An advert for Rover cars in today’s papers offers a huge discount and stresses that this is only available until the end of next month. I guess the subtext is “at which point we’ll offer a further massive cut to try to move our valueless stock.” You have to admire their nerve. Or sympathise with their desperation.

This blog has long been visited by men [I guess] looking for brothels in Spain. But after my recent trip to Merseyside in the UK, I‘ve now been hit by someone interested in a ‘Wallasey brothel’. And I didn’t even know there were any.

As has been said by many others, you don’t need to be in Spain very long to appreciate that they take a different view of risk here from elsewhere. Just down the hill from me, workmen on a construction site have been creating a bulwark for a supporting wall which they had [illegally] left exposed. Needless to say, they didn’t do this out of the goodness of their hearts; the council was fining them 6,000 euros a day until they solved the problem they themselves had created. Anyway, a small hill of earth and boulders has been constructed between the wall and the pavement. The men responsible for this either have a deep understanding of what they are doing or absolutely no concept of risk. Especially those who have been supervising the work at the bottom of the hill. If you want to see what it all looks like, go to the first section of the Photo Gallery at the bottom of my home page on www.colindavies.net

As part of their strategy of creeping secession, the Catalan government has demanded responsibility for collecting all local taxes, after which they will give Madrid a ‘maximum of 50%’. More insidious, perhaps, is their plan to make the speaking of Catalan compulsory for all residents. Catalunia today, the Basque Country next year. And Galicia in a decade or two.

And talking of Galicia, it comes as a bit of surprise to learn that – after waves of emigration years ago – only two cities here have more people entitled to vote in the upcoming elections than Buenos Aires in Argentina. So we can expect Mr Fraga to risk a South American trip or two before June. Not very good news for the local deer, I suspect.