If you’re coming to Pontevedra for this year’s extensive fiesta celebrations, you’ll be delighted to know that some at least of the ugly metal fences that have marred Plaza España in front of the town hall for more than two years have just been removed. The rest should go over the next year. Better late than never, I guess. I should warn you, though, that the surface of the plaza is now white concrete and that, under a glaring sun, you feel like the chap in Korda's The Four Feathers who went blind while hiding from the Fuzzy Wuzzies. Which they probably weren’t called in the recent re-make. As if this weren’t bad enough, the surface is rather uneven. So you have the added risk of twisting an ankle, as I did yesterday. If you do, don’t even think of suing anyone for negligence.

Talking of which . . . I was interested to see an article this week in a local paper in which the council and parents were taken to task for allowing young kids to climb up an almost-vertical face of jagged rocks. It coincided with reports that a mother down south had been arrested for, I think, homicidal negligence, after her child had died of heat-stroke. I took to wondering in what other circumstances here parents would be accused of negligence. Given the general attitude to risk, probably very few. Certainly not, I imagine, for letting their kids run along a high passageway (say the one behind my house) when there’s a big gap in the fence through which they could fall.

Well, several kind readers have written to confirm they can’t access The Times article I cited last night and for which I added a new link earlier today. I’ll have to think of something else. Meanwhile, though, here’s another Brit (the EU MP, Daniel Hannan) being kind about bullfighting

Sill on this subject, I can confirm that, as I predicted, El Mundo picked up the elusive Times article and quoted the comment that foreigners simply don’t understand what’s really going on in the bullring. Or words to that effect. As far as El Mundo is concerned, there was no doubt at all around the world that the issue had little to do with animal rights and everything to do with Catalan nationalist sentiment. Hmm.

I was amused by a letter in El Pais today. “No wonder our banks are strong” the writer said, “They take our money for free and then lend it back to us at a profit. And they charge us even for saying Good Morning to the manager. How can they not be profitable?”. It reminded me of how shocked I was at the rapaciousness of Spanish banks when I arrived here almost a decade ago and of my suggestion back then that they’d eventually charge people for breathing the air inside their branches. Well, things have actually gone the other way, though not that much. At least they no longer charge you for receiving your money. And possibly not for moving it to another bank.

Finally . . . The Law of Unintended Consequences. The Galician courts are said to be more log-jammed than ever because of the revenue-oriented surge in cases involving motoring offences. Maybe, though, things will start to ease soon, as the Traffic Police have recently been dragging their feet in protest against the reduction in civil servant salaries. This sort of action is called a “Dropped Pen” strike here in Spain. Meaning they stop drivers but don’t complete the paperwork, I believe. Needless to say, I endorse their public-spirited action.