I must have blinked. The Minister of Finance now says his forecast for this year’s economic growth is 2.3%. I could have sworn he said 2.5% only a couple of days ago. At this rate, he’ll soon be agreeing with the pessimists down at 1.8%.

Fortunately for a Colombian woman called Darling who took out Spanish nationality last year, the state has finally decided she’s free to call herself by her own name and not by something chosen from a list of Catholic saints. Which must, I guess, be regarded as progress. And possibly as the thin end of an irreligious wedge. I wonder what the odds are on the first Chikilicuatre.

Regular readers will know I bow to no one in my distaste for the British tabloid press. And that I’ve never subscribed to any of the lunatic theories around the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. So I was pleased to read this morning this incisive comment by the novelist Lionel Shriver on the whole sorry affair. Not that it will change anything.

There is, of course, no limit to the range of remedies people will take for the common cold – an affliction that was once described as something which lasts for two weeks if you don’t treat it but only for a fortnight if you do. My favourite continues to be copious quantities of whisky, sugar and water. Which is ironic since, after drinking most of a bottle when I was 19, it’s dangerous for me to even smell whisky when I’m well. Anyway, here’s what Samuel Pepys wrote on the morning of 26 April, three hundred and forty five years ago - Up very betimes, my cold continuing and my stomach sick with the buttered ale that I did drink the last night in bed, which did lie upon me till I did this morning vomitt it up.

Talking of indulgence - At one of those spectacularly long, talk-centred, immensely enjoyable Spanish lunches that you could never have in the UK, I was asked if I was a journalist. I said not and that I supposed I was a journalist-manqué. I gave a similar response to the next question, admitting that I was also a writer-manqué. Then I volunteered I was, above all else, a comic entertainer- manqué. Driving home, I was forced to conclude that, with all this manqué-ness around, my entire life must be counted an abject failure. Which rather fails to answer the most important question – If so, why am I so contented? I finally put it down to the readership of this blog. Which allows me to go on pretending so much on the basis of so little. So, dear reader, the deal is – you keep reading and I won’t top myself. Not too much to ask, is it?