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’

Cosas de España

Politics: Quite a trio. Isabel Ayuso, Yolanda Díaz and a 3rd strong Spanish female politician – Ada Colau. The Guardian profiles the left-wing mayor of Barcelona here.

Spain certainly needed water but possibly not this much. At least, not in this place:-

Talking of a lot of rain . . . An unusual indecent exposure.

There must have been other examples of it but this is the first I’ve seen of the Anglo habit of adding a tip automatically to your bill and defying you not to pay it. Provided by Lenox Napier of Business over Tapas.

As it happens, I do tip in all my usual places and many others, in cash to the staff. But will consider avoiding any place(s) which do this. Or just deleting it and carrying on as before. But I really can’t see it coming to Pv city in the near future. Not enough guiris.

The president of the Balearic Islands wants to stop ‘non-residents’ – i. e. foreigners – buying property there. Brussels says this can only be permitted on “grounds of public policy or public security, or for overriding reasons of public interest as recognised in the case law of the CJEU, provided that they are non-discriminatory and proportionate to the objective pursued”. This show will surely run and run. Both there and elsewhere.

The UK

A judgement which seems eminently correct to me . . . The world is changing but Britain is paralysed by its own indecision . . .  Inside accounts from government reveal just how much bandwidth is taken up by culture war nonsense, personal grievances and other ephemera. Politics has always had this dimension but could anyone sane person dispute that our political culture has become ever more trivialised as our predicament has become ever more serious? The two trends are, I believe, intimately related, particularly under this exhausted government. But why should I care; I haven’t lived there for 23 years. Oh, yes – my pension is paid in pounds sterling and then translated into ever-fewer euros. Anyway, that damning opinion is fleshed out here,

Did you know?

Where I get off the bus from central Madrid to this SW suburb is at the intersection of Avenida de la Peseta and Calle Maravedí. As this is an unusual word, I looked it up. The relevant etymology is: maravedí comes from marabet or marabotin, a variety of the gold dinar named after the Moorish Almoravids. Maravedí is odd in having 3 plural forms:-

• maravedís
• maravedíes, and
• maravedises.

The 1st is the most straightforward; the 2nd is a variant for words ending with a stressed -í; the 3rd is the most unusual and the least recommended. The RAE says it is “vulgar in appearance”. So, you wouldn’t want to be caught using it, in the very unlikely event you not only need to use the word but also pluralise it.

Finally . . .

This is a foto of the bike lane on the pavement in Avenida de la Peseta. I’m thinking of sending it to the local media so they can inform the barrio’s cyclists of its existence . . .

For new readers:- 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.