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	<title>Living in Spain</title>
	<link>http://blogs.surinenglish.com/living-spain</link>
	<description>A sideways look</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:37:26 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Equality of smell</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I’m not sure what to make of all these smelly men I’ve been looking at recently. I look at them because I smell them first, then turn my head in the direction of the most subtle scents and stare into the face of one of those ubiquitous metrosexual types who insist on wearing perfume during [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.surinenglish.com/living-spain/2010/01/06/equality-of-smell/</link>
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		<title>Obstinate resolution</title>
		<description><![CDATA[New Year resolutions are a funny thing. They serve no purpose, because we break them as soon as we make them, and in any case, if there were some challenging resolution that would change our lives, we are surely not likely to make it in the cold light of January. For me, perhaps as a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.surinenglish.com/living-spain/2009/12/29/obstinate-resolution/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Christmas story 11</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The mother lay with the new-born babe in her arms and cooed at him.
    The father watched them both with pride. It was their first-born.
    He wasn’t sure how it happened.
     Must have been drunk that night.
    Outside, the shepherds gathered.
  [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.surinenglish.com/living-spain/2009/12/22/christmas-story-11/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Pandora’s box</title>
		<description><![CDATA[An advertisement on Spanish television offers en electronic mental game aimed at maintaining the mind in good working order. It was making me uneasy, but I couldn’t think why, so I asked my three-year-old grandchild.
    “It could be because the advertisement is directed exclusively at the elderly, and that offends you, perhaps [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.surinenglish.com/living-spain/2009/12/16/pandora%e2%80%99s-box/</link>
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		<title>Unkind thoughts and forms</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I dropped into the bank last week to ask them to change my Social Security account.
    “No problem,” said the man behind the computer. “Just call to the Social Security office down the street and they’ll tell you what to do.”
     So I dropped into the Social Security [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.surinenglish.com/living-spain/2009/12/09/unkind-thoughts-and-forms/</link>
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		<title>Me and Mr Bean</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Every day about lunchtime I sit on a dining-room chair with a crimson satin seat amid the sand, bags of cement and scaffolding in the ruin I’m restoring, open a plastic bag, take out two jam sandwiches and eat them, pour a cup of tea out of a flask and drink it, view my morning’s [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.surinenglish.com/living-spain/2009/12/01/me-and-mr-bean/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Duel</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I was on my way to work during the week, trying to alleviate the pain of having to do so at my age by having fun on the road with the lorry drivers.
    Hardly anybody else uses the roads around here, I’ve noticed. The lorries thunder along at a speed adjusted to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.surinenglish.com/living-spain/2009/11/25/duel/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Dog’s life</title>
		<description><![CDATA[My father once came home from work to find nobody at home and a stew simmering on the cooker. It was delicious, he told me afterwards, even if the meat was not quite as tender as he would have liked. But not worth the annoyance of our houseguest when she came back to discover he [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.surinenglish.com/living-spain/2009/11/18/dog%e2%80%99s-life/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Freedom falls</title>
		<description><![CDATA[About forty years ago, a member of the Guardia Civil approached me while I was working in the streets of a town somewhere on the Costa Brava.
    “Our excelentísimo mayor,” he said, “would very much like to speak to you, if you would be so kind as to accompany me…”
   [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.surinenglish.com/living-spain/2009/11/11/freedom-falls/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Talking</title>
		<description><![CDATA[One of the things I miss about Andalucía is the exuberant friendliness of the people. As in Ireland, talk is regarded as a cultural asset worth maintaining, and people talk both to each other and to strangers. They have little respect for privacy. They want to know who you are and what you are up [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.surinenglish.com/living-spain/2009/11/04/talking/</link>
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