Proof positive this morning that Britain will never fit happily into the EU – The Danish chap in charge of the Eurovision Song Contest has complained about Terry Wogan’s irreverent and occasionally acerbic commentary on the grounds it makes the event look ridiculous. He adds it’s regrettable the BBC and the British public don’t treat it with the respect it deserves. I would’ve thought that’s exactly what they did do.

Only a day after I quoted the contentious view of a Madrid constitutional expert that Spain’s autonomous communities were a model for all of Europe, we read that the President of Cataluña says he and his fellow whingers are fed up with having their [economic] interests prejudiced in the name of solidarity. “We can’t wait any longer” he says. So what next? A unilateral declaration of independence a la Ian Smith? A refusal to send taxes collected to the Madrid treasury. Ya verémos. Perhaps.

I inevitably thought of Cataluña when reading this comment this morning on why things are now developing in Scotland the way they are - The answer goes back to the deeply flawed belief that constitutional appeasement will defeat a separatist movement rather than encourage it. This is the delusion under which Gordon Brown and those around him have operated for the past 30 years. Some would say Sr. Zapatero has now got five years of the same thing under his belt. In the UK, the real prospect is now of the break-up of a successful 300 year-old union. And in Spain? A formal, pluralist federation along the lines of the USA?

The relevant minister tells us electricity prices are set to rise by as much as 20 or even 30%. This, of course, is more information than we’ll get from the electricity companies when they eventually do.

As I’ve said, you have to hand it to the leaders of Spain’s troubled construction industry. Apart from demanding subsidies from the public purse, they’ve now taken to attacking the Finance Minister for making ‘frivolous’ speeches in which he rejects their thinly veiled blackmail threats to bring the entire country to a grinding halt by laying off a million workers. What fun.

Talk of blackmail takes me back to the case of the town near Madrid which the police chief operated as a personal fiefdom. Apparently it was an open secret in the place that the entire police force was utterly rotten but the authorities did nothing because there were no official complaints. This may have been because anyone who was foolish enough to make one – it now emerges – was beaten to a pulp. Though it’s not quite true there were no complaints – the police chief was the subject of 29 suits for brutality in a mere 9 years. But presumably got off in each case. Unless the problem was the courts finding time to deal with the actions.

Finally - Here’s part of a rant by a British commentator on the state of the UK, echoing my recent theme of excessive regulation and intrusive surveillance there - After 11 years of Labour, Britain leads the world in abortion, teenage pregnancy, family breakdown, burglary, spy cameras, speed cameras, parking fines, wheel-clamping, dustbin fines, green taxes, fuel taxes, stealth taxes, superbugs, binge-drinking, drug-taking, stabbing and social disorder. We may not have much in the way of engineering or manufacturing, but we can boast the planet's highest concentration of public sector inspectors, equality monitors, risk assessors, transgender advisers, climate change warriors, outreach co-ordinators, diversity managers, streetscene officers, traffic wardens, elf 'n' safety enforcers, five-a-day fascists, recycling Nazis and yuman rites lawyers.

Although almost any country in the world might sound more appealing than this [even Burma], I can vouch for the fact that you can do a lot worse than Spain. How much more positive can I be?

The Anglo Galician Association – open to all who speak English – now has a Forum on the web. If you have a query about Galicia, why not register and post it.