So, after 10 years of feeding it raw meat, riding its bucking back and trying to put a rein through its mouth, Tony Blair has concluded the British press is a feral beast. And this from a man who sealed a pre-election pact with Mephistopheles Murdoch! But perhaps it’s just a wonderful example of British ironic humour or self-deprecation. As if.

Talking of nonsense, Fernando Alonso – whose driving at the weekend was, shall we say, erratic – has told the Spanish media he’s felt uncomfortable at McLaren from the outset as they’re a British team and so will always favour “lucky” Lewis Hamilton. Scousers back home are already reported to be shouting at their whingeing kids “Stop that Alonsoing!”. On a wider front, our Fernando has not exactly burnished the image of Spanish males.

Spain’s population is said to have reached 45 million, with 10% of us being foreigners, broken down as 1.7m from the EU and 2.8m from elsewhere. Here in Galicia, though, numbers hardly grew at all last year, leaving us with a population of 2.8m. The increase in numbers was a mere 3,817 souls. But, as this included 7,267 more ‘immigrants’, this means the native population actually declined. So now is the time for all true Brits to come to our rescue and to re-start buying all those empty stone houses in the hills of Galicia. It only rains in the winter. Honest.

As predicted, the local police are now trumpeting that their pre-announced campaign against drunken drivers only netted them 7 offenders in a week, or less than 2% of those tested. Presumably none of these owns a TV or reads a newspaper.

The Galician association of meat producers has announced it’s joined forces with an EU agency to develop ‘slow food’ pork and beef products which will help to wean kids off junk food. This challenge is being debated this week at a conference in Silleda, involving participants from France, Portugal and Italy, as well as from Spain. Whilst applauding the objective, I’m left nonplussed at what these products might turn out to be. So will keep my eyes peeled and report back.

In the final of an international 5-a-side football competition this week, Spain ended up facing Catalunia. Naturally, this hasn't gone down well outside the latter region/‘nation’. But things could have been worse; it might have been Gibraltar.

Finally, when I checked my blog first thing this morning, all four Google ads were for items related to Turkey. I couldn’t find anything in the text to justify this but then I recalled my visiting sister had last night cooked the roast dinner we hadn’t had last Christmas. Which centred, of course, on . . . turkey. I knew those Google folk were clever but this is just a tad worrying.