One of our Sunday papers had a special section on Galicia yesterday, coinciding with Fitur 2008, a major tourism event. At first blush, this is very impressive, as all the information is printed in not only Spanish but also in English, French, Chinese and Persian. The first problem is that Galicia is referred to, in English, as Galice. But the really depressing thing is that the English can’t have been anywhere near a native speaker and includes such gems as There are 1,600 km of abrupt cliffs and splendid and wide sandy areas where you can enjoy of a great bath. Not to mention And finally, its gastronomy, what show the great quantity of festivities devoted to the product of this land and this sea. My French friend, Marie Helène, tells me that the French is even worse. However, the Persian looks OK to me and I think the Chinese characters are the right way up. Why on earth do they do this? Especially when they’re trying to demonstrate that Galicia is up there with the rest of the world in terms of quality and standards. Is it compulsory here to employ your niece instead of a native speaker? If so, are they aware the end result is that Galicia comes across more as a third world backwater than the centre of excellence they're trying to project? One irony is that I’d have happily done the translation for free. But, as long-standing readers will know, I’ve never been taken up on any of my offers of this nature. Sceptics tell me it’s all to do with spending the budget ‘in-house’, regardless of the consequences. Which reminds me . . .

I’ve written before about Spain’s bivalent attitude to ‘solidarity’, a popular word here. I’ve labelled the conflicting views Upwards and Downwards solidarity and it’s all to do with money, of course. In essence, Spaniards want more external/downwards solidarity from other EU partners but less internal/upwards solidarity with the lazy bastards in other regions within Spain. The latter attitude is, of course, most prevalent in would-be independent Cataluña. And possibly in the Basque Country as well. But nationalists in poor Galicia can’t afford to take this line. To prove it, the President of our nationalist party fell over himself in Madrid last week to show he wasn’t independista. Though, of course, he admitted he wouldn’t reject the presidency of a new state if it were on offer. Obliging chap.

On a similar theme, a columnist in one of our local papers noted last week that the different fiscal regimes being introduced by Spain’s local governments risked destroying the ‘unity of the market’. But I suspect this is the last thing these ever-competing governments care about. Just like the various city councils in Galicia, who prefer to compete between their respective micro-airports rather than agree on a single one to take on the competition from Oporto’s new facility an hour or so down the coast. Localism will be the death of Spain. Unless something else is.

Meanwhile, something very positive has happened in respect of the Terra email address I have. Unlike Gmail, Terra used to let up to a hundred spam messages reach my In-box. However, this has now reduced to around nil. This is an impressive achievement and, if Terra still belonged to Telefonica, I would’ve been able to break new ground and lob some praise in their direction. But, as it is, all I can report is that Telefonica this month raised its fixed line rental prices for about the 20^th time since I came to Spain in late 2000.

Finally, I’d like to send some real praise in the direction of a chap called Phil Gyford, who had the brilliant idea to launch a blog based on Samuel Pepys' diary of London life in the mid 1600s. Here’s where you can see what Sam wrote on this day in 1664. And here’s what the BBC had to say about the initiative.