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

My apologies for reproducing Lenox’s typo yesterday, which I should have detected . . . The fraudulent/’lawfare’ case against Podemos – El caso Neurona – was initiated in 2020, not 2000.

The British historian of Spain, Paul Preston, has a new book – ‘Architects of Terror’ – in which, says Lenox Napier, he shows that Franco built his regime vilifying the Jews and then tried to hide this. Spain’s ties to Nazi Germany and the use of anti-Semitic propaganda belied its claims of sympathy for Jewish refugees’.

Talking of Lenox, in his latest Business Over Tapas, he asks: Who were the Visigoths and how did they fall? For more than 2 centuries, the Visigoths wrote a very important chapter in the history of the Iberian Peninsula. The names of many kings have come down to us, but their works of art, their treasures, their laws, their battles and their end before the Muslims at the beginning of the 8th century are also famous. Oddly, they’ve been almost expunged from the popular memory.

This is quite a coincidence as I’d already had this as today’s quote from Cees Noteboom’s Roads to Santiago: The Visigoths gradually moved southward into Spain, and they ruled [all] Spain from Toledo. A glance at their laws, their form of government, their elected kings, their script, their churches – a few of which still stand fully intact in the Spanish landscape – is enough to extinguish any notion of the barbarism which is nevertheless associated with their name. In 475 they broke the old ‘foedus’ linking them to the Roman Empire and established an independent state, which burned like straw three centuries later. What started the fire? Dissent within the Royal House, growing impotence of the state, crippling taxation on behalf of the lords of the land, a wave of anti-Semitism that damaged the economy. This one paragraph spans three centuries

All of which raises the question for me of why is it that the Galicians strive so hard to be thought of as Celts. After all, these were followed by the Romans, the Visigoths, and even the Moors. So why choose the ‘barbarian’ Celts and re-invent costumes and bagpipes? More romantic, I guess. And well in line with the Galician belief – allegedly proven by the Book of Kells – that Galicians, under Breogán, founded Ireland. Am not sure the Irish go along with this. And there aren’t any Celtic words in Gallego.

Apart from those on the road, for example, there are two sorts of ‘unnecessary’ deaths that might be peculiar to Spain. The first is of old men on old, cab-less tractors, who perish when these overturn – quite frequently – here in (hilly) Galicia. The second is those – usually of men – who are gored to death in bull-running events around Spain. According to this BBC report on the latest of these, there are hundreds of such events around Spain every year. Though I don’t think we have any in Galicia. As the reports says, they’re financially beneficially to the towns where they take place, so are likely to continue for some time yet. See the numbers cited there.

Another cost increase – 10% for my house insurance premium – that doesn’t conform with the official inflation rate of ‘less than 2%’.

Russia v Ukraine

The UN special rapporteur on torture, claims that the Kremlin is implementing a carefully choreographed “state policy” of torture in occupied Ukraine. “It’s not just that it’s so widespread,” , she said. “You can see from the way the method is set up and mirrored across different regions — there is the supervising officer, the torturer and the interrogator.

The Kremlin’s efforts to cover up their crimes often fall flat. In one case, Kyiv exchanged Russian prisoners of war for 12 Ukrainian soldiers captured alive. The Ukrainian soldiers were returned as corpses.

So, expect no change.

(A)GW/Energy/Net Zero

RN surveys here the latest developments in Italy, Germany, Poland, France, Ireland and the EU overall – described by him as ‘turmoil on the continent’. As regards the EU, he cites the comment that: There is a growing sense of concern among policymakers that Europe’s attempts to lead the world in the energy transition risk fatally weakening what is left of its industrial strength, undermining any aspiration to global leadership.

Quote of the Day/Social Media

Today, whenever a big piece of news is published, it immediately forks into 2 stories: There’s the original, “objective” report, and the internet narrative. And God help you if you’re the subject of one of the latter. When you discover just how senseless and nasty humans can be.

Social Media/The Way of the World

Sleep easy, fans of Russell Brand, because nobody is ever going to stop him being deranged on the internet. Unless he finds his liberty curtailed for completely different reasons, he will always be able to keep howling at the moon. The price of freedom of speech, I guess. Though, ironically, Brand claims this no longer exists.

On this, the same columnist: Over the past decade, the whole territory of free speech and the internet has changed almost unrecognisably. Having originally posed as free-speech absolutists, most tech companies have spent the past five years veering the other way. The more they tightened up, though – banning and blocking and muting – the more rival platforms sprang up to absorb the users they’d left behind. Brand now delivers his ‘batshittery’ on Rumble. Most of us think he’s finished. Some people, though, think he’s just getting started. The great paradox of the internet age is that both are right. I think there’s nothing dramatic we can do about it. Or, at least, not without abandoning liberalism altogether. Legislators can fume and tech companies can veer one way or another, but will it all really make a difference? For as long as there is an internet, there will always be ungoverned speech. And for as long as there is a moon, some people will howl.

A propos . . . Who referees cyberspace?

English & Spanish

English and Spanish: 2 languages, same idioms.

Did you know? . . .

The latest microbial research reveals that black coffee is ‘an unexpected hero of the gut health world’, as it has a “wildly strong” correlation with positive microbe outcomes. Drip and espresso are the methods that extract the most polyphenols – the beneficial, dense chemicals that are anti-oxidant – from coffee beans, but any type of coffee or method of making it is likely to be gut-friendly, including even instant. Avoiding sugar or syrups, which are not gut-friendly, is the golden rule.

Finally . . .

This happens to me quite a lot . . . . In a place where they don’t know me, I ask for a wine or beer and the immediate response is !Que!? I then repeat exactly the same words in exactly the same tone and the order is met. My suspicion is that they panic at the sight of a senior-citizen guiri whom they assume they aren’t going to understand, and so don’t bother to listen. But other theories are available.

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.