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

The cheapest Spanish cities in which to live are Lugo, Ourense, León, Logroño, Cáceres and Zamora. As folk move northwards because of rising tempeeratures, I guess the 2 Galician cities will benefit financially. And house prices will rise. Whereas the opposite will happen in Caceres and Zamora.

Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas reports that Enix, a village in Almería, had found an answer to its dwindling population. With a population of only 690, it has a resident-to-bar ratio of 16 to 1, the highest in Spain. The reason, says Lenox, is that lots of foreign residents hive there for a beer and a tapa.

The article on siestas I cited yesterday, referred to cat-naps, which are a different animal, being very short and frequent during the day. The most famous exemplar it that thoroughly bad egg, Winston Churchill, who survived on very little nocturnal sleep, say some. Others claim he was fond of genuine siestas, of up to 2 hours duration.

The UK

A Brexit supporter assesses things here and concludes he wasn’t – and still isn’t – wrong about the EU and the case for breaking loose from it. Opinions will differ, especially if the focus is on the near term. Or on gap-year opportunities for your kids.

I’ve written about Spain’s scam of colleges taking on phoney Chinese students seeking points for their critical-to-life-back-home official social profile. We now know there’s a British equivalent in respect of students from any and every country. This is a direct result of the Tony Blair-inspired massive expansion in universities a couple of decades ago. Details here, where it’s claimed that the secondary effect of turning the universities into ‘visa factories’ has been to drive the recent large rise in “legal” immigration from outside the EU. The Law of Unintended Consequences at work, in more than one way

The EU

Farmers travelled across Europe to make their presence known in Brussels, but they needn’t have bothered. The EU is already painfully aware of the populist rebellion bubbling up against its Net Zero plans after a string of dramatic tractor protests that threaten to mushroom into a continent-wide movement as June’s European elections approach. Disruptive farmers’ protests are nothing new in Europe, but this is different. Tractors are or have been on the march in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Belgium, and, crucially, the Netherlands. But not in the UK, it seems.

Quote of the Day

Hillary Clinton is a terminally be-scarfed harbinger of absolute wrongness.

The Way of the World

A short treatise on ethnicity and its possible disappearance over future decades.

If you’re short of knowledge of who the Houthis are and why they’re doing what they’re doing, perhaps foolishly, this is the podcast for you.

Spanish/Gallego

• Una siesta del carnero/Unha sesta do carneiro: A siesta taken before, not after, the midday meal. My thanks to reader Paideleo for that.
• Carnero/Carneiro: Ram
• Pai: Gallego for padre.

English

Bifold doors: Sliding doors that fold in a concertina fashion, instead of sliding. [Said to be one of the signs, for middle-aged, middle-class Brits, that they’ve been successful. The others are a Rolex on your wrist, and a Range Rover on your drive.]

Did you know? . . .

The wastcoat was invented in 1666 by King Charles II, in an attempt to force English fashionistas to wear English-designed and English-made clothes, not French ones.

Finally . . .

Cricket is a minority interest in the UK these days but remains massively popular in most ex-colonies. In India, on specially-prepared pitches, spin bowlers rule the roost, so much so that that country has suffered very few losses on its home turf. But, yesterday, England turned the tables and, despite a poor first-innings performance, emerged victorious.. Ironically because of an astonishing performance by their own spin bowler. I suspect the Indians are still shaking their heads at this unprecedented turn-up for the books. Highlights here. The commentary will, of course, be unintelligible to many readers but the batting and, especially the spin bowling, will surely impress.

Finally . . .Finally . . .

I see there was a reader from Alaska overnight. Nice to know.

My sister asked me if I’d seen Barbie. Having read this review, I replied that I hadn’t. TBH, I’d never have watched it even if I hadn’t read that.

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.