After seven years here, I still haven’t the faintest idea of where it’s legal to park and where it isn’t. Well, that’s not quite true; I’m pretty sure it’s OK to park where there are no yellow lines or chevrons and where there are parking bays designated by a broken white line on the road. But apart from that, I’m completely lost. This is because every other space I suspect of being illegal is always plastered with cars that never seem to get towed away or given any sort of ticket. I will return to this subject, with photos, in due course – in pursuit of practical advice from Spanish readers.

Talking of being practical . . . Every morning I walk past the start of a one-way street which has the gate of office building about 30 metres down it. And I see that the employees choose to drive out of the street against the legal flow, rather than take the 3 minute circuit which would bring them back to its start. So, is this an example of impressively sensible Spanish pragmatism? Or, rather, of the infamous aversion to rules which are personally inconvenient? Or both? I await clarification. In a nutshell, is the view from Moscow that it is poncey to make the circuit . . .

Which reminds me – I see that Jeremy Clarkson is now something of a ubiquitous hero in the UK. This appears to be essentially because he refuses to cow-tow to received wisdom or politically correct views on just about anything and everything. And so is abnormal in modern Britain. I suspect, though, his views and actions would be regarded as boringly conventional here. Everyone’s JC here. Except me, of course.

I had an amusing five minutes this morning, listening to the son of the last Shah of Iran talking about human rights, democracy and justice. And how he wants to bring these to his beloved but benighted country. Just like his father, I guess. He also talked about the benefits of dynastic continuity. Given that he’s the grandson of an army officer who usurped the Peacock Throne less than a hundred years ago, this is surely a bit rich. Like Hitler talking about the continuity and democratic credentials of the German Reich, I guess. God knows Iran needs the things he cited but perhaps not from the pampered son of the man who gave them the notorious Savak secret police.