Hola

Sensible people, the Spanish. When greeting each other we Brits routinely shorten good morning/afternoon/evening to morning/afternoon/evening.

Spaniards do it the other way round and truncate buenos dias/tardes/noches to buenos at all times of the day or night. It does make life that bit easier for visitors to their fine country and there's something delightfully optimistic about people meeting and simply saying "good", don't you think?

Spanish: dos servicios

Biggest language blunder while on holiday in Spain: confusing 'dos cervezas' with 'dos servicios' – yes, I went into a bar and asked for two toilets instead of two beers.

I then compounded my error: attributing the barman's look of confusion to my poor Spanish accent, I repeated my request several times, each time slightly more loudly and clearly.

I never did get my 'dos servicios'.

Two please – large ones

It's just fortunate that, before I left the UK for Spain, one of our reporters took me aside and warned me not to confuse 'pollo' with 'polla'...

Off to sunny Spain

Tomorrow I jet off to Spain for two weeks. But don't worry – Apus will keep the blog ticking over in my absence.

As well as that, I've written some spare posts which Gingerous Humerous Maximus will be posting on my behalf. So it will be almost as if I haven't gone away.

A couple of you have been asking how my Spanish is progressing. Well, the latest invaluable phrases I've been taught by my 'Instant Spanish' book and CD set are:

* My wife is crazy
* I have seen some blue shoes
* The sales assistant was handsome like Tom Cruise
* The toilets are great

I've set myself the goal of dropping these into conversation with unsuspecting Spaniards. Bonus points for getting them all into the same conversation. Wish me luck!

Hablo español!

Keen to learn a little Spanish before my holiday in several weeks, I recently bought an 'Instant Spanish' book and CD set.

"Study for thirty-five minutes a day for six weeks and you'll speak Spanish," it promises. Doesn't seem very instant to me - not compared to, say, instant mashed potato.

"Stir your flakes for thirty-five minutes a day for six weeks and you'll have mashed potato..."

I'm also amused by some of the strange sentences that language learning sets teach you as a beginner. Along with the Spanish for 'my name is James', 'good evening', and 'how are you?' I've learnt 'I have a large house and it costs a lot of money. And I have a Mercedes'. This is likely to get me mugged if nothing else.

I can also say (in Spanish) 'I worked for the Bank of Spain for three years' - which is neither useful nor true. And it might make people wonder why my Spanish isn't better - although perhaps it could explain the Mercedes...

Tengo un Mercedes...