Raise a glass of rioja to the Spanish, for they are soon to be the nation with the longest life expectancy in the world. By 2040, according to a new report by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the Spanish are expected to have an average lifespan of 85.8 years, outliving even the Japanese, who have long headed the global longevity tables. And outliving those of us in the UK by almost 2.5 years.

On the face of it, the Spanish do not seem especially healthy. They smoke more than us (23 per cent of Spanish people smoke compared with 16 per cent of Britons), drink about the same amount of alcohol as we do and sleep for a similar number of hours (about