The Vatican has responded quickly and roundly to the legalisation of gay marriages in Spain. It has said that that civil servants should refuse to process them, even if this costs them their jobs. There’s nothing quite like asking someone else to have the courage of your convictions, is there? But I suppose there’s some logic to this stance if you believe that this life is of absolutely no importance compared to the next. Plus it’s an easy view to take for someone in a lifetime job in the luxurious surroundings of the See of Rome. Anyway, it’s not hard to predict that the suggestion will be comprehensively ignored. Perhaps there’ll then be a few high-profile excommunications.

Meanwhile, the government has announced its latest brave social reform. As of next January, it will – in theory at least - be difficult to smoke in public in Spain. And tobacconists selling cigarettes to anyone under 18 will face a fine of 10,000 euros. As with motoring offences, it’s a complicated law and it will surely provide a real test for the legendary ability of the Spanish to ignore any rule which is personally inconvenient.

Since it joined the EU in the mid 80s, Spain has proved the most successful of all members in negotiating grants and subventions. So I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise to hear that the EU Commission has accepted that the run-down of these should be delayed for two years. God knows what they’d have done if economic growth hadn’t been steaming away at 4% a year.

I read an article today about a plastic ball that can be inserted in your stomach to fool it into believing it’s full. Sounds just the thing for ex-civil servants who can’t afford to eat because they’ve lost their jobs for refusing to comply with irreligious man-made laws.