Not before time, the world of Spanish banking is to be shaken to the core as the Banco Popular says it will operate office hours based on the revolutionary concept of customer convenience. Its branches will be open from 8.30am to 8.30pm, Monday to Friday, and 10am to 8.30pm on Saturday. And they will even allow customers to pay their household bills at any time of the day! What next? Interest on your current account that yields more than the charges imposed? Free ATM/debit cards? I must go and lie down.

It’s a commonplace comment that the Spanish are very good at mouthing protest and complaint but not awfully productive at getting together to do something about whatever it is that’s annoying them. So it’s no great surprise to read that - if you believe what they say - the Spanish are the most likely EU citizens to participate in demonstrations. 18% of them claim they’ve been on the streets within the last 12 months, which is three times the EU average of 6%. And this includes France!

New evidence published today says that dogs, like us, our can form abstract concepts. Or at least the concept of ‘dog’. I gave the report to my border collie, Ryan, and he dismissed it as nonsense.

Talking about human capability – An international survey of reading skills says English primary school pupils have slipped from 3^rd position in 2001 to, at best, 15^th in 2006. Spain, it seems, fares even worse as she doesn’t figure in the top 20. Switching deftly from literacy to numeracy – it was depressing to see last night that a young actress on British TV was utterly incapable of deducting 20 from 47. Hard as I find this to believe in the cold light of this morning, one of the possibilities she ventured was “12”. But she knew her bra size – after the inevitable operation – was 34F. O tempo. O mores . . .

Finally – A comment from one of today’s UK papers on the political drama unfolding there . . . With every day the comedic capers of our governing party become more outlandish and less amusing. It is like watching the disintegration of the Major government on fast forward. The situation is so bad that the leader of the Liberal Democrats was yesterday able to reduce the House of Commons to helpless laughter by observing that Brown began by being portrayed as Stalin but now looks more like Mr Bean. Much, much more effective that simply calling him a liar. As the same writer says - Mockery that manages to filter its way through to voters is more corrosive than almost anything else in politics. When, I wonder, will Spanish politicians master this art?