The good news is that 2007 was a record year for Spanish wine exports, which increased by almost 7%. And sales were ‘particularly healthy’ in Britain. Keep it up, chaps. Or Keep throwing it down, if you prefer.

Less positive is the latest reduction by the Spanish government of its economic forecast for this year and a further admission – as if we needed it – that the post-property boom crash-landing isn’t going to be as gentle as they assured us it would be months ago. Thank God it’s all the fault of the Americans. Otherwise the government might have to answer questions about why it let the artificial boom rage away during the entire term of its office and failed to anticipate its ending. As it is, it’s reported that “Second house prices look to be well on their way to crashing and burning in Spain; there are reports that real estate prices are down 30% in Spain's Mediterranean beach towns, and it's still hard to find buyers.” I’m not sure things are quite this bad here in Galicia. Especially among the sellers of rural property who don’t read press reports and who are renowned for being stubborn. My suspicion is that, if you want an abandoned ruin in a village in the hills, it won’t cost any less than last year. Possibly more. So, shame about the appreciation of the euro.

Referring back to Monday night’s big debate, El País suggests neither speaker was “rigorous in his use of statistics”. And here’s me saying the blunt Spanish don’t bother with subtlety. Or with what they regard as ‘British hypocrisy’. El País also carried an article yesterday which headlined the fact that “Little is being said during the campaign about the slowness of the justice system, poor consumer orientation and other problems which make daily life difficult. Neither 500 trees nor 400 euros will solve these problems. Nor do we know what sectors will take the place of construction and tourism, which are no longer buoyant.” Quite.

The Spanish love a good argument. So it seems entirely consistent that the Supreme Court should accuse the Constitutional Court of breaking . . . err, the Constitution. This is over the Alberto cousins, whom – you may recall – were let off a measly 3 year sentence for a €24m fraud by the said CC. In a nutshell, the SC has accused the CC of invading its responsibilities. And not for the first time, it seems. I am now more confused than ever about the Spanish judicial system. Especially as these two courts appear to be the only bits of it not on strike at the moment. For better pay and conditions. Anyway, the morals of this tale are:- 1. It’s good to have friends at court, and 2. You should make sure it’s the right court. At least if you want to indulge in a bit of jiggery-pokery in Spain. Which, apparently, quite a lot of people do.

As we all know, the British press is insufferable. A couple of weeks ago, it hounded out of office a Conservative MP who’d been abusing his expenses. More recently it’s been going after the Speaker of Parliament for being, inter alia, a bit cavalier with his air miles. And now The Times has had the effrontery to highlight the fact that Members of the European Parliament refuse to justify some or all of their vast expenses. “MEPs are all for transparency in EU institutions”, it thunders, “but they refuse even to render internal accounts for the bulk of the expenses they claim, let alone to disclose that information to the public. These expenses account for more than a fifth of the Parliament's budget, €277.2 million a year. The total comes to €353,121 a head. This may or may not be a reasonable sum; it may be spent as advertised, or MEPs may be stuffing their pockets. There, is, outrageously, no way to find out.” This all comes a week or two after the British press highlighted the fact a EU committee had voted to keep secret an internal report into the fiddling of expenses. Says The Times “It chose, instead, to virulently attack the auditor who wrote it and the MEP who had the gall to reveal its existence”. This is the problem with the British press; blinded by its Euro-scepticism, it simply has no idea how things are done. What we need more of - as we progress towards the EU dream - is the attitude displayed by an [unnamed] Spanish MEP who insisted “Passing information to the press is a misuse of information.” As The Times said, “Spoken like a true MEP”.