For many, the day starts at the tiny Mercado de Abastos (Plaza de Abastos, Mon-Sat 9am-2pm) where there's spanking fresh produce, fish and meat, plus a stand-up bites and drinks bar, Abacería La Plaza.
Even among people who self-defined as having a liberal political philosophy, just 29% thought spanking was never appropriate.
It really takes the edge off your retail rush if you have to wait for your spanking new trousers to come back from the tailor before you can wear them, and buying something on the spur of the moment on Saturday afternoon to wear that night is out of the question.
As the most distinctive feature of ancient cities, this particular one is in fact spanking new and unfinished: a gap in its western stretch ranging hundreds of metres is waiting to be sealed up.
In fact, the only group that was starkly different in its views on spanking was the minority who reported not having been spanked themselves as children; in this group, 50% said that spanking a child was never appropriate.
A Harris Interactive poll in 2013 found that 81% of Americans say that parents spanking their children is at least sometimes appropriate, and 67% said they had spanked their child.
Le Monde newspaper ran a front-page cartoon by Plantu, its celebrated illustrator, showing Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel spanking a bare-bottomed Greece.Yet there is nonetheless a growing French voice urging restraint.
A study in 20 American cities, published in the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2013, found that young children in homes with little or no spanking showed swifter cognitive development than their peers.
