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

The FT reports that Spain has resumed efforts to form a government after the summer lull, with the PSOE PM seeking to stay in power by bargaining with small regional parties, now that Congress has reconvened. Says the FT: No resolution is likely until September and, if the deadlock cannot be broken, the country will be forced to hold repeat elections in December or early next year, as it did in 2015 and 2019. Not exactly stability.

Meanwhile, Spain has taken over the presidency of the EU, thus complicating things in Brussels. The Elcano Royal Institute has addressed Spain’s priorities for the Presidency and asked: Can Spain power Europe? Once an economic underdog, Spain is now emerging as a European energy powerhouse. Amidst its robust economy and large renewables potentials, as well as strategic gas transit position from Africa, Spain is poised to revolutionise Europe’s energy landscape. But . . . Can Europe ever truly move away from Russia?, it adds.

This site fingers the obvious candidates for the honour of being the most expensive Spanish provincincial capitals in which to live but also names 2 in Galicia which are among the cheapest, with Lugo being the absolute lowest. Pv city ain’t cheap.

Possibly not ony here in Galicia: Breeding at 40: With the advent of democracy, some 43,000 children were born each year in Galicia. The figure has fallen to less than half. This is a blow to the demographic balance but doctors are more concerned about the age of mothers. They no longer given birth at 20 but, as in the case of emancipation, more and more is expected. The average age to have a child is now between 35 and 38 and, this year, more than a thousand children have already been born when the mother in her 40s.

Interesting . . . Exports from Pv province to Russia doubled last year. Particularly of chemicals, at 83% of these. A useful €126m. Imports totalled more than €1100m. It’s an ill wind . . .

Another stat . . . Only 0.3% of Pv city’s residents attended the August bullfights between 2021 and 2022. Certainly, the corridas have reduced to 2 a year, from 4, and the arenas aren’t full in the fotos published. A friend who’s a fan gives them 10 years at most.

Germany

Perhaps the UK isn’t the only declining nation.

At least this worrying development isn’t a feature of the UK . . . In recent years, Germany has seen an alarming spike in far-right activity, together with an [inevitable?] rise in antisemitism.

Russia

Not a good place to either incompetent or critical . . . A general dismissed as the top commander after heavy losses in Ukraine has died after reportedly falling ill. The lack of details has naturally led to suspicions he was either poisoned of carelessly fell out of a (possibly ground-floor) window. Or both. He’d been made a Hero of Russia in 2017. But in Syria his brutality had earned him the nickname “the butcher”. So, he won’t be missed by everyone. He was, by the way, the 7th general to die since the start of the war. A fatally unlucky profession, it seems.

The Way of the World

A DT columinist has some provocative thoughts here, in an article headed: The global refugee system is morally bankrupt – and could finish the West. It’s unjustifiable to spend vast resources on educated and able migrants while their homelands crumble.

Did you know?

In the early 1930, The US media mogul, William Randolph Hearst published articles by Adolf Hitler. Hearst admired him for keeping Germany out of “the beckoning arms of Bolshevism.” An attitude not uncommon among Britain’s aristocrats.

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.

Finally . . .

To amuse . . . Given the news that an elderly couple were this week were charged £110 at the airport by Ryanair for boarding passes as they had not printed them out at home, we must ask: where will it end? Like this, one supposes:

My airline, SqueezyJet, monetises everything. Oxygen is £1,000 a litre

“Good morning, and welcome aboard this SqueezyJet flight, dedicated to squeezing every last penny out of you and monetising anything that moves and also anything that doesn’t.

“Our captain today is Captain Michael Smith, who is not a pilot but does look handsome in a white short-sleeved shirt and he has watched a ten-minute training video. It is now our policy to replace costly pilots with those who look handsome in short-sleeved white shirts so that we can pass the savings on to you before clawing them back in ways you would never have imagined possible in a million years.

“Before we take off we will be coming round the cabin to check that those who opted to store their shoes in the hold rather than pay to wear them inflight are, indeed, in nothing but socks. Please place your feet where we can see them unless you are one of those who didn’t pay for legroom — £9.30 an inch — and has their legs round their ears with their feet just dangling there. If you didn’t pay for your legs today and had them sawn off at our special desk in the terminal, pleased rest assured: SqueezyJet were recently voted the No 1 airline for getting passengers to stump up! No 1 in the world!

“We ask that you read the safety instructions you will find in the back of the seat in front of you. It’s £6 per read but for those of you who have now quickly put it back without reading, we see you, and it’s now £10 for putting yourself and your fellow passengers at risk by not acquainting yourself with the turnstiled emergency exits that take pound coins. We hope you enjoy the inflight magazine — £15 a flick — which, this month, boasts about the new fleet of planes we bought from the lady who makes them on her kitchen table in Kent and has an Etsy shop.

“In the event of an emergency our oxygen masks, also crocheted by Pat, will drop down from above. Our flight attendants will then pass through the cabin with a card reader so you might buy oxygen. Our feedback has consistently shown that purchasing oxygen during an emergency will mean staying alive while others perish. You can’t put a price on human life, except that we do, and it’s £1,000 a litre. Steep, you may think, but when you factor in that Michael was serving paninis in a Caffè Nero (Gatwick) just yesterday, which is where we first spotted him and thought he’d look good in a short-sleeved shirt, we do not consider it over the top. The life jackets are not made by Pat in Kent, by the way, they’re made by Betty in Essex. There isn’t anything Betty can’t knit.

“We hope you are aware that you cannot use our onboard restroom facilities unless you have paid extra for ‘lavatory privileges’, and if you’ve paid on top of that for ‘speedy lavatory privileges’ you are permitted to wee fast. Or do the other thing fast. To be perfectly candid, we don’t really get that, but if you are stupid enough to pay for it, we are clever enough to charge for it. For those passengers who haven’t pre-purchased this option you may well piss your pants, but fear not: we can offer new pants for £120 a throw. Please piss your pants considerately and not during turbulence as it’ll go everywhere. There may be turbulence if Captain Michael decides to play around with the big stick thing to see what it does.

“We hope you have a pleasant journey and would wish to stress that it’s never an easy decision to fleece our loyal customers, but it is the economic reality of making a vast profit that won’t be spent on our god-awful customer services. Customer services is run single-handedly by Paul, whom we discovered in Pret (Heathrow) this Tuesday gone. But he does have all the latest software. To reiterate: Betty can knit anything.”