Three quintessentially Spanish events today. At the Turismo office, I asked whether they had the 2005 version of their excellent guide to rural tourism in Galicia. The look on the face of the lady behind the counter read ‘Are you insane? Who on earth would need a guide for 2005 in January?’. Five minutes later, at the office of the organisation responsible for tourism in the lowest bit of Galicia [the Rias Baixas], I dropped off a letter for the President, offering my help for free. As I turned to go, the receptionist asked me to leave my name. When I told her that I didn’t need to as it was at the bottom of the letter, she seemed completely nonplussed, pressured as she is by the exigencies of bureaucracy. And so on to the bank, where I wanted to leave instructions for a maturing deposit and, in particular, to ask them to put the money in my current account on the day the deposit actually ended. Needless to say, I was told that, in my interests, this wouldn’t be possible. Sadly, I couldn’t immediately recall the Spanish for ‘bullshit’. I now know this to be sandeces or chorradas, though I suspect these are a little tame, meaning merely nonsense or rubbish.

I was wrong to suggest yesterday that even the heavyweight British press was ignoring the constitutional crisis in Spain that the Wall St. Journal fears bodes badly for the whole of Europe. After a search, I found that the Telegraph of 1 January contained this penetrating analysis - Spanish political parties reacted furiously yesterday to a move by the Basque regional assembly to seek greater autonomy from Madrid.

I also need to add that Sky finally changed its tune about David Beckham’s first public attempt, after 18 months here, to talk Spanish. Even Sky came to realise that it’s not actually impressive to be able to speak rather less well than a parrot of below-average intelligence.

If you have happened upon this blog because of an interest in Galicia, try my web page [ colindavies.net] as this is dedicated to this verdant part of Spain.