The Obituary column of El Mundo is nothing if not eclectic. I may be doing little more than revealing the depths of my ignorance here but I am frequently surprised by the obscurity of the people who feature therein. These have recently included a Blues musician from the USA and a singing star from Egypt. Today we had the chap from Philip Morris who invented the Malboro’ Man, plus one of the leading lights of WorldCom, the disgraced telecoms business. Mind you, what I guess was his picture was entitled, David Hemmings, star of the 60s cult film, ‘Blow Up’. Maybe we will get the latter tomorrow, possibly identified as someone else.

In the Spectator this week, Alistair Campbell says that the questions he recently got from Ethiopian journalists were more intelligent that those he used to get from the UK press. I dare say the same would be true if he faced Spanish reporters. The reason is simple; in neither country has the media industry been dumbed down by anything like the egregious tabloid press of the UK. And what was Mr Campbell before his elevation? Why, a tabloid reporter, of course. And what techniques did he bring to the centre of British government? Why those of the tabloid press. Bit rich, him being critical now, eh?

An English friend of mine here was fined last week for not stopping in the middle of an empty road when he was turning left. Given the widespread flouting of traffic rules here, this was somewhat ironic. And rather unfair, we agreed. I thought of him yesterday when a woman – mobile phone in hand and seatbelt unfastened – zig-zagged past both me and the traffic cop on the zebra crossing I was traversing outside a local school. With impunity, of course. Things might have been different if she had had a child sitting on her lap, though I rather doubt it.