To Liverpool today, to do my annual – and 100% successful! – annual clothes shop. It's always a pleasure to walk through the city centre and to listen to the thick Scouse accents that contrast so much with the posh Scouse of my family. This is easiest done by walking behind young mothers with kids in strollers, as each of them is relieving the boredom by chatting on her mobile phone.

I had the impression that fewer of the young women were smoking than would be the case in Pontevedra. And that they were, shall we say, less slim. Though this could be pure coincidence.

My Ferrol friend Richard has sent me a video of a Galician man risking his life to harvest percebes from sea-tossed rocks. For those who don't know, percebes are goose-barnacles. All you need to appreciate about them is that, within living memory, they were used only for animal feed. Now they're an expensive gourmet luxury. And, of course, an aphrodisiac. I have never budged from my initial reaction, i. e. that they taste like a bit of rubber dipped in salty water. In the video, you'll see the intrepid percebero/ percebeiro say that people like them because they taste of the sea. Well, so does a mug of sea-water but this doesn't sell for 300 euros a kilo. As they say, there's no accounting for taste.

I and my friend and fellow-blogger - Alfie B. Mittington – don't always see eye to eye but it seems that on the EU rape of Cyprus we really do. Here's Alfie's nice piece on this today and you could do worse than backtrack to yesterday's post, when he first got the bit between his teeth. By the way, for the confused among you, I don't know what the title of his blog means either. And I think he once told me.

It'll be interesting to see if the recent tax developments in Spain and the shocking cash hijacking in Cyprus have any real impact on the number of foreigners buying property in Spain. Last year the number rose by 28% and is now almost up to the pre-Crisis level. One informed observer comments that “Foreign buyers are being lured back to Spain by lower house prices and fewer town-planning and property related scandals that so blighted Spain’s reputation at the tail end of the boom.” Can their memories really be so short? Are they still blithely using the notary rather than a lawyer, in the mistaken belief that he's looking after their interests? I fear so.

How topical to come across Popes Head Alley in Shapiro's book about Shakespeare, 1599. And how sad to find it no longer exists in London. But there are at least 5 roads/streets going by this name in the USA. All of them in Virginia. So possibly originating from some settler, late of London. Wouldn't it be nice to know.

I've used 'nice' at least twice in this post, despite my primary school teacher telling me never to use it, as it meant nothing at all. Probably his hobby-horse.

Finally . . . Facebook's latest ruse is to somehow link me into Dating with Friends and to send me offers to join bloody Chirpme.This wouldn't be so bad if all the women they keep telling me about weren't 10 years older than me. And I'm beyond my toyboy phase now.