For those in search of irony, the struggles over the EU constitution are fertile ground. The French populace believes it enshrines 19th century capitalism [‘ultraliberalism’] which will destroy the comfortable, self-important way of life they’ve enjoyed for decades at everyone else’s expense. Ditto the Spanish, at least from a purely economic point of view. The British, however, see the 400-odd page document as an attempt to foist discredited French dirigisme on the successful Anglo-Saxon socio-economic model. They can’t possibly all be right, of course, and may all be wrong. But most amusing of all, the British eurosceptics are praying that the French don’t say No next Sunday and hole the project below the waterline; for they fear this will allow Tony Blair to wriggle out of his commitment to a UK referendum which they’re confident of winning. On a local scale, the French No camp is said to be delirious that President Chirac will appear on TV to make a last minute appeal to the French to do what their betters have instructed them to do; such is his unpopularity, on each of the previous 3 occasions he’s done this their support has then leapt upwards. What fun. My prediction – the French will narrowly say Yes and the Dutch will say No. But then I thought Liverpool were dead and buried at half time in last night’s match and told Andrew we might as well leave the bar in which we were watching it. And then I left after extra time rather than see Liverpool lose the penalty shoot-out.

A gruesome tale from Asturias, connected with the Madrid bombings of last year. One of the dirty aspects of this tragedy is that an informer had told the police well in advance about the sales of explosives from one of the local mines. And about plans to use them in connection with mobile phone detonators. This information was ignored and later the man’s wife was found drowned in strange circumstances. This week he received graphic pictures of her autopsy in the mail, together with warning about keeping his mouth shut. Astonishingly, these are suspected of coming from the ‘police mafia’ in the region.

We used to have a grocers in the old quarter which had a backroom bar so down-at-heel that, if they thought you were important [i. e. not a drug addict] they’d put a newspaper on the table as a cloth. Walking past yesterday, I was amazed to see it’d been transformed into a posh café, complete with the light wood furnishings that are currently de rigeur. Happily, the owners still seem to be Mrs Thatcher’s look-alike and her one-prawn-short- of-a-paella son and I’m told the previous clientele have not abandoned the place, even though they must look [and feel] totally out of place. Assuming they are sentient. I must make a visit, if only to have some of their staggeringly powerful – and surprisingly tasty – raisin wine.

Meanwhile, though, on to the Cemetery of the English near Camariñas for the filming of the docudrama!