Dawn

Dawn

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Sometimes you just can’t get away from a notion which has caught the attention of the media. Driving down to Plymouth from London on Saturday, I heard a program on the subject of “erotic capital”. I then read an article on this in the Sunday Times during the boat trip to Santander. And today there’s something in Prospect magazine on the subject. It’s pretty uncontroversial stuff as far as I’m concerned. But perhaps that’s because I live in a Latin country and, as the (female) creator of the concept says, “Only in the puritanical Anglo-Saxon culture is the idea of looking good viewed as superficial.” I particularly enjoyed her feminist ‘opponent’ exploding in response to this during the radio broadcast.

If you’re still bewildered by the Garzón case in Spain – and, as far as I can see, that’s all of us except Graeme over at South of Watford – here’s something from Qorreo that should help.

As a regular visitor to Portugal, I can vouch for the fact that our neighbour hasn’t seen anything like the growth experienced by Spain over the last ten years or more. So I wasn’t surprised to read today that “Euro enthusiasts are mystified at why Portugal's catch-up growth stalled in the 1990s. Portugal has not been reckless. It has been run better than Britain for the last eight years. You cannot argue that Portugal is a basket case. It has hit a brick wall anyway.” All in the context that Portugal looks like being the next big challenge for the EU, once it has satisfactorily dealt with Greece. If it ever does.

Finally . . . Would you believe that teenagers rank their contentment higher than those in their 30s and 40s? In fact the level doesn’t rise past that of teenagers until the age of 74. Or so they say.

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