There’s a great deal of news in the Spanish media at the moment about the challenge of dealing with the immigrants – legal and illegal – who came to Spain in the boom years of 2000 to 2005 and who are now surplus to requirements. Just to put things in perspective, Spain’s population grew during this period from 40.2m to 46.7m. Of the additional 6.5m souls, 4.8m were immigrants. It’s quite hard to believe no one realised this might cause a headache or two once the phoney boom was over but this is certainly the impression once gets.

I touched yesterday on the subject of property abuses down in the badlands of Andalucia. Today comes the news that sales along the Costa de Sol are 99% down on those of the peak year of 2005. Of course, the pound has fallen a lot since then but one can’t help wondering about the impact of all the adverse publicity in the UK. Not that you’d know much about the scandalous treatment of foreign purchasers from the Spanish media.

I feel it’d be a dereliction of my duty not to report the establishment of the Kingdom of New Galicia. I came across this by accident this morning and was disappointed to see it’s located in Mexico and not Spain. I wonder if it will end up fighting for a seat at the United Nations with the future nation of Galiza...

Another day, another report of a woeful approach to critical statistics by the climate warming ‘community’. This one comes under the rubric “More Himalayan Howlers” and can be read here. What with both the scientists and the politicians making a pig’s ear of just about everything in this area, what hope has the world got? Whatever the truth is. Looks increasingly like the only real option open to us is Wait and See.

Anyway, to cheer some of you up, here’s an interesting insight into football(soccer) in the Basque Country.

Finally . . . I was impressed to see that the winners of the Mr and Miss Pontevedra competitions at the weekend were not only boy and girlfriend but also both students of Technical Industrial Engineering. Which is presumably how they met. Also nice to see that the three runners-up in the ladies’ competition were Miss Simpática, Miss Elegancia and Miss Fotogénica. Though I imagine there were at least three more contestants more photogenic than the last mentioned.