Other people give in and buy a dish, but we spurn such easy solutions and instead watch British television via a single set in Rumney in Cardiff.

This morning we bought a lead which has now linked one of my portables computers to the television and through the magic of “Slingbox” we are allowed to see the programmes which the Pauls can watch on their television at home.

That is we could see a picture but sound was denied us.  So, to compensate for the lack of sound we have added one of the micro-speaker sets that I bought to listen to my I-pods which boost the sound from the portable so that we can hear as well as see.

Or at least we could when I went up stairs; now that I have come back nothing seems to be working – in the best traditions of computers.  And of course for no reason whatsoever.  Each of the components is working (allegedly) but not when linked together!  I suppose that we shouldn’t be surprised, because what technological innovation actually happens without some heartache?

I can cite (as who cannot if you are of a certain age) video recorder after video recorder that quite simply did not do what it said on the box.  Even the machines that were supposed to set themselves up (including setting the time) when you plugged them in did nothing of the sort.

So, as the television in working and the computer is working, it is, I suppose logical to surmise that the lead connecting both these working machines is the thing at fault.  But it does relay the “desktop” picture from my machine – but nothing else.

Toni is, at present, attempting to make some sense of what is going on.  I am restricted to making vague sounds of encouragement in the hope that when everything has been worked out I will be treated to some sort of condescending explanation about how simple the basic problem actually was if you knew anything about computers.  Sometime ignorance (pretended or real) is a very useful protection against IT angst!

Even as I type the problem is being dealt with as the screen on the television alternately goes black and then lights up while I am asked technically rhetorical (or possibly the other way round) questions.

As it is now after 5 pm we note with dread the arrival of a French family to take their places around the pool.  I am not going to use their arrival to indulge in a typically British condemnation of the whole race, but I would surely like to condemn this particular fragment of France.  More specifically a small sliver of the family: to wit, a small girl child.

The idea that children “should be seen and not heard” is a sound one (apart, of course from the “seen” part of the saying) and this is particularly so in the case of the small French girl child.

She does not communicate via the language of our enemies for the last millennium but rather though the language of a acoustically stunted bat – in other words her screams are just this side of human hearing, and shockingly painful withal!

And in a relationship that I understand well from the little darlings that I teach, the parent does nothing to soften the sheer cutting quality of the piping voice; no word of discouragement to the hysterical screams that seem completely disproportionate to the little body that produces them.  It is a relief to us when she merely shouts: it is far less painful!

I thought that I was impervious to the criminal stupidity of some sections of this country when it comes to the treatment of bulls. 

Living in Catalonia one does not often have to put up with ones fellow citizens being beastly to bulls.  After all, in Barcelona in the Plaza de España (!) the bullring there has been converted into a shopping centre!  I don’t think that the attitude of the Catalans can be more clear.

Further down the coast however in the troubled province of Valencia, which has only recently been released from the leadership of a very questionable gentleman, showed that there were lower regions of animal cruelty that I had not previously seen.

I have become hardened to other parts of Spain finding pleasure in taunting bulls to run around the streets, sometimes with burning torches attached to their horns! 

We have had the usual number of deaths from some of the taunters not being quite as quick on their feet as the bulls – and Spanish television takes great delight in showing the maulings they happen with bulls’ horns embedded deeply into the hapless failed bull runner.

On television this afternoon there was yet another variation. 

In some towns barricades are put up; shops are boarded up and metal cages constructed along the streets with bars far enough apart to allow humans through but not bulls.  For those not brave or stupid enough to run with the bulls there is tiered seating at strategic positions to allow spectators to “enjoy” the event.

All of the preparations were in place for the televised event but with the added element that this took place near the sea. 

The bulls were tempted towards idiots who were provoking them with the expectation that the bulls would charge and the impetus of their charge would take them over the high quayside and into the sea!  The young men (it’s always young men) were so near the edge of the quay that they too had to jump, dive or fall into the sea themselves to escape the mass of meat hurtling towards them.

The bull was “rescued” by men in a motorboat who grabbed the bull’s horns and pulled it alongside the moving boat and thus dragged the poor beast to shore.

It was a repulsive sight – and some parts of society here are trying to get bull fighting classed as a cultural even so that it can be “protected” from perfectly justified accusations of the ugliest form of animal cruelty.  Ah well.

The six-day weather forecast is for sun.  You have to take the smooth with the rough!