Well, Mr Zapatero came away from the EU summit with a commitment to double the budget for immigration measures. More likely ‘anti-immigration’ measures, I suspect. Mr Blair, meanwhile, came away with less than nothing. Or, to put it how the UK Daily Telegraph did this morning in a headline which probably didn’t appear in French papers - ‘Chirac wrecks summit’. In fact, not content with this, the French president promised to do the same at the November budget meeting, if anyone threatens the sacred cow of the ruinously expensive Common Agricultural Policy. On this, he can surely rely on the support of Spain, the second largest beneficiary after France. I wonder how long it will be before Mr Blair accepts there’s no Third Way in
Europe, just naked national interest.

The question arises – Is Spain turning into France? After recent national strikes by lorry drivers and fishermen unhappy about the price of fuels, the farmers have now promised to block the country’s roads next month, if they don’t get any relief from the government. My guess is, as in France, they will get what they want.

A group of people along the coast are trying to de-Americanise Halloween and return it to its Celtic, pagan roots. They claim its proper name is Samaín and it was an end-of-summer festival appropriated by the Christians. If this keeps the TrickorTreaters away from my front door, I’m all for it.

‘Spain is the brothel of Europe’ according to a women’s group which doesn’t appear to be as ‘immensely tolerant’ as others of the country’s booming prostitution business. If they are to be believed, 900,000 men a day avail themselves of the services on offer, generating a turnover of over 40m Euros a day from the 300,000 women on the game here. Can the Spanish government really continue to turn a Nelsonian eye to all this?

My daughter is buying a flat in Madrid. Although 28, she’s still considered young in Spain and, as is often the case here, is having to get a parent [me] to underwrite her mortgage. This meant a trip to a new bank today. I won’t bore you with the saga. Suffice to say I ended up behind the counter doing my own 30 copies. But not in the first bank. In another where the photocopier was actually working.

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