Bit lively

I've been doing a lot laughing, shouting and snorting at the radio and TV this last week or so.

After winning the General Election the Socialists had a bit more procedural bother than usual getting both the Speaker and the President in place. They seemed to ride it out with a few merry quips.

The Opposition leader has been having his problems as well. The President of the Madrid area, who looks well hard to me, keeps saying she won't be running against him for the leadership of the party at the next conference. He must be very relieved to hear that!

In the last couple of days we've had the new Government Ministers appointed. The chap from Pinoso stayed on as Finance Minister but there were a lot of women new to post including the Housing Minister - the first minister since the restoration of democracy not to have been born under Franco's dictatorship. The picture I liked best of all was the new, pregnant, Defence Minister, Carme Chacón, stepping out to review the troops for the first time, she was dressed in Mothercare.

Last week I was lost for about an hour looking for a furniture factory in the nearby town of Santomera. The day before yesterday a man there cut his mum's head off and strolled around town with it wrapped up in a bloody rag."Now she'll shut up" he said.

It's difficult to avoid football in Spain. Getafe, a Madrid team, were in the quarter finals of the UEFA cup playing Bayern Munich. Square after the first leg Getafe were beaten in the cruellest of ways in the dying moments of the second leg. A collective sigh of shared pain could be heard throughout the nation. A story in El Pais about Getafe fans turning up in droves to the teams training session next morning to applaud thir defeated heroes struck a note with me.

Today Getafe were back in action against Valencia in the Spanish equivalent of the F.A. Cup. On his way home from the State Opening of Parliament the King was asked who he reckoned for the game "Those who lost will win" he said. Another Getafe fan. They lost, 3-1.

Franco used to do the football pools you know. Somehow it's hard to imagine Hitler, Mussolini or Pinochet doing the same.