Foggy times.

Someone stole the ría overnight. This morning, where the water usually is, all you could see was a huge fog bank. I could hear the mournful hooting of a boat but it wasn’t until later that I saw the cruise liner that had docked down by the estación marítima. Apart from fog over the water, however, they boat people must have had a good day with plenty of sunshine. They missed out on some spectacular views though because the fog stayed all day. 


Out towards the Islas Cíes and inland towards A Guía all you could see was cotton wool. 

It all made for a much cooler run this morning though. The temperature at the bottom of the road was a much more healthy 21°, instead of the 28° it’s been for the last few days. My weather-lady panadera assures me that the “bochorno”, the sticky hot weather, will be back at the weekend. 

As I ran I could hear one of those mobile public address systems: a little van driving around with speakers on the top announcing something incomprehensible. As a result of hearing it over and over again, I finally worked out that they were urging everyone to go to Plaza de España tomorrow at 6.00 pm for a demonstration in protest at the continuing high unemployment. “O traballo e o problema de todos” – Unemployment is everyone’s problem. 

We came across an item in the Telegraph about the employability of different sorts of graduates in the UK. The top 12 subjects to study if you want a job at the end of your course are as follows: 

1. Medicine and Dentistry. 
2. Education. 
3. Veterinary science. 
4. Subjects related to medicine such as Biomedical Science and Neurology. 
5. Law. 
6. Biology. 
7. Mathematics. 
8. Modern Foreign Languages. 
9. Engineering. 
10. History and/or Philosophy. Interestingly History was higher last year. 
11. Architecture and Planning. 
12. Business. 

It’s interesting to see that the traditional "vocational" courses still rule the roost and that subjects that encourage analytical thinking also do well. Apart from Business at number 12, the new vocational courses don’t figure at all, despite the government’s insistence on how we need such courses. Some years ago when our son, who studied History and Politics, was touting his CV around possible employers in London, commented that we should have advised him to study Business instead of a subject he was passionate about. It seems that statistics have proved us right after all. And he did manage to find work and is doing quite nicely, thank you. Let’s hope the situation improves for those seeking working now, all over Europe. 

 Someone who doesn’t need to worry about his job is Andy Murray, set to earn millions in sponsorship deals. There are lots of rumblings in the press about his deserving a knighthood. Well, they gave one to Bradley Wiggins so I suppose they might well do the same for Andy Murray. I find myself rather disturbed by this trend. Isn’t it enough to win a big title in your chosen sport? We know they are heroes of a sort but surely they do something more to deserve to be Sir Successful Sportsman? 

Oh, dear, I’m turning into an old grump again. It does seem that everyone wants a bit of Murray, however: all the political groups including the Scottish independence people. Here’s a link to a Steve Bell cartoon to that effect. 

And finally, thank you to Perry in High Wycombe for explaining the fan business to me. Perhaps he can now tell me why the fog here hangs over the estuary even when it’s fine and hot and sunny in the rest of the city.