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: The VdG today: The EU is monitoring the amnesty: Now that consultations with the king are over, the 2nd attempt at the investiture of new government is ready. While the PP leader is now talking about new elections, the PSOE leader says the time for generosity has arrived. Around the negotiations with everyone, except Vox. On all topics, except the referendum. And the amnesty hot potato continues to generate controversy. These have been used before in other countries, but always under the scrutiny of the European Commission.

Rule-breaking again. I wasn’t too surprised to read that, in Pv city, 40% of night-clubs don’t comply with the regulations in force. But I was shocked to read that 2 night clubs in Murcia that burned down last week – causing 13 deaths – had ignored an order of 21 months ago to close down – for reasons unknown, says the BBC here. In Pv’s case, there’s said to be insufficient inspectors but there might be additional reasons, of course, both there and in Murcia.

Our electricity prices will increase by 20% in mid-winter, when subsidies end. Which won’t do much good for our inflation rate. Or our wallets.

But the good news – for those not making long train journeys – is that discounted tickets for local and middle-distance trips are likely to continue into 2024.

The other noticia buena this week is that the Spanish government is said to have fended off a Brussels demand that, as in Portugal, all our main roads become toll-bearing in 2024, in return for a promise to do something about increasing the use of rail. More trains would be a good start. And the completion of the high-speed track between Ourense and SdC here in Galicia.

La Coruña gets the Times treatment here . . . ‘The influence of the Atlantic’ – a pregnant phrase. Warning: The way things are right now, the food prices will be out of date by next month. Next week?

More quotes from Cees Noteboom’s Roads to Santiago:

• At the battle of Guadalete in 711 the Berbers/Moors/’Moroccans’ defeated the Visigoths/Christians/’Spaniards’ and pushed the remnants of their army back into the mountains of Asturias, whence 7 years later at Covadonga sprang the first successful retaliation.
• The monks in the Middle Ages had Tibetan aspirations, their monasteries cling to rock faces, they teeter on the brink of ravines, and even today there are some which you can reach only by climbing up the mountain on foot.
• At the castle of Loarre, the whole of Aragón lies at your feet. like the dusty hide of a bull.

The UK

AEP explains here why he thinks the EU faces a tricky political future and why the pro-EU Labour party, once in power, might have to pivot away from a ‘prickly Right-wing’ Europe. Not everyone will be convinced of this projection, of course. Time will tell. (BTW, many folk forget – or just don’t know – how anti-Europe the Labour party was back in the 1970s and 80s. Stances do change.)

Germany & France

All is not as well between these two as it once was, it’s alleged here. Hard to believe, though, that it’s al lthe fault of the (arrogant?) French.

Sweden

Now that the Swedish army is being asked to help cops with a surge in gangland killings, are we allowed to ask if there’s something wrong there? – in that long-standing model of a modern social-democratic state. Reading this article, I was reminded of the intractable problems of France’s banlieues. EU leaders come in for some stick in the article – as naive, arrogant, complacent, smug and out-of-touch. And – by their morally superior ostrich-act – guilty of fuelling populism.

Did you know? . . .

There’s a British TV series on YouTube here which features some Monty Python members but precedes the ground-breaking stuff brought to us by Cleese and co a short while later.

Finally . . .

To amuse:-

It took me a few seconds . . .

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.

Finally, finally . . .

Some readers, I hope, will know that the verse I cite at the top of my posts is the opening quatrain of Fitzgerald’s wonderful – but very ‘free’ – translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which you can read about here. Some verses are well known, of course, eg:-

The moving finger writes; and, having writ,

moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit

shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

My favourite:-

Myself when young did eagerly frequent

doctor and saint, and heard great argument

about it and about: but evermore

came out by the same door as in I went.