Well, right on cue, there was a reference to Benny Hill in one of the national newspapers today. In a football report, of all things. How we laughed. Except us humourless Brits, of course.

In his book “Ghosts of Spain”. Giles Trimlett marvels at the extent of corruption along the south coast – especially in Marbella – and naturally asks why so little has been done about it. I guess he’s impressed that, since he finished his book in 2005, the national government has finally stepped in and imprisoned the entire Marbella council and their [allegedly] corrupt legal advisers. All twenty of them are now awaiting trial. On a wider front, Trimlett says the last government under Aznar put an end to the astonishing corruption of the previous socialist administration at the state level but suggests things have actually got worse in the regions. Here it’s generally believed all local governments are in cahoots with developers. Which might explain the broad boulevards and multiple traffic lights now gracing some of our smaller hamlets. Though this must rank as small beer against grander projects such as the numerous golf courses that developers from Madrid and Valencia are said to have proposed.

Today I saw the worst example yet of inconsiderate double-parking. Thanks to its anti-car policy, Pontevedra has few exit routes and today one of these was completely blocked by a car which was not only double-parked but on a zebra crossing and at least a metre away from the legitimately parked car on its left. The end result was that a coach - unable to get through the remaining gap - had brought the traffic on one side of the city to a complete halt. A cacophony of horns brightened up my walk past the jam, the loudest coming from an ambulance towards the head of the queue. I didn’t wait for the denouement but moved on past the stationery traffic. But I can safely say that, when he/she eventually returned, the driver gave no hint of an apology and, astonishingly, very few local drivers uttered any words of recrimination. That’s simply how it is here. But my guess is there were some choice Anglo-Saxon expletives from the bemused passengers in the Saga Holidays coach stuck at the head of the line.

And while I’m talking about traffic – it’s finally been confirmed the driving schools here instruct their pupils that, if they’re entering a two-lane roundabout [circle] and turning left, they must stay in the right, outside lane. And not enter the logical left lane adjacent to the roundabout. The obvious mad aspect of this rule is that it means drivers turning left will cross in front of those going straight on. The not-so-obvious aspect is that, if you take it to its logical conclusion, no driver would ever use the inner lane. Think about it.