One of the best features of Spain is that there is little, if anything, of the compensation culture that is said to bleed so much out of Anglo-Saxon societies. Its absence must help to keep costs and, thus, prices down. Of course, one reason for its non-existence is that it demands an efficient legal system and possibly more lawyers than is objectively justifiable. The absence of these here may not bother most of us most of the time but I guess it is hard felt by those with a real grievance.

Intriguing to watch the handover process at the closing ceremony of the Olympic games, especially the playing of the Greek and Chinese national anthems. The former, we were told, was called ‘Hymn to Liberty’. However, the title of the Chinese anthem was not given, possibly because it’s called something like ‘Hymn to Something Less Than Liberty’.

It’s been instructive watching the games on Spanish TV. As in every other country, the focus is on those sports in which nationals are taking part. And, at the end of each event, prominence is given to these in preference to the winners. So, for example, at the end of the women’s 1500m final the camera quickly moved from Kelly Holmes to the Spanish girl who had come in 10th. Kelly’s historic achievement of winning two gold medals played fifth fiddle to the Spanish runner’s account of why the race had not quite gone according to her plan. But then, as I say, this goes on everywhere.

Back to the closing ceremony – perhaps if most of the athletes had really been on drugs we might have seen more of them responding to the strenuous musical attempts of the Greek organisers to get them cavorting in the central arena. According to the BBC announcer, more dancing was going on in the commentary boxes than out in the middle.

This was the weekend of the great return from summer vacations and the town was gloriously empty when I went down for lunch. In fact, the only stupid prat with a camera was me. Perhaps it was my tourist disguise that motivated the waiter to give me change from a 10 Euro note and not from the 20 Euro note I had actually given him. I decided to take this up with him but not the [diversionary?] fact that he had failed to charge me for my glass of wine. In other circumstances, I would have of course.