Here’s a shock . . . The Spanish tax authorities – having investigated deals involving 500 euros notes – have advised that the prototypical fraudster is a male businessperson involved in the construction industry along the east coast or in Madrid or Barcelona. So Marbella gets a clean bill of health?

Well, it’s the big match tonight and the consensus appears to be that Spain is a vastly superior team who will lose out to the traditional German qualities of dogged persistence and good luck. Not that these have always been enough in spheres other than football. Personally, it’s a huge pleasure to be totally committed to a side without having the nerves that go with it being one’s national team. Perhaps things will change when I’ve taken out Spanish nationality.

I realise this doesn’t relate directly to my topic of the moment – the bloody wind turbines disfiguring the hills – but this comment did put me in mind of them – The rush towards an Ill-considered biofuels market is a depressing reminder that the vicissitudes of climate science are nothing compared to its bungled economics.

As I dropped off to sleep last night at 12.45, all was quiet. But I was awoken some time later by the noise of festivities somewhere down the hill. Possibly a wedding in the private Casino club. Which must have actually got going after 2am. Spain. Fun. Noise. Solipsism. Why do I bother to even mention them?

Galicia Facts

I owe an apology to the Xunta VP, Sr Quintana. He actually used Spanish when exhorting local companies to greater internationalism. Mind you, he was addressing a congress of Galician and South American companies. So - with the possible exception of those from Portuguese-speaking Brazil- if he’d spoken in Gallego, not many participants would have fully understood him. Which rather proves my point, I feel.

In the 70s, parts of the British county of Cheshire were combined with the city of Liverpool, to form the new metropolitan authority of Merseyside. Some folk in snobby Cheshire have yet to recover from this setback, though they did manage to achieve a postcode which denies the connection to the Scouse city. I mention this because the Xunta has announced plans to bring the mutually-despising cities of Pontevedra and Vigo together to form the new Metrópoli das Rías Baixas. Or the Metropolitan authority of the Lower Estuaries. This could be fun. For those with a close knowledge of Galicia, this new entity will run south from Pontevedra to encompass not only Vigo on the Atlantic coast but also Salvaterra on the banks of the Miño. But not, for some reason, the border town of Tui.

Bob Dylan performed in Vigo this week. Apparently he got rather annoyed at the ‘many people’ who arrived late. Didn’t they give the poor chap a cultural briefing before he came?