The government has announced the introduction of a points-based driving licence system. As of mid 2005, offences will result in a loss of ‘credits’ until the trigger point is reached and your licence is lost. This follows similar measures in many other EU countries and is designed to reduce the high mortality rate on Spanish roads, which was 5,400 souls last year. Both the major dailies have welcomed this but with reservations. El Mundo points out the theory is one thing but the practice another. Investment needs to go into the computers that will make the system workable and into the driver retraining schemes that underpin it.

This points up one of the features of modern Spain – it is relatively easy to use EU funds to construct magnificent new highways, city ring roads and rapid train systems but it is another thing to establish complex infrastructures. The internet exemplifies this. Most Spanish companies have a web site but I’ve yet to find one that is as easy to use as, say, EasyJet’s. Or even British Airways’.

Flicking through the back pages of the Faro de Vigo today, I noticed that the ad for the C. de E is now bigger than ever. Mind you, it needs to be to hold the details of all its special services and new offerings. The latter include boats, limos and - would you believe – planes. And it seems that they ‘now accept large groups’. Outings from Portugal, perhaps.

On Sky News yesterday, the presenter commented on Tony’s Blair’s alleged intention to move, she said, ‘from Christianity to Catholicism’. Can anyone really be that ignorant, I ask myself. And the answer is not encouraging.