Satamonte o langosta

Taking in a few rays this morning when I came across this chap. He said his name was Ahmed and lived in Marbella. He was passing through on his way to visit his family in Barcelona. Being quite informed I told him he was talking a load of crock, with a name like Ahmed and being a locust he had probably just arrived off the Granada coast in a fishing boat from North Africa. His insisted he was a grasshopper and had been born in Cadiz and was Spanish through and through. Really.

Factoid: Spain's formerly relaxed attitude to immigration has changed. Ten years ago the immigrant population was negligible; today some 10% is foreign born, mainly Eastern European, North African and Latin American. Romanians are already the third-largest minority after Moroccans and Ecuadorians.Illegal immigration has become big news. TV screens have carried the almost daily drama of wretched boat people from Africa, some already dead, arriving on Spanish shores. Immigration is now rated as the top political issue by some three-fifths of voters in Spain.