Spanish views from a small town

There has been a hullabaloo on all the media about the interview given by Prince Henry and Meghan Markle to Oprah Winfrey. Charges of racism, ostracizing, and plain nastiness shown to an American who dared to marry into the very British family. How much is true, how much is hype, can only be known by the people in question. That it is all a very public way of airing family laundry, is obvious to all. Yes, they are public personages, but even people who are public have a certain right to intimacy. Perhaps the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk wanted to tell what they consider their side of the story, perhaps they were simply out for the money and a bit of vengeance. Each person can believe what they will. During all this family fiasco, I was reminded of another American who joined the Royal Family, Wallis Simpson. Edward VIII, Elizabeth II's uncle, had to renounce the throne to finally marry her. It was a love story that surmounted all the odds. And Wallis was a woman who was also misunde...

It came out last week that the Princess Leonor will receive her last two years of high school education at a boarding school in Wales. They are the equivalent of sixth form in Britain, junior and senior years in the US, and the bachillerato in Spain. The total cost for the two years comes out to over €70,000, which will be paid out of the yearly asignation given to the Royal House out of the national budget. We commoners will be paying for her education. At the school, the UWC Atlantic College, she will study the coursework of the International Baccalaureate (IB), as well as participate in community workshops. She will live in a thirteenth century castle and its grounds, in what looks like a version of Hogwart's, along with over three hundred other children. Some of them are there on scholarships, others on family bank accounts. The daughter of the King of Jordan studied there, as did King Wilhelm of the Netherlands.  As a journalist said on television the other day, all parents i...