If, like me, you’d wondered how come Spanish companies were making so much money they could afford to buy up major British banks, phone companies and airport operators, here’s the explanation - the Spanish government has effectively been giving them 25% of the purchase price. This, of course, is illegal under EU regulations but, astonishingly, Brussels has given Spain until 2010 to cut it out. So I guess we can expect a few more takeovers.

One gets used to things being left until the last moment in Spain but sometimes it still surprises. Despite having had two years to prepare for it, only two of the country’s 1500 municipalities have taken steps to ensure they can operate the new points-based driving licence which came into force last weekend. So it’ll presumably be chaos for a while, as it was when Terminal 4 opened at Madrid airport earlier this year.

There was a paradigm car crash in Pontevedra yesterday. A young man over the alcohol limit ran into the back of a car which was illegally double-parked on a busy dual-carriageway. He then legged it but was subsequently caught, whereupon he was found to be without either a licence or insurance. So I don’t suppose he’ll get any points deducted. Or would, even if the system were operative.

I watched the Portugal-France semi-final down in Portugal last night and discovered they’re a rather passion-less people. And I’m not talking about just at the end of the match, in the aftermath of their defeat. In a crowd of several hundred watching it on a large outdoor screen in the border town of Valença, there was very little sign of emotion either before or during the match. All rather eerie when you know how the Spanish are less than 2 kilometres away. But you can get salted cod done in a hundred different ways.

I read that the Jamaican football authorities have offered Sven Eriksson 3 million pounds a year [about 4.5m euros] to coach their national team. Don’t they have English newspapers out there? Or read my blog? They deserve everything they won't get.