310 people [‘mostly Nigerians’] have been arrested in Malaga for fraudulent emails seeking bank details. You’d have thought everyone would be completely aware of this scam by now but they’re said to have made 100m euros from 20,000 victims. Astonishing.

I’ve said before how impressive it is to see international obituaries in the Spanish press. One of today’s in El Pais was for Frank Rogers, VP of the Daily Telegraph in the UK. I doubt he got this treatment even in the UK itself.

Which reminds me, if anyone wants to see the pernicious effect of the egregious British tabloid press, they should take a look at the history of the said Daily Telegraph over the last 10 to 20 years, as it has moved relentlessly downmarket. The UK satirical magazine, Private Eye, regards it as now so indistinguishable from the tabloid Daily Mail that it refers to it as the Maily Telegraph. And to its celebrity-obsessed Sunday sister paper as the Sunday Hellograph.

Well, the members of the English Speaking Society of Pontevedra were rather reluctant to come out of the long grass on the issue of poor quality Spanish but did seem to concur that speakers of other Latin languages had a slight advantage. They were rather more willing to agree that Spanish men had transformed themselves into the most sensitive sexual partners in the world. Or, rather, the male members [sorry] were. The female members kept their opinions to themselves.

Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice. The forest ranger on duty at the time of the dreadful Guadalajara fire says he warned the group about the risks of starting a bar-b-q. However, the man arrested for starting the conflagration claims not only did the forest ranger not warn them of anything but even sold them the firewood. Not terribly reconcilable stories. Pending clarification, some members of the central government have done the honourable thing and resigned. This contrasts with the aftermath of the Prestige oil leak disaster of 2002 but,then, this didn’t result in 15 deaths. Only widespread economic devastation at which taxpayers’ money could be thrown.