It's that time of the year again...

Once again, Spain - like the USA - is gripped by election fever.

Just as the Americans are being whipped up into a frenzy by the likes of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Oven Chip Magnate John McCain (and remember, their elections aren't happening till November or something) , so here in Madrid the electorate are starting to froth at the mouth with anticipation of a close-run battle between incumbent Socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (known as "Thetta-pé" to friends and enemies alike) and conservative PP main man Mariano Rajoy (known as... er... "Rajoy" to friends and enemies alike).

Or are they?

Fully aware of the fact that an unbiased report on a political issue from a Spanish newspaper is probably less likely than Lewis Hamilton being invited to Fernando Alonso's birthday party, we present a selection of English-language links on the subject.

• BBC News on the "heated" first debate
• BBC News on the "angry" second debate
• The Financial Times on the second "showdown"
• Typically Spanish: No More Mariano Mr. Nice Guy
  
• The Financial Times on "Spain's Choice"
• Newsweek on "Zapatero: Spain's Dud"
• The Washington Post on a "testy" debate
• Bloomberg on Zapatero's "lead over Rajoy"
• The Times on how Zapatero is struggling "to stay in office"
• Canada's Globe & Mail on "Spain's Big Question"
  
• BBC News Euroblog on Rajoy's "imaginary friend"
• Bloomberg on how Rajoy's attacks on Zapatero may backfire
  
• The San Diego Tribune on how Rajoy is trying to compensate for a blunder
• The Guardian on how "bad economic news" is "heating up" the campaign

UPDATE:

• The New York Times on the murder of Isias Carrasco
• BBC News Euroblog: Were politicians right to stop campaigning?
• The Observer: Vote to foil ETA, victim's family pleads

FURTHER UPDATE:

• The Guardian on Spain's "unconvincing choice"
• The Times on how Spain is voting in the shadow of terrorism
• 5Spaniards.com: A brief analysis at poll-closing time
• BBC News: Socialists win Spanish elections
  
• Bloomberg: Zapatero reelected, gains seats
• ITN News (UK): Socialists win, close to absolute majority
• The Washington Post: Socialists win, but short of absolute majority

Cartoons censored, Part II

Remember all the chaos that ensued after a Danish newspaper printed a handful of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed? Well, now we have a Spanish equivalent.

Satirical mag El Jueves - a sort of cross between Britain's Private Eye and America's Mad magazine - has found itself in the dock after a court ordered the seizure of all unsold copies of last week's issue.

Why?

Well, the cover featured Crown Prince Felipe and missus engaged in what The Guardian called an ardent session of lovemaking. Under a banner headline that referred to PM Zapatero's one-off €2,500 lump sum handout to parents of newborns (thanks Thetta-pé, virtually a year too late for me to qualify...), the Prince quipped that if he was able to get his wife pregnant (for a third time) it would be the nearest he had come to earning money in his life.


Now, for anyone who has ever browsed this magazine on the newsstands or read the spin-off book "Tocando los Borbones" (the pun doesn't translate very well, so I'll leave the title in Spanish), the aforementioned vignette would not really seem shocking in the slightest (and most "naughty bits" were kept well out of sight), but Judge Juan del Olmo (that's him on the left) seemed to think so and ordered the confiscation of the remaining copies of the mag.

It is curious to think that a moderately witty cartoon on the front of a reknowned satirical magazine could be considered more offensive and embarrassing to the royal family than a national television news report (which I'm sure is still on YouTube somewhere... I'm not linking to it here!) which showed a strong gust of Galician wind blow up Letizia's skirt á la Marilyn Monroe (although HRH was unable to preserve her modesty).

I don't recall any legal action there!

A story of international import nonetheless, and here are just a handful of the reports from around the English-speaking press.

• Al Jazeera


• BBC News


• Mainichi Daily News (Japan)


• Typically Spanish


• Typically Spanish (again)


• The Times of India


• The Guardian


• El Paso Times

The price of a cup of coffee

Poor old Zapatero.

After agreeing to appear on a revolutionary live television Q&A (an idea cribbed from the French, we hear) where 100 ordinary people were to due to quiz the Spanish Prime Minister on whatever took their fancy, he didn't see it coming.

The obvious questions about the obvious subjects close to the hearts of Spaniards were asked - ETA, house prices, corruption, the beetroot industry etc. - and "thetta-pé" (as he is affectionately known to supporters and detractors alike) answered in the usual stiff, statistical way that politicians often do.

No-one could have accused the PM of not doing his homework, it was obvious that he had spent night after night swotting up on facts and figures (and watching videos of Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal struggling to answer questions in the same situation), but what he hadn't banked on was a question about the price of a cup of coffee, which Zapatero imagined cost "between 70 and 80 cents".

Obviously not a Starbucks double choc chip decaf capuccino frappé fan then.

This is how the English language papers saw it:

• Monsters and Critics
• Expatica (Holland)
• Typical Spanish (Spain)
• EiTB (Basque Country, Spain)
• International Herald Tribune (USA)
• Taipei Times (Taiwan)

Plus a great little observation on the great Thetta-pé coffee blunder is to be found on an ex-pat blog called The Spanish Cockpit. It's simply entitled "D'oh!"

...and those of you curious to see whether Zapatero's views have changed since he was elected in 2004 might like to peruse this TIME magazine article with the man himself in... er... 2004.

No mention of coffee though!