The serious press here today finally gave in to the pressure and printed a summary of the reports in the British tabloids of David Beckham’s alleged love life. Up to this point they had studiously ignored this subject, in contrast with the UK media where the stories had featured high in the priorities of even the ‘quality’ press.

Down at the other end of the Spanish morality scale, I bumped yesterday into my friend who had had the police car drive up his backside. He told me that, after he had presented himself at the local town hall to complain of both the incident and the no-show of the miscreant, he had been driven into Pontevedra by a policewoman in mufti. Driving along with no seat belt whilst having a mobile phone conversation with her husband, she had been pulled over by the traffic police. On showing her badge she had been waved on her way to the city’s main police station. Here he gained the distinct impression that what had happened was not exactly a rare event and that no one was going to take it very seriously. So it was no great surprise to him that, in a bar later that evening, he was greeted with a big smile by the perpetrator. It was rather more of a shock to him the following evening when the same chap came up behind him, shook the collar he was wearing for the sore neck he had developed and suggested, with a laugh, that he was going to be making a pile out of the events. And still no reports in the local press.