Galicia’s two savings banks – Caixa Galicia and Caixanova – are being fused, albeit as the same pace at which The Great Wall of Poio is being completed. Here are their respective HQs in Pontevedra, conveniently only metres apart.

Each of these has a theatre or performance area and dedicated exhibition rooms, which host the cultural events these entities fund instead of dishing out dividends. So the question is - Which one will survive the fusion, and emerge victor after the internecine inter-urban struggle between respective Boards in La Coruña and Vigo?

 

My guess is the newer – and far superior – facilities of Caixanova. But this is to use logic and I should know by now not to do this, especially when local politicians are involved. The other question is whether we will see a ‘cost-saving’ reduction in cultural events.

But back to trivia – Here’s a foto of the most expensive shopping street in Pontevedra, down in the old quarter, Most of the shops here are reputed to belong to the same canny woman – probably a Catalan  - who’s enriched herself selling Chinoiserie to the city’s nouveaux riches. 

And here’s the shop of hers which offered at a mere 850 euros a wood-and-leather chair identical to one I paid a pittance for in Iran years ago. When, stupefied, I asked if this really was the price, she replied I could have it as a discounted 670. I made my excuses and left, as the intrepid News of the World reporters used to say, after reporting on some sexual shenanigans. And may still do so.

Well, I asked whether anybody had an alternative for Ireland . . . . and here’s one. My suspicion is that this will appeal to Graeme but not Moscow. Which is ironic as it’s from the same left-of-centre paper he cited a couple of days ago in support of his argument that the UK is also going down the tubes with Greece, Ireland and Portugal.