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

Making hay while the sun shines – before probably losing the 23 July elections – the government has embarked on the exhumation of Civil War dead from Franco’s appalling monument in the Valley of the Fallen, outside Madrid.

The French tax authorities have used artificial intelligence to track down find thousands of homeowners who’ve failed to declare their swimming pools. The Spanish authorities have been doing this for some time, using drones. But I’m sure they’ll now be closely following French plans to use AI to find not just pools but also undeclared house extensions, verandas or gazebos.

Here, with the usual guff, is The Times on the Basque city of San Sebastian. I’ve yet to go there – not rich enough to eat there – but I have passed it once or twice on the A8, en route to France.

Talking of driving, this article/thread will be useful if you’re moving here from the UK and need to change your driving licence. Again, there’s a time limit.

And this might be useful if you have €500k with which to buy property here and want to avail yourself of the the advantages of the bound-to-b- ended-quite soon Golden Visa opportunity. Or €1,000k if you don’t put your skates on right now.

The UK

Richard North exposes again how the country’s energy policy has gone off the rails. Never one to pull his punches, RN says that No one with more than two brain cells can be under any illusions that net-zero cannot[can?] possibly succeed. Right now, a lot of sun is causing problems when it should be solving them. Hard to believe but he explains why. British politicians, says RN, seem to be caught in the grip of a collective fantasy from which they are unable (or unwilling( to escape. See also The Guardian on this theme.

This is the narcissistic chap who awarded his hairdresser a gong on leaving his job as PM:-

Here’s a nice observation that, happily, doesn’t apply to me: Johnson made his hairdresser an OBE because middle-aged men are obsessed with their hair, being faced with the conflict of that irresistible force of the receding hairline butting up against the immovable object of our egos. Whatever, it’s exceedingly hard to believe the man ever had a comb, never mind a hairdresser. If she really does exist, I’d be surprised if she wanted it known it was her who curated his ludicrous mop.

Germany

I saw this headline – Learning to sleep at a German retreat – and thought of all the camino pilgrims who complain about Germans who snore and then get up at 5am and pack noisily without regard for others. Which I’m sure they don’t all do. Just the occasional schwarze Schafe.

The EU

Dragged down by a reckless energy policy, the EU is suffering an unexpected recession, which has put UK Remainers of the back foot. For a while.

Quote of The Day

British people have very low tolerance for rule-breaking. I’m not sure one could say this about the Spanish.

The Way of the World

Will the elites ever behave?, asks the author of this article.

English

Nearshoring: As distinct from offshoring your production in, say, China or Vietnam. Putting it somewhere nearer. Say, Europe. Or the UK, even.

Finally . . .

This household of 3 souls produces an enormous amount of waste, all of which must be sorted into 6 different bins, some in the basement of the flat-block and some in the street. When – back in pre-history – I was young in a family of 6, we had just ONE metal bin, which was emptied just once a week by the ‘dustmen’. So, what on earth changed? Who or what can we blame? Packaging? Consumption? Regulations? Global Warming? The boogie?

An amusing observation . . .

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.