If you come to live here, it won’t be long before one of your Spanish friends says something like “I’m no racist but I despise gypsies”. And, truth to tell, as I live not far from a couple of permanent gypsy encampments, it’s not difficult to understand this attitude. For the gypsies – or some of them at least – take anti-social behaviour to extremes. However, there are at least three grades of gypsy here in Pontevedra - the lowest being those who hale from nearby Portugal and the highest being the traders who live exactly like everyone else in one of the city’s suburbs. Down in Madrid, the lowest of the low are said to be the recent arrivals from Romania, in respect of whom ‘antipathy’ is probably a rather inadequate word. So, it was a bit of surprise to see our [gaffe-prone?] senior VP - María Teresa Fernández de la Vega Sanz – express repugnance for the action of the Italian government in taking action to rid the country of illegal Romanian gypsy immigrants. In doing so, she attributed very lofty sentiments to the Spanish government but I’m left wondering just how much she’s in touch with those of the residents of the city in which she lives. Not much, I suspect.

Having praised the serious Spanish press for their obituaries of people scarcely famous in their own countries, I should now return the favour and congratulate The Times for their obit today on Pilar López. She was responsible – the paper says - for introducing flamenco to an international audience but my guess is Pilar’s name, at least, is well known here in Spain. Even if it means nothing to me.

For one reason and another, I find it hard to imagine the wife of ex President Aznar rushing into print with a volume of kiss-n-tell memoirs. Back in the UK, Cherie Blair’s outpourings have been met with a cascade of vitriol, especially from women it seems. An excellent example is this hatchet job today from a leading female columnist, Minette Marin. I guess we could call it a hatchette job. If we were so inclined. My problem is that, having grown up on Merseyside at the same time as Cherie and then studied law in London at the same time, I might actually be in the blasted book. I haven’t always been a man of exquisite taste. But I won’t be checking.

Finally - I went to Vilagarcia by train yesterday. There are two reasons why this is [mildly] noteworthy:- 1. I’ve never done it before, and 2. I had absolutely no intention of going to Vilagarcia, by any mode of transport. So, I give you this bit of gratuitous advice – If you’re tempted to help load someone’s cases on the rack and then to stand and wait like a gentleman so that passengers can pass to their seats, don’t. Bang your way through the buggers and get off as quickly as you can. Spain’s trains – apart from the AVE - may be snail-like between stations but the doors open and close like greased lightening. However, it was sunny in Vilagarcia as I waited for my lovely ladyfriend to come and get me, delayed by only ten minutes of helpless laughter at my plight. But at least my visitors did a good impression of being mortified. And, it being the Day of Galician Literature, no one demanded I pay for a ticket and there was no parking charge for my car back at the station. I could warm to this language normalisation.