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: Chickens coming home to roost? Trouble at t’mill. Pedro Sánchez’s Spanish amnesty deal falters as the Catalan separatists revolt. Hardliners pushing for independence challenge a bill drafted to protect them from prosecution. It points to the fragility of Sánchez’s government and the risk that his attempts to run the country in the months ahead will be eclipsed by repeated bartering and disputes with Junts, whose votes he needs to pass any legislation.

One of the PM’s key problems – a highly political member of the judiciary.

Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas on tourism here.

A morbid example of greed and corruption. Undertakers tricked dementia patients into signing their bodies over for science. The gang – down in Valencia – falsified documents to sell the corpses to research departments for over £1,000 each. More here.

The VdG this morning: 20 years of a plague. It’s a ‘vespa’ but a bad one. The velutina wasp is celebrating 20 years among us Europeans, having arrived from China. Back in 2004, the first nest was detected in France. Now it occupies the entire center of Europe, is spreading through Italy and has already crossed to the UK. Scientists have thrown in the towel: “We can no longer eradicate this species,” says a researcher in France. They love the caterpillar of the box moth in my neighbour’s hedge.

The UK

Do estate-agents(realtors) really need a university degree? Will Labour’s plans for Education really bankrupt the country?

Re the 3 or 4 cars packed on the ex-grass fronts of relatively modest houses . . . Another possible factor is the inability of 1or 2 adult members of the family to step onto the property ladder and leave home. And then there’s the factor – here on the North Cheshire-South Manchester border – of a high percentage of large Asian families. One of which has up to 7 cars on their large ex-lawn.

Incidentally, all the (excellent) doctors in my daughter’s hospital are Asian. Except the one from Asturias . . . Also excellent, of course. The nursing staff are largely from Nigeria.

The EU

Claims AEP here: Europe’s war on farmers is playing with eurosceptic fire. We don’t need agricultural ‘degrowth’ to decarbonise the economy. . . On the Richter scale of political madness, it is hard to match the “degrowth” agenda of the EU’s ‘Farm to Fork Strategy’, imposed on Europe’s sacred farmers by means of regulatory coercion from Brussels.

Quote of the Day

AEP: The EU Commission is a caesaropapist technocracy by design and is, therefore, insulated to an extraordinary degree from common sense and political accountability.

The Way of the World

Scottish madness.

Around the world authoritarian regimes are failing, feeding a growing risk of WW3. Time for the West to engage in some preventative action?

Spanish

La fachosfera: The world inhabited by everyone who disagrees with you in Spain.

English

Caesaropapism: The idea of combining the social and political power of secular government with religious power

Did you know? . . .

Probably more than you need to know about Moroccan drug dealers

Van Gogh is currently – and has been for some time – the most popular artist in the world. This is said to be because of an amalgam of his art and his life. Quite what the latter has to do with the intrinsic quality of his art – other than marketability – is beyond me. He died, of course, in poverty at a very young age, by his own hand. Needless to say, you’ll find conspiracy theories around murder on the net

Finally . . .

Another fascinating colourisation achievement.

Here’s the After picture of the first beauty featured, following 25 years of incarceration by her monstrous mother . . .

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.