I’ve been known to comment that the Spanish adore paper. Or the generation of it, to be more exact. I have just completed [I hope!] the purchase of a train ticket for my daughter, from Madrid to Pontevedra. This involved 2 trips to the local station - 4 days apart - and at the very least an hour of my time. But the most notable feature of the exercise – as so often – was the production of excess paperwork. This included the original tickets [and copies], a receipt for the extra costs paid, a special form for my daughter’s details [including identification numbers, of course] and, finally, photocopies of all of these for faxing this morning to Madrid. I have to say that all the people involved were very pleasant to me and the station facilities are exemplary – clean and ultra-modern. They do all the ticket production via monitors and computers, for example. So why on earth, one wonders, don’t they have an electronic system for the purchase of third party tickets at other stations? I have said before that one rarely sees evidence of a deep-seated drive to make things more efficient in Spain. In fact, the introduction of machines sometimes seems to reduce it. But in a country of high unemployment and job insecurity, perhaps the prevailing pressures are in the opposite direction from increased productivity.

By the way, during my first visit to the station four days ago – when discussion of the ticket challenge at times involved me and all three of the ticket clerks - I asked whether I couldn’t do things via the internet. ‘Difficult’, was the short but forceful reply. Having, in the interim, seen the letter from the RENFE director [blog of 12 Aug.], I can now understand why.

In a local newspaper, the women of Galicia have been categorised as follows:-
La Coruña: The most fashionable
Vigo: The most modern [No, I don’t know the difference, either. Perhaps it means they wear shapeless trousers and trainers]
Ferrol: The most beautiful, because there is a large naval base there
Pontevedra: Not mentioned. One lady friend has suggested ‘The biggest snobs’

The first few hours of watching the Olympics have been predictable in two respects:- 1. Ads were frequently shown during the opening ceremony, and 2. the most featured ‘sport’ so far has been beach volleyball. This, of course, involves young women in bikinis but with the added advantage that it involves hand signals behind the lower back. This affords plenty of legitimate opportunities for the rear groin shot so favoured by Spanish TV directors.

I felt rather sorry for the citizens of those countries who had waited up to 2 hours to see their athletes in the opening parade, only to be offered a Nike ad in lieu.