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 economy:

• The FT: In the 4th quarter of 2023, thanks to rising domestic demand, the Spanish economy accelerated faster than expected, with growth of 0.6%, its strongest expansion of the year. But higher electricity prices, reflecting a phasing out of tax breaks, caused inflation to pick up from 3.3% in December in January to 3.5%, against an expectation of a slowdown to 3.1%.
• As for the whole year:  Spain’s economy grew 2.5%, while France expanded 0.9% and Italy 0.7 %. Germany’s economy, however, contracted 0.3%. The eurozone was left trailing by the USA, which was the world’s fastest-growing advanced economy in 2023, with annual growth of 3.1%
• The Corner: Spain is the the eurozone leader . . .

Gaudi’s first masterpiece – Casa Vicens – The work of a young architect fizzing with invention  but still fumbling towards the style that would later become his own. I’m not sure I’d have enjoyed living in the place.

The UK

Effie Deans, is not impressed by Nicola Sturgeon’s (crocodile?)tears.

The EU

French and German weakness left the eurozone stuck in a fourth-quarter rut. Lacklustre figures for the 2 biggest eurozone economies were offset improved growth in Italy and Spain

Russia v Ukraine

Putin has done what every power-crazy – or just plain crazy – leader in history has done and told his credulous people that God is on the side of Russia against Ukraine. Some god!

Quote of the Day

Spain owned the Philippines from 1521 to 1898, and America from 1898 to 1946. Pundits summarise this history as “400 years in a convent, 50 years in a *********“. [whorehouse, would you believe?]

The Way of the World

Identifying personal slights is a growing field and the UK government has spent more than £160,000 since 2021 on consultants to train civil servant to recognised microaggressions. No one in these times will be surprised to hear that that rolling your eyes is perceived by some to be one of these. Probably tutting, too. And shaking your head or looking to the sky. The decision to use public money for such training is surprising since academics say there is scarce research into whether interventions to reduce microaggressions in the workplace are effective. En passant . . . There’s no rigid definition of a ‘microaggression’, a term which emerged from the racial and social politics of the USA. What a surprise. Expect moaners to proliferate.

Rather more seriously and frighteningly . . . The deepfake deluge has only just begun. Convincing AI-generated videos are proliferating and the scariest thing is that people don’t care if they’re phoney or not.

Finally . . .

I take my grandkids to and from school, along with dozens of other parents or grandparents. When I asked my mother years ago how we got to school when I was 10 and my siblings were 9, 8 and 7, she replied that I had walked them to the bus stoop at the top of our road and then from the destination stop to the school, crossing 2 ‘main roads’ in the process. I found this difficult to believe but then, my mother didn’t have a basic car, never mind a Chelsea tractor, and it’s certainly true that I have no recollection of parents in the playground, bringing or taking their kids. So, what has changed? Are there more men with tempting sweets/candies these days? Or just (manufactured) fear that there might be? Or terror that, should anything go wrong, there’ll be horrendous personal attacks on social media.

Finally, Finally . . . As it’s the start of the month

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.

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.