There is a growing problem in Spain of teenage drinking - the botellón. But not violent. Just noisy and all-night-long. Some people have been driven to rather drastic retaliatory measures, like the sacristan of a Galician church who fired a couple of shotgun cartridges above the heads of the cacophonous youngsters in his churchyard. The newspaper report was remarkably sympathetic to him. And conspicuous by its absence was any mention of the need for stress counselling for the rapidly-dispersed revellers. Plus the sacristan was allowed to keep his shotgun, as he needed it for the ravaging wild boars. As opposed to the drunken wild bores.

Ah, the summer really must be over – one or two of the TV channels have re-instituted their early morning bow in the direction of serious programming. As ever, it is amusing to see that even intellectuals in Spain all talk simultaneously. Though at least they don’t shout and/or go for each other.

The 82 year old President of the Galician government - Manual Fraga – has again said that he will stand for another 4 year office in 2005. He stressed that he is doing this so as to avoid splits in the party and added that he will go on ‘to the end’. This must mean that he intends – like his ex-boss, Franco – to die in the job. Of course, there wouldn’t be any risk of splits in his party if he had made the slightest effort to groom a successor over the last 15 years. A cartoon in El Mundo today showed the national President of the party holding up a new party symbol – a pterodactyl fossil embedded in a slab of rock.

WordWatch
El top-less – the practice of bathing bare-breasted. By women, of course.