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

A sign of the times . . . In the new government of the Valencian region, the far-right Vox party will have someone as First VP and, under him, an ex bullfighter as the person responsible for Cultura. But who knows; he might also be an aficionado of ballet.

It’s not surprising, then, that fears are growing that the PP party will accede to the leader of Vox being a VP in a coalition government after the July general elections.

Another beautiful place in Spain – The Alpujarra of Granada, familiar to those who know anything about Gerald Brenan.

July is approaching and, with it, San Fermín and the running of the bulls in Pamplona. The estimable Max tells us all about it here.

Another blow to my 2 hour rule-of-thumb? The obradores were at work at 6.30 this morning, noisily loading broken concrete into trucks. This would be a questionable 4am in the UK. Perhaps the rule should be relaxed between midnight and 6am. Except that several bars in Pv city’s’s movida zone don’t open until 23.30 and stay open for several hours.

As I’m leaving Madrid early-ish this morning, this is a new museum I’ll have to wait to see, though I did take look at the old walls near the Almudena Cathedral a couple of weeks ago. As it says in the article. the information boards are weather-beaten and the little park was closed. Hard not to improve on that.

The UK

Possibly the best exposé of how BJ operates I’ve read. Some choice/chosen points from it:-

• He lives in a world of plausible deniability His hands-off style worked when he edited The Spectator and when he was London mayor. But not as PM

• Those of us who spoke brightly about his potential as prime minister have had to feast on humble pie. 

• But he was ousted by a deeply dysfunctional system.

• This furious report into Johnson’s behaviour would be fine if it was one of many investigations, or if there was a long committee report into why Sage [Covid death] forecasts were so wrong, with such fateful consequences.

• When his drama finally ends, both parties might reflect on whether it might be time to lift the focus away from each other, and back to the constituents they’re supposed to represent.

Germany

The country’s once powerful Greens are now self-destructing, it’s claimed here. Another clash with economic reality?

Europe

So, the problem of staff shortages in the hospitality industry isn’t confined to Galicia. Despite having 3.5m people unemployed, Spain is experiencing acute problems.

Finally

At the walls cited above, I chatted to a couple of nice Australians who’d had no idea there’d been a Muslim occupation of Spain for around 700 years. Put me in mind of the old – and untrue – witticism that the only thing Australians know about culture is that it rhymes with vulture . . . .

Trivia of the day

In my last week in this barrio I’ve discovered 4 things:-

• The 4 sets of the lights at the nearby big roundabout are confusing not only for me.
• Drivers turning right from said roundabout will (try to) do so from any of the 3 lanes, not just the outer or middle lanes.
• In the one-way streets of this barrio, the parking lane is 40cm (2 feet) narrower than that in 2-way streets. So my parking technique hadn’t really gone to the dogs
• The traffic lights at the end of my daughter’s street aren’t time-controlled; they will stay on until someone wants to cross the main avenue and has pressed the button on the post at the crossing. Usefully, the obradores taking up the pavement have caged off this post, meaning one has to ignore the red light or wait for quite some time. Yesterday, there were 8 drivers doing this before I put them out of their misery by ignoring the cage and pressing the button for them, and
• Potential passengers via BlaBla can be troublesome. One yesterday – apparently a complete stranger to punctuation and Spanish orthography – seemed incapable of understanding I wasn’t willing to take her and her mother from Pv city to somewhere way up the coast. After 37 messages from her I finally told her to desist. To be met, of course, with insults. Probably a Gallega, Infamously difficult.

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.