They take their fiestas seriously in Spain. At least, they do in my municipality, across the river from Pontevedra. This year’s spring/summer extravaganza has been preceded by a 32-page glossy booklet, mailed to every local resident. As with everything issued by the council these days, this is entirely in Gallego. As is the donation form I’m asked to complete, so that I can pay for all this directly rather than via my taxes. Which is lucky for me as I can’t read it. Honest. But I wonder if the council will now revert to its previous financing mechanism of fining me 160 euros when my daughter parks in a way they disagree with during the month of May.

It seems I was too hasty in criticising the producers of Al Sur de Granada for making it a steamy sex romp. It turns out Gerard Brenan failed to even hint in his book at his habit of pleasuring and impregnating the local beauties. What a cad.

The local police have upped the percentage of law-infringing, noisy motorcyclists from 1 to 3. I’m still unconvinced.

Down in Sevilla, private detectives have a new line of business – checking on parents suspected of lying to get their kid into a top school. Apparently this sort of chicanery does go on and has even increased since the socialist government announced divorced parents would get extra points in the system used to adjudicate between rival claimants for a precious place. Said one detective - "Parents are capable of doing anything to get their children into schools. The philosophy is ruthless. It is, 'If I shoot those above me on the list, then my child gets in'”. As there’s no sanction for this behaviour, the incentive to cheat is sizeable. So, detectives now routinely check property, tax and income records, the outcome often being what’s described as ‘stormy scenes’ when fraudulent parents are confronted with the evidence. Who’d have thought it?

Finally, another of my oft-repeated claims is that it is The Age of the Bureaucrat. So, I can’t resist quoting this - There is little doubt that Nicolas Sarkozy will face very considerable obstacles to real reform. All too often in modern states, it is the central government that proposes but the bureaucracy that disposes. The power of the state bureaucracy accounts for the immobilism of many states in Europe, and for the sense of impotence and despair among their electorates. It doesn't matter what anyone says, the ship of state continues sailing slowly but inexorably in the same direction.