On today’s early TV news we were treated to the sight of umbilical cords being cut, frozen corpses being lifted into a helicopter and what was left of a car and its driver after it had crashed into a statue at high speed in the middle of Madrid at 4am this morning. Is it any wonder Spaniards leave their breakfast until mid morning?

Spain’s 17 Autonomous Communities comprise 14 regions and 3 ‘historical nationalities’, viz. Catalunia, the Basque Country and Galicia. Very soon there’ll be a further distinction. In the Preamble to its new constitution, Catalunia will be referred to as a ‘nation’. And on the horizon, currently no bigger than a man’s hand, there’s the possibility of another change. The political arm of the ETA terrorist organisation has hinted that the price of peace could be to allow the Basque Country to annex the adjacent region of Navarra. In any other European state this would be preposterous but who knows in today’s fissiparous Spain, where tribalism appears to be increasing, rather than declining. I blame the EU.

I was boasting yesterday of cleverly saving myself an extra trip to the photocopy shop and the police station as part of the long process of getting my residence card renewed. Today they called me to advise that the bank where I’d gone to pay the taxes hadn’t charged me the right amount. Since I’d already visited two banks in order to make this payment, it meant a third to rectify things. And all to pay the paltry sum of 14 euros. Plus two extra trips to the police station, first to retrieve the papers to take back to the bank and then to give them the receipt they should have had yesterday. This makes five trips there so far. And mine is the simplest of cases. When I lived in the Far East, I called this sort of thing The Random Equaliser. No matter how much you try to beat an inefficient bureaucratic process, it will always win. And Spain has a lot of inefficient bureaucratic processes. Needless to say, this incident has not served to improve my opinion of Spanish banks. Or of the clerk at the police station who went through my papers yesterday without noticing anything amiss. Coincidentally, I see the latest slogan of the Spanish Tourist Board in the UK is ‘Smile, you’re in Spain’. Yes, well. Tomorrow maybe. When this flea bite stops itching.

In Spain, every high street has at least one Gestoría. These are agents who act for people with more money than time who prefer not to get sucked into the Byzantine workings of the various bureaucracies. I guess, if I had a full time job, I’d have no choice but to pay one as well. It would be nice to think that Gestorías will eventually fade away as Spain continues to modernise. But I have my doubts. Against that, John Hooper points out in his book The New Spaniards things were a lot worse 20 years ago. So let’s be positive…..

Insults corner: The Secretary of the governing party has called the leader of the opposition a mere figurehead on the prow of a ship being piloted by the powerful duo of the ex-President of the party and its octogenarian founder, our Galician friend Mr Fraga. This is probably just a clever way of saying he’s a liar.