Puerta del Sol XIV, 2 is coming soon to a letterbox near you. It includes this:

"Los Picapiedra was the Spanish name for the 1960s cartoon family The Flintstones, which, among other firsts, was the earliest animated show to show two people of the opposite sex sleeping in the same bed."

It also includes the observation that the surname "Edwards" must surely be one of the least effortful surnames to type on a QWERTY keyboard. I'm not sure whether anyone's ever pointed this out before.

But PdS XIV, 2 also includes this beautiful definition of tango by Horacio Salas, from his book Tango para principiantes, where he answers the question: “¿Qué es el tango?” with the following passage:

“Una música. Un baile. Un tipo de canción. Una forma de ver el mundo. Una filosofía. Un sentimiento. Una sensibilidad. Una emoción. Una dimensión mítica de la realidad. La nostalgia. El abandono. La separación de los amantes. La tristeza por el amor perdido. El mundo indiferente al dolor ajeno. La poesía de los barrios. El culto de la amistad. El correlato de la historia social del Río de la Plata … todo eso y mucho más: una seña de identidad de lo argentino.”

The Flintstones, QWERTY and tango as the cult of friendship. Where else but in PdS?

The popular satirical magazine El Jueves has had it latest issue confiscated for publishing an offensive cartoon of the Prince and Princess of Asturias on its cover (I'm showing a less striking image above, since not everyone enjoys looking at pictures of royal family members having sex). A visit to the El Jueves website brings you only this: the offending copy is now being traded on eBay. If there is anyone out there who enjoys looking at etc. etc., then click here. (The cartoon is a spoof on the new law which gives €2500 to the parents of new babies.) Spain: so upfront about so many things, but the sex lives of its royals are still off-limits - even for satirical purposes. If anyone strongly feels that PdS Blog should be shut down for providing the link, then just let me know.

They do have a certain morbid fascination, and I did watch them on live TV every morning last week at the bar where I have breakfast, but you'd probably think twice about taking your 10-year old son out running the bulls in Pamplona. That's them in the picture.

This unassuming-looking gent is one of Spain's finest film directors, José Luis Guerín, who made 2001's magnificent documentary En construcción - all human life was there. Now, and this is another PdS Blog scoop, he's made a fascinating feature film called En la ciudad de Sylvia, about a young man pursuing lost love around the streets of Strasbourg. The film will probably be in the Venice film festival later in the year. I'm currently working on my review. This is it so far: "A carefully-crafted meditation on looking and longing in which auteur José Luis Guerin brings the same close attention to romantic frustration as he brought to urban change in 2001's "Under Construction", the film is a rarified delight whose artistry is underpinned by real substance. Largely dialogue-free, this is the kind of intellectual romance which should garner a select coterie of dedicated festival followers who will find their own cinematic voyeurism perfectly reflected in the protagonist's baffled gaze." Mmm... it needs work. In fact, there have been several interesting Spanish films recently. More on them soon.

Many people in Madrid are less than thrilled with the gangs of traffic wardens who now do the rounds, giving out fines to raise money for the M30 roadworks which have plunged the city into debt for many years to come. So this inventive person came up with a windscreen sunshield that looks like an enlarged version of a parking ticket. Translation not supplied, but you get the idea. Whoever starts to market these will make a euro or two.

Voting ends in two hours for the "exercise is global democracy" that means we can vote for the Seven New Wonders of the World. It's looking as though the Alhambra (stunningly photographed above) won't make it into the last seven, leaving Spain without any official wonders. Oh well. There's an interesting article here suggesting that it may not be quite as democratic as it looks. So on behalf of Spain, flood the Seven New Wonders site with your votes! You have two hours left. Winners to be announced tomorrow in Lisbon. Who'd ever have thought you could vote out the Alhambra as though it was a participant in Big Brother? Is that what democracy means?

US PRESIDENT SHOT IN SALAMANCA, SPAIN

(And very noisy it looks, too. And it wasn't actually shot in Salamanca, but in Mexico - the authorities in Salamanca didn't allow them to shoot in the Plaza Mayor. But the Salamanca tourist office will be smiling.)

I can't believe the Guardian is giving this kind of space to this film. (That's Will Kemp as Shakespeare above, close to rubbing noses with Elena Anaya.) The article makes Miguel and William sound like serious historical enquiry, but it's less historically enquiring even than Shakespeare in Love, and greatly disappointing (in my 'umble). The concept behind it is terrific, of course - Cervantes and Shakespeare meet up in Spain - and that alone will find it viewers (though not many in Spain), but most of them will leave the cinema feeling short-changed. "Competing theories that Shakespeare spent his time working in schools in Lancashire or Wales, or with a troupe of theatrical players, are based largely on a network of textual references," the article says. The film is largely a network of sexual references. (I may be wrong, but I seem to remember that the first sentence has Elena Anaya giggling "I'm not going to let you pop my cherry".) And the Guardian writer Vanessa Thorpe should know that the producer's name is Antonio Saura, as in "son of Carlos", not Sauro. But hats off to the PR team for getting her to write the article for them, apparently without even seeing the film.