Phil Ball in Spain

It's always nice to have an away day, on a sunny Spanish Sunday afternoon. Having travelled down to Madrid last month to watch Real Sociedad in the 'Bernabow', I made the shorter trip across the northern Spanish rooftop to Santander on Sunday, driving through the chilly green of a Cantabrian spring. The drive from one chic resort (San Sebastian) to another seaside city takes less than two hours now, although the annoying reduction in the speed limit, recently imposed by the Spanish government to 'save energy' (ahem), meant it was a bit of a crawl. I don't wish to seem irresponsible, but all the Spanish do is drive faster between the radars. In fact, the act of slowing down for the radars and the subsequent acceleration immediately afterwards surely uses more fuel than before, but I'm only complaining because the slow drive back meant that this column was written very late on Sunday night.