Today Mr Zapatero tried to persuade his EU colleagues that the borders between its African enclaves and Morocco are really those of Europe and not just Spain. I suspect he had a hard time. The argument that these aren’t really colonies but an integral part of Spain possibly played less well at the summit than it does in Spain. But you can’t blame him for trying; the number of illegal immigrants coming into Spain exceeds those entering Germany, France and the UK put together. Only Italy comes close.

A second demand, this time at the Budget-fest in November, will be that Spain continues to receive EU funds for another 8 years. This is despite [because of?] the fact the Spanish economy is growing at almost 3 times that of Germany and France.

The opposition party has been accused of stirring up ‘Catalan-phobia’. But it possibly doesn’t need to. One of the main producers of Spain’s version of champagne, which all comes from Catalunia, has been insisting for some time that it’s ‘as much Spanish as any other product’. Christmas is on the horizon and last year the rest of the country boycotted it.

According to yet another survey in today’s papers, an astonishing 43% of Spanish drivers regard themselves as menace on the road. And around 80% claim they’d be happy to have their car fitted with a speed regulator. What we really need, perhaps, is a dishonesty regulator.

And on another regular theme – the Spanish government has declined either to make prostitution illegal or to regularise it. To quote the relevant minister – ‘In a country like Spain where there is enormous tolerance of prostitution, abolition is not an option. We believe it would worsen the plight of the women who are brought illegally into the country and who make up 85% of the prostitutes in Spain. Our preferred priority is to break up the networks which bring them in.’ I can’t help wondering how many wives and girlfriends are to be found among all these enormously tolerant bystanders. Or perhaps the minister just meant among customers.

For new readers – If you’ve arrived here because of an interest in Galicia or Pontevedra, you might find my non-commercial guides interesting – at colindavies.net