Cosas de España/Galiza 

There’s much ruffling of feathers in the egregious UK tabloid dovecots over the plight of Brits who should have known what was coming – post Brexit – in respect of driving licences. True, Spain is one of the very few EU countries who now don’t allow automatic conversion of British licenses – even though that’s where it gets most of its new foreign residents from – but there was plenty of notice of this coming down the pike. The most (justifiably) unhappy Brits are those who couldn’t go through the process because Covid meant their resident cards didn’t come through in time, or because – like my daughter – they couldn’t complete the process because of an IT glitch. The most smug Brits are those who – like me – converted years ago and avoided the €300 on-the-spot fine for using a British licence more than 6 months after becoming resident. Here’s Lenox Napier on this subject.

Today is Property Buying Advice Day – here and here, both from the estimable Mark Stücklin’s site. If you’re looking in Galicia, this is an honest and very effective – English speaking – local lawyer I know very well,

God only knows what it really means but Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas tells us of a report in ABC about Romanians and Chinese leaving Spain, while more Colombians and Italians are arriving.

Maria’s Beginning Over 14: May Days

The UK

As Northern Ireland heads for a government led by the Republican, nationalist Sinn Fein party, it’s interesting to note the comment of a prominent Irish author that many Catholics in NI would vote against a united Ireland – out of a fear that violence would come in its wake.

It’s reported that 61% of Brits gained weight during the pandemic. Of these, 89% said they’d yet to lose it and 19% admitted they’d lost hope of getting back to their previous weight.

Russia

From the BBC: Megayachts and oligarchs. 

This hilarious tirade by MP Andrei Isayev on state TV is a crash course in all the bizarre Russian stereotypes about Britain. As with Iranians, Russians are still mired in the 19th and early 20th century mindset that Britain is a powerful country that still dictates what goes on in much of the world. How flattering.

The USA 

Fact or fiction? Trump has handed out more than 120 prized endorsements — which come with a message of support and a $5,000 cheque — like a mafia don on the day of his daughter’s wedding. Hundreds of candidates for offices great and small, from aspiring state attorney generals to would-be senators, have made the pilgrimage to Palm Beach to kiss the ring, allowing Trump to reprise his role from The Apprentice, giving an imperial thumbs-up or down. Particular favour is often shown to candidates who choose to hold fundraising events at Trump’s private Florida club

The Way of the World 

We now spend longer trying to board a plane than actually flying in one.

Social Media

Be warned:  Adverts for get-rich-quick bitcoin scams, fake investment bonds that promise to pay 7% interest a year and unregulated cryptocurrency and foreign exchange trading schemes are regularly being posted on Facebook. Over the past few weeks there were more than a dozen adverts on Facebook and Instagram that appeared to be scams. 

Finally . . .

Barry Cryer was a British comedian of genius and his life will be celebrated on June 13 at the Lyric Theatre in London by the cream of British comedy. I was a huge fan of Cryer, who was not only extremely funny but also a thoroughly nice person. There are 4 of his jokes below, of which I like the Picasso one best. The others I’ve told myself many times over the years, without knowing until now they were his. Enjoy,

During World War I,  a British physicist was asked to design a dart to be dropped onto enemy troops from the air. He and a colleague dropped a bundle of darts as a trial and then went over the field and pushed a square of paper over every dart they could find sticking out of the ground. “When we had gone over the field in this way and were looking at the distribution, a cavalry officer came up and asked us what we were doing. When we explained that the darts had been dropped from an airplane, he looked at them and, seeing a dart piercing every sheet remarked: ‘If I had not seen it with my own eyes I would never have believed it possible to make such good shooting from the air.’” 

BTW: The darts were never used. They were regarded as inhuman weapons and could not be used by gentlemen. Nicer days.

For new reader(s): If you’ve landed here looking for info on Galicia or Pontevedra, try here. If you’re passing through Pontevedra on the Camino, you’ll find a guide to the city there.

THE JOKES

Picasso was burgled and did a drawing of the robbers. Police arrested a horse and two sardines.

I said to my parrot . . . ‘How are you enjoying lockdown?’ He replied, ‘What . . . in this cage?

A wife is in the bathroom trying on a new dress. She comes out and says to her husband, ‘Does my bum look big in this?’ He says, ‘Oh, be fair, love, it’s quite a small bathroom.’

A man and his wife are at a café. 

“That’s the Archbishop of Canterbury isn’t it?” says the husband. “Go over and ask him.” 

So the woman hops across the road and says: “Excuse me, but are you the Archbishop of Canterbury?”

“Fuck off,” replies the stranger.

The wife returns to her husband, who asks: “Well, what did he say?”

 “He told me to fuck off,” she says. 

“Oh dear,” he says. “Now we’ll never know.”

[Alternative ending: The wife says: “I don’t know; he was non-committal”]