President Zapatero has again waved his magic wand and assured us his next administration will create 1.2 million jobs for women and ensure that women all have equal pay with men before he quits the political stage. By the end of February, I expect he’ll have guaranteed to stop global warming in at least Spain within the next four years. Thank God he’s not falling into the trap of being over ambitious.

Meanwhile, I wonder what his policy is to deal with such trivia as the very low levels of the country’s reservoirs after four years of drought. Does his government plan to curb Spanish profligacy? I guess we’ll never know. Or not until after March at least.

Spanish-English confusion: Reports about criminals in Spain sometimes say someone has been given the ‘third grade’ in prison. This appears to means relatively soft treatment and it’s usually granted to the country’s legions of practitioners of financial skulduggery. In English, of course, the ‘third degree’ means torture. Quite a difference.

Spanish-Spanish confusion: There’s been a ship lying on a sand bank south of Gibraltar for months now. Recently it broke up, resulting in blobs of oil on a Spanish beach. Some blamed the British government for ignoring the risk and others fingered their Spanish counterpart. Friends of the Earth said a plague on both houses. Anxious to ensure the Brits copped ultimate culpability, Spain’s Environment Minister claimed the ship had sunk in Gibraltar waters. What a mistake! As this effectively extended British territory out into the Med, the Spanish Foreign Minister immediately corrected her and insisted it had gone down in Spanish waters. No doubt some lawyers will clear it all up in due course. Though not on the beach.

You couldn’t make it up – In a village down in Málaga province, Brits and Germans who were cheated by estate agents, lawyers and town hall officials and, as a result, now live in illegal houses facing demolition have been told they can legitimate their properties by paying a ‘voluntary tax’ of between €6,000 and 12,000. Doesn’t anyone in Spain worry about the country’s international reputation? And is it any wonder that property sales in the south are now reported to be close to nil?

The Madrid-Barcelona high speed train [the AVE] is about to start up. True, this is 6 or 8 years late but, for Brits without anything resembling Spain’s impressive network and, worse, still suffering from the rail mess New Labour promised to sort out 11 years ago, this is not something to be critical of. To say the least.

Finally - My death-defying zebra crossing experiences possibly reached their apogee yesterday. In slow-moving traffic, a car stopped right on the crossing, blocking my way. When I registered mild protest via a facial expression, the driver went into aggressive hysterics at the wheel. And after I’d finally crossed behind him, he opened the window and shouted something about me needing to wait for him to do whatever he liked. Admittedly by this time I’d hit the back of his car with a rolled up magazine but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a heart attack further down the road. In fact, I hope he had a heart attack further down the road. Vindictive? Moi?