Insult to injury. After six years of endless noise and dust, the seventeen new houses behind mine are finally nearing completion. Not that anyone has bought any of them. Or will in the foreseeable future. One of the final acts of the builders has been to install TV aerials and a satellite dish - directly opposite my house. As you can see . . .

My big fear was that this would allow me to get Spanish TV and thus waste some of my life on what some wag called years ago "Radio with pictures". This is a reference, of course, to the inordinate amount of talking/arguing that takes place on the TV here. On any and every sort of program. Fortunately, though, a test has proved I can't.

Talking of building . . . Click here for the latest depressing statistics.

Talking of Spanish TV . . . What really annoys me about it is, firstly, the amount of dubbing and, secondly, the apparently small band of people involved in it. Which means that some woman will 'play' roles ranging from kids right up to centenarians. The former are particularly irritating as - to me at least - it's obvious an adult is trying to talk like a child.

And talking of Spanish women . . .  Am I the only person to think that, when a beautiful woman puts a cigarette in her mouth, she instantly becomes ugly? Must be a subconscious defensive reaction.

And still talking of Spanish women . . . One of them has just walked into this café in what I think is the most sexually provocative outfit I've ever seen/enjoyed. At 12.15am, she's sporting 4 inch stilletoes, skin tight leather-look trousers and what can only be described as a flesh-revealing basque, Should be banned . . . As if.

Well, as I feared, the smell has not gone from my pullover. Another wash is in hand. Literally.

Yesterday I was saved from a certain parking fine by someone in a nearby building who leant out to tell me it was a favourite spot for the car pounders since only unloading was allowed there. As there was no clear indication of this and as the place is only a couple of minutes from the car pound, I'm guessing this 'trap' is not a coincidence.

Finally . . . Hell knows no fury like a woman scorned. A Spanish woman has been arrested in Italy after the Austrian police found both her ex-husband and her ex-lover dead and cut into pieces. Of course, it would've been even more newsworthy if they'd been alive and dismembered.