I hadn't given much thought to the British phenomenon of follies recently - thanks for reminding me, John.

Our local council here in Spain has just started building a public laundry (which here is a roofed structure through which a channel of water flows on its way to the irrigation system in the fields below, with wide, angled stone walls on which the village women and girls (of course) would wash their family's clothes).

It was dismantled decades ago, once washing machines became commonplace, but they have now decided to recreate it as an otherwise functionally redundant tourist feature.

It strikes me that this is a modern version of the historical folly, an attempt to erect a vision of past or 'exotic' traditions, and in a way fool visitors into believing they are somehow authentic relics.

Unless the backward Neanderthals of the PP party's allies in the neofascist Vox actually plan on forcing women to give up work and start taking washing down to the river for the glory of the Holy Virgin and the Fatherland. Which is not beyond the realms of possibility, I fear.