Spain

Wednesday

Jane Ridley

From Madrid with love

From our UK edition

In June 1943 the film star Leslie Howard was mysteriously killed when his plane was shot down by the Luftwaffe on a return flight from Spain. This was an unprovoked attack on a commercial airliner, and there seemed to be no motive for it. British intelligence circulated rumours that the Germans had hoped to kill Churchill, whom they mistakenly thought was travelling on the plane. In fact, it now seems that the Germans’ target was Leslie Howard himself. He was returning from a celebrity tour of Spain, following the success of Gone with the Wind, in which he starred as Ashley Wilkes. Howard had been sent to Spain as part of a propaganda campaign to win Spanish support for the British.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Zapatero & His Banshees

From our UK edition

Remiss of me not to note that this photograph of the Obamas and the Zapateros has caused quite a stir in Spain. That's because the Spanish people were not generally aware that the Prime Minister's daughters, Laura and Alba*, are goths. There's a law that protects their privacy, you see and so, until the State Department released this photo, no Spanish paper had printed photographs of the girls. Like Marbury, I think they look pretty fine and think the world would be a better place if more politicians' kids explored entertaining sub-cultures and the like. *Is this a common name in Spain? I mean, sure, it's derived from the latin for white but it's also the historic name for, er, Scotland.