As expected, the Pamplona authorities have said that the death of a young man yesterday will make no difference to their bull-running event. Using an excellent example of what I’ve long called the true-but-irrelevant school of logic, they’ve stressed that “If no one ran, there’d be no deaths”. This insouciant sentence alone would be worth millions to a negligence lawyer in the Anglo-Saxon world. And, in a reasoned editorial today, even El Mundo has pointed out it might be time to take some sensible measures, such as reducing the excessive number of what I called the other day “heroic idiots”.

But back to the detail – Before the start of each run, an arms-linked group of eight or nine policemen prevent the crowd from getting close to the pen the cows and bulls run from when the rocket goes up. I guess this is to allow the beasts to get up a good head of steam before they hit the throng. But, when the camera pans from the gates to the crowd, the cops are nowhere to be seen - either in the lane or on the other side of the fence. So, are they lifted out by helicopter? And do they have a more balanced view of the concept of safety than any of the other participants? Not to mention the organisers.

Ever the optimists, the Spanish government has said that the recession will end here in the first half of next year. Meanwhile, though, Spain’s is the only large economy for which the IMF’s forecasts this time round are even worse than the last lot for 2009 and 2010.

My historical search for info on Drake and Pontevedra threw up this Parador page. It’s a nice intro to the city. And an excellent example of the sort of English you get when you eschew using a native speaker and blow the budget on a relative or friend.

It was a bit of a Wild Life day for me today. First there was a dead rat on my front lawn this morning. Then there was a large green lizard and a two-metre snake on the forest track this afternoon. And now, this evening, I’ve just surprised a large mouse or small rat outside my back door. The lizard was chased off by my dog, Ryan. Which probably saved its life, as I suspect the snake was just about to wrap its dislocateable jaws around it.

Finally . . . A word of advice . . . Unless you love crowds, 6pm of a Saturday is not a good time to go shopping in a supermarket in Spain. At least not when several of the conurbation’s shops are closed because it’s the feast day of the patron saint of a part of it that used to be a separate village.