Here is the Economist’s review of today’s Spain. I don’t have any difficulty with its contents, though I guess some will. I was particularly pleased to learn more about how the banks have operated here – at a macro level - and came away with a greater confidence they'd survive current difficulties better than in other countries. Until, that is, I read the apparently knowledgeable opinion of someone called ExtraDry that ‘Spain's banking regulation is no more "sound" than anywhere else’.

Living as I do in one of the regions which may or may not be a nation, a chord was certainly struck in me by the reference to “narrow-minded nationalism and localism”. Parochialism even, some would say.

All in all, I didn’t read anything to contradict my view that - just as Spain found it easy to grow dynamically under an EU regime designed primarily for Germany and France – she will find it tougher than these two countries [and others] to climb out of the recession.

Talking of the EU, here’s an article from the woman who blew the whistle on the massive fraud which characterises this organisation.

And, coincidentally, here’s a Prospect article by a young man who joined the UN because of his ideals and ended up with the conviction that it is irremediably broken.

So, President Zapatero will, after all, attend the global finance conference in New York next week. This is surely right but, given that the solution – allocating him one of Sarkozy’s two seats – would have been obvious to a half-competent lawyer from the off, one can only assume it’s lain in the drawer as the fall-back option during the last month of distracting negotiations. Which would explain Zapatero’s optimism throughout the dispiriting process.

Today’s Spanish papers carry a large ad for a product which claims to give pain relief in a large range of circumstances. The principle is said to be a “low-frequency electrical charge produced by crystals to provide prolonged pain relief which is clinically proven to work.” There’s also a web page for the company, based in Britain. Though I can’t find there any evidence for the claim in the Spanish ads that the product is recommended by the UK’s NHS.

Galicia

I often walk back from my wine and tapa at just the time the mayor of Pontevedra is emerging from the town-hall to go home for his midday meal. This gave me the opportunity today to walk through the crowd of fire-fighters who are demonstrating against their pay and conditions and claiming the city dedicates fewer resources to security than any other in Galicia. As it happens, the protestors are assisted in their challenge of making the mayor’s exit as noisy as possible by the nearby metal fence around the excavations done prior to the creation of another underground car-park. This was erected a year ago, when it was said it would be there for a couple of years. My own suspicion is that the fire-fighters will have the chance to bang on it for at least another four yet.

Closer to home, I passed a school where the parents used to block at least one the two lanes at the end of the road while they waited for their charges. But the two lanes have been reduced to one so there’s little need now for the traffic cop to do something about the offenders. Which, I guess is why he could stand on the edge of the crossing, dragging on a cigarette. While a young man drove past him using a mobile phone. Spain, as I often say, is a country where the emphasis is on fun. Which is fine. But sometime you can’t escape wondering whether it takes much seriously.

The bad news of the week is that the New Delhi in Vegetables Square has given up on the aspiration of being an Indian restaurant in a place where tastes in food are rather conventional. It is now Mama Dona Kebab No. 2, making it the 4th or 5th such place here. At least they’re still offering tandouri dishes.

In the restaurant where we had my birthday dinner last night – a Brazilian grill - there were two large TV screens on the wall, neither of which had the sound on. Instead we had a CD of La Oreja de Van Gogh on a loop. I’ve given up wondering why diners in an upmarket restaurant would need just one TV on the wall, never mind two. Perhaps it’s compulsory to meet minimum noise requirements.

I fear greater age is making me even more obstreperous.