I thought I’d come across a new bit of Spanglish the other day, as is in this sentence - “Pontevedra FC tiene chance para estar entre los cuatro primeros.” However, my Spanish friends tell that, in this case, the word ‘chance’ is French in origin. But I have my doubts. By the way, it’s pronounced ‘chan-thé’.

But a real Spanish word that’s new to me is ‘calabobos’. This comes from ‘calar’ [to wet through] and ‘bobo’ [idiot] and means ‘drizzle’. In other words, rain so fine it will soak you if you’re dumb enough not to realise it’s falling.

A day after writing about how Spanish companies treat their customers, I can’t resist citing this report about a Telefónica client taking 18 months and ending up in court in order to terminate an internet service. Given how much badwill there is towards the country’s national and regional monopolies – whether de jure or de facto – it’s understandable the companies will go to any lengths to keep them in place. They surely don’t want the floodgates opened so that their customers can desert them as quickly at BT’s did a decade or so ago. Of course, it must help that, when the government changes, the head of your company relinquishes his position to a close friend of the incoming President.

I’ve suggested Gordon Brown has his work cut out getting a new world order in place when national interest is so much to the fore. And when most – if not all – nations are implementing protectionist measures of one sort or another. Indeed, some see the Americans as the worst offender in this regard, with one commentator making the point that, when it comes to free trade, “Washington has more in common with French president Nicolas Sarkozy than with Gordon Brown”. Which is more than a tad worrying.

On the topical issue of what form the EU will emerge from the crisis in, there are two interesting views from the UK today. The first of these is from a German lady who used to be a Europhile but has clearly gone native. She explains why here, suggesting Brussels has little choice but to return some powers to the nation states. Specifically on the ex-boom states of Spain, Ireland, Greece and Portugal, she comments that “One option for these countries is to leave the European monetary union. This can't be ruled out but it would create problems for both the country leaving and, perhaps more importantly, those remaining, so some short term fix may be cobbled together. The problem is that within EMU, the only way for these countries to regain competitiveness is to squeeze their economies so that the rate of inflation not only falls below the eurozone average, but also stays there for a long time, to make up lost ground. This would not be an easy task at the best of times but, when average inflation is already low, it implies actual deflation. I doubt that this would be politically sustainable.” Or, as I was saying, no gain without pain. The question being how much pain is tolerable?

The other comment deals with the allegation of schadenfreude levied against British sceptics. As the writer says, “It is not in our interest to have economic chaos on our doorstep.”

Incidentally, I can’t say I’ve seen many articles in the Spanish press – even the business sections – posing the question of whether the EU or its monetary union [EMU] can survive. And what it could mean for Spain in any of the various cases. Actually, I haven’t seen any. Perhaps the notion of failure is considered too ridiculous to contemplate. Or perhaps everyone has their heads in the sand. Especially the President.

I read that Blu-ray has won the HD war but is now facing death because of the threat from the downloading or streaming of HD format films direct from the internet. This is disturbing as I don’t even know what Blu-ray is. It’s a fast world. Either that or I am increasingly out of touch.

Well, I couldn’t find any articles in the print media on the demonstration down in Andalucia yesterday. Not even in El Mundo, which you might think would relish having a stick with which to beat both central and regional socialist administrations. But snow has reduced Madrid to complete chaos so there are obviously far more important things with which to fill newspaper pages. But I did find this article in the on-line edition of El País. Apart from the opening loaded sentence, it seems quite fair. Though somehow the word ‘corruption’ doesn’t make an appearance. That said, I guess the inferences are clear. At least from the comments of disaffected Brits they quote.

Talking of words . . . Who knows what the Spanglish ‘copyleft’ means? I certainly don’t.

Addressing the question of why the Tories in the UK are making only a slightly better fist of pinning the blame for the country’s economic plight on the government than the PP party is doing in Spain, a British columnist has this to say about Mr Brown’s predecessor:- “Still mesmerised by Tony Blair, the Tories have failed to notice that Mr Blair's reputation is gradually fading, his legacy in tatters, and the last thing that the British electorate wants is a return to the slick and dishonest politics of Mr Blair's new Labour Mark I, or a Prime Minister who reminds them of him.” I do hope I live long enough to see whether I’ve been right to say – for years now – that history [or History, as it’s called in Spain] will be very unkind to New Labour in general and Mr Blair in particular. And to become an even bigger embarrassment to my daughters than I was when they were young.

Meanwhile, I’ve just taken delivery of ten books from Amazon, three of which happen to be on Spain’s history/History but only one on Britain’s. Anyway, it got me thinking about the Spanish government’s trumpeted campaign against bureaucracy. Unless things have changed, in the UK, the postperson rings your bell and then hands you the Amazon delivery. And that’s it. Here, you take your box, put it down and then fill in a form with your ID number, your surname and your signature. At least, it used to be a form but today it was a little black box, on the screen of which I had to scribble all these details with a snazzy stylus. This is impressively hi-tech but it still leaves the question – Why? What is it about Spain that makes it necessary for there to be more formalities than in the UK? And what happens in the USA? Or France. Or Holland, etc. BTW – The Spanish postperson never checks the accuracy of my details and signature. Which is just as well.

As for the books themselves . . . Well, there are ten of them and I finally plumped for Henry Kamen’s “The Disinherited – The exiles who created Spanish culture” to tackle first. This promises to be a fascinating read and I will have to resist the temptation to make regular quotes. Like this one in the Preface:- “In Spain, the rejection of outside culture is a persistent tradition that can still be found in the Spanish mind. It has its origins in a folk memory stretching back nearly five centuries and firmly rejects all that is associated with foreign civilisation as tainted.” Even more interesting is the point that, in all Europe, only Spain has a tradition of consolidating its culture via a policy of exclusion, rather than one of offering shelter. I feel almost insulted not to have been exiled . . .

The big political news of the moment is that the Spanish government - finding itself strapped naked to a [pork] barrel - has made last-second concessions/bribes to the small Basque and Galician nationalist parties in order to get its 2009 budget approved in the face of universal opposition. The Galician BNG has come away with more than 100m euros for the development of infrastructure here, which will certainly come in handy as a triumph to crow about in the upcoming regional elections. Indeed, the party's president is already telling us Galicia is a greater country today than it was yesterday. The lesson is obvious. If you are a budding politician in, say, Andalucia, you should start a new nationalist party and wait for your chance to play the game of beggar-my-neighbour.

Well, I've received my October issue of Prospect but those of August and September really do seem to have disappeared into the maw of the great Spanish Summer Slowdown. Or Stop, in the case of the Poio sub-post office. I guess I could waste an hour or so going down there to ask them to trawl through the sacks lying around but it's a lot easier and quicker to email the fine people at the magazine to ask for replacements.

A Spanglish challenge:- 1. What is the difference between un bossing and un mobbing? And 2. Do either of these words exist as nouns in any form of English?

Galicia

The tiny UPyD party says it will pitch for some seats in our spring elections, aiming at those voters who are fed up with the socialist-nationalist coalition and who particularly resent the linguistic policy of the latter. Just what we need - more fragmentation. Or is it democracy in action?

Meanwhile, the owners of the tiny, in-trouble Lagun Air company have offered their 3 planes to the Xunta, so the latter can set up Air Galicia. Well, if we're going to get greater and greater under the BNG, we will certainly need this symbol of our stature. Even if it does lose bucketfuls of money. Galicia's population is about the same as that of Britain's North East Region. So, guess this would be on a par with setting up Newcastle Air.


Finally, an insight into the humour of the late Tommy Cooper. Who had this little chat with the Queen back in 1964 . . .
"I say, Your Majesty - may I ask you a personal question?"
"As personal as I'll allow," the Queen replied.
"Do you like football?"
"Not particularly."
"Well, could I have your tickets for the Cup Final?"

According to various sources, house prices are falling here. Which would certainly be a logical response to a massive oversupply of property, rising mortgage rates and a credit crunch. The Spanish government, however, insists they're rising, albeit at the low annual rate of 2% to the end of June. But, to quote Mark Stucklin again,"The problem with the Housing Ministry’s figures is that nobody believes them. A recent article by a Reuters writer sums it up well. 'I don’t know their methodology, but quite honestly the official statistics are no use to me. They don’t reflect reality.'” One wonder where else there are slips twixt cup and lip.

I decided this morning to personalise my Google News and chose Spain for my International Section. So it was a tad surprising to be given an item on Ecuador as the lead article. Perhaps the Google folk - or their spider-bot - think that, if the source article is in Spanish, it must relate to Spain. More on Google's deficiencies later . . .

As part of its Guardian-admired energy campaign, the Spanish government is giving every household a couple of long-life bulbs. So I was interested in a letter in El Pais at the weekend suggesting that, if one follows the rather common practice of switching them off and on, then they actually don't last as long as ordinary bulbs. Best to leave them on, the writer suggested. Can this really be true? Or is it an urban myth?

Spanglish: Seeing the expression una fabrica de chopped [a factory making 'chopped'] in a cartoon, I went on the net to find out what it could mean. Any chopped meat, apparently. Though - ever the stickler - the dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy has it down as Chóped [From the English 'chopped']: A sausage similar to the mortadella. So, now you know. And mortadella is defined in Chambers as:- 'A large smoked sausage made of beef, pork, and pork fat and seasoned with pepper and garlic'.

Your guess is as good as mine but someone arrived at this blog last night searching for mastodonic tits.

Galicia Facts

Madrid has announced plans to privatise Spanish airports. The immediate reaction of the President of the Galician Nationalist Party was naturally to suggest the three here should come under the control of the Xunta. Which rather misses the point, I feel. Still, it might get him a few votes in the upcoming elections. So, who can blame him? He's possibly been taking lessons from the doyen of divisiveness, Alex Salmond of the Scottish Nationalists. Though as a long-standing expert in victim-ness, he might not have needed them.

Much as I love the place we've bought up in the hills behind Pontevedra, it would be an exaggeration to say our neighbours have taken steps to make us welcome. But their dogs certainly have. In fact, the three chained up in our nearest neighbours' yard welcome us each time we drive past. And sometimes even welcome us throughout the night. Or at least until the cockerel gets up and takes over. As you can imagine, we are now very fond of them.

Of course - given that the dogs respond to any noise - it's not their fault that they bark at, say, one-thirty in the morning, if this is the time chosen by your neighbour to do a spot of drilling and hammering. And I thought Tony was noisy and inconsiderate!

Finally, if you want to know something about the white wine of southern Galicia - and the women who make it - click on this WSJ article. It comes to me me - by the way - from this week's Google Alerts for Galicia. Which once again fails to pick up my blog . I fancy they are beginning to overreach themselves . Sell now.

In a recent judicial review of the sentences handed down on those convicted for the Madrid train bombings of 2004, one or two people were acquitted and several had their sentences either reduced or - in one case - increased. I'm still trying to get my head round the announcement that one person had his gaol term reduced from 42,924 years to 42,922. Which probably means around 20 in each case. The other sentence which has foxed me recently is the relatively light one - well, 58 years - for a paedophile on the grounds that he wasn't 'aggressive'. But I'm sure it all makes sense to someone.

The government's projections of the number of immigrants who'd take up their offer/bribe of 2 years' dole to go back home have proved rather optimistic. Only 10%, it seems, are happy to do this - despite the economic downturn here. Natural optimists, obviously.

Another milestone legal case - The Supreme Court has ordered Vélez-Málaga town hall to pay €156,000 compensation to each of 18 residents of a building in Torre del Mar troubled for years by the noise from a bar below them. I guess I'll be long dead before the courts start fining people because their chained-up dogs bark all night. Possibly my grandchildren as well. Dead, I mean. Not chained-up.

It's not in the Royal Academy's dictionary but my impression is that un filler is a trailer for a movie film or the like. Why not un trailer? Or would this be to confuse it with un truck? Anyway, it's probably related to un spot.

Galicia Facts

I'm always intrigued to see the Selectividad marks demanded by Spanish universities of applicants for various course. Years ago Physiotherapy seemed to rank at or near the top but now seems to have fallen out of favour, at least in some institutions. Nursing, on the other hand, continues to demand high academic achievement. Here are this year's requirements for the three main Galician universities. :-
Santiago
1. Medicine - 88%
2. Dentistry
3. Audio-Visual Communication[?]
4. Journalism
5. Nursing

La Coruña
1. Physiotherapy 76%
2. Law and Company Administration
3. Public works[??]
4. Nursing
5. Architecture

Vigo
1. English-Spanish Translation - 79%
2. Audio-Visual Communication
3. Industrial & Mechanical Engineering
4. Nursing
5. Advertising & PR

I don't know whether this applies Spain-wide, but it seems that in this neck of the woods you need to be smarter to become a nurse than an architect. Which might explain the region's reputation for ugly buildings in beautiful countryside. The other shock is that journalism remains an honourable career choice. But then, as I keep saying, Spain is happily without a tabloid/yellow press. It makes do with a pink one.

Asked whether they felt the McCann case should have been dropped or not, 90% of the Voz de Galicia readers who bothered to vote on line said No. I'm guessing this is because they still believe the parents did it. In contrast, the British media are reporting that the Portuguese police never had any evidence at all to back up their decision to label them the chief suspects. Perhaps the VdG readers will change their minds when they read this. But I rather doubt it.

First the football and now the tennis! But that’s not all . . . The first stage of the Tour de France was won by a Spaniard. And, in Budapest yesterday, another was named Mister Gay Pride Europa 2008. What a week! Thank God Hamilton managed to win the British Grand Prix yesterday to restore some British pride. Not to mention the 14 year old young lady who won the junior championship. And whom we may never hear of again.

The last big flourish of the PSOE conference was to announce the appointment of another 31 year old woman – Leire Pajín - to the position of number 3 in the party’s ranks. My impression is there’s some sort of bidding war going on for the country’s female vote, with the opposition conservative PP party moving leftwards towards the centre and the governing socialist PSOE party moving leftwards towards . . . well, more socialism, I guess. Certainly, if it has any ‘right wing’ measures planned for dealing with Spain’s economic situation, it’s keeping them well under wraps. All the talk is of maintaining public expenditure and protecting workers from the harsh winds of an economic downturn. Which, naturally, doesn’t go down well with everyone.

The Spanish Royal Academy had pronounced on English words ending in ‘ing’. I can’t swear to this but I think there are three categories:-

1. Words not yet admitted into Spanish – Big bang, for example.

2. Words admitted into Spanish and now regarded as Spanish – gong and pimpón [ping-pong] but not dumpin [dumping]

3. Words for which there are irregular plurals that might need to be thought further about – cáterin/cáterines, márquetin, ranquin/ranquines.

But I’m not at all sure on this. Someone might want to help out.

Galicia Facts

In the recent university entrance exams here, the lowest average marks were recorded in the subjects of Spanish and Galician languages. I wonder what this portends, if anything. I suppose it’s possible to see prima facie evidence of the negative impact of compelling kids to study their subjects in both languages. Or perhaps, as some say, it’s just the SMS/texting generation dispensing with grammar – on which there is a huge emphasis in Spain – and finding it difficult to string together a proper sentence in any language.

More details have been announced of a new autovia to run from Portugal in the south to A Coruña in the north. As there is already a national road [the N550] and a toll-charging autopista [the A9] covering this ground, I for one am unsure as to the rationale. Especially as traffic on the A9 is light. I may have said this before but it might have something to do with the availability of EU funds. And the fact that, as Francis Bacon said, ‘Money is like muck. No good unless you spread it’. No, not the artist.

I’ve never been able to understand how all eleven [ yes, eleven] Galician daily newspapers can stay in profitable circulation. And I’ve been advised a few times not to pay too much attention to the circulation figures as it’s apparently possible that town hall funds are allocated to the purchase of ghost subscriptions. Anyway, for what it’s worth, the leading rag is the Voz de Galicia, at 587,000 copies, and bringing up the rear is the Diario de Arousa, with 15,000. I forgot to note whether these were per year, per month or per day. Not that it really matters.

A meeting will take place in Madrid this month with two main purposes:- 1. To guarantee that the AVE high speed train will be running in Galicia in 2012, in line with long-standing assurances from the politicians; and 2. To decide which of Galicia’s three small, competing airports is to get the runway needed to cope with legions of flying pigs.

The latest potty pronouncement from the Bank of Spain is that companies should show ‘moderation’ as regards salaries and dividends. Do the directors really believe that commerce in Spain acts differently from elsewhere and that there’s someone out there who will actually take any notice of this plea just because it comes from the BoE?

For his part, President Zapatero appears to lack confidence that public sector managers, at least, can be relied on to show moderation as he’s announced there’s to be a freeze on salaries for its top managers. Admitting this year’s economic growth rate will be ‘below 2%’, he also advised that jobs in the public sector will be reduced by 30% this year. But that was yesterday morning and, by evening, he’d confirmed he’d got his numbers the wrong way round and that the cutback would be 70%. Which hardly inspires confidence that he’s on top of the challenges faced by the economy.

I believe we’re currently enjoying Equality Week. Flanked by the very young [and not-yet-much-admired] Ministress for Equality, the ever-visible VP, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega Sanz, assured us yesterday that imminent new legislation will bring an immediate end to all forms of discrimination against women here. The said Ministress has been lying rather low after kicking up a storm in which she said the words fistro, finstro and jarl were all Anglicisms which had been happily introduced into Spanish. But none of these mean anything at all to me and none of them is in the Royal Academy’s dictionary. The only definition for jarl I’ve come up with is Old Norse: a Scandinavian noble ranking immediately below the king. Which is probably not what she had in mind. Fistro/Finstro may or may not be a term of abuse invented by a Spanish comedian and bearing no relation whatsoever to an English word. So . . . Help!

And talking of Spanglish – A young Spanish friend visiting her family here told me last night she’s now employed – in Finland – ‘testeando software”. To my surprise, both ‘testear’ and ‘el software’ are to be found in the Collins dictionary. Purists may say these are not really examples of Spanglish but [I think] Anglicisms which are now true Spanish words. Maybe, but that’s not really the point.

And talking of Spanish – El Mundo reports that 16 intellectuals have come up with what they call a manifesto for a common language. They want parliament to guarantee the teaching of Castellano [= Spanish] across all the regions of Spain. Could there be a more eloquent testament to the fact that this is now a lost cause?

Two interesting observations arising from the final pages of Paul Preston’s ‘El Caudillo’:-
1. Tony Blair’s Third Way was preceded in the 1950s by Spain’s Third Force. Which was something mid-way between the Left[!] of the Falange Movement and the Right of Catholic ‘conservatives’. Well, everything’s relative.
2. Manuel Fraga’s decision to go hunting the weekend the Prestige oil tanker broke up off the Galician coast in 2002, was in keeping with Franco’s strategy of dealing with Spain’s 1950s crises by disappearing on extensive fishing or shooting trips.

By the way - The other council that has implemented anti-corruption measures is that of Sevilla. Since this city's in Andalucia, one's left wondering whether this is some sort of clever smokescreen!

Finally, I’ve been asked for my comments on the Spain-Italy match . . Unexciting. Great result. Worrying lack of sharpness upfront. Concern re Russia on Thursday night. Meanwhile, though, Spain is awash with relief that a curse/jinx that’s at least 88 years old has finally been lifted. Personally, I was amused to read that numerous ‘Sub-Saharans’ has used an anticipated distraction on the part of border patrols to attempt a mass crossing into the North Africa ‘enclave’ of Melilla during the penalty shoot-out. Though it’s not really funny, of course.

Our Minister for the Economy and Taxes has called on Spaniards [and the rest of us, presumably] to show solidarity and to tighten our belts. Solidarity within Spain? Is the man mad? Doesn’t he read the papers? We’re all totally in favour of solidarity between us and taxpayers in northern Europe but solidarity between ever-jealous Spanish ‘nations’, regions, cities, towns, villages, parishes, barrios . . . ? Just look at the Catalans, fighting harder than ever to keep every duro raised in taxes there so that none of their hard-earned cash flows south via Madrid to featherbed idle Andalucians. Stuff solidarity. And tighten your own bloody belt, Sr Solbes.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Spain says it now thinks Spain grew in an unbalanced way because of the real estate bubble. Presumably it’s been hibernating until quite recently, when the heat generated by an economic implosion woke it up.

If you want to enjoy life in Spain – essentially an excellent idea – you’ll have to become inured to levels of bureaucracy quite possibly higher than you’re used to. And to learn to carry reading matter wherever you go. I got a note in my mailbox yesterday asking me to collect a registered letter from the Environment Department of the Galician Xunta. Down at the post office, this was a six step process:-

1. Hand in the slip

2. Produce my official identification and have it returned to me

3. Fill in my name, my ID no. and the date on a pink form

4. Hand back the pink form and get back the slip left in my box

5. Fill in my name, ID no. and date on this as well and hand it back.

6. Receive the letter

The utter pointlessness of steps 3 to 5 was evidenced by the fact that what I wrote wasn’t checked in any way. Indeed, it couldn’t have been as I’d already been given back my ID. So it would be perfectly possible [I can assure you] for me to have written total nonsense on both the pink form and the original slip. One wonders what is done with these afterwards. And how many Scandinavian forests are razed to feed this queue-creating, time-wasting, job-justifying madness.

After Ben Curtis of Notes from Spain kindly cited my comments about the Spanish duty of consideration for others [or the lack of it], hits to my blog virtually doubled yesterday. One reader said he couldn’t disagree more because Spaniards were far better than, say, the Brits at things like saying Hello when they enter a lift or bon appetit when they walk past your table in a restaurant. Well, yes, I certainly agree this does happen but regular readers will know that part of my thesis is that Spaniards generally have poor social antennae but, paradoxically, become extremely polite when you force yourself onto their radar. This happens most easily in confined spaces, as they can’t miss you. But you’re certainly not on their radar as they prepare to walk out of the front door of their apartment block, for example. Or to move rapidly to the left or right to enter the supermarket they’ve just decided to patronise. But, as someone else commented, if they do hit you, you will get the profusest of apologies. Usually. I did write up my thesis on this subject a while back but never posted it. Maybe I should dig it out. Or, alternatively, just lie low for a while.

After its success in interfering in the car parking and mobile phone markets so as to increase my bills in both cases, the EU commission is now threatening further action that will, it’s said, result in us having to pay to receive mobile phone calls. Way to go, Brussels. I can’t wait for your latest attempt to force markets to operate how you think they should. A little more belt-tightening will surely do me good. As a Puritan Brit in a land of hedonistic Latinos.

Finally, my thanks to The Baldie for the latest bit of Spanglish to come my way – un jatrik. Think football. Or soccer, if you must.

For the third year in a row, the El Bulli restaurant in Cataluña has been voted the best restaurant in the world. And Spain has taken 3 of the top ten spots, against 2 for France and the USA and only 1 for the UK. Though the British restaurant did get the no. 2 slot. Of the top 20, France has 5, the UK and the USA 4 each, and Spain 3. I wonder how many of these take the Galician view that sauces are the spawn of the devil. Fit only for disguising poor quality meat or seafood. Not many is my guess.

You have to smile. The chap in the centre of the massive Marbella municipal fraud scandal says he only lent the money he passed to members of the town council. And then you have to frown – How did he manage to get the €1 million to pay his bail? But at least the judge has initiated an investigation into this. Or will when he’s stopped laughing.

My thanks to readers who responded on the issue of the Spanish political scene. It’s true I’d forgotten that in much of Continental Europe ‘liberal’ is a term of abuse. Implying red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalism at worst or Mrs Thatcher at best.

El Mundo – in support of Esperanza Aguirre – calls for more democracy in the way the PP party elects its leader. Which must cause problems for Graeme at South of Watford. For he’s criticised the absence of this but surely wouldn’t want it initiated just to bring ‘Espe’ to the fore. Except that he would if it meant another defeat for the PP. Life can get complicated for the politically active. We apathetic cynics have it much easier. It’ll be a real challenge for me when I finally get Spanish nationality and am allowed to vote for the people who want to tax me more.

Words: Is the Spanish un raid, an Anglicism or Spanglish? Or neither? Doesn’t sound very Latinate. In Mexico, it means a lift/ride, apparently.

Phrases: There’s a dental system much advertised in Spain called All On Fours. I haven’t the foggiest what this is intended to convey but presumably not On All fours. Strange postures do have to be adopted in a dental chair but surely not this one.

Galicia Facts

The Galician fishing fleet has reduced by a third in seven years. Whether this has been compensated for by larger boats, we are not told.

In 2007, only Andalucia received more state aid than Galicia, the numbers being €343m and €147m, respectively. This is a big gap. But, then, so is the next one down to Castile y La Mancha, in third place with ‘only’ €78m. I guess population is the key.

Alongside the Water Wars taking place between Madrid, Cataluña, Valencia and Murcia, we’re having one of our own up here in Galicia. This is between us and God. And God is winning. It’s rained on more than 50% of the days since the turn of the year, reminding me of my first winter here – 2000/1 – which was even worse. I lost five umbrellas back then, not one of which was stolen. It’s salutary to be reminded that we effectively live in the Atlantic. Which has again today shrouded us in its blanket. But, hey! It was 30 degrees here during my last week in the freezing UK. And what goes up must come down. It’s not all bad; it’s a great day for doing my tax return. And putting the heating back on.

There’s not a lot of vandalism in Pontevedra but graffiti is a big problem. Scarcely is the paint dry on a façade than the idiots are out with their spray cans. If it’s possible, things are even worse in my daughter’s barrio of Malasaña in central Madrid. But being young and artistic, I fancy she quite likes hers. By which I don’t mean that she actually does it. Too busy teaching, novel-writing and partying. But not necessarily in that order.

The city’s collection of old mansions which form its excellent museum is soon to be replaced by a single modern building near the river and visible from my eyrie. It’s built largely of what one might call sheet granite and, to me, is repulsive. Possibly its only redeeming [external] feature is four horizontal glass bands, which are presumably the windows. These give off a fierce blue light at night. All night. Which seems a tad odd in these ecological times. Perhaps the energy comes from candles. Or from the equally ugly wind turbines above the city. Which would give everything a certain aesthetic cogency. For which future generations will doubtless be grateful. Or at least more grateful than me.

Over at Notes from Spain, Ben has posted a comment – more in sorrow than in anger – about the infamous inefficiency of the Spanish postal service. It’s not hard to become aware of this and the non-arrival of some important papers this week has reminded me of it. But I hadn’t put two and two together and realised this is a major factor behind the low take-up of internet buying here. Specifically, we have no Amazon.es, though it certainly is possible to get stuff delivered from the UK, French and US companies. My suspicion has long been that internet buying here - in what someone has labelled a ‘low trust society’- suffered from a fear of fraud. But it seems I was off beam.

Incidentally, one of the consequences of an unreliable postal system is that you can make your tax return via either the 18^th century option of personal delivery or the 21^st century option of an internet declaration. But no one risks a 19^th/20^th century letter.

Talking of inefficiency – the Spanish judicial system is currently taking a lot of flak over two cases which would have rendered a true tabloid press apoplectic. The first centres on a paedophile who, despite previous convictions, was free to kill a young girl. And the second is of a mentally disturbed young man who despatched his mother, despite her having made it clear over the years – including on TV – that this was a serious risk. In fact, he not only killed her but, having cut her head off, walked round the town talking to it. As someone else has already pointed out, the real surprise is that we haven’t seen photos of this in the Spanish media. But the really important point is that a truly tabloid press might just have had the effect of forcing the judiciary and/or the police to sharpen up their act. It pains me to say.

The challenge of becoming more ecologically minded seems to me to fall more heavily on males than females. As I was gazing in my mirror this morning, the question arose of whether it would be best to buy a single metal/plastic razor and then use the 15-edged blades that go with these, or whether I should stick to cheap, plastic disposable razors and continue to use them at least 20 times longer than recommended. And then I took to wondering whether I should try to connect my battery-powered nasal-hair-cutter to one of the massive wind turbines I can see from my window on the hills above Pontevedra. Or possibly just try standing so close to one of these that the blades do the job for me. Tough choices, I think you’ll agree.

Spanglish: I fear I may have asked this before but does anyone know what El pressing-catch is? I know it comes from the world of wrestling but that’s it.

Galicia Facts

The property bubble may well have burst but, of course, not all construction projects have come to an end overnight. Or even decelerated. Yes, the volume of sales and approvals may well have plummeted but those constructors flush with cash have logic on their side when they initiate building projects which will take the standard 3-4 years to complete and so will come on the market just as the next boom begins. In the meantime, the off-plan take-up may be low but, as I say, this hardly matters if you’re sitting on a mountain of cash and have not, for example, bought an expensive airport which was crap before you acquired it and is even worse now that you’ve tried to increase your margins to help reduce your debt mountain.

The last paragraph is very much a personal bleat as my house in the hills above Pontevedra is surrounded by building schemes that are either well under way or only just starting. And I am heartily sick of the consequences, including the movement of tons of soil and granite and the depositing of these on any bit of green conveniently close to the building site. Not so much fly tipping as bluebottle tipping.

So you can imagine my feelings when I read yesterday that Pontevedra was one of the few places in Spain where property sales actually rose in 2007. And that the same is expected of this year. I might just cut off my own head and parade it round town.

Hey ho.

Last night saw a televised debate between the President and the Leader of the Opposition. For a right-of-centre view, try John Chappell over at Iberian Notes. And for a counter perspective, Graeme at South of Watford. John has an almost blow-by-blow account on his blog and concludes that, although Rajoy won on points, he really needed a knockout blow to overtake the governing PSOE party in the polls. Graeme agrees about the absence of a killer blow from either set of fists but finally goes, as expected, with Zapatero. But, to my surprise, he doesn't work a mention of his bête-noire, Espe Aguirre, into his comment. Sorry, bloggers' in-joke. But more on this theme below.

The latest pledge/bribe from the PSOE is that it’ll subsidise the mortgages of those who want to extend the term rather than pay increased monthly payments. Of course, this will only be available to families in financial difficulties. But as this could well include some pretty profligate people, some rather undeserving folk could now have their extravagances subsidised by other taxpayers. Just as in the UK. So another small step towards debilitating welfare dependency in Spain. You'd think they’d learn.

In yesterday’s El Mundo, you had to plough [plow] through 26 pages of election stuff before you got to any news. With El País unavailable, I had to resort to ABC, which managed two more. Happily, the Voz de Galicia got it down to a mere eleven.

Finally on politics - Could there ever be an emptier headline than “Raul Castro is elected President of Cuba”

In an article yesterday on the [then] imminent debate, it was said that Rajoy was not getting in any sparring prior to the top-of-the-bill bout. I was tempted to see this as the latest bit of Spanglish but the absence of a definite or indefinite article left me wondering whether it wasn’t just a ‘clever’ interpolation of an English word. In other words, sparring is not in the same category as un liftin [= un lifting = facelift] or un futin [un footing = jogging]. Or even – dare I say – un spinning [= un spinning = a group gym exercise on bicycles]. But there will be other views, I suspect.

I was rather impressed to hear both Sky News and the BBC had declined to show pictures of the horrendous injury to the Arsenal footballer player Eduardo over the weekend. No such squeamishness and over-sensitivity here; it was hard to avoid photos of it in the Sports sections of yesterday’s press. And, to be fair, I think the UK press also ran photos alongside their articles.

Galicia Facts

Homes e Mulleres, I give you Jujel. This is a Galician version of Google, though possibly not authorised. I would have expected Xuxel but, as I understand it, there’s an in-joke at play here. In parts of Galicia the letter G is pronounced like the Spanish J. So gato [cat] becomes jato. By which I mean khato when it comes to an approximation of the guttural pronunciation. And so, the Jujel folk also render Galicia as Jalisia. Which is a double joke as it bows not only in the direction of the above practice [geada] but also in that of the other habit of pronouncing the letter C as an S [seseo]. Those not utterly confused or bored by this will be interested to know the description of Jujel I read contained the funny phrases:- Ghughel para os amighos and E ademais funsiona. Which must have had them laughing in the aisles in, say, Gondomil. Though I doubt that the Royal Academy of the Galician Language is much amused. Anyway, I’m sure that, if you want to search on anything to do with Galicia/ Galithia/Galizia/Galiz/Galisia/Ghalisia/Jalicia/Jalisia, then Jujel/ Xuxel/Ghughel/Jughel/Ghujel is the search engine for you. Good luck. I’ll now just sit back and wait for the abuse from Galician Nationalists keen to tell me I know nothing about the region/land/ country/national reality/nation or its language. Bring it on, chaps.

Domestically, I was summoned to my gate last night by a sad-looking no-longer-nice-but-still-noisy Tony, who was wafting a piece of paper as if it concerned both of us. In fact, it was a water bill, showing consumption of 80 cubic metres up to mid December. As mine was 10, I could see why he might be unhappy. He was sure he had a leak somewhere and took me on a tour of his garden and the community gardens below, where there certainly was evidence of a problem directly below his house. I then made Tony’s day worse by pointing out two months had passed since the reading and he might like to find out what the leak had cost him since then. You can imagine his reaction when we calculated that his use had gone up from an already staggering 80 cubic metres in the previous quarter to just under 300 in the current period. So far. He looked rather despondent as I slid quietly away. And I almost felt sorry for him.

President Zapatero must be on Viagra Plus, as his magic wand gets bigger by the day. Now we’ve been assured he’ll ensure all Spanish kids can converse and do business in English within 10 years. This, it seems, will require the hiring of 20,000 native speakers from the UK and the USA for the state schools. And thousands of Spanish teachers will be sent to the UK and Ireland for courses. I hope they end up more intelligible than the woman I rented a room from once in the south of Ireland and who - I finally worked out - also gave lessons in English. But not English as we know it, Jim.

Talking of odd English – A TV program entitled Pressing catch is causing some controversy here because of its alleged malign influence on kids. My suspicion is it’s something to do with that joke sport, professional wrestling. But, really, I have no idea what pressing catch can mean. As with el spinning. Which, I was told this week, is now available under water.

If you live in Britain and sleep for just under 8 hours between 11.12pm and 6.53am, you are aligned with the statistical average. Here, the numbers are 6 hours between 1.30am and 7.30am. And that’s just the kids. Or those next door to me, at least.

On Monday evenings I chat for an hour or so with five teachers of English. As all of them are female, I replicated yesterday the survey suggesting 70% of Spanish women are happy with their bodies. The figure from my [secret] ballot was even higher, at 100%. We then discussed the article and they commented it was paradoxical that Spanish women were happy with what they had but spent far more time and money on themselves than their British counterparts to ensure they looked good. They didn’t respond to my goad that Spanish women probably didn’t worry about getting bigger as they aged since they knew all Spanish men really wanted to marry their mothers.

If you’ve read the article, you’ll know that the [Spanish] author points to ‘benign narcissism’ as the bedrock of the confidence and self-esteem with which every Spanish child grows up and which provides a defence against teenage female angst. On balance – and having seen it at play in other cultures - I agree this is a good thing but I can’t help wondering whether it isn’t also the foundation of the individualismo I go on about. Or self-centredness, to be explicit. Oh, alright - a total lack of consideration for others who aren’t a friend or family member.

Talking of which, I should stress that every Spaniard to whom I’ve related the episode of Tony and my [ex]bougainvillea has been suitably horrified at his ‘bad education’. Which means his upbringing in Spain. It’s his mother’s fault, then.

Reading an indictment of the British economy yesterday, I was slightly troubled by this comment - The UK current account deficit reached 5.7% of GDP in the third quarter of last year. This is approaching banana republic status and is worse than any other major country in the world, except Spain. It seems we’re going down the tube together, though it’s possible Spain will get some protection from being member of the Euro zone. Or at least that’s what I thought until I read:- The EMU is a dysfunctional monetary union, where the Latin and Germanic halves are moving further apart and so are the spreads on sovereign bonds. The gloss will come off Euroland in due course. Thank God I don’t understand what ‘the spread on sovereign bonds’ is or I’d be quite worried.

Cross cultural perceptions: My cleaning lady is known for her capacity to chat. At a decibel level way above what’s normal in my house. As she was leaving at 8.30 last night, the Portuguese workers from the nearby building site were getting into their cars, after their 12 hour day. “My God!” said Teresa, “The Portuguese certainly can talk!”. I, on the other hand, was struck dumb.

Quote of the Week

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

This is attributed to a first world war British fighter pilot but I strongly suspect he had a Spanish mother.

Ahead of consideration by the Constitutional Court of Catalunia’s controversial new constitution, Spain’s main political parties are locked in an internecine – and unedifying - struggle to bias the tribunal in its favour. When Gordon Brown talks of major constitutional reform in the UK in the direction of more formality, clarity etc., this is the sort of nightmare that occurs to me at least.

A group of Spanish experts is somewhat less optimistic than the government about 2008 economic growth. They suggest a [still-high] 2.7%, against the official forecast of 3.3%. Meanwhile, the use of concrete in 2007 here is forecast to be the same as last year, essentially because public works have compensated for the slowdown in the property market.

El Mundo got itself up to 9 sections yesterday. Not quite as many as the UK Sundays but bad enough. Possibly in jest, its business section raised the question of whether Fernando Alonso could sue McLaren for ‘mobbing’. For inexplicable reasons, in Spain this English gerund is used to mean harassment in the work place. I didn’t bother to read the article but its tenor contrasted with reports in El Mundo or El Pais last week that McLaren’s test driver – one Pedro de la Rosa of Spain – had rejected claims that McLaren had disadvantaged Alonso in any way as simply ridiculous.

The Spanish magazine Intervíu specialises in putting nude unknowns on its cover. In this regard, readers may recall our local hairdresser heroine, Ana María Ríos. This week’s star is a young woman [what else?] who serves in the Spanish army in Ceuta. She’s quoted as saying she has a lot of respect for the military and this is why she has posed without any military insignia. How touching. Who says young people these days have no values?

British Lunacy

A couple of maids used a master key to enter a hotel room and found the occupant ‘having sex with a bicycle’. Rather than run off laughing, they told the management, who reported him to the police, who prosecuted him. He’s now been placed on the sex offenders’ register. I wonder - amongst other things - how they determined that the bicycle was offended.

Finally . . . click here if you want to see the sort of accident that happens at 6am of a Spanish Sunday. This one involves a car and a roof. Neighbours are reported to have said the road is a post-copas rat run and that, unsurprisingly, this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened.

Many people in the UK feel it’s difficult now to differentiate between the Conservative party of Cameron and the New Labour party of Blair/Brown. A British columnist suggests “The dividing lines in politics are shifting: the old disagreements between Left and Right are disappearing; they are being replaced by new divides such as those between liberals and authoritarians, and between modernisers and reactionaries”. I wonder if this can also be said about things here in Spain.

Talking of the UK, here’s an article on the theme of the hysteria displayed by what the author calls ‘tabloid besotted’ parents on the question of their children’s safety.

I doubt that it’s generally realised around the world that only a minority of Spaniards are supporters of the country’s bullfighting tradition. There may well be even fewer now, after this week’s publication of a report claiming it only survives on subsidies from taxpayers’ money. Meanwhile, though, interest has possibly risen this summer because of a long streak of good luck for the bulls in the few minutes before they’re ignominiously dragged from the ring. Spectacular gorings appear to have been more frequent than usual. Especially for one poor guy.

There’s something wrong about the clock in Galicia. By this I mean it doesn’t have the time its geographical position merits. Which would be the same time as the UK directly north of it and Portugal directly south. However, understandable political reasons keep it on the same clock as the rest of Spain. The plus is that we get very long summer evenings. The minus is that light’s in short supply in the mornings, especially at this time of the year, just before the clocks go back. As someone who always rises around 7.30, it’s been a little depressing to see the sun rapidly disappear from the morning sky. So much so that I’m now getting up in pitch darkness, though there will be temporarily amelioration after next weekend’s change of the clock. As I understand it, the main reason for this rapid blackening of the dawn sky is that, when the day shortens in autumn and winter, this happens more in the morning than the evening, hitting us early-risers the worst. To get off this subject, the Galician Nationalist Party has actually proposed that Galicia be on a different time from the rest of Spain. Thought not just by the one hour that would put it on UK/Portugal time but by two hours. This really would make a difference to my mornings but I’ve no idea what their logic is on this.

I see Venice has ‘declared war on the hordes of pigeons that are soiling its piazzas and damaging monuments’. Throwing rice at newlyweds is to be banned and the mayor will try to stop hawkers in St Mark's Square selling pigeon food to tourists. On a smaller scale, the only thing which mars my Sunday lunch of squid and white wine down in Pontevedra’s old quarter is the persistence of the pigeons as they try to steal from the bowls of peanuts on the tables. Last Sunday I was astonished to see a woman nearby was actually hand-feeding these flying rats. I was reminded of my brother’s comment that it’s amazing what you see when you don’t have your rifle with you.

Another little bit of Spanglish - I was confused by the word flases but eventually tracked it down as the alternative for the English flashes. So you can have un flash or un flas.

Talking of words, I was confused by an American author’s use of the [unknown to me] word bollix to mean something like to destroy. But Wikipedia came to my rescue with:- To bollix: To throw into confusion; To botch or bungle. . . The word ‘bollocks’ is sometimes spelled as bollox or bollix, to make it appear less vulgar. Its meaning is "to bungle", as in "The project was going well but my boss bollixed it up." This is the sense in which the term is generally used in the USA, where the original meaning of "bollocks" is almost unknown. "Bollixed up" is sometimes considered an out-of-date expression that has largely been replaced by phrases such as "screwed up," as the latter term has gradually lost most of its previously vulgar connotation. If there really is an American reader out there unsure of the original – and still current in the UK – meaning of bollocks, post me a comment and I will oblige.

By pure coincidence, fellow observers of matters Spanish – Ben Curtis of Notes From Spain and Jonathan Holland of Puerta del Sol – both chose this week to comment on the issue of honesty/dishonesty in Spain. In a podcast, Ben quite rightly praised the amazing trust system which underlies payment in bars and cafés here, whereas Jonathan addressed the topic of widespread picaresca, which my dictionary defines as guile, chicanery and subterfuge. I make no observation on how these can co-exist in the same culture. Except to say it’s fascinating. And that, if picaresca is required to surmount Spain’s mind-numbingly stupid bureaucracy, then I’m all for it.

Everyone, I guess, will have a view on whether it’s right to judge the McCanns and, if so, whether intelligence and common sense suggest they are implicated in the disappearance and probable death of their daughter or not. I am not about to bore you with my views and nor am I calling for reader’s view on these issues. I raise the subject now only to report that El Pais yesterday came up with an article about the Portuguese and British governments being at daggers drawn because, says the respected paper, the latter has been involved ‘on the McCann’s side’ since the very first moments, possibly helping to ensure, it claims, that Sky News were advised of the child’s disappearance 30 minutes before the Portuguese police were informed. It’s not clear what evidence El Pais has for this remarkable [even fantastic] story and, so far, I’ve not seen it reproduced elsewhere. Perhaps later today. Meanwhile, the Portuguese media have proved my allegation they’re at least as bad as the British tabloids by publishing extracts from Kate McCann’s diary. One wonders how they can have got hold of it. As I’ve said, all very depressing, whether the McCanns are guilty or innocent. How thin is our patina of civilisation. Which is not a new thought, of course.

Lighter matters . . . Spanglish. I wrote a while ago that footing was an amusing but logical substitute for jogging, as the latter would be pronounced very gutturally in Spanish. What, then, are we to make of groggy, which was an adjective applied to the Russian football team after Owen’s second goal? Astonishingly, it’s in my dictionary as:-

Groggy/Grogui: Atontado, Impresionado.

Wonderful.

Galicia Facts: Our health service – like those of Andalucía and the Balearic Islands - is rated ‘average’, by the Federation of Associations in Defence of Public Health. This is better than Valencia’s [‘worst in Spain’] and those of Murcia, Madrid and the Canaries, where it was ‘deficient’. I suspect ‘average’ is also better than the ‘acceptable’ of Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Cataluña and La Rioja. The ‘good’ regions were Aragón, Navarra, Cantabria, Asturias and the Basque Country. So now you know. Be careful where you eat those oysters. Or get private insurance.

You know you’re past it when the BBC uses a word – Milf – that you don’t understand. If you’re as ignorant as I was, a Google search adding the word ‘Ross’ will quickly enlighten you.

Talking of the media, I never thought I’d ever say this but I’ve finally abandoned Skye’s News-for-Imbeciles in favour of France 24 and their excellent English speakers. Given that Rupert Murdoch has cheapened and corrupted everything he’s ever touched, is there really no law anywhere in the world under which he and all his editors could be taken out and summarily shot? By the way, I call it ‘the SIDAM touch’ – the MIDAS touch in reverse.

The Galician Xunta has launched a new web portal – www.bygalicia.eu This is naturally in Gallego but there are Spanish and English versions. Its aim, I guess, is to promote investment in Galicia and I wish them well. The rationale for the name of the site is along the lines ‘It’s more important people think products are made by Galicia, rather than just in Galicia’. I guess they’ve had the consultants in. Perhaps the same ones who designed London’s 2012 Olympics logo. Sadly - but unsurprisingly - the English text of the site has not been done, or even vetted, by a native English speaker. Hard to believe they couldn't afford it.

As it’s Saturday, little bit of Spanglish – The English word ‘stripper’ usually [and regularly] appears in Spain as streeper but I recently saw it rendered as strepper. Which would certainly confuse me.

In the UK, the position that used to be called the Secretary for Education is now called the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. Could there be any more eloquent testimony to the onwards march of the Nanny state?

As someone who left the UK because I felt the place was not only insane but had also lost its soul, I naturally found this article on the attractions of Continental society persuasive. What the author says of Munich holds very true for Spanish cities as well. One wonders if Britain will ever recover.

It’s been a while since I stumbled on any new Spanglishisms. But I now give you:-

Un cross – A cross-country race. Not, of course, the name of the Beckhams’ last child.

Taking Ryan to the vet yesterday for his regular 12 year check up, I was accosted by a TVE camera crew seeking my thoughts on the demolition of illegal houses on a nearby gypsy site. Not wanting to appear on local TV expressing any views on these lovely people, I denied any knowledge on the subject. In fact, in the face of their persistence, I even disclaimed any understanding of Spanish. Ryan was extremely miffed he wasn’t even asked.

Coming out of the vet’s surgery into the waiting area, I found the three chairs were occupied by a young couple and their cat basket. As I stood there in victim silence, I asked myself why on earth I found it so hard to follow the advice I gave yesterday and assert myself in the face of something which appeared to be a good example of what foreigners see as Spanish rudeness. I finally decided it was because in Britain, where you're expected to constantly think about others, it’s effectively an insult to remind someone to be polite. And so you fear an aggressive response. In Spain, though, this is nonsense and no one would be upset to be prompted. In fact, there would be profuse apologies from people who’d only failed to notice you because they were chatting away. My elder daughter later pointed out it was logical that in non-assertive Britain people were, in compensation, expected to think about others far more than they are in assertive, ‘individualistic’ Spain.

I referred yesterday to rubbish collection developments in the UK and, separately, to the EU. I didn’t link them because there didn’t seem any reason to. But reader Mark Sparrow has pointed to a blog which claims the driving force behind the reduction in collections is cost-saving aimed at avoiding fines for not reducing land-fill needs. And the source of this is what the writer calls a ‘barmy’ EU directive, implemented by Britain’s gold-plating bureaucrats without any discussion in Parliament. If so, I think I can safely state this directive is not being complied with in a Spain which is rather more pragmatic about these things.

I plan to make my next compilation around the subject of Nationalism. Meanwhile, here’s the view of one Scottish writer on the variant that's about to experience electoral success in Scotland. To him, this is “Nothing but a romantic fantasy. A piece of self-pitying nonsense costumed as a matter of destiny”. Personally, I love the bit about Nationalists “spreading historical and economic disinformation to promote a notion of Scotland's victimhood”. This is an element common to all such movements, of course.

Finally, here’s the usual monthly list of odd searches that ended up at my blog. Quite a nice crop this time:-

can you put a quail with chickens?

Pictures of Couples Making Love [What quaint, old-fashioned language]

is it worth emigrating to Spain?

spaniards are nice

mr handsome spain 2005

sex in north west Spain

stupid galicians

bullfight she had orgasm [A German search]

Spaniards personality and physical traits

spain television breasts

And, lastly, a very intriguing search which leaves hanging the question of ‘During or after?’ . . . percentage of skin dying if you smoke when you have cosmetic surgery

In one of yesterday’s local papers, I read there are 115,000 young Galicians between 35 and 50 still living with their parents, 40% of them even after marrying. This is 19% of those in this age group but for those between 18 and 35 the figure is 65%. To an Anglo, these numbers seem shocking, even if the reasons given are lack of job opportunities and the high cost of housing. But then I read this morning of an LSE report’s damning conclusion that “A ‘lost generation’ of unemployed young people is costing the UK economy billions of pounds a year in benefits, youth crime and educational under-achievement.” More specifically, the report highlighted that “The UK population of 'Neets' - people not in education, employment or training - is more than double that of Germany and France and is still growing”. As a result, said the report, around 20% of young people face the prospect of a lifetime on welfare and the risk of falling into crime. If I had to chose between these extremes, I’d have no difficulty in plumping for the Spanish model. Especially as it reflects stronger family ties.

A new bit of Spanglish, perhaps – El graining. This was in a report on Sunday’s Formula 1 race in Malaysia and refers to tyre deterioration. I say ‘perhaps’ because – like El paddock – it has just been lifted from English and means the same thing. Unlike, say El parking and Un lifting.

My latest 3-year compilation is on THE PRESS and I offer it to all those who feel I’m too negative. I suspect it proves my contention that, if my bog were relentlessly positive, it would be less entertaining:-

2003/4

I‘m impressed that the Spanish national press contains articles on the current depressing events in Northern Ireland [are there any other?]. It strikes me that the UK press does not accord Spain the same honour of reporting on tensions between the central government and both the Basque and Catalunian autonomous communities.


El Mundo reported on Friday that a 425 million year old fossil had been found. The headline for its article referred to the world’s oldest male creature. The Daily Telegraph chose to headline this find as the 425 million year penis. Clearly, you don’t have to reduce the size of your paper to go tabloid. First the sensationalisation and then the down-sizing, a process that Mr Murdoch started with The Times about ten years ago in the UK and, as I have said, is now taking to its logical conclusion.


Here in Spain, the national press gives every impression of being unashamedly elitist. If they have ever faced the temptation to dumb down their contents, then they have successfully resisted it. Not for them the terror of being accused of addressing a white, male, middle-class, middle-brow audience. Or, far worse, of being ‘intellectual’. Middle-brow is the minimum they aim for. In El Mundo today there is an attack on the low-brow, celebrity-obsessed ‘pink press’ in terms which I doubt would have got past the editors of the Telegraph, Times, Independent or Guardian in the UK. Too much fear of losing a huge chunk of their readership.

Personally, I very much prefer my papers this way. But then I believe the world would be a poorer place without its elites. The fact that such a statement is controversial in the UK shows just how unbalanced society there has become.


The Obituary column of El Mundo is nothing if not eclectic. I may be doing little more than revealing the depths of my ignorance here but I am frequently surprised by the obscurity of the people who feature therein. These have recently included a Blues musician from the USA and a singing star from Egypt. Today we had the chap from Philip Morris who invented the Malboro’ Man, plus one of the leading lights of WorldCom, the disgraced telecoms business. Mind you, what I guess was his picture was entitled, David Hemmings, star of the 60s cult film, ‘Blow Up’. Maybe we will get the latter tomorrow, possibly identified as someone else.


In the Spectator this week, Alistair Campbell says that the questions he recently got from Ethiopian journalists were more intelligent that those he used to get from the UK press. I dare say the same would be true if he faced Spanish reporters. The reason is simple; in neither country has the media industry been dumbed down by anything like the egregious tabloid press of the UK. And what was Mr Campbell before his elevation? Why, a tabloid reporter, of course. And what techniques did he bring to the centre of British government? Why those of the tabloid press. Bit rich, him being critical now, eh?


One of the obituaries in El Mundo yesterday was for the famous Canadian actress Suzanne Cloutier, who apparently gave us the best ever interpretation of Desdemona. Today we had the equally illustrious German baritone, Hans Hotter. The others were of people rather less well known.


The queen was reported in the Spanish press today to have ‘baptised’ the QM2. Nice thought.


We are heading for a March general election. What this means is that the always-serious press – which I enjoy – will become very heavy. I am not looking forward to this, especially as it will be followed by months of obsession with the upcoming royal wedding.


Interesting Headlines

- A judge in a grave situation after hitting his head against a wall – Found wandering in the street, apparently
- Man accused of trying to crucify his wife and children – It seems he thought this would rid them of the devil
- Man of 85 accused of killing his 82 year old bride of only two weeks – In a jealous rage, allegedly

These, by the way, are all from the serious, not the pink, press.


The serious press here finally gave in to the pressure and printed today a summary of the reports in the British tabloids of David Beckham’s alleged love life. Up to this point they had studiously ignored this subject, in contrast with the UK media where the stories had featured high in the priorities of even the ‘quality’ press.


In case you missed it, the Bulgarian tight rope walker famous for not using a safety net sadly paid the price in a Minnesota circus ring recently, when one of her silk ribbons snapped. This information comes care of an obituary in El Mundo today. Quite why she rated one of the two daily spots, I cannot guess. Unless it is because she had along the way changed her name from Dessi Kehayova to Dessi España.


You may have missed the pictures of the beheaded American hostage, showing his detached head lying on his back. We didn’t, of course.


Thanks to the Spanish press, I am now aware of what Faria Alam looks like. Although she has been a constant in Sky News headlines for the past few days, we have yet to be shown even her face. Perhaps because of some sort of injunction. For my 3 readers in the USA – and for Brits living in a cave – this is the woman who is said to have slept not just with the Chief Executive of the English Football Association but also with the England Coach.


Both El Mundo and El Pais had obituaries of Bernard Levin last week. It’s hard to imagine even the heavy British newspapers being remotely familiar with his Spanish media equivalents, let alone according one of them the honour of an elegy.


There was a comment in the Sunday Telegraph that self-imposed silence on matters Islamic meant that little would be reported in the UK on the hanging of a 15 year old girl in Iran. So it was good to see that this was fully covered in El Mundo on Monday


Nice to see obituaries in all the Spanish papers today for the third [but almost unknown] member of the team which discovered the DNA helix, Maurice Wilkins. A New Zealander in fact but, like me [and at least one of my American readers], an alumnus of King’s College, London.


A commentator in the Spanish press has suggested that British foxes will have greeted the recent Labour anti-hunting bill with applause. Only if they prefer being gassed, poisoned or shot, I imagine.


The hunting season started last weekend. As did the gun accident season. And yet there is no tabloid press screaming for action and no politicians insisting that ‘something’ must and will be done. Nor, I suppose, packs of lawyers scouring the country for someone to sue. Life in the UK used to be like this, as I recall.


I see that, while I plunder the Spanish press for ideas for blog entries that no one reads, the papers here are doing the same in reverse. Today we had an article about David Beckham anointing rosary beads with fashionability that had been lifted straight from yesterday’s Daily Telegraph. What goes round, comes round, it seems. But at least one person is reading the Spanish versions.


In El Mundo yesterday we had examples of the photos that will adorn packets of cigarettes sold in the EU. These are really quite gruesome. In the same edition, the paper featured only the top half of a picture taken from a web site closed down by the government for showing the mangled bodies of victims of the Madrid bomb atrocity. The paper said, piously, that the bottom half of the picture was just too dreadful to print. There were two ironies here. Firstly, even the top half of the picture would never have made it into any newspaper in the UK. And, secondly, I recall El Mundo opining only a few months ago that the proposed cigarette packet photos were excessive, as they were likely to offend peoples’ sensibilities.


In case you haven’t noticed from the screaming headlines in the UK media, John Peel died yesterday. No, he wasn’t a war hero or a global statesman but just a disk jockey. Excessive as this reaction is, it was nonetheless impressive to see El Pais carrying an article about him today.


There is enormous coverage of the US elections in the Spanish papers. This reflects the fact that all national journals here are still very heavyweight. Very middle-class oriented, it has been said. As a result, journalism in Spain ranks amongst the top professions, something which would be greeted with incredulity [and envy] by both British and, I suspect, American hacks. I seem to recall that, in the UK, journalists now rank just ahead of estate agents. Or was it just behind?


I have commented occasionally on the bizarre obituaries that make it into the pages of the major newspapers here. Today it was the turn of Vaughan Meader, who shot to fame in the sixties because of his ability to impersonate the voices of both Jack and Robert Kennedy. Fascinating. Actually, I might have misspelled both his first and last names. But who would know?


Nice to see a eulogy to Emlyn Hughes in one of the papers yesterday. Though I was a bit confused by the by-line of Walter Oppenheimer. I thought he was a US political columnist, not a soccer commentator.


While largely ignoring what goes on amongst the supporters, the Spanish media can sometimes come across as rather arrogant about the superiority of their football over that of, say, British teams. But who can blame them, some would say, after the performance last week of the English side? Anyway, one report today compared the ‘primitive’ football of Glasgow Celtic last night with the ‘modern’ football of Barcelona. It falls to me to say that the match was tied. And it’s a very long time since the Spanish national team did well in an international competition. Even if they are pretty to watch.


Astonishingly, I read today that Galicia boasts 10 local daily newspapers. God knows how any of them stays in business but I suspect that taxpayer contributions – in one form or another – play a part. There seems to be an awful lot of news about local political developments and new roundabouts. And I rather suspect none of the papers would print a letter about, say, the postprandial state of the chief of police.


2005

As for the referendum on the EU constitution, the government has announced the star team that will promote a Yes vote in all the media. This consists of reporters, footballers, actors and just one ‘intellectual’. Yes, it’s true – in Spain reporters have a status even higher than that of footballers and actors. This is because there’s no real tabloid press here.


Talking of newspapers and politics, at least Spain doesn’t suffer from the curse of an unholy alliance between the government, a press baron and the tabloid press. This, I suspect, will be the lasting heritage of Blairism and I have thought about coining the word Politoids to describe it. If it catches on, you heard it here first. But it probably won’t as it sounds rather like a lot of haemorrhoids. A pile of piles. I’d better stop now.

Topical Quote of the Day - I’m with you for a free press. It’s the newspapers I can’t stand. Tom Stoppard


I may have hit upon the reason why the Spanish local press flourishes to an extent not true of the UK at least. The national papers here are undeniably heavy and carry little by way of ‘human interest’ stories, which are left to their local brethren. Happily these acquit their responsibility without stooping to tabloid levels of reportage. Long may this continue.


I’m sad to say The Spectator hasn’t seen fit to print a letter from me about ‘politoids’ in the UK but I see that their Political Editor has a column on this theme this week. Just a coincidence, I suppose.


The Spanish press certainly couldn’t be accused of under-covering the Papal election in Rome. El Pais yesterday devoted its first 12 pages to the story, followed by its Leader and Opinion pages in their entirety. I couldn’t bear to check El Mundo. Let’s hope that this Pope defies his age and ill health and lives long enough to allow us all to recover from the hysteria of the last few weeks. It would certainly help if he could refrain from making himself as much a celebrity as the last one. And spend more time praying, would be the suggestion of this lost soul.


Two things Spain is blessedly free of are a tabloid press and a greetings card industry. But I suspect it’s only a matter of time before the latter, at least, blights our lives. That said, most Spanish families still live cheek by jowl so there’s not a great deal of incentive to send a card to someone you see at least once a day.


Time for my regular plaudit for the Spanish press. Their coverage of the UK elections has been impressive and way beyond anything that might appear in the UK on matters Spanish. Mind you, I took exception to a hagiographic article today suggesting Tony Blair was a political genius in his prime. As opposed, I guess, to a busted flush who’ll be handing over to the real leader of the Labour party very soon.


I’ve said before how impressive it is to see international obituaries in the Spanish press. One of today’s in El Pais was for Frank Rogers, VP of the Daily Telegraph in the UK. I doubt he got this treatment even in the UK itself. Which reminds me, if anyone wants to see the pernicious effect of the egregious British tabloid press, they should take a look at the history of the said Daily Telegraph over the last 10 to 20 years, as it has moved relentlessly downmarket. The UK satirical magazine, Private Eye, regards it as now so indistinguishable from the tabloid Daily Mail that it refers to it as the Maily Telegraph. And to its celebrity-obsessed Sunday sister paper as the Sunday Hellograph.


I learn from an article in one of the national papers that the opposing models for the Spanish state are centripetal and centrifugal. Now I’ll have to find out what these mean. But I suspect in one the power gravitates to the centre, and in the other, to the periphery. Too bloody elitist, the Spanish press. Unlike Sky TV, of course.


It struck me - when reading shortly thereafter the latest report of a wife murdered by her husband - that, if a neighbour captured such an atrocity on film, we’d be sure to see it in the Spanish media. Nothing seems to be bad enough here to fall under the heading of tasteless. Certainly not the lines of burned corpses from Beslan in one Sunday paper.


Slipper of the Yard and Gerry Fitt were both given fulsome obits in the Spanish press today. As I’ve said before, it’s impossible to imagine British newspapers according this honour to foreigners.


2006

The major Spanish papers can sometimes seem a bit heavy but, in truth, it’s a pleasure lost to UK readers to pick up a serious paper whose front page isn’t dedicated to bloody whales or to pathetic politicians who’ve either just been kicked off Celebrity Big Brother or who are vainly trying to explain their sexual life to a bemused public. If Spain ever gets a tabloid press, I’ll have to move on. ‘Thoughts from Kurdistan’ should at least allow me to brush up my Persian.


More details have emerged of Sunday’s chaos at the new Madrid airport terminal. The event, it seems, had actually been postponed a few times, possibly because the construction companies were working on several airports at the same time. But one positive aspect is the force with which the media – well the press, at least – have condemned this blow to Spain’s international image. It would be nice to know this will hit home.


The new 1 item on the national news yesterday morning was the health of a famous female singer. The number 2 item was the death of 4,000 people in the Indonesian earthquake. Hmm. Spain doesn’t, thank God, have a tabloid press but this is getting close.


I’ve said several times that one of Spain’s big pluses is that it doesn’t have the equivalent of the scabrous UK tabloid press. But what the media here does have is a sort of insensitivity which I suspect even The Sun in the UK would eschew. On the front page of one of Spain’s heavies today, there’s a picture of a blood-soaked woman dying in one of Madrid’s central squares, having been stabbed several times in broad daylight. Inside the paper there are more pictures and an article in which the paper expresses its anger at attempts made to stop their photographer getting his pictures. If this isn’t enough for you, on another page there’s a photo of the bullet-holed corpse of a Swedish journalist in Afghanistan. I very much doubt these pictures are shown for sensationalist, circulation-oriented reasons. Which makes it all the more odd, to me at least, that they’re not regarded as offensive. Ironically, I think it was the same paper which opined that pictures of blackened lungs on cigarette packets was taking things too far as it might upset people.


In the current edition of the Spanish magazine Interviu, the first witness on the scene of Princess Diana’s fatal crash relates that, on opening the door, he saw incontrovertible evidence that the couple had been, shall we say, enjoying themselves. At least, this is what the ad in the national press suggests. Funny, but I don’t recall the scabrous British tabloids even hinting at this salacious nugget. And given the sums of money they pay for this sort of thing, it’s hard to believe the story wasn’t offered to them in preference to a much-smaller-circulation rag in Spain. If it’s true, of course.


‘Biopolitical’ has written to say he/she doesn’t actually believe there’s a conspiracy to fool the public around the activities of Galician farmers, just a lack of political will and a tame press. I must say the latter factor chimes with a view I’ve long had, viz. that 5 local newspapers couldn’t possibly survive without direct or indirect finance from political parties. Which means an unhealthy relationship, a reluctance to do much investigative journalism and a lack of interest in rocking boats. An insidious form of corruption.


I alluded yesterday to the corruption that pervades local politics here. Then there is the more-universal pork barrel politics. The Minister of Culture in one region recently decided to remove 500,000 euros from the budget for a theatre in one town and reallocate to the one in which she was born. Again. It’s impressive the press no longer lets this sort of thing go unnoticed, even if most Spaniards still regard it as not worth worrying about.


These UK developments [around multiculturalism] get full coverage in the Spanish press. It’s hard to see this happening if it were the other way round. This is another area where British society has raced backwards over the last 30 years - in the direction of tabloid levels of parochialism, superficiality and sensationalism. I wonder how much it would cost to put a contract out on Rupert Murdoch.