ANA HAS BEEN UNWELL

With the first flurry of snow up in them there hills I was to be found languishing in the foothills benumbed with our chemist's till ringing in my ears. Only 14 days to go till I can rush down to the nearest supermercado and buy some tastier analgesics in the form of some Somontano or Rioja wine. It amazes me that I have gone without drink for almost three months. You see, it can be done.

I've talked about the idea of 'getting away from it all' and it seems that 'it all' is never too far away. A small town or a village in the mountains will always have elements of a big city, like a horrid, provincial, microcosm, and so it was the other night as I witnessed a young neighbour freaking out on something, two assailants legging it moments later with a holdall up our road and then jumping into a fated, silver, BMW. One of the other neighbours claims he saw them with a knife and the hallway is filled with the smell of spliff and paranoia. Makes a change from the 75 year old in 1D pissing off the balcony, taking all his clothes off and lying down in said hallway for a bit of a kip. And ours is one of the more upmarket 'pisos'.

Talking of upmarket, drugs and paranoia, the dreaded Gran Scala is definately 'on' and will be built in the Monegros Desert in Bajo Aragon. Despite the end of Western Civilisation as we know it, this casino and 'leisure' centre is to go ahead and is unaffected by the present climate as the investors are 'funds and not banks' says the 'chef officer' and 'responsible' (sic) Mark Campbell. So 'gettin away from it all' might mean moving north.

The Dutchman and I have despaired many times over dubbing in Spanish. "Oh, but they are the best dubbers' say some Spaniards when we guffaw over how ridiculous Al Pacino et al sound. One woman told me that she felt English actors where 'wooden' till I asked her how on earth she would know if the voice was some other actor.The best I heard was 'but Humphrey Bogart's real voice is so ugly'. It's an impossible argument until you suggest dubbing Spanish films with English and American actors, then there is uproar. Now the Dutchman tells me that one of his pupils watches David Lynch dubbed in Spanish. Words fail me.

Finally, there are the Dodgems and there are the Bumper Cars. Which one are you? What would it be like if everyone was a Dodgem?