Well, 77% of Spaniards support the new anti-smoking law; but 70% of them don’t believe it will be implemented. So it seems my concerns are widely shared. Vamos a ver. I hope we’re wrong. I’m tired of eating smoked tapas dishes.

Spain has been issued with the second EU court threat within a week. This time they’ve been told to start charging the Catholic Church value-added tax [IVA in Spain] on all their purchases. My guess is it’ll take years for this to happen.

And talking of sloth, I wrote some time ago of a crossing in Pontevedra where 7 roads met but there were no indications at all as to who had right of way. Over the last few months, an enormous roundabout [circle] has been under construction here and I think I can forecast accurately that the accident rate at this spot will shortly rocket up. Meanwhile, I am again astonished at just how long things are taking. One obvious reason is that I hardly ever see anyone at work there. My guess is the men are simultaneously working on several other challenges and so spreading themselves very thinly. During the sort of construction boom we’ve had for a number of years now, this must mean things actually take longer to complete than in the less frenetic times that are always supposed to be around the corner.

I can’t say I was surprised to read in a UK newspaper that about one British million couples who are in a permanent relationship live apart so as to be able make higher benefit claims. And, on the same subject of welfare-driven corruption, I also read that - among UK government employees – 39% of local government officers, 25% of teachers and 22 per cent of civil servants retire well before 60, ostensibly because of ill health. Astonishingly enough, their health then improves so as to give them higher life expectancies than people who don’t collapse because of illness. Who’d have thought it.

Sky News yesterday told us that reaching an EU budget deal had been a ‘vast achievement’ for Tony Blair. Since was this was managed by Britain being the only country to make concessions, leaving the ludicrous CAP budget untouched, I wonder what form failure would have taken.

Quote of the Week

The greatest tragedy of Tony Blair is that he has always been the instrument of somebody else’s political vision — Gordon Brown’s in his very early days, Peter Mandelson’s in the middle years and George W. Bush’s towards the end.