Referring last week to the last-ditch attempt made by Messrs Brown and Mendelson to keep the Labour Party in power, I asked:- “Do these two not yet realise just how discredited the political class is in the UK?” One of the political analysts made a similar comment yesterday – “I wonder if the architects of that failed coup have any idea how much rage and shock they provoked out there in the world of ordinary people, who have a surprisingly competent grasp of what democracy means.”

As for the now ubiquitous word “progressive”, I liked this comment in one of yesterday’s papers – “Like all elements of political jargon, the word “progressive” has been steadily stripped of meaning. This is why Marquand’s phrase about “self-styled progressives” is so telling. It pinpoints the deep intellectual conceit of those on the left who imagine not just that they are the only people who can be described as “progressive”, but that anyone from a different political tradition has purely cynical motivations, even — or perhaps especially — as a reformer.”

In the interests of balance, here’s an article from a Labour leading light, explaining why his is the only truly progressive party.

Anyway, it’s the time of the year when I advise everyone about an alternative Cannes Festival here in Galicia. Or should I say Cans. Which is actually Gallego for ‘dogs’, as in the Latin ‘Cave Canem’. Click here for more information, in Spanish.

I was a little perturbed yesterday to find my mobile phone wouldn’t give me the second person plural of the future tense of the verb querer. Nor the first person plural. Talking to my visiting daughter about this, she claimed it happens a lot on Spanish phones. Her guess was there are just too many conjugations for the phone’s memory. Can anyone confirm this? Or come up with a better theory. If she’s right, what’s the answer to the challenge?

Actually, I have a bigger problem as of this evening. Somehow I managed to step on my laptop in the garden – damn the sun! – and now have an interesting pattern in the top left-hand corner of the screen. As it happens, I’m still able to do most things on it. Which is a bit of a comfort while I investigate how much the repair is going to cost me. And who I can trust to do it.