At a meeting of Spanish journalists yesterday, there was a delegate called Germán Yanke. Possibly from Majorca. Or Miami.

The Spanish conservative party [the PP] is headed up by a Galician, Mr Marion Rajoy. Putting aside his forename, it’s a little difficult for him to portray himself as a credible Presidential alternative - even to an incumbent nicknamed ‘Bambi’ - when he’s so obviously powerless to solve the huge problems in which the Galician branch of the party is mired. You’ll recall the 82 year old Galician Xunta President, Miguel Fraga, was defeated in the recent elections but then vowed to fight on as Leader of the Opposition until he pops his clogs. A meeting of Rajoy and Fraga this week was followed by an announcement which El Mundo dismissed as a typical piece of Galician obfuscation. Whatever, no one is any clearer as to if and when Fraga will depart the scene other in a coffin. So the below-the-surface feud over his eventual successor will continue to fester for a while yet. For now, Mr Fraga has called ‘with body and soul’ for harmony within the party. Pretty rich coming from the guy who’s totally responsible for its absence. And rather too late. The additional irony is that his staying in the saddle is really Rajoy’s only option for stopping the lid being blown off the mess. I guess the model is El Cid.

A helpful ironmonger today directed me to a nearby electricians, where I found the shop is closed on Saturdays during the 3 summer months. Customers are clearly a lower priority than other calls on the owners’ time during this period. I wonder whether they’ve even noticed the new hypermarket just round the corner. Or perhaps they have and have given up the fight.

A colleague at the ESS of Pontevedra yesterday told me that basketball was one of the few sports not invented or codified by the British. He said it’d been invented in the USA and that it took them 17 years to conclude it’d be useful to cut a hole in the bottom of the basket. Twenty or thirty years ago, I would have responded that this presumably meant the game had been invented by Irish immigrants but these days are long gone, thank goodness.