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

Post-election politics

• The Basque PNV party is already proving troublesome for the PP party, increasing the chances of either a continued PSOE coalition or a stalemate leading to new elections this winter.
• The FT explains here why Spain’s ‘power vacuum’ threatens its economy and EU progress on Ukraine. Inconclusive election result stands in way of need to reduce Madrid’s budget deficit and advance other reforms in Brussels. An already-slow administrative machine in the latter city will be even slower than usual.
• The Times’ Madrid correspondent claims here that: Spain’s [PP] conservatives can’t win if Vox survives. Despite topping the polls, the PP has been tainted by association with the far right. The article needs to be read and digested, if you want to understand Spain’s (rather complicated) politics.

As for said Spanish economy . . . That FT article stresses that, at the macro level, Spain’s GDP will grow this year by a (relatively) impressive 2.5%, outpacing the EU average of 0.9% by a factor of 3. The rich continue to get richer. Down at the micro level, the poor and the young continue to struggle, though inflation is down to less than 2%. One of the lowest rates in Europe, if not the lowest.

As for the current weather . . . A ‘meridional flow Jetstream phenomenon’ is the cause of high temperatures across Mediterranean regions but, in complete contrast, also for low temperatures and lots of rain in the UK. Here in Galicia, we seem to be in the middle of those extremes, with normal summer temperatures and (low)rainfall. A happy state of affairs. Especially for our tourists.

Very sad to hear of the passing, at ‘only’ 75, of John Brierley, author of the first and still the best guide(s) to the Camino. I corresponded with him several times and twice had a copa with him here in Pv city. A lovely man. And apparently tireless, despite a bad back.

The UK

Another of those articles on the economic decline of the UK: Britain is a poor country determined to get even poorer. We have fallen behind countries we once consider peers; the gap between Britain and America is wider than the gap between the UK and Romania. Are these written with the aim of galvanising government action, I wonder. Also . . . Do similar articles appear in the French media?

Germany

Things are getting serious, at least for this year. The British economy will outperform Germany this year, the IMF admits. Europe’s biggest economy risks becoming stuck between stagnation and recession. . . Germany’s economy is now expected to shrink by 0.3% this year in a blow to the Chancellor, who insisted earlier this year that Germany will avoid a contraction. Next year will see a return to decent growth, say some.

(A)GW/Energy/Net Zero

Richard North explains here why he’s less convinced than the BBC and The Guardian ‘catastrophisers’ that the fires in Greece are all down to AGW. Or even principally down to that.

BTW . . . The description of Greek corruption around illegal house-building sounds an awful lot like southern Spain, at least how it was when I was looking to move down there and for for some years thereafter. Possibly things have changed since then.

The Way of the World

According to the OECD, more than one-third of workers in Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic could be affected by automation. This compares with the lowest three in the developed world of Sweden (20%), the UK(19%) and luxembour(18%). The OECD average, including countries in Europe and the USA. is 27%. And it’s not necessarily the jobs you’d think: the jobs most under threat are in low- and middle-skilled jobs, such as construction, farming and transportation, whereas high-skilled occupations such as management and social service occupations are still at low risk from being automated, despite advances in artificial intelligence.

Social Media

‘Everyone is asking whether Threads will “kill” Twitter’, said Kevin D. Wiliamson in the New York Post. In an ideal world, they would kill each other. Both are tools to monetise our “social anxiety”, our fixation with hierarchy and popularity. This is bad for society. It’s no coincidence that politics has got much wilder and less responsible during the social media age:Twitter and Facebook have ushered in an era of “mob politics”. So, what are we to do about it? Staying off them ain’t going to be enough, unless most of us do that.

English

I got to wondering how many languages, like English, are genderless. Quite a lot, it seems. But only c. 4 Indo-European tongues boast this quality – English, Persian, Armenian and Hindu. The other languages include:-

• Basque
• All the Kartvelian languages, including Georgian
• All the Dravidian languages, such as Kannada and Tamil
• All the Uralic languages, such as Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian.
• All the modern Turkic languages, such as Turkish, Tatar and Kazakh
• Chinese
• Japanese
• Korean
• Most Austronesian languages, such as the Polynesian languages, and
• Vietnamese

As for how many in total – A global survey of gender systems 256 languages showed that 112 (44%) have grammatical gender and 144 (56%) are genderless. There are c. 7,000 languages in the world, so a sample of 256 constitutes roughly 4% of them. So, although this survey indicates a high proportion of gender neutrality, it doesn’t take into account the other 96% of languages.

Finally . . .

I read that: Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz took his fiancée Ginger Lucky Gaetz to an early screening. So . . .

Questions arising:-

• 1. Is his fiancée already married to him, so not his fiancée?
• 2. If not, is she his cousin or his sister’
• 3. Is she really called Ginger Lucky?

Answers:-

• 1. Yes
• 2. Not relevant
• 3. Yes

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 – updated a bit in early July 2023.