Dead man’s brake
I’m writing this in Spain, where the government is expected, any time now, to ask its Eurozone partners for financial aid to recapitalise its ailing banking system. People I speak to in Britain ask me what it’s like here and I have to tell them that I don’t know. My community is well away from the main cities and it has a significant and reasonably well-heeled ex-pat population, people like me, who are sheltered from the crisis to a great extent. All that we can see is that the property market is face down, or tits up, depending on your viewpoint. Yet as l’Escala’s many estate agents labour in vain to sell the town’s property portfolio, new cafes are opening along the seafront, which has never been better serviced, and they’re busy, not just with old farts, but with families from all over Europe. (It’s always half-term somewhere, it seems.)
How will it end? Who knows? All I can say is that it’s a little like being at the back end of a train, and having a suspicion that up in the driver’s cab, things are not as they should be.
Quintin Jardine's blog 
I know just what you mean. We have been in Nerja on the Costa del Sol a couple of times over the past two months and we’ve never seen it looks so prosperous. Whilst one or two shops and restaurants of long standing have closed down, there are few shops empty and there appear to be as many visitors as in the past in spite of rising prices, although that will last as the Ayuntamiento appear set on self destruction with ridiculously high parking charges in the town – obviously having taken a few leaves from Edinburgh. Talking of which, only a few miles down the coast they are putting the five-year-old tram system into mothballs – perhaps Edinburgh should take note!