Sorry about the long-term absence... work... but back on a regular basis very soon now... maybe even this weekend. And then we'll see what Movable Type's really capable of. And remember what Jonathan Swift wrote: "Men are never so Serious, Thoughtful, and Intent, as when they are at Stool".

You often see them as you zoom past on your way to somewhere else – Spain’s clubes de carretera, often looking like vulgar little mansions, often painted brightly and often with a neon sign, usually lit during the day, that might say simply “CLUB” or, if the owners are more creative types, “JOLY CLUB” or “CLUB VEGAS” or some such thing. There are 1,070 of them dotted around Spain. They often seem to be located in the middle of nowhere, stuck in the middle of an area of desert or with an incongruous mountain sticking up behind them, and often, during the daytime at least, there is a single car or a long-distance truck sitting there forlornly, lost in the huge car park. Anonymity seems to be the key. Inside (apparently), the better ones are cheaply plush, velvet-walled, red-lit, designed in a parody of luxury, but the bar prices are the prices of genuine luxury. An article in yesterday’s El País - based on a poetically-titled report by the Guardia Civil, “Tráfico de seres humanos con fines de explotación sexual” - says that there are now 20,000 women working as prostitutes in Spain’s clubes de carretera (19,154, to be exact), about double the number working there five years ago. The vast majority of them are immigrants who have paid for the pleasure, and some have been informed by people trafficking organizations that they would be coming to Spain to work in “respectable” jobs in restaurants or as cleaners or housekeepers. But the report also points out that the word is out on this, and that the days of women being kept against their will as virtual slaves in the clubes de carretera are passing. Nowadays, most of the immigrant women know exactly what it is they are getting into from the word go. (Only 225 women in total took the chance to lodge a formal complaint with the Guardia Civil that they were being sexually exploited during the preparation of the report.) 58.4% of the women are Latin American, 34% European; the highest number are Romanians, of whom there are 3,900. Anybody wanting to get a flavor of what life is like inside a club de carretera could have a look at a couple of films: Juanma Bajo Ulloa’s comedy Airbag, or Bigas Luna’s memorably surreal Jamón, Jamón, in which Penélope Cruz’s fictional mother runs one (that's PC and Javier Bardem under the flying pig in the picture). You get the feeling that there are films to be made and books to be written about what goes on in these places, in the stories that these women are carrying. So the next time you zoom past a club de carretera, have a think about all that.

Edge asked a range of high-profile "scientists and science-minded thinkers" the question: "What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?" None of them answered that they believe, but cannot prove, that Atlético de Madrid is a greater football club than Real Madrid, that Madrid house prices are too high, or that both God and Santa Claus exist, but nevertheless it's fascinating stuff to browse through (and there's 60,000 words of it).
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Spanish Jesús Álvarez and Moroccan Mohamed El Chaouti standing side by side as Mohamed sang out this morning's winning Gordo (Christmas lottery) number, which fate rightly decided should end up in his hand. An appropriate image to bring to a close the year of the March bombings.

Today in Madrid, the weather is cold but sunny, and last night I stood on the balcony and looked up at the stars. A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from PdS Blog.
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I never dreamed that I'd ever have anything positive to say on this particular subject, but I've just sent the following e-mail:

Hi, Derek:
I was wondering whether you could tell me who to contact about my subscription to Variety's print edition. It is currently being sent to:

Jonathan Holland
Modern Languages Department
Madrid
Spain

This is the exact equivalent of putting:

Jonathan Holland
Modern Languages Department
London
England

Remarkably, it is actually turning up at one of the places where I teach, but there's no guarantee that postmen in the future will be so dedicated, so I'd like to beef up the address a bit (to include the university, street and postcode, say) to guarantee that my Variety doesn't go astray. Any ideas?

Cheers,
Jonathan

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I really must try to get to this next year. It would be nice to wallow around half-naked in tomatoes at somebody else's expense, for a change.
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