Readers Xoan-Carlos and Moskavitch have come up with impressively creative responses to my question of what to call all of Spain apart from Galicia, Catalunia and the Basque Country. Through this, I’ve learned that a charnego is an immigrant from a Spanish region where Catalan isn’t spoken. However, I’m not clear whether Moskavitch’s six proposed names are those for new divisions of what’s currently called Spain or just alternatives for the whole entity. Nor can I figure out the origin of one of them – Maketaria.

Smack on cue, another reader, the Prince of Asturias [Spain’s equivalent to the heir-to-the-throne Prince of Wales], has called for a society which is “ever more solid and based around the principles and values of the Constitution.” Fat chance, I would have thought. But it gives me an idea about where to look for the statement of Spanish/ Castilian values I asked about yesterday.

More locally, Galicia’s Chief Prosecutor has called for a new type of court, dedicated to urban planning corruption cases. He says these are particularly needed in the provinces of La Coruña and Pontevedra. One wonders why.

Still on matters Pontevedran – The council continues to contemplate where [and how] to move the hordes of 12 to 25 year olds who congregate in the old quarter every Friday and Saturday night to get blind drunk. Apparently, the politicians of all parties are divided among themselves on this. The backcloth to this jaw-jaw is a warning from local medics that a quarter of all kids who start drinking at 12 will become alcoholics before they leave their teens. As this echoes identical warnings in the UK, you’d have to wonder why the politicians are not discussing how to stop mass drinking in the street, rather than merely moving it to somewhere where residents don’t suffer the consequences. The question also arises – where are all the concerned parents demanding that something be done? Sitting at home in fear of being labelled fascist? And criticising British parents for leaving their kids alone?

Finally, Spanish is a great language but, like all others, it has lacunae. Perhaps the most obvious is gender-free collective terms. As a result one get headlines like:- Two brothers, a man and a woman, are accused of killing their parents. Surely the Royal Academy could come up with something less macho, if they really wanted to. Which I guess they don’t. Being all men, I suppose.