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

Those plastic pellets along Galicia’s coast.

If you went to the web page of the Spanish lawyer near Penny Lane, you’ll have seen several mentions of a ‘ground clause’, which relates to a floor rate for your mortgage below which the bank will never go. ‘Not illegal but immoral’. This is a relevant page on banks and property deals.

I wrote yesterday of blog offerings from Pv city. So, of course, this up popped in FB last night. It’s published by this outfit, who’d charge me to include mine, if I met all their other criteria. So, I won’t be bothering with that.

But going back to the blog cited yesterday as being from Pv city. This was from a chap called Trevor Huxham, published back in 2015, when – he claims – he didn’t see a single tourist in the Old Quarter in June. By which, I guess, he means a fellow North American. Anyway, Trevor writes here about Santiago, asking whether we can believe that the bones in the cathedral really are those of St James (Santo Iago/Santiago). Well, the Catholic Church certainly says it does. But how much is this worth? Quite a lot to the Church, in truth. But Trevor tells us that there’s been some scepticism for quite a while and quotes Alfons X (d.1284) thus: Some men fraudulently discover or build altars in fields or in towns, saying that there are relics of certain saints in those places and pretending that they perform miracles, and, for this reason, people from many places are induced to go there as on a pilgrimage, in order to take something away from them; and there are others who influenced by dreams or empty phantoms which appear to them, erect altars and pretend to discover them in the above named localities.

I was reminded of George Borrow’s comments on Santiago back in the 1830s. See below for these.

Germany

I watched Triumph of the Will on YouTube last night. Pretty terrifying, But almost amusing to hear Hitler insist the that the Nazis were a party of peace. And ironic – given the result of the war – that his aim was a united Germany. But the thing that struck me most was that all the military top brass wore riding boots and jodhpurs, though few, if any, of them will have ever been near a horse. Particularly shocking to hear Hitler use the phrase ‘blood of our blood and flesh of our flesh’. I fancy JC was the first to do so. I also noted that Franco must have copied his crooked arm salute from Hitler.¡, in response to the straight-arm salutes of their sycophants.

My old Hamburg friend tells me that the film is banned in Germany.

Covid

Spare a thought for the zealots.

Quote of the Day

Ricky Gervais: If wokeness was just about being aware of your own privilege, anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic, that would be fine. But it’s become about being a puritanical, anti-authoritarian bully who gets people fired for saying an honest opinion or even a fact.

The Way of the World

Talking of hoaxes . . . One of those headlines . . . The ‘aliens’ found in Peru were actually made from paper, glue and animal bones. Not a huge surprise, then.

English

‘Clapter’: This is when a comedian makes a bland observation that they know will go down well but isn’t especially funny (eg “Hey, Trump is like everyone’s racist uncle!!!”), and the audience claps in agreement. 

Over the decades, the insult ‘fascist’ has become meaningless, as the go-to insult both left-wingers and right-wingers hurl at each other. Possibly just meaning ‘totalitarian’. Or merely ‘someone I don’t like’. This article has left me wondering if much the same hasn’t happened to ‘far-right’. In Western democracies at least. Possibly goes down well in Hungary. And Russia.

The Usual 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.

GEORGE BORROW’S VIEW OF SANTIAGO [‘ST. JAMES’] IN THE EARLY 1830s

Santiago stands on a pleasant level amidst mountains: the most extraordinary of these is a conical hill, called the Pico Sacro, or Sacred Peak, connected with which are many wonderful legends.  A beautiful old town is Saint James, containing about twenty thousand inhabitants. Time has been when, with the single exception of Rome, it was the most celebrated resort of pilgrims in the world; its cathedral being said to contain the bones of Saint James the elder, the child of the thunder, who, according to the legend of the Romish church, first preached the Gospel in Spain. Its glory, however, as a place of pilgrimage is rapidly passing away. [Ha Ha]

The cathedral, though a work of various periods, and exhibiting various styles of architecture, is a majestic venerable pile, in every respect calculated to excite awe and admiration; indeed, it is almost impossible to walk its long dusky aisles, and hear the solemn music and the noble chanting, and inhale the incense of the mighty censers, which are at times swung so high by machinery as to smite the vaulted roof, whilst gigantic tapers glitter here and there amongst the gloom, from the shrine of many a saint, before which the worshippers are kneeling, breathing forth their prayers and petitions for help, love, and mercy, and entertain a doubt that we are treading the floor of a house where God delighteth to dwell.

Yet the Lord is distant from that house; he hears not, he sees not, or if he do, it is with anger. What availeth that solemn music, that noble chanting, that incense of sweet savour? What availeth kneeling before that grand altar of silver, surmounted by that figure with its silver hat and breast-plate, the emblem of one who, though an apostle and confessor, was at best an unprofitable servant? What availeth hoping for remission of sin by trusting in the merits of one who possessed none, or by paying homage to others who were born and nurtured in sin, and who alone, by the exercise of a lively faith granted from above, could hope to preserve themselves from the wrath of the Almighty?

Rise from your knees, ye children of Compostela, or if ye bend, let it be to the Almighty alone!