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

I’m glad to see that someone agrees with me that Spain’s economy between 2002 and 2997 literally went insane. In this article on the country’s mortgage crisis.

Is Spain – like the UK – heading for another housing crisis, asks this commentator.

One odd aspect of Spain’s economy has long been the fact that the Spanish work longer hours than others, without necessarily being the most productive workers around. It’s a cultural thing, they say. Which the government has tried to change, without much success.

Lenox Napier writes of gay-bashing here.

Fishy items:-

1. Those violent dolphins

2. An unusual visitor to our coast

Below is reader Perry’s account of rail journey in Spain when he was a kid, many decades ago. Followed by my own account of an unforgettable train trip I made from Alicante to Barcelona back in 1970.

As it happens, I chatted to a Spanish friend on Friday night about what Spain was like in 1970. I claimed the streets smelled very different back then, with the standard mixture being one of cheap cigarettes, diesel fuel, olive oil and sweat. She insisted that there can’t have been the sweat element as ‘all Spaniards – unlike the Brits – shower every day’. Well, maybe these days but I doubt this was true in 1970.

UK

The national character . . . Says the estimable Citilin Moran about the reaction to Boris Johnson’s highly questionable Honours list: The stubborn, outraged British people, still deeply wedded to the idea of fairness, are doing what is borderline revolutionary for Britons: they are employing sarcastic punctuation* to wholly undermine the whole concept of titles. Although this would be thought of as nothing in more hot-headed countries, eg France, for Britain it is incendiary stuff. This is our ‘gilet jaune’ moment. The French protest via items of clothing. We protest with inverted commas. Our national characteristics are immutable.

*Putting quotes around the titles, such as ‘Sir’ X’ and ‘Lord/Lady’ Y.

The EU

Anglos should get ready for this.

Russia

Does anyone think Prigozhin will live a long and stress-free life in Belarus? Richard North, for one, thinks he’ll get ‘the Trotsky treatment’ there. Who’d bet against that?

Quotes of The Day

• RN: Certainly, Prigozhin will need to steer clear of upper-floor windows.
• In the body-strewn Shakespearean play of Putin’s long, Macbeth-like presidency, we are into Act 5.

The Way of the World

Ernest Hemingway’s work has been given a trigger warning by publishers over concerns about his “language” and “attitudes”. The Nobel Prize-winning writer’s novels and short stories have been reissued with a new cautionary note. Would-be readers are now warned about the “language” and “attitudes” contained in his writing, and alerted to the novelist’s “cultural representations”. A disclaimer in the latest edition of his debut novel ‘The Sun Also Rises’ – considered among the greats of the 20th century – states that the publishers decided not to censor the book, but makes clear that this does not constitute an “endorsement” of Hemingway’s original text.

What a dull world we’re heading for.

Finally . . .

I can confirm every bloom of the passion flower plant produces a seed pod, after the flower has died, after only 24 hours of glory. Three pods today already. Here’s one just emerging:-

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.

A COUPLE OF TRAIN JOURNEYS IN SPAIN

1. READER PERRY’S

Our first holiday in Spain was an adventure. We travelled almost the whole way by train, starting on a Saturday at Pinner station at 09.00, arriving Paris Nord 16.00, then a coach to a restaurant (chicken & chips) outside Gare du Lyons. We found our reserved couchettes, the train departed at 20.00 & we arrived at 06.30 at Cerbère. The train then transited the tunnel to Port Bou, where our linguistic skills caused much mirth with the Spanish Customs. However, we were much more successful in ordering our coffees & bocadillos de jamón sin mantequilla; yes, we knew! Steam-hauled in wooden carriages with iron verandas, antimacassars on seat backs, no window glass, just wooden shutters & curtains, the 6 hours to Barcelona. I loved it. Whilst waiting for the electric train service to Sitges, mother paid 5 céntimos to purchase 4 small pieces of toilet paper from the servicio de conserjería. Oh, how we laughed. We arrived at the Hotel Sitges at 15.30 & partook of our first of many evening meals, seated at tables with parasols by the swimming pool.

2. MY (UNFORGETTABLE) 1970 JOURNEY

The train was due to leave Alicante for Barcelona at 8 minutes past midnight and I’d taken the precaution of buying a ticket 2 weeks earlier. I reckoned that, to be sure of getting a seat, I’d need to be at the station at least 2 hours before the train departed. So, at 10 o’clock, we were sitting on the same bench on which I’d found my fiancée 3 weeks before.

At 11.30, there was still no sign of the train and we’d been unable to discover at which platform it was due to arrive at. At 11.35, however, there was an announcement that the carriage for Barcelona was standing at the end of platform 3. Snatching up my rucksack, I raced along platform 3, with my fiancée and half a million Spaniards in hot pursuit.

I was one of the first to reach the carriage and, by the time I got there, someone had succeeded in opening one of the doors. Since they were clearly having trouble getting any of the other doors open, I joined the queue of 3 at that one. Two of the three climbed quickly up into the carriage but the third, having mounted the steps, turned round and started to take luggage from his wife in the crowd that was piling up behind me. I was getting worried. Somebody had succeeded in opening one of the other doors and people were flooding into the carriage from the other end.

I screamed at the guy to get his bags out of the way and, having done so, he turned to haul up his wife. Since the latter weighed at least 15 stone[96 kilos], she had a little difficulty negotiating the steps. I was at the end of my tether. I dragged the woman from behind and hauled myself up into the carriage. But it was too late. There wasn’t a square inch left. Furious, I pushed my way down the compartment in the hope I’d find a corner someone had overlooked. No such luck. They were even swinging from the light fittings.

I did manage to find some space for my rucksack but I soon discovered why no one else had laid claim to it; it was 3 inches away from the toilet. But it was all I had and so I left my luggage there and fought my way back through the carriage to say goodbye to my fiancée.

Since the train from Granada was due to pick up this coachful of sardines at 8 minutes past midnight, she left at 12, leaving me to smash my way back to my bags.

At 2.30, we were still in the station.

I was worried stiff. The train was scheduled to take 12 hours to do the 300 odd miles to Barcelona and my train from there was due to leave at 3.10pm.

At last, at 2.45, the Granada train pulled in and we were hitched up. We set off just before 3. As time passed and the speed of the train varied from 3 to 80 miles an hour, I nervously ticked off the stations on my timetable. I was certain we weren’t going to make Barcelona in time for me to catch my connection. And every time we stopped more people squeezed onto the train. As far as I was concerned, this meant a decrease in space and an increase in lavatorial traffic.

I was engaged in conversation by a German who expressed a professional interest in English jokes and then proceeded to greet every one I told him with a blank stare of incomprehension. He gave me an example of the kind of joke he had in mind. It appeared that the essential ingredients were homosexuality and at least 2 undergraduates from Oxford and Cambridge. When I explained that none of my jokes fell into this category, he murmured something in German and returned to his book.

Time passed slowly and the timetable turned to pulp in my sweaty hands. At 2.30pm, we were still a fair distance from Barcelona and plane tickets kept flashing before my eyes. If there’d been enough room, I’d have got down on my knees and prayed.

We arrived at Barcelona at 3pm exactly and I dashed frantically through the barrier, in search of the NUS representative with my tickets for London.

Two minutes later, I was hurtling back again, looking for the relevant train. 

I made it with minutes to spare and the train pulled out at exactly 3.10.

The journey back to London was rather less eventful.