Down on the south coast, the impressive police operation against widespread corruption in the Marbella town hall continues to suck in local notables and/or their spouses. More generally, barely a day goes past now without some front-page exposé in the national press of one or more instances of flagrant dishonesty. Often, though, these reports come across as more of an exercise in point-scoring than an attempt to change public attitudes towards financial chicanery on the part of elected servants. So El Mundo can’t refrain from stressing the accused are members of the governing socialist party and El Pais feels obliged to highlight the fact they’re affiliated to the opposition conservative party. My sad suspicion is that the general reaction is a shrug of the shoulders and a curse on both houses.

Talking of fraud, up to 70,000 drivers in Madrid could face the loss of their licences after it was discovered 27 examiners had not been qualified to pass them. Which could explain a lot.

In Brussels this week, a senior member of the Galician ‘nationalist’ party [the BNG] said he was proud to be the first person to speak Gallego in an EU forum, adding this would surely enrich Europe. Given the cost of 24 simultaneous translations, ‘impoverish’ would have been a more accurate word. Possibly 25, given that the Spanish representative might have needed one as well.

There was a letter in El Pais today from a Norwegian couple. The gravamen of their complaint was that the service they’d had from Telefonica when trying to get a phone line was the worst they’d experienced in their lives. Hang on . . . saying this sort of thing is my job.

The Spanish equivalent of ‘off Broadway’ is the Spanglish ‘off Gran Via’. For the life of me, I can’t recall what the British equivalent is but doubtless someone will put me out of my misery.