There’s naturally been a bit of a focus on Italy over the past few days. Here’s a comment which evoked some sympathy [and empathy] in me:- Italians are forced to spend an average of 7,000 minutes a year [117 hours] queuing in order to satisfy the state's bureaucracy. It takes more than a year to get the permits to open a pizzeria, for example. Taxes, if they are paid, are ludicrously high. So it is no wonder that the country is seized with rampant individualism, or ‘menefreghismo’ ("I don't care-ism"). Hmm . . . I wonder what the equivalent Spanish word is.

In the current edition of the Spanish magazine Interviu, the first witness on the scene of Princess Diana’s fatal crash relates that, on opening the door, he saw incontrovertible evidence that the couple had been, shall we say, enjoying themselves. At least, this is what the ad in the national press suggests. Funny, but I don’t recall the scabrous British tabloids even hinting at this salacious nugget. And given the sums of money they pay for this sort of thing, it’s hard to believe the story wasn’t offered to them in preference to a much-smaller-circulation rag in Spain. If it’s true, of course.

The Reina Sofia art museum in Madrid has confirmed it doesn’t know what has happened to a 38-ton metal sculpture, exhibited there between 1986 and 1991 and last seen ‘parked’ on an industrial estate in 1995. The police fear it may have been mistaken for scrap and incorporated into some building work but I suspect it was lifted by one of the gangs of Rumanian criminals which plague the capital. They’re very good.

According to El Mundo, ‘unscrupulous’ Galician fishermen are simplifying their task by chucking sticks of dynamite into schools of sardines. Sadly, I suspect this will leave most Spanish as unmoved as the widespread sale of illegally small fish in the nation’s tapas bars. And who am I to point a finger? I eat them.