No Castilian, English OK

There's a new public transport system in Barcelona called Bicing (it's "cool" and "hip" to anglicise words by adding an English suffix to the Spanish stem). It's a great system. It involves a network of bicycle "stations", which are essentially long racks of bikes. A user, who has paid an annual subscription for the service, swipes a card on a terminal and is assigned a bike. Simple, cheap and effective.

But that's not what I wanted to write about here (although I could spend a long time listing positive aspects of this new scheme, I will refrain). I noticed an interesting thing today when I went to get a bike from my local station.

The terminal has a display screen which displays the status of the station, instructions to the user, and error messages, all in three languages: Catalán, Castilian (also known simply as "Spanish" to non-Catalán people) and English. These three languages are each assigned a third of the screen, so all languages are displayed simultaneously and the user doesn't have to select a language.

The local "Catalanista" movement varies from seeking all-out independence from Spain to simply having special provisions made for Catalán culture. As a result, most things are presented in Catalán and things that aren't, for example some advertising at bus stops, tends to fall victim to graffiti claiming that the message would be more effective in the local language (which, one has to admit, makes sense!).

Anyway, the point is that this station had the middle third of the screen - the Castilian section - blanked out with a permanent marker, but the English section was intact. The message is clear: Foreign languages welcome, except Castilian!

EDIT: The last time I was in Barcelona (October 2008) I noticed that English has been removed from the Bicing stations. I believe this is ostensibly because the service is only being made available to residents, with no plans to offer short-term cards for tourists. If anybody knows differently, let me know.