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

My impression is that most national politicians have given up hope in a two-state solution to the seemingly intractable Palestine-Israel problem. But not the Spanish PM, it seems. For, he’s said his government will recognise a Palestinian state. Possibly not the EU stance.

Wait long enough in Spain and a major corruption case involving high-level politicians is sure to come along. The latest is El Caso Koldo. Something to do with phoney companies selling useless masks to regional governments early in the Covid saga. I don’t follow the case but the invaluable Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas tells us that: Sr Koldo, an assistant to a PSOE minister, together with his partners, managed to sell a massive number of masks to various public agencies – for €53m. Nice work, if you could get it at the time. Incidentally, Sr Koldo had 88 bank accounts . . . And the Hacienda didn’t know??? Wiki has a bit in English but rather more in Spanish.

I’m also grateful to Lenox for this item: El Heraldo warns that ‘Eight out of ten homes will not be able to be sold or rented from 2030, since they would not meet the energy efficiency requirements demanded by Europe and will have to be rehabilitated to obtain the required certificate’. The average age of homes in Spain is 43 years and many of them don’t make the cut.

The UK

David Goodhart is the founder and ex-editor of the leftish Prospect magazine that I’ve subscribed to for more than 25 years. Back in 2004, he seriously offended the Left with his article on adverse developments in British society. He returned to the subject in this Times essay, where he writes: No wonder Britain is so divided – we’re too diverse. And he warns of the tension between mass migration and a healthy society with common values. So, he’ll now be even more unpopular with his liberal (ex?)colleagues. Maybe he should be called Braveheart, not Goodhart.

Sad but true . . . Opinion polls suggest that the majority of Brits are still very proud of the less-than-wonderful NHS. One right-of-centre columnist writes – quite possibly tongue-in-cheek: My suspicion is they feared they might be arrested or reported to the local Neighbourhood Watch, if they didn’t cite the NHS as a reason not merely to be proud of being British but as a reason to live and breathe. It has accrued a quasi-religious status. Is there any hope for the nation?

Ireland

Elites in Ireland have just discovered there is a limit to how woke a nation is willing to go. Details here.

Japan

Robots are taking over in Japan. As the population shrinks, AI machines are popping up as barmaids, waitresses and receptionists. Amusingly more here.

The USA

Surely not . . . Cricket is becoming increasingly popular in the USA. But . . . [North] Americans fear drunk fans as cricket fever sweeps the country

The Way of the World

Marketing, our new religion, has created the world’s richest man. Rationale here. Despite being a capitalist at heart, I’ve long held the belief enshrined in the final sentence. And I dumped religion when I was 18.

English

A Dutch friend tells me that, yes, Dutch can do what English can do with a noun and a verb. Still waiting to know about French. And German. I’m pretty sure Danish can, which possibly had more influence on Old English than French did. Here’s one AI response on this: Both Danish and French had significant influences on Old English. French influenced English as a language of the upper class and aristocracy, impacting vocabulary associated with power, royalty, law, and religion. On the other hand, Scandinavian languages, including Danish, influenced English through common people, leading to grammatical changes and vocabulary additions in spoken English. While French influenced written forms of Middle English more prominently, Scandinavian influences were notable in spoken English and grammatical forms. Just as I thought . . .

Bottom line . . . The melding of [Danish-influenced] Old English and Norman French was so thorough that Modern English appears as a mixed language with a wealth of synonyms from both linguistic origins.

Did you know? . . .

Across 30 European cities, just 9% of the streets named after people are named after women. Yet more are named for the Virgin Mary (365) than for any other person.

Finally . . .

The aphorisms of 18th-century German physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: To make astute people believe that one is what one is not is harder in most cases than actually to become what one wants to appear.

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.