Dawn

Dawn

Friday, March 18, 2005

Spain, it seems, leads Europe in terms of metres of asphalt per capita. As I drive along the country’s wonderful, almost-empty highways, I will now think even more affectionately of those now-unhappy German taxpayers who’ve made this possible.

The various Catalan parties who make up the ruling coalition – and who've been at each others’ throats in the past week or so – have agreed that it would be better to stop just accusing each other of institutionalised corruption and do something about it. They’ve also agreed that rain would be a good thing.

Talking of corruption, it seems a little odd that, in the week we heard details of the huge money-laundering shenanigans in Marbella – the only three countries [out of forty nine] to decline to sign an international agreement on the subject were Monaco, Lichtenstein and, would you believe, Spain. I suppose it must make sense to someone.

Two more interesting social surveys this week. The first revealed - to my surprise at least – that Spanish youngsters are now the fattest in Europe after those of Malta. The second informed us that – in the space of a single generation – young Spanish women have reduced the average age of first sexual intercourse from 21 to 17. Needless to say, this too came as a surprise to me.

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