Walking back from town today, I passed a policewoman giving a parking ticket to a car left in a bus bay. Fair enough, you might say, but only 3 or 4 metres away was the normal pack of 20 or 30 double-parked cars that block at least half the road every day when the kids leave school. As none of these ever gets booked, there must be an unofficial rule about what is allowed - which seems to include parking on the zebra crossing - and what isn’t. So, if you’re going to break the law, local knowledge can be a big help.

Talking about criminal activity - today was the day when the Spanish parliament debated – and roundly rejected – the Plan submitted by the President of the Basque Country for virtual secession of this province. As expected, his response was to say that it made absolutely no difference; he will still submit the Plan to the Basque people. Things will really get interesting if they endorse it.

Here are the main points of interest from a recent survey of Spain’s 15 to 29 year olds:-
- 69% live with their parents
- 76% are not economically independent
- 90% of them have a mobile phone
- 20% admit to drinking excessively at the weekend
- 45% are still studying, and
- very few of them anticipate moving away from their town or city

If you’ve been reading my blogs, little of this should come as a surprise. Nor the comment that Spain is the only country in Europe where smoking by young people is on the increase.

The Panel of The Wise [sic] which superintends the public TV channels has proposed that the government subsidy be increased from 5% to 50%, so that the volume of ads can be reduced. If I could bring myself to watch any of the programmes, I could get quite excited about this prospect.

Quotes of the Day

The hardest thing about being a barman is working out who is drunk and who is just plain stupid
Anon

Life can little else supply
Just a few good f - - - s and then we die
John Wilkes, English radical and optimist. 1725-1797