Kids with phones; Fabra; Mileuristas; Milionaires; Chester-le-Pretty; Hordes racing; and Punctuation.

Another of those claims that may not be true but which are nonetheless unsurprising: Spain has the worst phone addiction in the EU. And 38% of tots under 2 have the use of a smartphone. Presumably to play games on as their cheap parents won't buy them an iPad Mini.

My Dutch friend, Peter, tells me that, whatever happens, Fabra de Castellón won't be going to gaol. This is because he's over 70 and Spain doesn't commit old folk to prison. But I wonder if this would apply in the case of a mass murderer. Incidentally, the court didn't convict Fabra for bribery and influence-selling, even though there had been huge cash payments into his account both by himself and his wife and he couldn't/wouldn't account for this. As they say in Private Eye - Something wrong, surely. Are the Spanish courts simply institutionally unable to deal with the eye-watering levels of corruption revealed over the last 4 or 5 years?

At the other end of the income scale - When I came here 13 years ago, one word I had to get my head round was mileurista. There's no single word in English but it means someone who's earning only €1,000 a month, gross. Since then the number hasn't changed, despite Spain's high inflation of the boom years driving down its purchasing power. Worse, from what I read now, it seems that €1,000 has been driven down to 800 or even less. And that €1,000 is now regarded not as rock bottom but as a pretty decent salary. This can surely only be if you're still living (free) with your parents or if everyone in the house is on this salary. Which won't, of course, be the case when you've just been evicted by the bank for not paying a mortgage you can no longer afford.

Meanwhile, the governing classes have fared rather better, with MP's salaries rising, senior managers giving themselves a 7% increase last year and all sorts of tricks being played by bankers to increase their salaries and pensions before they retire or are made redundant. I wonder what the Spanish is for "We're all in this together", as David Cameron asininely claimed a year or two back.

But, anyway . . . Chester is a north western English city I know well. It's a pretty place, at least in the old centre but, even so, I was surprised to read that Americans had voted it the 5th prettiest city in the world, ahead of Rome, Paris and - would you believe - Venice. The cities in front of Chester were Dubrovnik, Innsbruck, Bergen and, the winner, Riga. Not having been to any of these, I can't comment, beyond saying I'm sure they're all fine places. More here.

Yesterday I mentioned the inclusion of "Seville Guard" in the Daily Telegraph, instead of "Civil Guard". Today's howler, in the article on Chester, was this gem: "The town’s racecourse is Britain’s oldest sporting venue in continual use. The first hordes race took place . . ." This was presumably when England was simultaneously invaded by the Huns and Goths, all eager to get to Chester first.

Finally . . . I learned years ago, when employing youngsters, that punctuation was a dying art in the UK. It's hardly taught at all now, which explains why almost no one understands the proper use of 'it's' and 'its'. God knows we all make accidental slips from time to time but is it really so hard to remember that 'it's' only ever means 'it is' and is not a possessive pronoun? I guess I should now define 'possessive' and 'pronoun' for most of the current generation (assuming any of them are reading this) but there's a limit.

Finally, finally: A bit more from Betrand Russell's autobiography, written when he was in his 70s:-

1894: Engagement

Although I was deeply in love, I felt no conscious desire for any physical relations. Indeed, I felt that my love had been desecrated when one night I had a sexual dream, in which it took a less ethereal form. Gradually, however, nature took charge of this matter.

Letter to Alys: If thee hears from Edith Thomas, thee will send me her letter, won't thee?

I remember my mother-in-law explaining that she had been taught to consider the Lord's Prayer "gay". At first this remark caused bewilderment, but she explained that everything done by non-Quakers but not by Quakers was called "gay" and this included the use of all fixed formulas, since prayer ought to be inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Lord's Prayer, being a fixed formula, was therefore "gay".