Having inevitably had his plans for a referendum shot down by the Constitutional Tribunal, the President of the Basque Country will now take matters to Brussels. Where he will claim Spain is abusing the human rights of the Basques by denying them self-determination. I can’t help wondering if this is what the framers of the legislation had in mind when they put it together. I suppose this is quite possible, given that it could promote the break-up of the nation state in favour of a European superstate. And, after all, the EU supported Kosovan independence. On the other hand, though, it wasn’t very happy about Osetia. And it may not be over-relaxed about the looming disappearance of Belgium. Complex issues. Interesting times.

In the absence of the internet, I was surfing the Spanish TV channels this morning, in search of news and inspiration. Given there’s precious little ‘culture’ on TV here, it was a bit of surprise to find a classical music concert on Channel 2 at 7.30am. Not for the first time, I wondered if this is a good way of filling some sort of quota without upsetting the natives. I mean, just how many Spaniards are up that time of a Saturday morning after a traditional Friday night out that began at 11pm?

I made a second sortie into the world of Spanish TV this afternoon, to watch the Everton v. Liverpool game live. Sadly, the insertion of ads along the bottom of the screen is now a permanent feature of these transmissions and is no longer confined to dead-ball situations. Worse, when the latter arose, the ever-loquacious commentators immediately launched into an ad for some lottery or other, details of which were also flashing on the screen. Could things possibly get more commercial and intrusive? Sometimes I feel like going down on my knees to thank the Lord for the ads-free BBC. And for Skye’s satellite, of course. Needless to say, when Torres scored for Liverpool, the commentators got rather excited. And then the hijo de puta scored again . . .

The Valencian regional government – which is of a different political stamp from the central government – is said to be defying Madrid’s introduction of a de-religionised Citizenship class by having this [un]taught in English. There were earlier examples of this sort of thing around the anti-smoking law of a couple of years ago. Spain is not a de jure federal state but developments like this make one wonder whether it is one de facto. That said, I’ve no idea whether US states – or the German lander – have the power to ignore laws introduced by the federal government. I rather doubt it so perhaps it’s just a Spanish thing.

A wider consideration has been raised by the news that the EU is investigating the water situation in numerous construction projects in the south of Spain. Now, it may be that bad things are going on down there but I can’t help wondering whether, if the municipal council and both the regional and central governments permit them, then how is it democratic for Brussels to overrule them? If you think this is OK because planet-related issues are too big to leave to local decision makers, then you probably feel it would be good for a world government to superintend these things on a global basis. Which would take decisions further and further away from the people affected by them and raise the question of how different such a world government would be from benign despotism. Or communism, for that matter. Though they are much the same thing, of course.

Galicia

The Xunta is considering denying subventions to those town councils – 20% of them, apparently - which don’t present accounts to support their expenditure. This seems like a step in the right direction to me but, then again, accounts are not always that useful. I think it’s now 14 years in a row that the auditors have rejected those of the EU Commission but no one seems to care very much.

Well, I’m off to meander through the Pyreneean countryside, albeit on the other side of the border in La Belle France. With a smelly Ryan in the back and my rather more fragrant partner in the front alongside me. Though, if tensions rise, things could be quickly reversed. I may or may not be able to post blogs during the trip but I will do my best.

Finally, I should bring you the good news that said partner and I have decided that we should share the investment in a 3G modem that she needs for her laptop and which I can use – as and when it’s free – for my desktop. Which, in fact, I’m doing now, to post this blog. But I should also give you the bad news that it causes the machine to freeze every 15 or 20 minutes. If I’m lucky. Don’t you just love computers.

Ata loguiño a todos.