Rojo y Amarillo.

Every time there has been a football match in this World Cup the news channel has told us about el pulpo adivino. It would seem that an octopus in a tank is “asked” to choose between two boxes which contain food for him. The boxes are labelled with the names of the football teams concerned. The octopus opens one box and eats the contents. In this way a prediction is made about who will win that match. And the octopus has been right every time. Now he has chosen Spain to win in the match against Germany. We will see; the match is due to start in about 10 minutes as I write this.

However, some Germans in Mallorca have been filmed eating octopus and claim to be eating el pulpo adivino. That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?

Other Germans on holiday on various parts of Spain have been waving German flags around a lot today. One news report talked about them using the flag as a sunshade or even a towel. (I bet that would be treason if it were the American Star - Spangled Banner, but that’s another story!) What I really like are the German flag sun-glasses, absolutely impressive!

Queen Sofía is in South Africa for tonight’s match. Interviewed very briefly on TV, she declared herself to be very optimistic. ¡Vamos a ganar! ¡Claro! So that’s the octopus AND the queen of Spain who believe Spain can win. So did the supermarket checkout girl wearing her Spain shirt like her fellow employees. On the other hand, the bookies in England don’t seem so sure. And two giggling teenage girls I met in our lift earlier were equally pessimistic, despite having their Spain flags at the ready. The flag sellers must have done really well in recent weeks: every taxi flies a flag, every restaurant has one adorning its menu board and loads of red and yellow banners hang from upper floor windows all over the place.

Earlier today we ate lunch at one of those restaurants with its menu board so nicely decorated. The main course choices were roti de pollo and pez espada. Those of us who did not fancy sword fish opted, naturally enough for chicken. Imagine our surprise then when the waitress arrived at the table with a couple of plates and asked us, “¿Jamón?” We were confused. No-one had chosen ham. It wasn’t there in the menu del día. What was going on? The equally confused waitress went back inside and we could see a discussion taken place. A couple of moments later she was back, this time asking, “¿Roti?” Same plates, same food, different label. We asked if this was chicken. "Roti", she told us. It looked all right and we decided it was too hot for an argument and went along with it. But it definitely wasn’t chicken. Neither was it strictly speaking ham but it was something in the pork spectrum and tasty enough. It was only a €7.90 menú del día but you would think they would have got their act together to serve up what it said on the board.

As we ate we were assailed by an accordion player but we didn’t appreciate his rendering of Y Viva España, an overfed looking woman who wanted us to give her money for food and a guitarist who could just about strum a couple of chords. The last of these, perhaps because he had seen us give short shrift to the previous two, didn’t even bother to ask us for money. This got us talking about the begging situation, getting worse by the day it seems, and we commented in a new version which occurred in our flats just yesterday.

There was a ring at the doorbell. When we opened the door there was a fairly crestfallen chap there, reasonably respectable looking, who explained to us that he lived in the block next door, had been out of work for 6 months, owed three months rent and was asking the neighbours to contribute to his collection. Really? A bit unlikely. No chance! He carried a clipboard, a five euro note and a handful of change to give the impression that others had already contributed. 10/10 for initiative but that’s all.

I have a horrid feeling, however, that I may have let him into the building myself as our intercom had rung earlier and someone who identified himself as "Agente R" asked to be allowed in. So I opened to door and when the flat doorbell rang later I expected to be rejecting some kind of telephone, TV and computer deal, not shutting the door on a beggar.

Later we saw the overfed lady having a shouted argument with one of those beggars who drag their belongings around in a shopping trolley. She was accusing him of being a thief. Maybe he had stolen the Spain shirt he was wearing!

Which reminds me, the match has started and I need to concentrate a little. ¡Que gane la selección! ¡Vamos!