Wish you weren't here

Have you ever read a travel article that fired your imagination, carried you halfway around the world and then, on arrival, discovered that virtually nothing described in it actually existed?

As a travel writer, I confess we occasionally help this along. Faced with a destination of limited charms, one searches heroically for something to gush about, while overlooking non-existent public transport or the national enthusiasm for spitting on pavements.

Still, I've rarely encountered a discrepancy quite as dramatic as the one between Spain and... Spain.

The first is the country I encounter when I walk out my front door. The second is the dystopian hellscape described daily by politicians and commentators somewhere to the right of Pinochet and Kissinger.

I keep looking for it.

Around my extremely normal neighbourhood, there is disappointingly little evidence of civilisational collapse. The immigrant invasion seems particularly badly organised. I occasionally see a couple of darker-skinned men repairing a roof so that the winter rain doesn't drip into someone's grandmother's soup. Others with different accents, suspiciously, can be found serving cañas and gin and tonics to españoles de bien

The square itself is generally full of people eating, drinking, laughing and committing other acts incompatible with national ruin.

Nor can I locate the ideological police. People denounce the government quite freely, often several decibels above the volume advisable in an actual dictatorship. Occasionally somebody begins broadcasting racist or misogynist cuñadismos and the people at the next table move their chairs. This is not, as far as I can tell, because the regime has deprived him of his freedom to be crude and brutish. They simply don't want to sit next to something so fetid.

Even the economy refuses to cooperate. The IMF has just raised Spain's expected growth this year to 2.5%, making it the fastest-growing major advanced economy. The IMF, you will remember, is that notorious Bolshevik cell whose meetings presumably begin with La Internacional before everyone nationalises a bank.

None of which means everything is wonderful. Housing is a mess. Unemployment remains too high. Public services need more investment. Wages, rents and the cost of living do not magically disappear inside a GDP statistic. There is plenty to fix.

But travelling backwards seems an eccentric way of getting anywhere better.

Perhaps, though, I've misunderstood the campaign rhetoric.

Perhaps all this talk of sacrifice, suffering and difficult decisions isn't a description of Spain at all. Perhaps it's advance notice.

Us plebs have enjoyed our little holiday: minimum-wage increases, pensions, employment, public services. Eventually the grown-ups must return and explain that prosperity has become unaffordable. Sacrifices will have to be made.

Not, naturally, by the españoles de bien with SICAVs, several flats and a tax adviser who knows Luxembourg unusually well. Someone else will have to do the sacrificing.

Or perhaps this is simply how economic sadomasochists flirt. All this talk of pain and necessary suffering may be little spicy notes slipped beneath the electorate's door.

You have been very naughty. Vote for me and I'll show you what austerity really means.

Which is perfectly fine between consenting adults.

My only concern is that nobody has told the rest of us the safe word.