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

Politics: Here’s Lenox Napier on this week’s main event. Or predicted non-event, if you like. Going through the motions. Literally.

I wrote recently that I thought the EU’s ETIAS system – now predicted for 2025 – had originally been planned for this year but in the latest edition of Business Over Tapas Lenox says it was 2021. This possibly puts Spanish delays to shame.

Talking of new laws/obligations . . . Here’s the VdG today withs something of interest to dog owners in Spain: No mandatory insurance or training course. This is how the new animal welfare law comes into force tomorrow. Dog owners, who have experienced weeks of complete uncertainty, will not, for the moment, have to take out civil liability insurance (except for those of dangerous breeds). It also won’t be necessary to take the announced training course for responsible dog ownership. The OCU is demanding clarity from the ministry and advises including pets in home insurance.

I can’t tell whether this – cited by Lenox is humorous or not, or whether it will outrage my Galician friends . . . Una de las Canciones más Gallegas del mundo

By coincidence, I’ve just heard this Danza Gallega on a Swiss music channel . . .

More from Cees Noteboom’s Roads to Santiago: [In Sevilla] The first thing I see is a huge ‘paso de Semana Santa’, its bearers concealed beneath it except for 4 times 4 pairs of small shuffling feet. This float is covered with a blood-red cloth, and the unwieldy black cross on top is loosely draped with a demure white shawl. A rifle of castanets now rises above the drum beats, but I can’t tell where the clicking is coming from until a bevvy of very small girls in Sevillan costume turns the corner. A crowd gathers from all sides now. Golden legions for those with a fondness for boys, grave-looking lads weighed down by the cross, their football-player’s bodies hidden under monks’ habits. Each group has its own ‘paso’, its own symbols . The poor bodies that belong to the feet underneath must be suffering tortures of heat. This may still be Catholicism but it is the fanatic flagellant variety, strange and dire, extreme like the heat and the landscape of Andalucia.

Quote of the Day

The art form of the future is chat. . . . The important innovation of our time is not to imbue chat with some previously unimagined significance but to package it as a mass-media product. . . In its subtleties of tone, feeling, tension and humour, conversation is irreducibly human. As our world grows more inhuman, those qualities will only be more greatly prized. More here.

Oops . . . Writing tends to favour “the explicit over the implicit”. It lends itself all too easily to dogmatism, certainty, finality. [Moi?] Talk, by contrast, offers pleasurable, unplaceable subtleties of tone and irony. Chat is better at things that are speculative or whimsical or only half-meant.

The Way of the World

Such is the number and quality of folk being cancelled these days for views that don’t comply with current – and intolerant – orthodoxies, it’s become something of a badge of honour. So, I’m wondering how I can achieve it. In these identitarian times, can I self-cancel? Or is there a register of cancelees in which I – or a friend – can ascribe my name? Or do I really need to join one – or more – social media platforms and say something considered outrageous – or even criminal – by at least one fuming zealot of some stamp or other? Or maybe I should just make my FB page of this blog open to the public, allowing someone who’s desperately looking to be upset to cancel me?

English

Apothegm: 1. A terse, witty, instructive saying; a maxim – conveying some important truth.

Spanish

A special treat – Some 13^th century Spanish. Which is easier to understand than 13^th century English. Or, says Cees Noteboom, 13^th century Dutch. To me, it has echoes of Gallego:-

Finally . . .

To amuse . . .

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.