A couple of readers have kindly told me of this New York Times article on the travails of Spain. Coincidentally, it begins with a reference to the on-off merger of Galicia’s two savings banks (the caixas) I mentioned yesterday. And makes the point previously noted here that, on top of his obvious incompetence, Sr Zapatero is not helped in his challenge of turning round the economy by the fact the regions spend much of the money and are notoriously difficult to control. As I think I’ve asked before – Do they do things very differently in real federal states such as Germany and the USA?

By the way . . . It’s the caixas which are responsible for most of the (subsidised) cultural events which take place in our cities, like the two classical music concerts I’ve attended in the last week. I wonder whether a single entity will maintain the spend of the two existing operations. Unlikely, I guess, as it’s an obvious area for ‘negative synergy”. Or saving money.

I hazarded a guess last week that civil servants in Greece made up 20% of the working population. Well, today comes a report from El Mundo that funcionarios now make up 20% of paid workers here in Spain. Following an increase of 215,000 in their numbers since the start of the recession. Which was doubtless rational and justifiable.

Briefly back to Sr Zapatero . . . When he finally got round to admitting there was a recession here, he boasted his response to it would be a socialist one. I assume he had something more in mind than merely increasing the number of civil servants but, whatever it was, it doesn’t seem to have impressed investors and lenders. Not many of whom are socialists, I guess. Actually, it would be hard to find anyone other than his couture-dressed Vice Presidenta who admits to being impressed by Sr Z’s responses. And it must be significant that this week he invited the leader of the opposition to a round-table discussion. Or crisis meeting, as some are calling it.

Finally . . . It’s good to see that Santiago de Compostela ranks as high as number 3 in the Trip Advisor list of the best 25 cities to visit in Spain. Granada and Sevilla took the top slots. Of course, if you’re looking for a lovely place to stay in the Galician countryside not far from Santiago . . . Click here. Or write to me here.