Colin Davies

11 September 2023

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

Kissgate: So, Sr Rubiales has thrown in the towel and resigned. Pretty inevitable. But I can’t help wondering if the kissee would have initiated legal action against him absent the media storm which resulted from it.

Two articles from Mark Stücklin Spanish Property Insight–

Spain is a famously noisy country. And, truth to tell, Spaniards can be very inconsiderate of others. My unfortunate travelling companion was treated to a next-door shower at 3am last night and by a group of revellers below his window who finally knocked off around 5am. Hopefully he can catch up on sleep on our drive to Villaviciosa and Oviedo today, leaving Llanes and the magnificent Picos de Europa behind.

More evidence of September being the new August – the bars and restaurants of Llanes were brimming last night.

My apologies for calling the Tour of Spain, the Gira. It is, of course, La Vuelta. But still a bloody nuisance for us, whatever you call it. And an event in which I have nil interest in watching, having seen a huge group of cyclists pass me in less than a second in Pv city a few years ago.

Second confession . . . When I suggested that Juacar might be pronounced Wuancar in Gallego, I was thinking of guapa being rendered as wuapa. ln Gallego, the J is usually changed to X and pronounced as Sh. As in Sanjenjo/Sanxenxo.

The UK

Someone thinks he knows why Britain is so depressed. Inter alia, he cites the failed attempts of Mrs Thatcher and the hapless Liz Truss to address structural deficiencies.

Russia

The West must prepare for a splintering Russia, says this columnist: Exiles from myriad nationalities and regions are making plans for an alarming post-Putin future

(A)GW/Energy/Net Zero

The dangers of groupthink.

Quote of the Day

 A society that confuses mob consensus with due process is not a healthy one.

Social Media

Is Elon Musk antisemitic, as well as nuts?

Finally . . .

I take my hat of to my old friend. No longer a spring chicken, he’s using Duolingo every morning to learn Spanish – for when he visits family in Barcelona. He certainly knows relevant words and phrases but struggles with pronunciation, especially the name of a dish he wants to have for lunch today – Asturian fabada. Last night, he ordered an ensalada verde, only to have the waitress turn to me and ask: “Was that Spanish. I didn’t get a word of it”. I put it down to the fact that, inevitably she was South American. And he was trying too hard. How we laughed. .

I love to relax into a hot bath after day’s driving and I’ve been lucky enough to be able to do this in 7 out of 8 hotels so far. But last night’s bath was small and I overfilled it with both gel and water. The resulting suds had to be transferred to the sink . . .

And then the bath overflowed when I sat in it, soaking my phone on the floor. It still works but has several vertical white lines on the screen. So, I was rather lucky.

Anyone know what this is? Found on top of my shirt the other morning . . .

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.

For those thinking of moving to Spain:- This is an extremely comprehensive and accurate guide to the challenge, written by a Brit who lives in both the North and the South and who’s very involved in helping Camino walkers. Which is possibly why, I’ve just belatedly realised, his nom-de-plume is Johnnie Walker . . . And I’d thought he was a big whisky fan.

18 comments

  1. Answering your reply from yesterday.
    That is right as country does not have to be in the EU to be part of Horizon. I think Israel and Norway are also a part. But they have to comply with awhile raft of EU regulation. Like the 4000 EU laws that won’t be scrapped, the agreement on NI, the rules around chemical products that won’t be rescinded and the imperial measures that won’t be reintroduced, it is all far removed from what brexiteers wished for. But that will give them an excuse to say Brexit was never fully implemented.
    You do quote the Guardian occasionally but only at a small fraction of the frequency at which you quote the DT. But that was not my point. You do not have to subscribe to read Guardian articles ( for the time being it suffices to register). But you do have to subscribe to read the DT. Thus you are financing the DT. The Guardian is so to speak still free.

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    • Israel has to comply with 4000 EU laws. I would be interested to see a link on that. The best I could come up with was https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/strategy/strategy-2020-2024/europe-world/international-cooperation/association-horizon-europe/israel_en#:~:text=Israel%20has%20been%20associated%20to,force%20on%20the%20same%20day.

      I did read that the UK will not scrap 4000 eu laws, is that what you meant?
      I probably won’t be around in 10 years either, just like the UK will not have rejoined the EU.

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      • I did not write that Israel had to comply with 4000 EU laws. The UK has.
        But Israel does have to accept the batch of regulations concerning Horizon. So for the UK you will have to add to the existing 4000 laws the regulations linked to Horizon. And the ones referring to chemical products as well. And many others that are surely coming. I know people with pre-settlement status in the UK have received an automatic 2 year extension. A generous gift from Cruella? How unlike of her. Slowly the climb down from Brexit is happening almost unnoticed. Perhaps the Spanish will soon recognize British dvla. Perhaps. As for foreigners buying properties and tourism, Spain has too much of both. The gaps left by the Brits have been quickly filled by US Americans. And by newly rich Poles and Chinese. But. the. UK has. no. future.outside. the. EU.

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      • Apologies Horizon your sentence construction confused me slightly.
        In terms of EU regulation, EU or not – I understand the chemical and lab regulations would most likely exist anyway, if anything to avoid “wuhan” type events. Or mass population poisoinings etc etc. I also believe they have existed since around 1995. I am a bit hazy on this though.

        With refrence to the 4000 laws, did you get this quote from the Guardian? How odd the Guardian would say that. The idea to scrap the 4000 laws I believe was made on May 11th. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/uk-ditches-post-brexit-plan-to-scrap-eu-laws-by-year-end/articleshow/100143200.cms?from=mdr
        Apparently, to do this by the end 2023, left too many legal uncertaintities.
        I still can’t find the list of 4000 laws though. I wonder if they included things like the size of strawberries, or how bendy bananas are?
        Does the Horizon deal therefore mean the laws will NEVER be scrapped? And more importantly, how much of the British population will have their eyes glued to news following this?

        Brexit, I will say has become tiresome. Any major change will effect how things are run, such as when legacy systems are removed from businesses and replaced with Automatisation and then Digitalisation. I personally voted for Remain. However more people voted to leave. Fair enough! It’s called democracy, and after having my flag at half mast for a weekend back in 2016, I thought okay just got to get on with it. It has had some effect on me, despite living in Spain. Products I can no longer get, imports sometimes sitting in customs for 3 weeks, getting tickets for my beloved NUFC. Even tax issues. HOWEVER, each one is a challenge, something to look for a work around or inventive solution within the law. And, all I will say to people who didnt get their driving licences sorted is …. no I better not.

        As time has gone on, seeing the EU’s shambolic handling of Covid, particularly Von Der Leyen losing the plot, was a very good arguement for not rejoining EU. Spains handling was beyond madness. Ukraine and the Russian invasion, yet another good reason to not be a part of the EU. The EU’s obsession with China leading to overreliance and the subsequent issues in the supply chain. An old friend of mine who I worked with in Morocco said – Whoever controls the shipping containers, controls the worlds supply chain. He said this in 99. Now look where we are.

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      • I reply out of politeness. I sense people will get bored reading my posts. Whether it is 4000 or 400 laws the fact is the UK was going to make a bonfire of a huge number of EU regulations embedded in the British legislative body. It is not going to happen. Horizon implies accepting EU regulation linked to Britain’s participation in the programme. Since Britain had left Horizon and is now re-entering, the corresponding legislation has to be incorporated anew. Does your regular dick&joe know or care about this? Coss not. But did anyone in Britain care to know or understand what the EU was or is about? Never. Not until Brexit at least. The EU has always been shambolic. That is the nature of the beast. For me not at all a reason to give up. On the contrary. Not because something is difficult to manage should it be cast away. Then again, non- Britons have learnt one thing (not me as I knew that long ago) and that is that Britain is even more shambolic. If there was one thing that held Britain’s reputation above others, that was that Britain had a good level of governance. That image has now been shattered once and for all. As for RN I am going to say something a bit offensive here. I think is as thick as mince. At least David Frost and Liz Truss had a daring an decisive plan. Their problem is that they do not understand the country they live in. But that is content for another book.

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    • Thanks for the Horizon data.

      Rather than put this in every post, I say from time to time – like now – that I don’t necessarily endorse whatever I cite. These are articles which interest, amuse or challenge. Some of them must be wrong but that doesn’t worry me – nor the image of me they might create – as I’m only interested in those 3 aspects, and hope that my readers will be too. And even when I disagree, I don’t usually say so, leaving the readers to decide for themselves. Oft times, of course, I don’t know if the articles are accurate or not. For example the one on Russia today, but it’s fascinating.

      And, by the way, like RN I detest the so-called Brexit deal ‘negotiated’under the aegis of the charlatan Johnson and so am hardly surprised that there are folk like you who think it’s dreadfully damaging. Sometimes accurately, sometimes not. There is a tendency to exaggerate based upon confirmatory bias. Time will tell and, as you know, whatever I think of the Brexit that happened, I don’t believe it will be de jure or much de facto reversed within 10 years.

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  2. Property – Really interesting to see how Brits are still buying up a lot of properties. My Auntie is selling hers in Mallorca, in fact, I think she has found a buyer. The reasons are mostly personal, burning part due to decreasing security, especially an increase in burglaries and squatters.

    Depressed Britain – The article did drone on, but blaming Thatcher & Truss, a bit wide of the mark. Funny how Tony Bliar rarely gets mentioned. And the bit about ‘under 50s upping sticks’ was blatantly untrue. For me though, the comments were fascinating. In one comment, Britains problems were blamed on young people not finding affordable housing to rent or buy. I thought ‘Nah! It’s that ruddy Airbnb’.

    Glas your trip has been entertaining. Always good for the mind to get away. Oviedo, is one of my favourites, enjoy. Fabada today, it seems? Hope you have separate rooms. 😂

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