Here’s a serious plea – if there is anyone reading this who is Spanish living happily in London, please go to theremon.blogspot.com and post an encouraging message to our friend Manoel. He has only been there a few days but is struggling to come to terms with the size and impersonal nature of the place. Even though the traditional greeting on the streets of Pontevedra is a valedictory Hasta luego! [See you later!], it is still a greeting of some sort. But no one says anything on the streets of London. Of course, it doesn’t help the poor chap to have several female members of his family weeping down the phone every hour or two about his absence from home. Spanish women really know how to kick a man when he is down.

In a report about what preoccupies Galicians, 42% of people in Pontevedra and 48% of people in Vigo felt most worried about Urban Traffic, Transport and Parking. Figures were similar for all other cities in Galicia, apart from Ferrol. Here, the percentage of people concerned about these things was a whopping zero. Top of their list of things to worry about, at 65%, was unemployment. I guess we can conclude from this that, if you are lucky enough to have one of the few jobs in Ferrol, you don’t have too much trouble getting around in your car or in parking it when you have finished touring the empty streets. Bit of a come-down for Franco’s birthplace.

It’s been the conference season in Spain, as in the UK, giving me the chance to note one of the biggest cultural differences between the countries. In Spain, it seems almost obligatory for male politicians to have a full beard, or a moustache at least. In the UK, the former would immediately mark you off as a weirdo and the latter as a complete nutter. I’m sure, though, that there are exceptions to this rule, though it does seem that – as with the UK Home Secretary – it helps to be blind to carry off a beard in British politics.