So, here are details of Acts 5 and 6 of the National Comic Opera. We will presumably get Act 7 if and when the case is transferred not to the Madrid and Valencian regional courts, as first expected, but to Spain’s Supreme Court. This is because people with parliamentary privilege are now said to be implicated. It’s hard to know who’s winning. Though the PP certainly seems to be losing.

But on to more important matters . . . I’m always impressed by the football match commentaries of the national newspapers, such as those for last night’s dour duel between Real Madrid and the other team from Liverpool. Those on the TV are, however, quite a different matter. Someone once said that much of Spanish TV is really radio with pictures. I suspect they were thinking of the ‘discussion’ programs when 6 to 10 people sit in a horseshoe and shout at each other, simultaneously. But nowhere is this description more true than for a football match. Invariably the commentary is a pause-less, mechanical, blow-by-blow description of absolutely everything you can see with your own eyes on the screen. Which might just make sense if you were blind but, for some reason, preferred to sit in front of a TV instead of a radio. Needless to say, this leaves no time or opportunity for analysis. In fact, I’m surprised it even allows time for the drawing of breath.

Spain’s anti-smoking law was introduced in January 2006 and was roundly criticised at the time as being less than onerous. Looking at these statistics, one can see why. It’s certainly true that it’s still hard to avoid cigarette smoke here, whether you’re eating or merely drinking. Though, personally, I was lucky enough to be a patron of a café-bar large enough to compel segregation of smokers and non-smokers. Eventually.

I mentioned the other day that there’s a certain ambiguity and flexibility around rules here in Spain. Of course, this isn’t all bad. I managed, without too much difficulty, to get some antibiotics for my still-suffering dog today, after the pharmacist and I had briefly – and jocularly - discussed the formal requirement of a prescription. I’d gone direct to the pharmacy as I didn’t want to be relieved of my other arm and leg in order to get said prescription from the vet. If this 3 euro box of antibiotics does the trick, it will mean I only over-paid 162 euros for the useless treatment they initially gave him a month ago.

Talking of spending – I was going to write last week that my own observation was that recessionary pressures were keeping the price of a normal coffee down to one euro ["Un eurolito"]. Or little more than what it rocketed to when the currency was introduced in 2002. But that was before I was charged 1.40 in one of Pontevedra’s little squares last weekend. A survey since then reveals that prices now range from 0.90 at the bar of a common-or-garden café to 1.40 on the terraces of the town’s more pijo options. Which may or may not be good value compared with other cities in Spain.

But back to politics and the promised statesman-like pix of the two other candidates for the position of President of the Galician Xunta. As it happens, both of them use the word 'forza’.

1. The incumbent, Sr. Touriño of the socialist PSOE party

And

2. Sr. Quintana, of the nationalist BNG party.


Sr Quintana was yesterday shown enjoying the hospitality of a major businessman who did well out of the recent tender for wind turbine contracts presided over by the BNG. His reaction was to dismiss the publication of this photo as “An attack on Galicia”. Which suggests that four years in power as the coalition partner of the PSOE may just have left him prey to the occasional delusion of grandeur. An occupational hazard for politicians, of course. Especially for those with only 19 or 20% of the popular vote.

I leave you with a picture of what I, at first, thought was a banner for a candidate of Russian extraction but, when I thought about it, wasn't . . .

If you're stumped, imagine driving under it and then looking backwards.

I was glad I wasn’t flying over Christmas, when Iberia’s pilots contributed to the general feeling of goodwill by going on some sort of unofficial work-to-rule strike. I’m even gladder I’m not flying this week as unusual levels of sick leave on the part of air traffic controllers have reduced Madrid airport to chaos. Perhaps they’ve all been hit by Spanish ‘flu. To be honest, I’m always glad when I’m not flying.

At the Chinese restaurant the other night, they were clearly expecting a large group of people. It turned out these were coming from Portugal, which is not far south of here. Strangely, though, the restaurant owner had no knowledge of the existence of the place. Nor, of course, of its clock. As we got closer to the booked time of 10, her question of “20 personas?” to each individual and couple who came in turned from plaintive to desperate. So, I put her out of her misery by telling her that 10 o’clock in Portugal is 11 in Spain and they’d appear soon enough. Which, thankfully, they did.

The reduction in Spain’s road fatalities in 2008 was a little more than 20% and it was the fifth consecutive year in which numbers were down. This is a tremendous development and worth the price of being fined twice under the tougher traffic laws. Even it the traps were decidedly dubious.

Sadly, this success in changing driving habits contrasts rather sharply with the ineffectiveness of the anti-smoking laws. Which, as I recall, I was foolish enough to describe as ‘draconian’ when they were introduced at the start of 2006. As a letter in today’s El País pointed out, there’s clearly no political will to stamp out smoking in the vast majority of Spain's cafés, bars and even restaurants.

Rather ironically, just as it’s become legal for Rumanians to work in Spain, a good 10% of the many already here are reported to be going home because job prospects have plummeted after the bursting of the property bubble.

I wonder whether Spain isn’t undergoing some awful, slow Anglicisation. Or at least the younger element of the population. There were a couple of examples of serious vandalism on the city centre streets after the New Year’s Eve boozing, which I’ve never seen before. And now a friend tells me he overheard a teenage girl telling her friend she’d have to get some chewing gum so as to hide the smell of vomit on her breath when she got home in the morning. So, if you’re Spanish and your daughter’s buying rather more gum than usual, I’m afraid the bad news is she’s turned into a ladette.

Which reminds me . . . One of the funniest things I heard this week was that photos of 19th century street gangs in Manchester showed them wearing plaid scarves which bore a remarkable resemblance to the Burberry items sported by today’s chavs and chavettes. Plus ça change.

Finally, the Galician coastguard this week rescued three men from a speedboat which had been adrift off the coast for a couple of days. As these craft are used only for the downloading and landing of cocaine, this seems to me to be an unfortunate use of resources. They could at least have left them to drift for a week or two. And then offered to sell them a kilo of, say, potatoes at the same price as a kilo of cocaine. Or even just hash.

Possibly it’s age which is driving a wedge between me and the Spanish idea of fun. Then again, I only had a few hours sleep last night as a result of screaming kids until after 2am, karaoke adults until after 3am and firecrackers starting at 6.30am. Against all of which, even triple earplugs are of little avail.

And then, from midday, we had the 9 year old next door practising scales on his bloody saxophone.

But the day’s nadir came at 2.40 when I settled down for my siesta and Tony decided to counter his 5 year old’s habitual crying with his time-tested bellowing at full belt. Exasperated, for the first time in five years I shouted something through the wall. At which Tony decided to take the kid out into the back garden, possibly to drown him in the community swimming pool. Though I fear not.

But life must go on. Though this is easier said than done here on January 1. For there’s little as dead and desolated as a Spanish city on the morning after a celebratory family dinner when a similar lunch awaits. I did manage to find a café open but felt it best to leave when they started piling up chairs on the tables around me. But an open bar and a glass of Rioja I failed to find and so had to resort to my own kitchen and cellar. Before failing, as they say here, to conciliate sleep. Or myself.

To continue on the sour note with which I’ve begun this first post of the year . . . Here’s more on the demonstration planned for January 9 against the property practices of the municipalities of southern Spain. As Lenox says on his Spanish Shilling site – “This is about generalised (and institutionalised) property fraud in a 21st century European state. It's about notaries and mayors and town hall architects and the people from 'Costas' and the man from the 'delegación provincial'. It's about 'land grab', 'inherited mortgages', unfair re-zoning, sleight-of-hand, trickery and fraud.” Hmm. As I’ve said, logic dictates that the central and local governments should be concerned about the repuation all this has given Spain but I’ve yet to see any evidence of this. However, if any reader wants to refute this, I’d be pleased to offer this blog as a platform.

Meanwhile, I’ll just say I wasn’t too surprised to read that 50% of bars and restaurants in Vigo have yet to start complying with the anti-smoking legislation introduced exactly three years ago.

Tomorrow is another day. Though today has been a good one for considering suicide. Or triple murder.

Regular readers will know that one of my tropes – I’ve long wanted an excuse to get this fashionable word into my blog – is that, at the macro level, the Spanish are amongst the loveliest people on the planet but, at the micro level, they can come across as astonishingly rude. They’ll also know my explanation for this paradox is that the Spanish owe no duty of consideration to strangers but a huge duty towards anyone with a personal connection. I was reminded of this listening to a Notes from Spain podcast in which Ben and Marina were talking about the smoking that goes on here where people are eating. Marina’s most pertinent comment was that – putting aside the possibility he was just one of the world’s rude people - the guy who was breathing his fumes over their tapas would certainly have asked permission to smoke if he’d been there among a group of friends. But not of them, as strangers. For anyone new to this challenge, I confirm my advice that you establish the essential personal connection by simply asking annoying people to stop doing whatever’s irritating you. At which point you’ll almost certainly find that no one apologises for the sin of inconsideration quite like the individualistic Spanish. C’est la vie. Así son las cosas.

Now that I’ve finally done trope, I wonder how I can get narrative into a post. Oh . . .

As I know well both from reading and talking to my daughter, the teaching profession in the UK has seen saner times. If you’re a teacher in Spain and want to peer into your unsavoury future, click here. If you’re not a teacher but just want another glimpse of the madness of modern Britain, you may still be interested in reading it. And, as a bonus, you can click here for an article by the superb Simon Jenkins on what the Age of the Bureaucrat has meant for education in the UK. How my daughter sticks it out, I cannot comprehend.

If you’re a fan of YouTube’s offerings, you might like to know that much of its content now comprises phoney stuff that is really a sneaky way to get advertising messages to you. Not least of all by the same politicians who are asking for your trust. As someone has written:- The fight for the [US] Democratic nomination was largely conducted on the internet, where rooms full of clever young graduates laboured to produce apparently spontaneous expressions of support for their candidate which they could release, virus-like, into the public domain. Then, of course, there’s the recent Wii Fit hoax.

Talking of politicians and trust – the Conservative MEP, Daniel Hannan, predicts that ‘Two years from now, we will have 99 per cent of the EU Constitution. But there won’t be any more of the planned referendums. The people have forfeited their leaders' confidence’. And he provides me with this Quote of the Week from Bertolt Brecht:- Wouldn't it be easier to dissolve the people and elect another in their place? Which is a Teutonic echo of the Anglo comment I quoted on Saturday - The people have given their opinion. The bastards.

Finally, some more Tapas Trivia – For those who’ve kindly asked about my daily struggle to eat the way I used to before we were hit by the crisis the government says is an illusion:-

1. There are no seats outside my regular café-bar. But there is [thank God] a large no-smoking area inside, including the bar counter,

2. I don’t chose garlic dishes from a menu; the items all come free with my wine, and

3. I’d eat meat done in garlic every day, if only they’d offer it in place of all the healthy vegetable stuff they’re now dumping on me. Fish and shellfish would also be welcome.

As I say, life is tough sometimes.

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. BTW – There’s a big cash prize for whoever is the 30^th person to register. Honest.

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.

Well, here in Galicia, November has dawned as sunnily as September and October. If this is climate change, I could probably warm to it. Though the nights are now cold.

A bit to my surprise, the government is reported to have begun to deliver on its promise to address the issue of illegal building along Spain’s huge coastline. So far this year, it says, 665 properties have been demolished, which contrasts with only 40 in 2004. Specifically - The policy is now part of the new Sustainable Strategy Plan for the coastline and has seen the demolition of empty properties where construction has stopped either because of the Law of the Coasts or after agreement has been reached with owners. I guess this still leaves open the question of what will happen to finished, occupied properties whose owners are unwilling to reach an agreement with the government.

Topically, I learned from a friend yesterday that village land compulsorily purchased from her parents for an industrial estate at 10 euros a square metre had just been put on the market at 95. And this before they’ve received a centimo of this extortionate price!

I was pondering yesterday on the statistic I reported last week that only 24% of Spaniards smoke. Then it struck me that the question they were probably asked was Do you smoke every day?. And that, if they’d been asked Do you smoke whenever you go to a tapas bar or restaurant?, at least 80% of them would have replied “Absolutely. Why not?” Or something like that.

I mentioned recently the Galician Nationalist Party would like our clock to be the same as that of Portugal and Britain. Ironically, in the UK there’s a large and growing body of opinion that the country should move to Central European Time. Doing so, it’s argued, would save more than a hundred lives a year, effect significant energy savings and also bring British business hours into line with those of the Continent. The consensus is that the factor blocking change is resistance in Scotland. However, now this country has its own government, it would be possible for England, Wales and Northern Ireland to change their clocks to CET while Scotland stayed on British Time. Wonderfully, then, the prospect is of a nationalist government in Galicia moving the region to British Time just as most of Britain moves to European time. But at least the governments of Galicia and Scotland would then be on the same time. What nationalist solidarity!

The distance between La Coruña in the north of Galicia and Vigo in the south is 137km, or 86 miles. This relatively short distance encompasses three international airports, one in each of the above two cities and the third in Santiago. Naturally, they compete for business. And, equally naturally, they waste considerable time and resources on this provincial infighting. As a result, their offerings are considerably below those of the single airport in nearby Oporto in north Portugal. This has 33 international destinations, against merely 7 for both Vigo and La Coruña and 16 for Santiago. It also has both Ryanair and Easyjet flying to foreign cities, which can’t be said for any of ours. Not surprisingly then, more than 400,000 Galicians chose to use Oporto every year, a number which has probably soared since Iberia – in a fit of pique – moved its international flights from central Santiago to north-coastal La Coruña. As a result, in the ten years I’ve been flying here, Oporto has transformed itself into a major international airport and the small Galician airports have expanded only marginally, if at all. Looking forward, I’d hazard a guess that petty localism will continue to get in the way of any change that would benefit the Galician economy.

I reported last week that our local council has knocked down two of the eight illegal properties on the nearby gypsy encampment. To no one’s great surprise, they’ve again ducked out of completing the process. So the unhappy local residents will once again take the council to court. And thus the saga will continue. Ad infinitum I guess.

Finally . . . A sentence you don’t see very often – Here’s an interesting article on Belgium. And the EU.

The government is having a bit of difficulty around its proposed Law of Historical Memory. This takes the first major step away from Spain’s post-civil-war vow of silence and aims, I think, to formally pronounce as illegal many acts taken during the Franco regime. However, one of the Catalan parties says it won’t support this measure unless left wing crimes are addressed as well. Which could well lead to it being rapidly binned by the socialist government.

Meanwhile, the [very] left-wing International Committee of the Fourth International sees the proposed statute as part of a “thirst for truth and justice” which is a “manifestation of the leftward radicalisation of the working class, which brought down the PP government in March 2004”. But they’re not at all happy with the Bill and see it as aiming to “divert this striving for the truth into safe channels for the Spanish ruling class”. Click here for more of this entertaining stuff.

More trouble from the government comes from the Basque Country, where the President has said he’ll hold a referendum on independence, even in the absence of a defeat of the ETA terrorists. Or even another ceasefire. The Spanish government insists this would be illegal as only Madrid has the right to call these. It’s interesting to ponder what on earth Madrid will do if it continues to be defied.

There’s some sort of dispute taking place here over TV rights for major football games. I can’t say I understand it but it’s now reached the courts. Meanwhile, the good news is that one of the main channels now plays two UK Premier League games live, as I discovered when I switched on last evening and found Manchester United playing Sunderland. Impressively, the commentators made a decent fist of pronouncing the Anglo Saxon surnames.

A year after the deadline for taking the measures demanded under Spain’s antismoking law of January 2006, an astonishing 60% of places larger than 100m2 have yet to do so. Like many laws in Spain, implementation is left to the Autonomous Communities and several of these have so far levied only minimal fines. La Rioja and Murcia haven’t imposed any at all. Mind you, it’s hard to do anything when you can’t even be bothered to appoint inspectors.

Galicia Facts

August is often a little wet here in Galicia. But not this year, when we’ve seen scarcely a drop of rain. Which is odd, as much the rest of ‘dry’ Spain has been regularly deluged. I blame it on global warming.

The head of Traffic here in Galicia says the knocking down of pedestrians is what distinguishes this region from the rest of the country. With another 4 months to go, it seems we’ve already reached the total of 38 for the whole of last year. So, if you’re thinking of coming for an autumn break, you’ve been warned.

To be more positive, it’s unlikely you’ll be mown down at Poio’s upcoming Tripe Festival on the 16^th of this month. See you there.

On the 1st of July, smoking will be banned in all public enclosed spaces in the UK. In line with the normal approach to such laws there, an ‘army of inspectors’ has been recruited to police it, empowered to issue on-the-spot fines. The similarity with Spain is that we also have a comprehensive anti-smoking law on the statute books. And some bars and restaurants have been known to observe it, at least partially. Fortunately for me, there are two of these in Pontevedra.

Well, the chances of me having to finance the cava in 18 months’ time may well be reducing. In yesterday’s El Mundo, a senior economist paraded a host of statistics and opinions endorsing the pessimistic view that Spain – and its residents – are on the edge of a bleak decade. Describing the headline growth figure of 3.7% for this year as misleading, the writer dismissed government statistics and attitudes as a pure fraud on the Spanish people. Particularly chilling were the number of unsold properties currently/imminently on the market and the statement that per capita income here has fallen 2% in the last couple of years, more than anywhere else on the planet. Time will tell, of course, but I hope his view isn’t as accurate as he claims it to be. I’d rather pay for the cava than not. Especially as the euro isn’t going to fall simply because Spain’s economy plummets southwards. So, unless prices collapse, your pounds and dollars won’t buy you more of whatever it is in which you drown your sorrows.

One of the points made in this article was that the flow of immigrants into Spain is now higher than anywhere else, at 100,000 a month. So it’s not too surprising that anti-immigrant parties won several council seats around Spain in last week’s elections. Madrid has 12 of these but, so far at least, there are none in Galicia. Too much rain and too little work, perhaps.

As befits a [would be] nation, Galicia has its very own breed of dog, the palleiro. A page on the Xunta’s web site says, “its morphological characteristics and psychic stability[?] mean it can be used as a police dog, in catastrophes, rescue dog, guide dog, narcotic dog, army dog, etc.”. Looking at the photos, you might think it rather resembles an Alsatian/German Shepherd but it would be a mistake to regard them as one and the same. The first palleiros were, in fact, brought here by the Celts, long before the Germanic Visigoths arrived with their canine friends. Honest. The search is now on for an equally native cat.

London has unveiled its logo for the 2012 Olympics. If you want a tart view of this ‘puerile mess, artistic flop and commercial scandal’, click here.

Finally, if you'd like to see a host of photos of Galicia and/or hear a song in Gallego, hasten along to this impressive, public-spirited site. Don’t tell anyone but, when you click on Pontevedra Capital, the first 2 photos are where I have my Sunday lunch and the view from my house. Am I being stalked?

The Spanish government has produced plausible evidence that the American ship, The Odyssey, was treasure hunting in the Med and not in the Atlantic, off south west Britain. At the same time, the British Embassy in Madrid has said the wreck being emptied/looted was not a British galleon which went down near Gibraltar in 1694. Not surprisingly, Spain has asked for data about a flight which left Gibraltar at the weekend, allegedly full of bullion. Anti-Americanism in Spain was already the highest in Europe before this incident so can hardly be expected to fall now.

As Spanish TV is pretty dire, it would be unwise to expect its devotees to number amongst the country’s intelligentsia. I say this because viewers of one of the main channels yesterday gave us a list of the Greatest Spaniards in History which suggested, to say the least, a short memory span. Top of the list was the current king but also included, at no. 4, was his wife, who is actually Greek. And, at no. 7, his son. For what it’s worth, here’s the Top Ten:-

1. King Juan Carlos
2. Miguel de Cervantes
3. Christopher Columbus [thought by most to have been Italian]
4. Queen Sofia
5. Centrist ex President [1976-81], Adolfo Suarez
6. Nobel Prize winner, Ramón y Cajal
7. Crown Prince Felipe
8. Pablo Picasso
9. Saint Teresa [!]
10. Socialist ex President [1982-96], Felipe González

I was surprised to read this morning that Britain is the only major European country not to have separate charges for refuse collection. But I wasn’t exactly astonished to read that microchips in wheelie bins presage a change. Here, I’m billed on my water bills both for the collection and for the treatment of rubbish. As is the way here, the latter charge was introduced a few years back without any explanation. As are the annual price increases which hit us early every year. But what is really noticeable about my water/rubbish bills is that 93% of the charges are fixed. Which is a great way to maximise your profits and to force low users to subsidise the profligate. There is, of course, no competition.

Talking about lack of surprise – It came as something less than a shock to read that, 18 months after the introduction of a ‘draconian’ anti-smoking law, 85% of Spain’s bars and hotels are not fully complying with it. And that sanctions have been low to nil throughout the country.

Even more depressing to read was the report that the government is considering increasing penalties for driving offences because the points-based licence system introduced last year hasn’t had the effect it first looked like having. Actually, we were spared even this false dawn up here in Galicia, in line with the majority prediction that it wouldn’t change things much on our roads.

And to round off this bad news day – Spain is now said to have the highest divorce rate in Europe - 3.16 for every thousand inhabitants. 2006’s total of 141,817 was 51% up on 2005. But, as the top 3 regions are the Canaries, the Balearics and Catalunia, this could well be down to fractious Brits falling out with each other!

If you’re already confused about global warming, then ponder this – “To begin to understand climate change, it needs to be emphasised that we are actually in the middle of an ice age. We are in a warm phase of that ice age but we are definitely in an ice age. And what is clear is that we can expect to go back towards a period of deep cooling again, possibly within the next 1,000 years”. Here’s the full article.

And here’s the latest 3-year compilation of posts, this time on the subject of SMOKING. The number of comments reflects the introduction of new laws in 2006. You can make up your own mind as to what effect these have had . . .

2003/4

There is a great deal of incredulity in Spain at the banning of smoking in public places in Ireland. What I find incredible is the reported statistic that only 34% of Spaniards smoke. If so, they certainly make up for the 66% who don’t.

Another survey told us what a quick glance into any bar would, i. e. that, in the 20-40 age group, there are now more women smoking than men. It’s apparently considered sophisticated to kill yourself, whilst impregnating your hair and clothes with the noxious odour of nicotine. Call me old-fashioned, but I can think of better ways to show how independent you are than becoming totally dependent.

I wrote yesterday that my favourite café had a ‘non-smoking zone’. As you will all have appreciated, this should have been ‘no-smoking’. Zones, by and large, neither smoke nor refrain from it. Which reminds me, the government here has today announced an intention to ban smoking in ‘closed places’. This should be interesting.

2005

The government has announced its latest brave social reform. As of next January, it will – in theory, at least - be difficult to smoke in public in Spain. And tobacconists selling cigarettes to anyone under 18 will face a fine of 10,000 euros. As with motoring offences, it’s a complicated law and it will surely provide a real test for the legendary ability of the Spanish to ignore any rule which is personally inconvenient.

One of the problems – admittedly not a big one – of living in a society where people are amiable and love to talk is that conversations can go on for rather longer than you’d want. I asked the head waiter in my regular café this morning about the implications of the imminent anti-smoking law. Twenty minutes later – and with him giving his considered view for at least the third time – I was more than keen for him to turn his attentions to another customer. If he'd gone on much longer, I'd have taken up smoking.

Within a couple of weeks, Spain will have the most draconian anti-smoking law in Europe, if not the world. And this in a country with close to the highest consumption of tobacco in Europe. Indeed, the penalties are so harsh, questions have naturally been raised as to whether the law is enforceable. This was, anyway, always going to be a problem in a country where laws tend to be ignored if they are personally inconvenient. My hope is that my regular café will soon become a far more salubrious place but I’m gearing up for disappointment.

Well, 77% of Spaniards support the new anti-smoking law; but 70% of them don’t believe it will be implemented. So it seems my concerns are widely shared. Vamos a ver. I hope we’re wrong. I’m tired of eating smoked tapas dishes.

From Sunday, we’ll have the toughest anti-smoking law in Europe. As with all comprehensive laws, there are questions about its application. Given the prevalence of smoking in Spain – where an astonishing 70% of adults claim they never smoke! – there’s widespread concern about where lighting-up will still be permitted. Here are some of places cited in the media as having been the subject of queries to the relevant ministry:-

A funeral home - Answer: No, the living merit some consideration even if the corpse doesn’t

The cabin of a lorry you are driving – Yes, you can smoke.

The balcony of your office - It depends

A prostitute’s room in a brothel - Yes, it’s private

The cubicle of sex shop - No, it’s a public place

A telepizza outlet – Yes, it’s not really a restaurant

A firework factory – Err, No.

2006

Spain’s draconian anti-smoking law came into effect today and, needless to say, the first café/bar I went into at lunchtime had ignored the requirement to put a notice on the door advising whether it was a Smoking or No-smoking establishment. A friend I met there complained that someone had earlier made a fuss about this but had been dismissed with the comment that it was early days and that, anyway, there was a [small] sign below the TV up in the corner.

The press reported today that 90% of the small cafés, bars and restaurants which were given the choice have opted to be Smoking, rather than No-Smoking, establishments. As I said yesterday, larger places must, by September, provide separate [air-extracted] facilities for smokers, whether they want to or not. The Ministry of Health says they’re surprised and disappointed at this initial situation and hope commercial sense will effect a change, as and when customers start avoiding the smoke-ridden places in their millions. Vamos a ver. Meanwhile, I can understand them being disappointed but it would astonish me if they really were surprised. Unless they feared 100%.

It seems the regions have a good deal of latitude as to the implementation of the anti-smoking. So it is, for example, that Valencia hasn’t yet got round to establishing a team of inspectors to check whether or not the bars and offices are complying. And, strange to relate, the tobacco companies launched a host of cheap brands just before the introduction of the measure. Packets of 20 can be as little as €1.20. Ideal for teenagers and students, they say.

A reader has queried that the Spanish anti-smoking law is the toughest in Europe. Rightly, he points out that only in Spain will the owners of [‘small’] bars and restaurants be allowed to decide whether they’ll be Smoking or No-Smoking establishments. He’s right, of course, but I think the oft-repeated comment re the hardness of the Spanish law relates to the penalties. These escalate rapidly for serial offences, provided there’s the will to enforce them, of course. For the record, I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life and share our friend’s view that it’s at least unpleasant to drink or eat in most Spanish bars and restaurants. Happily, my own favourite café/bar is more than 100m2 in size so will have to close off the smokers by end August. Would they would do this before then but this, I suspect, is asking too much. And I also hope the few non-smoking places flourish way beyond expectation. Against all that, the libertarian in me regrets that the signs on the doors of Smoking establishments remind smokers that smoking is seriously prejudicial to their health. This seems to me to be far more intrusively nanny-ish than putting it on the cigarette packets. And, besides, can any smoker really be unaware of this now?

I can finally report I’ve found a small No Smoking café/bar in Pontevedra. In other words, one where the owner could choose the status and elected for clear air. Strangely, though, this is a place which has always been rather empty when I’ve walked past. So I suspect the owner’s decision is actually a last-ditch commercial strategy. Time will surely tell and I, for one, certainly hope its fortunes are now reversed, however cynical the motivation.

Spain has its first Smokers’ martyr. It’s a 34 year old male [of course] who sat next to the No Smoking sign in the cafeteria of a motorway services in Navarra, lit up and then adamantly refused to either stop or move to the Smoking area just a couple of metres away. When he refused to give his identity, he was arrested, taken down to the nick and fined 240 euros in a summary judgement. I suspect, though, most of this was for the more heinous offence in Spain of not producing an identity card.

And a friend has told me of an old chap who lit up in the only No Smoking bar of her village and, when told to desist, said he missed Franco as life was freer under him because you could smoke where you liked. Most of us find our broad mind and narrow waist eventually change places but I hope it’s at least another 30 years before I start equating freedom to think and say what I like with the freedom to slowly kill myself and irritate a lot of people along the way.

It’s been suggested the UK’s planned partial smoking ban will be contrary to the European Human Rights Act because of the exposure of staff to fumes where smoking’s still permitted. Here in Spain close to 100% of small cafés and bars will continue to allow smoking but I have some difficulty believing any suits will be initiated on this basis.

Faced with a backbench revolt, the British government has reversed its policy of allowing pubs to chose, as of next year, whether to be Smoking or No Smoking establishments. Instead they will impose a blanket ban, as in Ireland I think. Here in Spain, the first week of the new law is reported to have led to a 25% drop in the sales of tobacco and the withdrawal of 40,000 vending machines. But hell will freeze over, I suspect, before any sort of total ban is imposed here. As of now, the law appears to have made a real difference to offices and other work places but none whatsoever to cafés and bars.

Although the café/bar I patronise each day still allows smoking, I was clinging to the hope its size would ensure that – on the very last day of the period of grace – it would be converted into a No Smoking establishment. But the head barman tells me that ‘It all depends’. As the place is L-shaped, the owner is hoping to convince whomsoever [no one knows yet] that it’s really two places, each of less than 100 square metres, and so neither of them has to ban smoking. I am personally unimpressed by the logic of this but dismayed at the thought that, for one reason or another, others will take a different view. I’ve said I’ll take my custom elsewhere but they don’t believe me, possibly because there are no signs at all that anywhere else will offer relief to non-smokers.

A columnist in one of the local papers today opined that one of the worst aspects of the ‘antidemocratic’ new smoking law was that it encouraged non-smokers to crawl out of the woodwork and attack smokers for being [would you believe] insensitive, inconsiderate and even evil. Why didn’t non-smokers show such anger in the face of the failing education system, he asked. Surely, he added, there were things far worse for our health than passive smoking, such as being slaves to lying, cheating politicians. I’ve long felt that nicotine progressively destroys exactly that part of the brain which allows one to formulate arguments on the subject of smoking so I was grateful to him for further evidence of this. His photo, need I say, showed him puffing on a pipe.

I’ve finally found a café and a bar in Pontevedra which have decided to be No Smoking establishments. In fact, they’re virtually adjacent, just opposite a major school. Which surely explains their enlightened decision. The bad news is that at 1pm yesterday, the bar had but one customer. I wonder if they will hold out, supported by the kids that flood there during the long ‘midday’ break after 2pm and in the evenings to play on the pool tables. Meanwhile, I could just double their midday custom.

Most bars and cafés in Pontevedra now have two signs on the door – one telling you can smoke and another saying you can’t bring a dog in. I wonder, firstly, how many people have been killed by unhealthy dogs and, secondly, whether you could take a dog in if it had a cigarette in its mouth.

It must be difficult – other than on libertarian grounds – to justify being a director of a cigarette company. Especially if you work for Philip Morris in Spain. For, their reaction to the fall in sales caused by the anti-smoking law has been to reduce the price of their Marlborough brand, so as to make it more accessible to young people. Or, at least, that’s what’s assumed to be the logic of the strategy. The country’s already-suffering tobacconists are furious about the further reduction in their margins and have said they’re going to war against Philip Morris. Perhaps they will smoke each other to death.

Spain last night had the equivalent of the Oscars for its own cinema industry. The consensus in the press was that the ceremony was unprofessional, overlong and tediously boring. And these were the good reviews. In fact, the premier award – for the best film – was made at 2am, which gives you something of an insight into the Spanish timetable. And everybody smoked like chimneys, apparently. As did the spokesman at a press conference of the Galician Nationalist Party yesterday. He was, he said, merely showing solidarity with President Zapatero and the leader of the Catalan coalition, who apparently smoked all the way through the Constitution negotiations. But then I think I might even have taken up the obnoxious habit myself, if I’d had to take part in these.

The relevant health minister – disappointed that [at least] 90% of small bars and cafés still permit smoking – yesterday morning pronounced on TV that, if things were still the same by the end of the year, she would introduce compulsion. This caused outrage amongst the owners, who said they didn’t care if their customers smoked themselves to an early grave as long as they ran up bills en route. By the afternoon, a repentant minister had softened her line somewhat and was suggesting financial incentives would be introduced. This was rather more acceptable to the owners, who suddenly discovered they might just care what their customers did. Depending on the numbers.

During the first month of its operation, the new anti-smoking law led to more than 200 prosecutions, with Madrid leading the field on 70. At present, it’s difficult to know how these will proceed as none of the regional governments has yet fixed penalties for the various offences. Perhaps it’s going to be one of the new type of law described by President Zapatero in connection with the obligation to speak Catalan in Catalunia – ‘A law without a sanction for failure to observe it’. If this precedent is widely followed, it will at least make de jure much of what is already de facto in Spain. With parking offences, for example. At a single blow, Spain would immediately become a much more law-abiding country. Another example of the brilliant pragmatism with which the Spanish approach things in order to achieve a higher quality of life than anywhere else.

As if things weren’t already cloudy enough around the new anti-smoking law, the President of the government of the Madrid region has announced plans to soften the law there and to allow smoking in company cafeterias, on the terraces of bars and at weddings and [sic] Holy Communions. The minister of Health has threatened legal action, if the plans proceed. Needless to say, the antagonists are from different legal parties.

Under Spain’s attenuated anti-smoking legislation, small bars/cafés can choose to be Smoking or No-Smoking. As my elder daughter has pointed out, this is exactly the same situation as before the law came in. So, can anyone really be surprised nothing has changed except in the case of those very few bars serving predominantly young people, where business would be lost if they didn’t go No-Smoking? The real test of the law will come in September, at the end of the 8 months’ period of grace given to large bars/cafés to provide a No-Smoking area. I find it hard to be optimistic, especially in light of the manoeuvring going on in my favourite café to have itself treated as two small places rather than one large one. If they succeed, neither of the ‘two’ cafés will fall within the law. And I will move - regretfully - to the one place in town which has become No-Smoking. Next to a school, naturally.

My daughter in Madrid tells me of this sign in a bar there:- ‘You are allowed to smoke here and may God’s will determine the consequences.’ So, stuff your non-celestial neighbour.

Everyone knows you can’t please all the people all the time. But it is possible to displease all the people all the time. And so it is with Spain’s new anti-smoking law, now into its 3^rd month. The aim, of course, was to effect a wholesale change in the smoking patterns of Spanish citizenry but here’s what a survey has just thrown up:-

- More than 90% of small bars still permit smoking

- 95% of people in discos ignore the law

- Only a very small minority of large bars have so far met the requirement of providing a no-smoking area

So, roll on September, which is the deadline for compliance by the large bars.

I resumed my search for a second bar/café in Pontevedra which bans smoking this evening. Eventually, I found one which said it had designated no-smoking areas but, as every table had an ashtray on it, I was a little incredulous. While reading the paper there, I came across an ad from a firm of Madrid lawyers which guarantees to find ways for a bar of any size to evade the law and avoid the cost of making the changes demanded by it. Which made encouraging reading. I am less and less confident that my regular café will become smoke-free by September, despite being above the trigger point of 100 square metres. Presumably the lawyers can make much of this disappear.

Under the anti-smoking law of early this year, there are provisions relating to both kiosks and vending machines. As a non-smoker, I’m not sure what. But I was told by Spanish friends today there’s a new system in operation to get round whatever it is the law now prohibits. You pay the chap in the kiosk and he presses a remote control which releases a packet of cigarettes into the tray of a machine which is technically decommissioned. Which reminds me – we’re now 4 months closer to the deadline of end August for conversion of the large café/bar where I go every day but, as yet, there’s no sign that anyone’s even thinking of implementing the requirement to close off a smoking area.

On the subject of smoking – the head waiter in my café now tells me they think they’ll avoid the need to provide a closed-off smoking area by excluding from the calculation of a ‘bar of more than 100m2’ the toilets, the kitchen, the area behind the counter and all the passageways. If you’re wondering what’s left, it’s the footprint of each table multiplied by the number of tables. It’s hard to believe this is what the legislators had in mind but I certainly wouldn’t bet on it not happening.

The Catalan government has become the latest to weaken the anti-smoking legislation introduced nationally in January. As in Madrid, Valencia and La Rioja, large bars will not, after all, be obliged to close off the space provided for smokers but will be allowed to get away with a much smaller investment in ‘improved ventilation’. I hold out less and less hope that my favourite bar/café will be no-smoking by the deadline of 1^st September. I suppose this counts as greater democracy.

The Catalan government says it's been traduced; it insists it hasn't diluted the anti-smoking law and that owners of large bars have deliberately misinterpreted its comments. So it's not true that only bad news comes out of that region/Autonomous Community/national reality/real nationality/nation.

The first study done since the anti-smoking law of January this year shows that the level of air-borne nicotine has decreased only 10% in bars where there’s now an adjacent [but not closed-off] no-smoking area and has actually risen by 21% in pubs and discos where there isn’t. There’s speculation the latter development is a reflection of defiance among the young. How depressing.

Last night I watched the USA v. Italy match in Pontevedra’s only No Smoking bar. I had only one table in my line of vision and, although this was occupied by 4 young card players who cast ne’er a glance at the large screen, this was not too much of a distraction and I managed to enjoy the game. These young men were there again tonight but this time I had a second table in my line of vision and around this sat a young couple who preferred playing tongue-tag to watching the football. This was harder to take and so I left at half time. That’s the trouble with bloody non-smokers - they can’t be relied on to take an interest in things that really matter. Whoever would have thought I’d miss a crowd of raucous chain-smokers?

Seven weeks to go before the end of the period of grace but so far I’ve seen no sign of changes being made in my favourite café to ensure compliance with the anti-smoking legislation. I am decreasingly optimistic, especially as I’m unlikely to carry out my threat to take my custom elsewhere; the tapas portions are just too generous. Not to mention the wine helpings.

The Galician government says 95% of the region’s bars have done nothing whatsoever to comply with the anti-smoking legislation that comes into force in 50 days time. They add that, since only a couple of planning applications have been received, it’s inevitable many businesses will be facing fines after September 1. Which is surely true. As to how many of them will pay these, well that’s quite another matter.

The owners of Galicia’s cafés, bars, restaurants and discos have had 7 months to comply with the anti-smoking law of Jan 1. Needless to say, the vast majority of them have done nothing at all. And won’t do anything before the period of grace expires at the end of August. In fact, the local disco owners have demanded, would you believe, a 2 year moratorium. They claim 1. the law is unclear, 2. the local government hasn’t yet brought in its own version and, most expediently, 3. the law is illegal because there’s a ‘clash of competencies’ between the state and regional government. The last one bears out the forecast I made some time ago that the power struggle between the state and the regions would certainly mean money for the lawyers, if nothing else. But, then, everything does.

Under the anti-smoking law introduced in January, all cafés, bars, and restaurants with an area of more 100 square metres have to close off a separate area for smokers. Today’s Voz de Galicia reports that, here in , not a single one of these has complied with the provisions. In fact, in the Pontevedra province only a single restaurant has even bothered to apply for planning permission. As the period of grace ends in three days’ time, things are rather unlikely to change. The Galician government insists it will fine all of them all but we will see. It’s called a meeting today with representatives of affected [disaffected?] owners and this is seen by some as a sign it’s willing to negotiate a compromise. En passant, given this disregard for laws coming from Madrid, it’s pretty easy to guess at the response to those emanating from Brussels. Though the huge subventions coming in this direction are always given a hearty welcome.

It seems the 17 Spanish regions [Autonomous Communities] have taken different approaches to the implementation of January’s ant-smoking laws. Only 3 have ratified the law as it came down – Andalucia, Castile y Léon and Valencia. The rest have applied various degrees of dilution, with Catalunia being the hardest, Madrid the softest and the Basque Country ‘somewhere in the middle’. Depending on where you‘re standing, this is either a pig’s ear or a marvellous example of local democracy in action. Or both, of course. Not that it matters much when the bar, café and restaurant owners take no notice of whatever the law might be, on the usual Spanish grounds that it is personally inconvenient.

Tomorrow is the day on which the Xunta will, they say, start fining the owners of large bars, cafés and restaurants which don’t comply with the anti-smoking laws. Unless, of course, they convert themselves to no-smoking establishments overnight. I will make a few spot checks and report.

According to today’s Voz de Galicia, 6,000 Galician establishments measuring over 100 square metres will have posted No Smoking signs on their doors this morning, to avoid falling foul of the new law and being hit with a 10,000 euro fine. From a quick tour of the centre of Pontevedra today, I can only surmise that – whatever my eyes tell me – there can’t be any places of this size in the whole city. We wait on events. Meanwhile, the local government has said it will be inflexible in the implementation of the law, whilst not actually taking any special measures to check compliance. I’m not sure what message this is intended to send out.

Today’s Voz de Galicia reports that ‘The entry into force of the obligation to physically separate smokers and non-smokers in places of more than 100 square metres passed unnoticed in Galicia.’ But you knew this already, from yesterday’s post.

It’s reported that nicotine levels have fallen an impressive 75% in the work place since January. And in bars, cafés and discos?? Well, would you believe 0%? Of course you would, if you read this blog regularly. Accompanying the report was a photo of the sign on the door of one bar – “In this bar, not only are you allowed to smoke here; you are obliged to”.

Out of the blue, my favourite café has decided to designate the rear of the premises a smoking area, though it’s still a long way off from complying with the regulation that this be closed off. This leaves the main area as a no-smoking zone, including the bar and all the stools. So I will be amazed if this division is respected. But delighted.

Following the introduction of an anti-smoking law last January, cigarette sales have generally fallen throughout Spain this year. This reflects a cessation of smoking in workplaces far more than any reduction in bars, cafés or restaurants. Here in Galicia, though, sales have risen by more than 4%. But this is attributed to border-hopping Portuguese, taking advantage of the fact it’s cheaper to kill yourself here than back home.

Well, despite all the baloney, bravado, bluster and buffoonish calculations of space from the head waiter, I can report that part of my favourite café/bar has now been closed off by a glass partition, creating the no-smoking section we were told would never happen. I suspect the requisite ventilation system hasn’t yet been installed but, nonetheless, I’m both delighted and impressed by this new-found resolve to [almost] obey the law, albeit after a few months delay. This, of course, amounts to nothing in Spain. And, let’s be honest, who cares about smokers choking in their own toxic fumes? Only joking.

Interviewed in one of our local papers, a lady who likes her cigarettes said “This ban on smoking is not fair. I’m not going to pay 100 euros to eat a meal where I’m not allowed to be comfortable.” Stuff the comfort of others, then. But I’m sure her ‘individualistic’ attitude is not representative of smokers in general.

Tenerife has certainly had its problems with its Carnaval this year. First, the whole thing was threatened by residents wanting it cancelled because of excess noise. Then, when the show finally got on the road, it was received with boos, catcalls and jeers - doing nothing for the reputation of the famous Flamenco dancer who'd conceived it. Apparently it was too heavy on ‘celebrities’ and too light on the groups who perform satirical songs aimed at local dignitaries. To add injury to insult, the council has said it’ll not only withhold some of the choreographer’s fee but also sue him for damages. In a country in which having fun ranks far above most other purposes in life, these are serious matters.

A year or so ago, I was rightly taken to task for labelling Spain’s anti-smoking law ‘draconian’. You only have to go into almost any bar in Spain to see how wrong this was. Over in the UK, however – where having fun is merely something to be taxed – the government is taking a far more aggressive approach to the implementation of its own imminent ban. According to today’s Telegraph - “Thousands of anti-smoking inspectors are being trained up at a cost of £30 million, to be sent out to mingle with pub-goers or diners. The snoopers will take undercover photos or, if brave enough, slap a £50 fine on anyone with a lighted gasper.” In a satirical editorial, the paper asks – “Why stop there? A new arm of government must be set up to combat smoking, under the direction of the quango Offag. We need a smoking tsar. All cars will be fitted with tobacco smoke detectors. No child will be left in the care of anyone on the national Registered Smoke Offender database. New laws will be brought in against behaviour likely to provoke smoking, such as selling matches, screening old films or indulging in sexual intercourse. Council tax and stamp duty on the homes of smokers will be doubled. If one needless death can be saved, who could begrudge the cost?” . . . Well, I have never smoked in my life and regard myself as pretty virulent in my disregard for the habit but I am completely at one with the Telegraph at finding the plans deplorable. Surely there’s a middle way between Spain’s laxity and Britain’s expensive, quasi-religious zeal which will result in even more interfering petty bureaucrats in a society already overflowing with them. If I lived there, I’d move. Even to a country where the bars are filled with smoke.

On the other hand . . Events in the prettily-located Pontevedran town of Gondomar, make it a good candidate for microcosm of modern Spain. For years, there’ve been allegations of construction irregularities on the part of the [PP] authority. In fact, several developments have been declared illegal by judicial authorities. But the council has carried on regardless, handing out building licences like sweets in a [non-Tenerife] Mardi Gras procession. But this week two of the mayor’s closest aides were caught red-handed, taking cash from a developer. As is routine in the daily cases of this sort, the mayor has proclaimed the innocence of his lieutenants and insisted the whole affair is driven by the ‘personal interests’ of the opposition party. What happens next is anyone’s guess but I, for one, wouldn’t be surprised to see the mayor retaining power in May’s municipal elections. There’s a far-too-widespread attitude here that corruption is to be expected of politicians. As if we were in Africa - the traditional insult aimed at Spain by the French.

Galicia Facts

Archaeologists excavating in Pontevedra say there’s evidence of temporary global warming a couple of hundred years BC, when the level of our local rivers rose and then fell back. It seems we survived it.

Galicia has 14 dog pounds and they are taxed by the challenge of dealing with the ‘more than 14,000’ dogs abandoned here each year. But now they say they’re about to be overwhelmed by a need to cater for the growing interest in buying and then quickly dumping exotic creatures such as iguanas, ferrets, dwarf rabbits and Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs. I’ve long said we need more international cuisine here. Perhaps this presents a possible solution. Except, perhaps, for the ferrets. Unless there's a sizeable Korean community somewhere in the region.


Finally, could I ask whoever it was who wrote to me recently after arriving to live in Pontevedra to contact me again as the message was deleted when I was retrieving it from the SPAM folder. The subject was ‘Hello’, which my computer treats as highly suspicious.

Well, yes the German Lander do have Representative Offices in Brussels. So it’s the UK which is the odd man out in this case. Of course, the British government did recently try to introduce regional government but this was roundly rejected by the voters in the would-be ‘North East Region’ test case. Strangely, they saw it leading to more politicians and higher taxes. Both of which they felt they could do without.

The first week of January brings a reminder of how bureaucratic and at least quasi-monopolistic Spain can be. For we’re overwhelmed by price increases for all sorts of products and services, including stamps, road tolls, gas, electricity and phone calls. But at least they’re all in line with what’s said to be the inflation rate. Over in the UK, the train companies have announced hikes well in excess of this. According to one consumer watchdog, this makes UK train travel three times what it is in France, Germany and Spain. Remarkably, a single-station trip on the London underground now costs 6 euros, compared with little more than just €1 in Madrid. Where the service is vastly superior.

A year after the introduction of Spain’s anti-smoking law, El Pais has surveyed those bars [the vast majority] which still allow it. I doubt anyone will be surprised at the finding that very few of them have the obligatory ventilation. Nor at the observation that hardly any bars operate the ‘remote control’ system which stops under-age adolescents accessing the cigarette machines in the corner. Rules are made to be ignored here, whether they come from the quasi-federal state of Spain or the quasi-superstate of the EU.

And still on health – I see overweight people now have a new excuse to go along with genetic disposition for their predicament. It all depends, we’re told, on whether you have the right kind of bacteria in your stomach. I assume they’ll be able to buy this soon, possibly in a yoghurt containing the equivalent of 4 spoonfuls of sugar.

Galicia Facts

The most popular names for kids in the UK in 2006 were Jack and Olivia. Here in the city of Pontevedra they were Hugo and Sara. I thought these were both clothing companies but, anyway, they were followed by Pablo, David and Miguel and by Candela, Carla, Marta and Uxía. Not a single little girl was named after Princess Leonor. But this may be because her mother is the Princess of Asturias and this, to Galicians, is on another planet.