Reading the culture pages of El Pais today, it belatedly struck me that Spanish papers don’t carry reviews of the previous night’s TV. But, then, how many times do you want to read ‘It was pure bilge’?

In the local paper, my eye was drawn to an ad for the Xanadu ‘Music Hall’. This was something of a surprise as only last week I read that the owners had been arrested for using illegal immigrants for prostitution. Maybe they are out on bail. By the way, the ad for the Xanadu invites you to ‘experience a new world’. I imagine this is what happens to most of the unfortunate employees as well.

On a more global scale, I see that the Palestinians have begun to play out their version of the Galician power struggle. The main ingredient of this, you will recall, is an ageing autocrat in failing health who has ruthlessly ensured that he has no one groomed to succeed him. Of course, much the same thing is happening over in Cuba. But then Castro is of Galician descent so it’s in his blood.