The rain in Spain
Storm Berenice dumped a load of water on Madrid earlier today and the timing could hardly have been more apposite. Celebrations were being held to mark Fiesta Nacional España (Spanish National Day), with a full military parade attended by King Felipe VI, Queen Letizia, Leonora, Princess of Asturias, the Prime Minister and a host of politicians. Unfortunately, it rained on their parade. In British terms the ceremony is a cross between Trooping the Colour and Remembrance Sunday, with full royal and military panoply, but is much more problematic than either of those occasions. The British equivalents are not without their controversies, of course, but the Spanish event, a relatively modern successor (2019) to the original Día de la Hispanidad (Hispanic Day) held to mark the arrival of Columbus in the Americas on 12 October 1492, carries with it a lot of colonial baggage. Columbus Day is still marked in the USA but, with civic statues of Christopher Columbus increasingly becoming the focus