Gender violence; Celtic tapas?; Housebuilding; Papal progress; Russian plans; & A Spanish flier.

I doubt gender violence is any more prevalent in Spain than in other countries - though the Spanish seem to think it is - but there's been a spate of murders in the last week which have taken the first quarter total way above that of last year. Sticking my neck out, I wonder whether this reflects a higher percentage of South Americans in the population than previously.

Crossing the bridge today, I came up behind a young lady with a tattoo on her shoulder. It said This is not the end. In English. Inscrutable to me. Though I assume she knows what it signifies.

In the bar I patronise at midday, Saturday means a tapa of a stew which bears a remarkable resemblance to Irish stew. Coincidentally, my mother used to serve this to us on Saturdays also. And will probably do so again when I'm on the UK in the next couple of weeks. An unusual Anglo-Spanish link. Maybe it's a Celtic dish.

Around now is the first anniversary of the start of work on the house below me. I've said more than once that it takes an inexplicable minimum of 2 years to build a house in Spain and this one is well on track for this. It's far from finished and no one's been seen on the site since before Christmas. Apart, that is, from the guy who came one day and turned some soil over.

Reviewing his first year in the job, one of Spain's leading theologians has said that Pope Francis has restored the notion of solidarity but women remain marginalised in the Church. Bad habits are hard to break.Especially after 2,000 years.

Asked on the BBC why there were troops massed on the Ukraine border, the Russian Ambassador to the EU said there were troops in many places in Russia. Asked if Russia now planned to invade Eastern Ukraine, he answered that Russia had no intention to do this. Perhaps this is because fears it will be Moldavia next are well-founded. President Putin is on a roll.

Finally . . . I know precious little about horse-racing but there's a promising Spanish horse in Newmarket's 2000 Guineas in May and it may be worth a punt. It's Noozhoh Canarias.