Another provocation for the Catholic Church today. It’s reported that we may soon have the right to tick a box on our tax forms indicating that we would like to make a donation to a religion other than Catholicism. Personally, I can’t wait to be spoilt for choice. Meanwhile, though, right-of-centre papers are naturally beginning to chunder about the destruction of the social fabric. And to distinguish between laicidad and laicismo. The former appears to mean an acceptable separation of church and state, whereas the latter is an intention to destroy the Catholic Church in ways redolent of the Civil War.

As a result of these developments, I am beginning to appreciate just how involved the Catholic Church is in Spanish life. Apart from numerous schools and universities, I now read that they own one of the major radio channels and one of the largest savings banks in Andalucia.

Up here in damp Galicia, we have had two weeks of glorious sun, with temperatures between 27 and 33. But it is September and therefore autumn. And the weather is irrelevant to those in the van of fashion. So I was not terribly surprised today so see several women sporting knee-length leather boots. Needs must.

The Spanish government has expressed concern about the amount of telebasura [telly-rubbish] which is shown during the hours nominally reserved for children’s programmes. So far, though, it has said nothing about the repeated showings – in full – of the beheading of hostages in Iraq. As these are brought to us by the new programmes, I suppose the logic is that the kids don’t watch them. Or think they are cartoons, perhaps.