A new sight on the Vigo to Pontevedra road this afternoon – Santiago-bound pilgrims on those aluminium scooters that were all the rage for kids a few years back. At first I thought the things were motorised but then noticed their ‘riders’ were free-wheeling downhill. God’s Holy Rollers, I guess. I hope they had more than prayer for brakes. Air brakes, perhaps.

One of Sunday’s local papers featured the Santiago fashion shops of the Italian girlfriend of one of the area’s drug barons. The article made no bones about these being used to launder money and, if the lady in question was at all worried about this exposure, she hid it well. There were two photos of her beaming broadly from the doorway. Mind you, unlike his wife, she’s still alive. She died a couple of years ago when her 4x4 suddenly left the road and hit a brick wall.

The President, Mr Zapatero, has said he’ll talk to the Basque terrorist group, ETA, if it gives up its arms. Given that Basque secessionist aspirations are already being progressed by both legal and [probably] illegal political parties, it’s hard to imagine what purpose ETA would serve without arms and, therefore, what would be on the agenda for any discussions. This seems to be a view shared by ETA themselves, as they demonstrated yesterday by fire-bombing four local companies who’d refused to pay protection money.

Yet another prototypical car crash on Sunday morning – a SEAT Leon [the sports version, of course] left its side of the motorway, crossed the central reservation, crashed through the roadside barrier and plummeted down a bank, killing both of its occupants. These were 22 and 23 years-old, no other car was involved and it was at 5.30 in the morning. Which says it all.