Well, here in Galicia, November has dawned as sunnily as September and October. If this is climate change, I could probably warm to it. Though the nights are now cold.

A bit to my surprise, the government is reported to have begun to deliver on its promise to address the issue of illegal building along Spain’s huge coastline. So far this year, it says, 665 properties have been demolished, which contrasts with only 40 in 2004. Specifically - The policy is now part of the new Sustainable Strategy Plan for the coastline and has seen the demolition of empty properties where construction has stopped either because of the Law of the Coasts or after agreement has been reached with owners. I guess this still leaves open the question of what will happen to finished, occupied properties whose owners are unwilling to reach an agreement with the government.

Topically, I learned from a friend yesterday that village land compulsorily purchased from her parents for an industrial estate at 10 euros a square metre had just been put on the market at 95. And this before they’ve received a centimo of this extortionate price!

I was pondering yesterday on the statistic I reported last week that only 24% of Spaniards smoke. Then it struck me that the question they were probably asked was Do you smoke every day?. And that, if they’d been asked Do you smoke whenever you go to a tapas bar or restaurant?, at least 80% of them would have replied “Absolutely. Why not?” Or something like that.

I mentioned recently the Galician Nationalist Party would like our clock to be the same as that of Portugal and Britain. Ironically, in the UK there’s a large and growing body of opinion that the country should move to Central European Time. Doing so, it’s argued, would save more than a hundred lives a year, effect significant energy savings and also bring British business hours into line with those of the Continent. The consensus is that the factor blocking change is resistance in Scotland. However, now this country has its own government, it would be possible for England, Wales and Northern Ireland to change their clocks to CET while Scotland stayed on British Time. Wonderfully, then, the prospect is of a nationalist government in Galicia moving the region to British Time just as most of Britain moves to European time. But at least the governments of Galicia and Scotland would then be on the same time. What nationalist solidarity!

The distance between La Coruña in the north of Galicia and Vigo in the south is 137km, or 86 miles. This relatively short distance encompasses three international airports, one in each of the above two cities and the third in Santiago. Naturally, they compete for business. And, equally naturally, they waste considerable time and resources on this provincial infighting. As a result, their offerings are considerably below those of the single airport in nearby Oporto in north Portugal. This has 33 international destinations, against merely 7 for both Vigo and La Coruña and 16 for Santiago. It also has both Ryanair and Easyjet flying to foreign cities, which can’t be said for any of ours. Not surprisingly then, more than 400,000 Galicians chose to use Oporto every year, a number which has probably soared since Iberia – in a fit of pique – moved its international flights from central Santiago to north-coastal La Coruña. As a result, in the ten years I’ve been flying here, Oporto has transformed itself into a major international airport and the small Galician airports have expanded only marginally, if at all. Looking forward, I’d hazard a guess that petty localism will continue to get in the way of any change that would benefit the Galician economy.

I reported last week that our local council has knocked down two of the eight illegal properties on the nearby gypsy encampment. To no one’s great surprise, they’ve again ducked out of completing the process. So the unhappy local residents will once again take the council to court. And thus the saga will continue. Ad infinitum I guess.

Finally . . . A sentence you don’t see very often – Here’s an interesting article on Belgium. And the EU.