A few years ago, when I was in the queue to catch a plane, a Spanish lady caught me watching her as she surreptitiously removed a sticker from her hand luggage, which meant it would have been stored in the hold. ‘Los españoles somos muy pícaros’ (we Spaniards are real rogues) she told me with a smile of complicity and a rueful shake of the head.
Spaniards sometimes point out with a touch of pride that it was their country which pioneered the picaresque novel – a literary genre which tells the story of an ingenious rascal who lives by his wits, sometimes on the wrong side of the law. My own experience is that Spaniards are no more rascally than other nationalities – but some of them like to think they are.
In any event, they will have plenty of opportunities to rebel, now that a whole new raft of coronavirus laws and regulations have been introduced by the government this week, after it declared a national state of emergency.
Anxious to avoid another blanket lockdown, the government has instead implemented a nationwide curfew running from 11pm until 6am.
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