Last Sunday’s El Mundo came with a pocket-sized booklet on energy saving from the relevant government agency. I’ve just got round to looking at it and have noticed its 135 pages are all very glossy. So probably not produced on recycled paper. Can this be right?

The German energy giant, EON, has finally failed in its protracted bid to buy a Spanish electricity supplier. This was despite President Zapatero's recent assurance to Mrs Merkel he’d put a stop to the Spanish government’s illegal obstructionism. As far as I can make out, the company will now be owned by a consortium comprising an Italian state-owned company and a Spanish construction firm flush with cash. Until they sell it and make a killing.

Talking of rogue government action, the Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister is currently in Cuba, where he’s apparently broken with EU policy to promise continued and even increased aid to the country. Despite this, he was not given access to an ‘improving’ President Castro but had to make do with this little brother. At least the latter forewent his military fatigues for the occasion. A sign of changing times?

The National Meteorological Institute says temperatures throughout Spain will increase by 5-8 degrees this century and that rain in the south will fall by 40%. We could do with this here on the Atlantic coast.

Galicia Facts & Perspectives

I’ve had two sets of visitors over the last 3 weeks. My first guest was making his second trip to Galicia and, as on the first one last October, he had nothing but glorious sun. A total of 24 days in all. I believe this makes him the first visitor in 30 million years of Galicia’s existence to fail to experience even a drop of rain over such a period.

We have a lovely little exhibition down in Pontevedra’s Alameda. It’s about the Santiago Way, which is pretty appropriate in Holy Week. Although it’s sponsored by one of the Galician savings banks, the panel commentaries are in both Gallego and Spanish, which impressed me. And I’m probably being over-sensitive in pointing out that the white-on-black Gallego is a lot easier to read than the red-on-brown Spanish. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.