One of the similarities between Britain and Spain is the size of their respective debt mountains. Another is that their leaders each claim that their country is better placed than most to withstand the storm winds currently thrashing through the global economy. I’m not sure what the situation is back in Spain this week but it’s clear that in the UK the public find this more than hard to believe. So it is that voters' confidence in the future of the economy stands at minus 52%, the lowest level ever recorded, and well below the minus 26% of John Major's dog days. The author of this comment goes on to warn that Britain is now emerging from a long period of unreality. Or, as he says about the prosperity of the last 10-15 years:- Of course, making ends meet remained a worry for millions, not least those who felt the pinch of fiscal drag, [municipal] tax hikes and the penalisation of the motorist. But, with Gordon Brown as the forbidding guarantor of "prudence" and "stability", Tony Blair was able to shift the emphasis of political discourse away from standard of living and towards quality of life and the creation of a "New Britain". In policy terms, this meant a spending bonanza on public services (unmatched by reform); a new focus on "anti-social behaviour" and "respect"; a slew of nannying regulations; and the promise to transform Britain into a European social democracy. There was a culture of New Age self-indulgence, self-absorption and tree-hugging. Much of the country appeared to be undergoing a decade-long course of aromatherapy. It would be hard to say exactly the same about Spain but, as some readers will know, I’ve long wondered what would happen once the good times of a phoney, property-driven boom were over. Not long to wait for an answer, I guess. I suspect Mr Zapatero will find his second administration a lot tougher than his first. And I doubt that the Spanish economy will manage the challenge as well as, say, the German economy. It all depends, I suppose, on how much below-the-surface structural reform has taken place during the good times.

But, hey, it’s not all doom and gloom. Back here in the UK there’s some excellent news this morning - The Scouse accent, one of Britain's most distinctive regional tones, is spreading across the country. Language experts, who only 10 years ago were predicting the demise of the Liverpool twang, now say Scouse is engulfing other accents and evolving as a whole new form of speech. A study has shown that the unique mix of Irish, Welsh and Lancashire tones, with its guttural and nasal delivery, is creeping out of Merseyside and along the west coast, with the Liverpudlian tongue adopted in parts of Lancashire and Cheshire.

This has come in the same week as a forecast that the English language which eventually conquers the world will be simpler than the real thing. For example the ‘s’ will be dropped from phrases such as he walks, she runs, he dawdles, etc. This will surely come as a huge relief to the millions of Spaniards who daily change thousands of verb endings in their own language but can’t get to grips with just the one change in English present tense verbs.

I once complained about the single socks that went missing in my washing machine in Spain, as they had done back in the UK. I recall that someone wrote to express sympathy and to say a German friend had claimed this never happened in Teutonic machines. I was reminded of this when buying some socks in Marks recently and noticing they had coloured toe-ends. Which means I will now be able to know for certain which of my socks is an orphan. What a marvellous development. Hats off to M&S.

The mention of the Scouse accent allows me to return to the subject of food and say:- 1. The origin of the word ‘Scouse’ is the stew of the same name. It comes in two basic forms - with meat, and without meat. Or ‘blind Scouse’ in the latter case. It was the stuff of every Saturday evening when I was a kid and, sure enough, my mother made it yesterday. I enjoyed it greatly but couldn’t help wondering whether many Galicians would find it as appetising as the caldo which does nowt for me. Or ‘which do nowt for me’ as I will have to learn to say.

My mother no longer lives on the council estate where I was brought up but in rather posher Hoylake, on the Wirral peninsula. You can see it’s more up-market from the number of ‘antique’ shops on the main street. And you can tell its population is older than average from the nature of the rest of the shops. I noticed yesterday there were three in a row catering for senior citizens. The one on the left was a Mobility Centre, offering all sorts of vehicles for the hard-of-walking. The one on the right was a charity called Age Concern. And between them was a funeral parlour. Where, I guess, they have the answer to both all your mobility problems and all concerns born of advanced age. Across the road was a jewellers offering to fit watch batteries while you waited. I wondered whether the funeral parlour couldn’t take a similar promotional line - Funerals while you wait, say. It’s an idea. And you heard it here first.