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

This Fascinating Spain article on beautiful places in Northern Spain cites Bayona/Baiona and says it’s home to the first European port where Christopher Columbus announced he had reached the American continent. He didn’t say this, of course, as he insisted until the end of his days he’d bumped into India. Hence, the West Indies and Indians.

Another large sea-related problem for Galicia – plastic pellets.

The bloody masks are back! As, no doubt, are the mask Nazis, who hate seeing the top of your mask any distance below the bridge of your nose. They will be thrilled.

The UK

Scotland: Effie Deans poses some tough questions for the Nats here. I don’t imagine they have credible answers.

Driving to and from South Manchester from Liverpool takes me past Burtonwood services on the M62. Every time I do so, I’m reminded that there once was an RAF airbase there, taken over by the USAF during WW2 and later used for the Berlin airlift, 1948-1949. I’m also reminded that, after the war, my father – by now an ex-RAF pilot – had a senior position there. Though I’m not sure he was still there in 1948. Sadly, he wasn’t the sort of man to talk about his life and times. Or to spend 30 years writing them up for his children to ignore . . .

Some time in the mid 1990s, the woman who ran the sub-post office in my barrio in a Cheshire town told me that the Post Office had unjustly accused her of fraud. Over the interim years, it’s been learnt that this was done to thousands of people like her, in what’s been called the largest miscarriage of justice in British history. What confused me is that the computer system has always been called Horizon, introduced in 1999 – possibly 3 years after my chat with the lady in question. But this morning I’ve learned that Horizon was the successor to Pathway, an equally faulty system that was introduced in 1996, both systems belonging to Fujitsu. Who seem, so far, to have escaped any consequences. There’s an ITV series on this scandal, cited in this article by Richard North. If you live outside the UK but have a VPN, you can access this. Though this might not be needed for a non-BBC (commercial) channel.

AI

Reader David in La Coruña has kindly introduced me to a 4th AI-driven search engine – the one from Bard. So, more chances to confuse myself . . . .

Quotes of the Day/The Way of the World/Social Media

I’ve banged on about terrible TV ads. On this theme . . . One of the most emetic adverts of recent years is the one in which Virgin Atlantic tells you nothing whatsoever about the comfort, safety or reliability of the flight. Instead it assures you that you will be surrounded by a wonderfully diverse workforce and your pilot is likely to be a woman. So, a short corrective. Virgin has a lower proportion of female pilots than the world average and fewer than, for example, British Airways. Meanwhile a survey of 900 Virgin pilots last year revealed that 76% cent of them had worked with colleagues who were “clearly not fit to do so due to fatigue or tiredness”.

Talking of TV . . . By coincidence there’s this paragraph in the Richard North article cited above:- Professor Neill Postman has written a book entitled “Amusing ourselves to death”. His thesis was that TV was transforming our culture into one where public affairs, politics, religion, news, education, journalism and commerce had been turned into a form of entertainment. The different strains of public discourse had merged to become an indistinguishable blob, the primary driver being the need to keep the masses entertained. RN refers back to this May 23 article of his, in which he wrote, paraphrasing Neil Postman I guess: Most of the British public is now kept in a political stupor by endless stories about celebrities, soaps, reality TV, the manufactured melodrama surrounding the royals and the blaming of “the other” for our myriad economic and social problems – whether that “other” be refugees and migrants, supposedly idle workers, single parents, “greedy” unions, welfare claimants or the so-called liberal elite.

Which is why – belatedly, I admit – I’ve cancelled my subscriptions to both The Times and The Telegraph. And never consult the News programs of the BBC, ITV, Sky, etc. And I avoid the bear-pit that is X. Or is it a snake-pit?

Prof Postman was writing some years ago, which allows RN to add a reference to the additional up-to-date reality of the baleful effects of social media and the mind-numbing scourge of smartphones. One almost feels grateful for being old . . .

Did you know? . . .

How to avoid dementia . . . Here and here. I wish I could remember to do them . . .

Finally . . .

Over Xmas and New Year, the 32mile(51km) drive from Liverpool to South Manchester took me c.40 minutes. But what a shock yesterday, when horrendous 8.30 traffic meant a journey time of 70 minutes, or 75% longer. Much of it largely stationary between my sister’s house and the nearby start of the M62. Won’t be doing that again.

The Usual Useful Links . . .

• You can get my posts by email as soon as they’re published. With the added bonus that they’ll contain the typos I’ll discover later. I believe there’s a box for this at the bottom of each post. I guess it’s logical that this doesn’t appear on the version given to me . . .
• 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.