In his South of Watford blog, Graeme yesterday issued a timely Bullshit Warning about how Spain’s right-wing papers would treat the Catalan developments. And he wasn’t wrong in predicting they’d see this a simple issue of Catalan nationalists versus Spain. Which El Mundo duly did this morning at length, devoting eight of its first twelve pages to the subject and characterising it as an infringement of personal liberty. Something, incidentally, which I don’t recall them saying about the past and future bans on smoking.

As long-time readers will know, unlike Alfie I’m rather ambiguous about bullfighting - the humanist in me fighting with the libertarian. You certainly can’t deny it’s cruel and you’d be a fool to argue that, if someone came up with the idea of it today, it would get much support. But, then, neither cars nor aspirin would be permitted on today’s markets. All that said, I have no trouble with bans being introduced, whether in The Canaries (previously) or in Cataluña (imminently). Not so the right-of-centre PP party, which says it will respond the way it does these days to everything it doesn’t like – by taking the issue to the Constitutional Court. An even dafter idea being promoted from the Right is that bullfighting should be classified and protected as a national cultural treasure. Which I imagine would do nothing to improve the image of Spain in the world at large. After all, there's a reason why there's been so much international interest in this subject.

Anyway, for those who’d like to read a Brit arguing the case for not banning bullfighting, there’s an article in today´s Times by Roger Lewis, who sees it as the mark of a healthy culture. I imagine he’ll be at least beatified in Spain when this is picked up and quoted by El Mundo, ABC, etc. I'd like to have given you a link here but it seems that the new paywall prevents this. Logically enough. Perhaps tomorrow, after it's been picked up, copied and published elsewhere.

And now a positive statement on the EU which reader Moscow may be surprised to hear I agree with – “Like it or loathe it, the EU has proved that binding enemies together with economic chains, free trade and shared prosperity is an incredibly effective way of keeping the peace.” This, of course, is what most Brits thought they were signing up to in 1976 when surveyed on a common market, not a supranational European state.

I occasionally see ‘crocodiles’ of three-year-olds being guided through the streets of town by their teachers. They’re all dressed in the same tunic and each of them is holding onto a rope. The kids, of course. Not the teachers. I was reminded of this today when reading this comment on one of the UK’s many modern insanities – “At the weekend, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said it does children good to experience risk. I don't mean to sound like a Health and Safety bore, but when the country's leading promoter of Health and Safety says Health and Safety has gone too far, you do wonder. Twice in the past month, in different towns, I've seen parties of schoolchildren being led by their teacher through the streets, all of them clad in yellow high-visibility jackets. On both occasions, it was dazzlingly sunny.”

I mentioned Galician tapas dishes the other day. If you’d like to know a bit more about these, click here. It translates lacón con grelos as “shoulder of pork with parsnip tops”. Which is odd, as grelos are actually turnip tops.

Finally . . . As expected, Cade’s spectre now haunts me from the grave. Well, not exactly. What he doesn’t seem to realise is that, with Comment Moderation on, I get only the first few words of his contributions. Which I then immediately delete without reading the rest. So, in practice, the only person in the entire world reading Cade’s comments is Cade himself. Spectral brick to spectral brick. Funny thing is, I predict that – addicted to his own bile - he’ll continue to comment, despite knowing this. Which is pretty sad. So here’s his email address for anyone who wants to ask him for a daily bulletin of onanistic bilge. It’s the least I can do for him. It may keep him from exploding all over the walls in his parents' house in Middleton, Manchester.