It was years ago…I think Claudia and I were catching the the connecting flight from Madrid to Barcelona; the last leg back from Santo Domingo.

Here’s the punchline: as we ambled onto the plane you would have thought we were walking into a “casting” for a documentary (imagine a young lad from production dressed in black yelling into a megaphone: “las catalanas a la izquierda, las madrileñas a la derecha). I mumbled my hellos to the hot totty at the door and swung right into the aisle. I laughed.

To our right: all glamorous women in Channel tops… expensive pumps bellow tight-fitting designer jeans….Farah Fawcett long tailored shags blowing in slo-mo in my mind’s eye….the Castilian lot.

To our left: bank after bank of girls with frowns, horn-rimmed glasses and short, spiky hair at odd angles….las catalanas.