We all, they say, become caricatures of ourselves. I was reminded of this when musing further on the place of gypsies in Spanish society. In some ways they really are caricatures of the Spanish who despise them. Whereas the Spanish love to ignore many rules, the gypsies pay little heed to any of them. And while the Spanish are less than quiet, the gypsies – especially in cars – are phenomenally noisy. And where the Spanish are individualistic and less than considerate to others, the gypsies seem to go out of their way to be offensive. We all, of course, detest our own faults worse than any others so maybe herein lies the root cause of Spanish antipathy. There but for the grace of God go we.

There were a number of replies to the Capillary Conundrum of earlier this week. And this number, to be specific, was one. The suggestion was Near misses on pedestrian crossings? This is very close to the right answer but, sadly, not quite close enough to win the enormous prize. This will now be held over. The correct answer was Cut across each other’s trajectory. Which, being pedantic, they don’t actually do on zebra crossings. My Spanish friend, Manoel, discourses on this aspect of Spanish life in his most recent blog at theremon.blogspot.com

If you go to my website [colindavies.net] and take a look at my mug shot in the photo gallery on the homepage, you will see that you would only be likely to suggest I was Spanish if you were hard of seeing. So, could someone please explain why I am stopped at least once a week and asked for directions to some part of town or other.