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

Spain’s heroines . . . Spain’s fight for change after the World Cup is bigger than sport – it’s for all women.

Lenox Napier pokes more fun at FB

I’m inured to Spain being a very noisy place but the volume of sound reaching my eyrie from Pv city centre yesterday – an international triathlon event – was the highest I can recall. A prize for anyone who can explain why this is thought necessary, especially around every sporting event.

More quotes from Cees Noteboom’s Roads to Santiago:

• You have got used to the bleakness of all those vast, obdurate landscapes devoid of green, to the unassuming villagers deserted in the midday sun, the heavy fortresses rising out of nowhere in the distance. And then suddenly you come upon La Granja de San Ildefonso,10 kilometres from Segovia: the palace and pleasure gardens created by the first Bourbon King, who pined for Versailles. In the Spanish context of arid drought those wildly spurting fountains strike a frivolous note, the situation of the palace at the foot of the Sierra de Guadarrama provides northern freshness, and the architecture of the royal estate – Baroque, Rococo – clashes with the atavistic austerity of the Alcázar in Sevilla and the awesome Escorial not far away.
• I recall that the last time I was here [in the royal pantheon] I was alone down there, in an all enveloping silence, And that I read the golden names on the boxes: the men to the left, the women to the right, in chronological order. But [by the 1980s even] the days of the lone tourist are over in places such as these. The straggler from one guided tour is swallowed by the next shoal of visitors. [Shades of my visits to the Alhambra in Granada and the Grand Mosque in Córdoba 35+ years apart]l

The UK

You’ll all be aware of the brouhaha around the allegations made against the ‘comedian’ Russell Brand. Some choice (retrospective) comments from those who worked with him:-

• The 2000s lad culture that Russell Brand epitomised wasn’t funny then. It looks even more hideous with hindsight
• His behaviour was narcissistic and reckless, centred on childish, self-serving, point-scoring bile.
• I was blind to Russell Brand — in my tribe [Leftist Guardian columnists] we all were. He was our anti-capitalist hero, so we couldn’t see the misogyny in front of us. He was on my side. The right side. Ah, that age-old moral purity of the (‘Far’?)Left that sometimes blinds them to reality.
• [Same woman]: In 2014 Brand was on Newsnight, and he was so obviously idiotic that I wrote a piece saying exactly that. But because I still thought of him as being on my side (the right side!) I included this line at the end: “Brand is, I have no doubt, one of the good guys.” By which I meant, “OK, he’s an idiot, but he’s our idiot, yeah?” Partisanship is a helluva drug. It’s a way of outsourcing your critical judgment so you never have to think

Some of us weren’t so blind 15 years ago, at least not to his specious claim to be funny. Or mature. Or at all nice. The BBC has a lot to answer for. Especially the woman(!) who championed and protected him. And others like him.

This is an article on shameful male behaviour that’s painful to read. Today’s misogny, it says, is applauded even more loudly than the 2000s version – because it pretends to be progressive.

And this is an article on the tricky issue of what to do about the works of bad men.

(A)GW/Energy/Net Zero

The graphic shows that, after 30 years of progress, global penetration of wind and solar renewables into the energy mix amounts to a mere 3%, with wood burning amounting to 3times more than this form of energy:-

Quote of the Day

In case you missed it . . . Energy supply transitions are very slow.

English

A schtick: A comic theme or gimmick. It entered English from the Yiddish shtik (related to the German Stück and Polish sztuka (all ultimately from the Proto-Germanic stukkiją, all meaning “piece”, “thing” or “theatre play”.)

‘Luxury beliefs’: Ideas performatively adopted by hypocritical jet-setting elites to highlight therir high social status, even though they inflict immense costs on those who can’t afford the expensive measures these elites can.

Finally . . .

This Chinese manufacturer seems a tad confused re English as she is spoke . .

Yesterday I treated myself to Snickers bar for the first time in 3 or 4 years. Back then, it was €0.70 for 51g. Now, it’s €1.25 for 50g. Quite some inflation/profiteering – 83%, I calculate. Even greater than with olive oil and sugar.

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.