This is the month of the university entrance exams in Spain – the Selectividad. With the exception of Navarra, numbers of university students have fallen throughout the country in recent years. The post popular subjects remain Law, Business Studies and Psychology and I’m assured the first of these is attractive not merely because of the surprisingly low average required for a Law course but because it’s considered a useful degree for a wide spread of careers. Particularly that of funcionario, or civil servant. Which is just as well as there’s nothing like the work available in Anglo Saxon countries for lawyers here. This, I stress, ranks as a very positive comment about Spain.

The student applicants may well be fewer but their grasp of technology is, of course, greater than ever; this year they’re being searched for phones which can carry copies of documents which might just prove useful to them over the next few hours.

On a wider front, although crime statistics are usually contentious, it’s nonetheless good news to read that delinquency in Spain has fallen 3% in the last year and that robbery with violence is down 13%. Tony Blair has possibly claimed something similar about UK crime rates but I get the impression no one believes a thing he says these days.

For some reason, the English football team is referred to here as Los pross, as in this example - La preocupante baja de Rooney había mutado la ilusión y esperanza de los ingleses de cara a este Mundial en una sensación de pesimismo y derrotismo que realmente no se correspondían con el potencial de los pross. Google has been no help to me in establishing the origin of this nickname so, if anyone knows, I’d appreciate the explanation. Incidentally, after the game against Paraguay, this sympathetic Spanish comment now looks rather misplaced.

Finally, my thanks to Neno for his kind comments. I always greatly appreciate comments from Galicians who take little or no offence at my jottings. I do hope it’s not just the morriña working in my favour.