There is growing concern with the level of violence against women in Spain. For whatever reasons, this is rising and in 2003 included 70 murders and more than 50,000 court cases. So it was probably not a good time for an Islamic Imam on the south coast to publish a book giving guidance not just on when to beat your wife but also on how you can do it without leaving any evidence. His ‘jobsworth’ defence was along the lines that, although he personally was not in favour of wife-beating, it was his job was to translate the Koran, warts an’ all. This buttered no parsnips with the Spanish judiciary and he was duly fined and sentenced to jail. Getting more clemency than the unfortunate wives, his sentence was suspended.

Word Watch: If you are approached by a Spaniard and asked for directions to the nearest ‘paff’, you are not being asked about gay bars. This is how all Spaniards pronounce ‘pub’. Why this should be confounds me. Clearly, they find it easy to say the ‘cloob’ bit in the recently cited puti club, so why they can’t at least say ‘poob’ is completely beyond me. Perhaps this slips too easily into ‘poof’ and there have been some notorious misunderstandings that I have not been told about. I suppose we should just be grateful that they don’t say ‘puti claff’.