Amidst all the bad news about the economy - job losses in the construction sector to be 350,000, many more estate agents to close beyond the current total of 40,000 – there is at last some good news. Tourism grew by 2% last year, to 60 million. Confirming Spain as the No. 2 destination in the world.

The Spanish tax office says the 1.2% difference in Spain’s inflation rate over that of the rest of the Eurozone is down to black money. They add that more than 25% of all the 500 euro notes in circulation in the Eurozone are in the Spanish market, amounting to 56.4 billion euros. It’s estimated that this ‘submerged economy’ represents 23% of the total GDP here, whereas in the rest of Europe it’s only 10%. The result, it’s claimed, has been a ‘spiral in consumer spending’. Which may well now be over, as in the UK.

To complete the black picture, El Mundo chose the same day to tell us that Spain is the main country in the world for money laundering from cocaine trafficking. Thanks, it says, to the strength of the euro.

There’s been a lot of coverage of what everyone calls the ‘valiant’ attempt of the Spanish Olympic Committee to find words for the national anthem. Some feel silence is the best option but others think another attempt should be made. I agree with the latter and think it would be best to start with a title. Here are one or two suggestions. Others very welcome:-

Rivers deep, mountains high

Hey, you! Get off my cloud!

Every time we say goodbye, and

Let’s call the whole thing off.

It’s a mad world: This week, the BBC's World Editor, John Simpson, reported under cover from Zimbabwe, where the cost of a meal for himself and some friends in a Harare restaurant was 290,000,000 Zimbabwean dollars. Ever the gentleman, Simpson left a ten-million-dollar tip. In this nightmare state, as Simpson put it, "everyone is a millionaire", yet also, "grindingly poor".

Galicia Facts

There is, it seems ‘another type of baseball’. This is billarda and you can see film of the recent World Championships here and here. If you are part of the Galician diaspora, the second one will surely induce morriña. Anyway, it looks fiendishly difficult to me.

Anyon e know ho w to fix a malfunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnctioning wirelesssssssssssssss keyboard that issssss driving me to deeeeeeeath? Or at least distraction.