Awake, for morning in the bowl of night has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight.

And, lo, has caught the sultan’s turret In a noose of light!

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable

                 – Christopher Howse: ‘A Pilgrim in Spain’ 

Energy 

Surprising – and relatively good – news? At least here in Spain.

Cosas de España/Galiza

The Guardian descends into Spanish politics here, around the misogynist comment I cited yesterday.

Should Russians really be ‘flocking’ to Spain?

A foreigner friend was spitting blood yesterday, after a session with a (decidedly unfriendly) bureaucrat around the renewal of her NIE, for which she’d waited 7 weeks. Despite – with the help of her Spanish husband – doing everything demanded on the relevant government web page she was told that none of her documents were correct and that she’d have to start the process over again. And provide a copy of every page of passports and a certificate proving that they were still married, from some place in Madrid. The end result will be that, if she and her husband take the flights booked to the Azores at Xmas, there might well be problems getting back into Spain. When my friend asked me how on earth this could happen in a developed country, I referred her to the book It’s not what is is: The real (s)pain of Europe.

Talking of local  beefs . . .Reader David points out that, after the latest profit-maximising increases in prices: With tolls and fuel, a round trip by car to Oporto from La Coruña is over €100. Which is only €20 less than my round trip Oporto-Manchester next month.

The UK 

Has ‘the most successful political party in history’ actually killed itself? Slain on the altar of an appalling Brexit deal ‘masterminded’ by Boris Johnson??

The Way of the World

I’ve been searching for a video of a young Spanish woman defeating a civil servant, as I don’t have my Mac Air to get it from Bookmarks there. If any reader can put the link in Comments, I’d be very grateful. Meanwhile I’ll just add that when I put ‘young Spanish woman etc’ in Google, what came up was page after page of porn.

Did You Know?

Some allegedly amazing facts re Xmas.

For new readers:-

1. 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.

2. Should you want to, the easiest way to to get my post routinely is to sign up for email subscription. As opposed to using a Bookmark or entering the URL.