Last night’s national macrobotellón competitition was won by Granada, where 20,000 young people were permitted to gather in search of a macrohangover. Here in Madrid, the rain and a heavy police presence appear to have produced a washout.

Talking about Madrid - one truly impressive thing is the way the streets here are cleaned early every morning. Another is the discipline with which the vast majority of dog owners pick up the deposits of their canine friends. In this they’re helped by the plastic bags and special bins provided by the city council. Being forest walkers, Ryan and I are not used to this but have felt compelled to conform. Well, one of us has conformed. The other has merely performed.

I realise I err on the side of excess in banging on about inefficiency in Spain but I can’t resist recording that my Madrid-based daughter, Faye, is known to her gas supplier not just as ‘Faye Tavies’ but as Faye Tavies Tavies. Our guess is that, despite being told otherwise, the company has decided she really must have the Spanish norm of two surnames. So, in the absence of the second one, they’ve simply repeated the [misspelled] first one. Or the computer did. In my case, someone invariably decides that David Colin Davies comprises two surnames followed by a single forename. Hence, I am usually addressed – in writing and on the phone – as Davies David Colin. But a rose by any other name….