Mr Blair’s latest proposal for the EU budget secures Spain’s subventions until 2014. Suddenly the media here seems full of articles admitting Blair is not really the Devil incarnate and suggesting France is now isolated and heading for defeat. And the finger of blame for obstruction is now being pointed at Poland. Perhaps this because they’re about to take over from Spain as the biggest beneficiary of Brussels’ largesse.

In 1994 a land development law was introduced in Valencia, giving the local authorities power to not only compulsorily purchase properties but to compel the [ex]owners to contribute to the cost of developing the land taken from them. Abuse of this law – for reasons we can only guess at – was so scandalously extensive it finally led to the EU Commission ordering the Spanish government to put a stop to it. As nothing was done, the Commission yesterday gave Spain a deadline of 3 weeks, after which it will be taken to court. With impeccable timing, the Galician government yesterday announced it’s considering the introduction of a similar law. Meanwhile, though, most of the local councils along the coast have announced they will be re-designating significant stretches of land so as to ‘give legitimacy to arrangements already made with developers’. Maybe we really will have the 17 new golf courses mentioned in yesterday’s press reports. To go with the 2½ we’ve already got.

A fourth Galician trawler in a month has been arrested for illegal fishing, this time by the Irish government. Conspiracy theorists here are suggesting it’s all a ruse to blacken Spain’s name before the next round of negotiations on EU quotas. I suppose this lies within the realms of possibility. Not that you’d get many takers in Spain itself, I suspect. Especially in Vigo.

After the third instance in three days, it’s clear I’ve missed the announcement that it’s now compulsory to have a dog on your lap while driving a car in Pontevedra. Thank God for the little bitch from the forest who adopted me a few days ago: Ryan would have been far too heavy. Plus he would have tried to drive the car.