In 2005, Galicians spent less on cars and housing than the Spanish average but more on food. All those festive seafood dinners, I guess.

I quoted the other day Samuel Johnson’s dictum about patriotism being the last refuge of scoundrels. Well, Catalan politics revolves round a tripartite coalition of nationalists and ultra-nationalists and so is naturally a veritable den of rogues. The President of the ultra-nationalist party doesn’t think the new Constitution goes far enough [perhaps because his head won’t be on the stamps] and so has instructed his members to spoil their papers in the imminent vote on it in the Catalan parliament. On the other hand, the Catholic Archbishops – whose views still count in Spain – have said they won’t issue any adversarial instructions to the faithful, even though they’re unhappy about some of the provisions. The rest of us would just like to see the wretched document done and dusted.

It’s emerged the Strasbourg council has overcharged the EU to the tune of hundreds of millions of euros for the buildings rented to it for the monthly sessions that take place there. Since these involve the wholesale, massively expensive transfer of the entire Commission and hangers-on from Brussels to this Alsace city, this is piling madness upon madness. One is tempted to say it can’t possibly go on. But, of course, it will.

I grew up in the small district of Leasowe, at the western end of Wallasey, on the Wirral peninsula. It’s hard to imagine it being the scene for a short story, never mind a novel. But now I find Malcolm Lowry lived his early years in Wallasey and set parts of Under the Volcano in Leasowe. Intriguingly, we seem to have made similar use of the golf course along the sand dunes. But you’ll have to read this magnum opus, if you want to find out how.