A fish, they say, stinks from the head. When my local supermarket was a lowly Champion store it took its tone from a manageress who seemed to think rather more about herself and her appearance than about the customers. But at least she wore the store’s uniform. Now that the place is a Carrefour hypermarket, she’s become even more of a diva and has taken to strutting round in what, elsewhere, would be considered evening wear. You can imagine in which direction the service has gone.

One of the joys of Spain – at least outside the tourist-infested costas – is that tipping is rare. If they give anything at all, Spaniards leave their loose change, but rarely more than 5 per cent. Tipping more than this is thus an easy route to popularity. Not that I would take it, of course.

The opinion polls here in Galicia point to a hung parliament and perhaps the end of the reign of the octogenarian Don Manuel Fraga. Sophisticated observers in Madrid find it hard to credit the tenor of our provincial slanging match and suggest that the leaders of Fraga’s own party are horrified at what is going on in their name. But, constrained by the thought that the only thing worse than Fraga winning is Fraga losing, they keep their own counsel and pop up regularly to breathe life into the corpse. Thank God it will all be over in a week or so.