As I’m having rather a good time in the UK – so far at least – I’m rather stuck for acerbic things to say. Hence this desperate little tale . . . .

I sent a camera to Nikon in the UK a year or so ago for an estimate of the repair cost. They quoted me around 220 pounds, including a charge of 50 quid just to send it back to me. I ignored the quote and bought a better camera for the same amount of money in Madrid. And I only finally told Nikon last week that I rejected their estimate. Whereupon they sent me a new estimate of 20 quid to have the un-repaired camera delivered to me in Spain. Quite why it suddenly got so much cheaper to return to me I cannot guess. Perhaps they’re as keen as I was to get rid of it.

By all accounts, George Borrow was an extremely intelligent man and a wondrous linguist. But this didn’t prevent him being a truly fanatical Protestant who went as far as insisting that not only was the Catholic Church not a Christian church but that the Pope and his Cardinals were well aware of this. Here he is, for example, on the question of the Pope’s true nature:- I said repeatedly that the Pope, whom they revered, was an arch deceiver and the head minister of Satan here on earth and that the monks and friars whose absence they so deplored and to whom they had been accustomed to confess themselves were his subordinate agents. Which, even to a ex-Papist like me, seems a tad harsh.

To end on a Spanish note . . . Trevor of Kalebeul has sent me confirmation of the lengths to which councils are now willing to go in order to extract one type of fine or another from anyone living in or passing through their bailiwicks. Meaning that Spain has ceased to be one of the more relaxed, live-and-let live places in the world in which to live. Laws are no longer to be loosely applied, but severely tightened and ruthlessly imposed. Including that of whistling during the siesta hour. Whether this will continue once la crisis is over, God only knows. In the meantime, whoever would have thought I’d be even more conscious of mobile radar traps and fixed cameras in Spain than I ever have been in “Big Brother” Britain? Which prompts the question – Has anyone in Spain yet set fire to or blown up a speed camera?