felíz navidad / bon nadal

Last week, Siberian winds swept over the Pyrenees and down into Iberia, plunging us into sub degree temperatures -- minus 20C in the Sierra Guadarrama north of Madrid -- wind chill factor advisories and carnage on the roads as testosterone wrestled with black ice. The palm trees and the mountains were very photogenic, but town was a disaster: broken pipes, cracked marble, vehicles swerving into each other and the occasional urban avalanche as snow slid off pitched roofs, burying valiant pedestrians. This was an annual event until thirty to forty years ago, so there is quite possibly an argument for climate change. The señora who works in the estanco, the cigarette kiosk, is convinced it's the French.

"¡ Un viento siberiano !"

[Scowling] "¡ No ! Es un viento francés."

I know virtually nothing about climatology but you need only cross the sierra from southern Valencia into northern Alicante to see the evidence that something is indeed happening. Here we have green mountains -- some forested -- rice paddies, orange and lemon groves and the ability to produce almonds, apricots, apples and green vegetables. Over there they may only cultivate olives, and in small number. The land is parched and sandy: the only flora you are likely to see is aloe vera growing by the roadside together with the odd, ejected garment. Why anyone should decide to divest themselves of  their underwear on the A-31 southbound is a provincial mystery, unless there are darker connotations.

It's the desertification of Spain, gradually reaching northward from Almería and Murcia which, in large part, is a North African landscape. In the townhouse urbanisations thrown up to accommodate the discounted Spanish dream of northern European settlers the idyll is rather spoiled in summer by the directive of water conservation. In some areas the water supply is turned off at eight o'clock in the morning and is not reconnected until early evening. Thus, the image of sauntering onto one's terrace in turquoise pedal pushers to a breakfast of fresh bread and conserves is replaced by the post-dawn bickering  -- either side of a bathroom door -- that is the battle of essential toiletry.

"Will you come out of there ?"
"In a minute."
"I haven't got a minute, it's 7:59."

Christmas is almost upon us. In Spain it is a one day event after which, sensibly, we can all go back to our lives. It is not the month-long tyranny of uninterrupted retailing that the British have to endure. To my British compatriots: I sincerely hope that you depose your Prime Minister next year. That someone so unsuited to the international stage, and with the charisma of a butter-fingered, junior book-ledger clerk at a small savings bank should be at the helm of a G8 country is an undiscussable embarrassment. Gordon, I ask you.
I don't really do New Year's. A few drinks with friends. For me it is now a time more of reflection than the whooping Lambeth Walk -- mouth agape, party hat cocked at a rakish angle -- that segues into the infinitely depressing Auld Lang Syne.

If I don't post here before, I wish you all a prosperous and interesting 2010. If, for any of you, life has become a little humdrum I'd like to suggest a simple yet sometimes effective daily variance. Where you might habitually turn left -- turn right. That's how I met Fenella Fielding.