The following sentence – from a local paper on the subject of our bare-breasted heroine – contains not just one but four examples of Spanglish. This may well be a record. . . Algunos vecinos sugieren que se debe aprovechar el sexapil de Ana Maria Ríos y el bum mediático de su estriptis en ‘Interviú’ para promocionar turísticamente la villa.

Taxes on Spanish property transactions – 7% in Galicia, for example – are very high. And inheritance tax is more punitive than in many countries. So it’s hardly surprising the Spanish routinely indulge in avoidance schemes, primarily involving either under-declaration or no declaration at all. Notwithstanding this, the national and local governments have been sharing the windfall of massive, easy tax income from the property boom [bum] of the last decade or more. Indeed, as Biopolitical has pointed out in a recent post, the authorities get as much as 80% of their revenue from land-related activities. You don’t have to be Einstein to realise there’s going to be something of a problem when the bubble finally bursts and elevated services then have to be funded by debt or, more likely, seriously increased levels of local and national taxation. I can’t wait.

The Vatican has announced marriages can now be annulled where the "overbearing influence of a mother or father means that the psychological autonomy needed for marriage was lacking". For all those Spanish women who marry men in their 30s who’ve never left their mothers’ apron strings, this must amount to a compelling reason for re-discovering their Catholicism.

Penelope Cruz is, I think, the first Spanish woman to be nominated for an Oscar. This is great news but I wonder whether it’s sufficient reason for the entire Spanish media to treat La Cruz as if she’d just journeyed to Mars and back, inventing a cure for Alzheimer’s along the way. I, for, one am getting a little tired of her face. Though she’s a lot better looking than Jane Goody. And possibly even Shilpa Shetty. Whoever they are.

Galicia Facts

In 2006, Galicia was visited by 3.6m tourists. This was 2% up on the previous year but amounted to only 4% of the total for the country a whole. But their spending was well above the average. Or, as today’s Voz de Galicia puts it - ‘Not many but high quality’. Of course, Ryanair, Easyjet and the British package tour industry could soon change all this. At which time this blog will become “Thoughts from Rwanda”.