On Saturday mornings, I often walk up to Atocha to buy a paper and to give Marco a ride out in his buggy. Today I thought I'd have a look around the station at the post-bombings candles and messages ("On the day that someone decided to get fanatical about religion", one of them says, "the world went into mourning"). I was disappointed to see that many of the candles have now, perhaps inevitably, been left to go out: the messages are looking a bit bedraggled and rained-on. Inside the station, though, it was a different matter. A large wall poster with the names of the victims, and some kind of kerfuffle involving cameras and microphones - I wasn't able to get too close, because of the buggy, and in fact at one point the focus of attention must have moved to a different area, because my son and me nearly got trampled by a wave of clicking journalists. I've just now realized, via the El País website, that the focus of attention was José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the new president, who'd popped into Atocha to commemorate the victims shortly after being sworn in by the king. There's something modern world-ish ("postmodern", I think they used to call it) about only learning from the Internet about something that's happened under your very nose. A similar thing will happen tonight - a 15 minute walk away, Atlético de Madrid will be playing Real at the Vicente Calderón, but since I let my season ticket slip at the start of this season, I won't be going. Instead, I'll be watching it at a friend's house, from the balcony of which you can see the stadium.

The next issue of PdS has been altered at the last minute to include coverage of the bombings. It includes a brief, heartbreaking interview with the man whose job it was to walk around the improvised morgue they set up at the Recinto Ferial Juan Carlos I following the tragedy, announcing through a megaphone the names of victims to relatives who had gone there, hoping not to find anyone they knew. The man breaks down as he speaks about it, apologizing to the families - "there was no other way of doing it" - and the full force of the tragedy returns again.
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Part of our Easter break was spent here, in the hills to the north of Seville. And terrific it was too, especially at sunset. While I was there I briefly met the journalist Nick Davies (actually, I interrupted him when he was trying to have a quiet walk), who's been there before and who wrote this evocative piece about it for the Guardian last year. (By incredible coincidence, I was also apparently spotted by a student of mine while I was there, but she had the grace not to interrupt me.) The crackly TV images in our room kept us up to date with events in Madrid, a world away - terrorists blowing themselves up in Leganés and the like, and their thwarted intention to put bombs in the Parque Sur shopping centre, where we sometimes go. We met some Americans who had to get off the AVE train on the day they found the unexploded device on the tracks. "If only they came from somewhere," an elderly American woman complained sadly to me, referring to terrorists. "Then we could go and attack them." We preferred to keep our eyes fixed firmly on the sunset.

Later today I have to watch and review a 3-hour Spanish documentary about paedophilia, which should be a laugh a minute. It's directed by Joaquín Jordá, who made this little gem a few years ago.
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One of the men arrested for the bombings of 11th March is the Moroccan father of a student at a school near Ugena where a friend of ours teaches. Obviously the student hasn't appeared in class for the last few days. There’s a story going round the school: one day recently, a Moroccan man – I don’t think it was the father, but several people have been arrested from the same area - went for a haircut in a local hairdresser’s and, when he left the salon, accidentally left behind him a bag. The owner of the salon looked in the bag and saw that it was full of money. The man later returned for the bag, which the salon owner handed over to him. The man was grateful for the return of the bag and, by way of showing his gratitude, told the salon owner that it would be a good idea not to drink any Coca Cola in the near future. That’s the story as I heard it. It could be rubbish, the stuff of urban legend, or it could be true. But either way, it’s an appalling story, and it shows how the seeds of terror and hatred can be planted and take root in the soil of insecurity.

I'm off on holiday for a few days to Cazalla, in the mountains to the north of Seville, and then to Seville itself for the rest of Semana Santa. I should imagine I'll probably be drinking a few Coca Colas.

Update: Here we go again. More insecurity, even though it was discovered in time: an explosive device has been found under the AVE tracks between Madrid and Seville, about 40 miles south of the capital. (It leaves from poor old Atocha). And in the province of Toledo, which is where Ugena is. Six trains, containing nearly 1,600 passengers, held up: 10,000 more with tickets who will have to use alternative transportation. This is the holiday period (we're heading for Seville tomorrow, though via Cazalla, and by car). The mere presence of the bomb on Spain's primary train route hits the tourist industry badly. It doesn't look as though the terrorists have been "appeased" after all. Excuse me, but what kind of a world is this we've made? And why doesn't everyone read this superb plea for a peaceful world?
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Number of foreigners residing in Spain: 2,664,168
% of total population: 6.2
Total Spanish population: 42,717,064
No. of Spaniards born last year: 192,946
Largest foreign community: Ecuadorians (390,297)
Followed by: Moroccans (378,979)
And: Colombians (244,684)
Only Spanish region where no. of foreign residents has fallen slightly: Ceuta y Melilla
No. of Britons: 161,507
Of which I am: 1

Of the top five non-Spanish communities in Spain (Ecuador, Morocco, Colombia, UK, Romania) only two are Spanish-speaking.

(Source: Instituto Nacional de Estadistica. Figures released on Tuesday and reported in El País)
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