive change of heart is that something must be done to take the wind out of the sails of the far right extremists. Nothing, then, to do with public concern at immigrant numbers in the last 2 years being more than 40 times in excess of government forecasts.

The Spanish like to see themselves as non-racist. But, as someone once commented, it’s easy to be tolerant when you’ve nothing to tolerate. Immigrant numbers have been rising quickly in recent years and, for the first time, concern about immigration has now replaced unemployment as the number one worry for the populace. In third position is housing, with terrorism falling to fourth.