It's relatively rare in Spain for anyone to attempt to correctly pronounce English names. And - during his match last night with Nadal - Murray's was no exception. "Moo-rye" was the most common version, though with the stress moving from the first to the second syllable [and back]at times. Interestingly, however, the Spanish announcer gave us the correct pronunciation, before switching back to the Hispanic version. I've heard it said that the Spanish avoid attempting correct pronunciation because they're [over]conscious their language is 'poor' in vowel sounds. But I have to say I find this unconvincing.

President Zapatero has announced that his besieged government will continue with their emblematic social reforms and that, more relevantly, they will increase pensions at the end of the year by 6%. Or by more than inflation. At the height of an economic crisis, with the regions baying for more central funds, this is all very brave or very foolhardy and we will know in due course.

I paid my 2007 municipal rates today. By contrast with what's levied by British councils, these were small beer. But I rather suspect the increase for 2008 will be somewhat more than 6%.

Simply by clocking breakages, I've long known my cleaner was amongst the clumsiest people on the planet. But - when trying to get the Moo-rye v. Nadal match on my TV last night - I also discovered she has an idiosyncratic approach to the reinsertion of the cables and SCART sockets she presumably rips out when doing behind the unit. In the case of the main TV cable, this meant forcing both ends in the socket they weren't designed for. With predictable results. 'Words' are in order. And also about answering the phone to Brits who haven't the faintest idea what she's talking about. Thank God I won't have to do it in my inadequate Gallego, a language she boasts of shunning. While speaking Castrapo . . .

Galicia

The President of the new Andalucian airline - Flysur - tells us that Galicia could surely set up its own equivalent. FlyGaliza, presumably. Perhaps he doesn't know there' a recession on. Nor that there were not just one but three failed attempts to do this in the 90s. But, hey, talk is cheap.

I referred recently to the money pouring into ugly wind turbines. Perhaps these have won the argument against solar power amongst Spain's decision makers. For much is being made locally of the fact that propsed reductions in subsidies for solar power will lose this region more than 400m euros and render several planned projects uneconomic. To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about this. Unless it means more bloody turbines. In which case, I feel awful.

Meanwhile, when it comes to traditional energy sources, we've seen pump prices fall from 1.30 a litre to 1.19 a litre in the past few weeks. And then watched them go back to 1.22. The government says it has heard complaints about price-fixing cartels and will consider an investigation. Just as soon as the pigs have landed.

An international school in Vigo has announced a new course which will give your kids a lot more teaching in Spanish than they'll get anywhere else in Galicia/Galiza. It's private, of course, and we're going to see a lot more of this sort of thing. Thus will the kids of the rich be well educated in Spanish and English, while those of the rest will run the risk of ending up speaking both Spanish and Gallego badly. Not to mention English, which has always been spoken badly. Ironically, the party responsible for this is to the left of the socialist PSOE. But twas ever thus. The Law of Unintended Consequences. The second most rigid universal law. Both of which tend to get overlooked by socialists who believe in the inherent goodness of Man.

By the way, in case you don't know, none of this is relevant as we're all perdition-bound this week. Once they start accelerating all those particles in CERN. How very appropriate that it should be Switzerland that is responsible for the nice and tidy end of the world.