My apologies to anyone motivated by my weather reports to come to Galicia for this last weekend in September. The wind has finally changed direction and we are back with the unitary grey cloud. Not quite the Atlantic Blanket which surgically removes my view but bad enough. Rain is forecast for this evening

Internet users in Finland and Sweden benefit from average speeds of 21.8 and 18.2 megabits per second. France comes next, at 17.6. Down near the bottom is the UK, with only 2.6. Yet even this is better than Spain, which only manages 1.2. Only Greece is below this, at 1.0. Or me, at around 0.7. On a good day. It must have something to do with copper wire and fibre optics, I suspect.

Other bad news for Spain this week was the report it had moved the wrong way in the annual survey of corruption. But this can hardly be very surprising when you read things like the allegations that the man who did so well for the PP party in Pontevedra’s recent elections is a major shareholder in a property company which charged illegal over-prices on ‘protected’ properties in Vigo. A cartoon in El Pais put it rather succinctly – A teacher giving classes in Spanish to foreigners. On the board, the words “Urban development”, “Justice” and “Will it ever be possible?”

Oh, dear. Lewis Hamilton has pole position for tomorrow’s Formula 1 race. Hopefully Alonso can overcome this handicap and win not only this event but the other two that remain. In a country rather prone to conspiracy thinking, I dread to think what will happen if Alonso doesn’t get his third consecutive championship. Meanwhile, we’re being treated here to headlines such as “Fernando Alonso is happy at McLaren”. Yes, and I'm fluent not only in Galician but also in Asturian.

Well, it looks like the granite-cracking machine has finally moved on, after 20 months of non-stop cacophony. As this photo shows, they’ve now begun on foundations in the 2 metre hole dug out of solid granite. But this was only the second phase; they first had to level the entire granite escarpment. I’m sure you're all anxious to know this . . .