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/Galicia

The wheels of Spanish justice turn infamously slowly. I wonder if this will speed them up at all: The VdG this morning: Goodbye to peace courts[?] and single-person[judge?] courts. The first, of which there are 313 in Galicia, one per council, will be replaced by judicial offices, with more powers. The latter, 252 in the community, will be grouped into trial courts, one per judicial district. Yesterday the Council of Ministers approved the largest reorganization of the Administration of Justice in decades. The text will have to go through the Cortes Generales before the end of the year. There are European funds at stake.

After the weather, the boogie, Brexit and fossil fuels, we can now add ‘nuns’ to the list of causes of things going very awry. . .

Fascinating Spain living up to its name.

The UK

After assessing the latest government plans for energy, Richard North puts his money not on uninterrupted energy of any stripe but on blackouts. And on increasing costs to the consumers.

The government’s revised definition of ‘extremism’ is almost with us, along with the inevitable ‘tsunami’ of protests against it, I expect.

Europe

The worrying times we are in . . Insurgent parties are doing well across Europe where anger with the establishment has taken hold. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy is in government; in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders has led his Party for Freedom into a commanding position; in Germany, the AfD has emerged as the main party in the east and has national support of up to 20% The latest insurgent party to perform well is [right wing] Chega in Portugal, which won 18% of the vote and 48 seats in last weekend’s elections. In the UK [right wing] Reform could secure 18% of the vote this autumn.

There’s also Hungary., of course. And, then, across the Pond, there’s Trump and the Republican party he’s captured and changed for the worse.

The USA

The banality of chaos . . . The 2024 election’s odd blend is to be equal parts dull and frightening. 

Russia v Ukraine

An interesting development . . . Russian fighters loyal to Ukraine launch the biggest cross-border attacks of the war. Fighting has broken out in Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions. Which might or might affect Putin’s chances of victory in his ‘rubber-stamp’ presidential elections

AI

A glimpse into the world of AI.

(A)GW/Energy/Net Zero

Unduly pessimistic? Or the harsh truth, at least as regards the UK? . . . The great electric car scandal is only just beginning. Trying to jump straight to electric cars has condemned the whole effort to decarbonise road transport to failure. . . . Electric cars are practical as local runabouts, for motorists who have access to off-street parking within reach of an electric socket. But they are still not a practical solution for most of us. Nor are they likely to become so in the near future .

The Way of the World

I recently noted something about the challenges for today’s ‘pragmatic liberalism’. The British philosopher, John Gray, has just published a book on this theme – The New Leviathans. Liberalism, says Gray, must radically adapt to the huge challenges of the 21^st century. – Climate change, inequality, AI, pandemics, longevity and social care. Sadly. he believes that this ‘future-facing renewal’ may prove impossible. Here’s a review of the book by the chap who made the comment re pragmatic liberalism I cited the other day

English

Dinkwad: Two slang definitions came up on a search. Some might consider them coterminous:-

• 1. A foolish, incompetent, or clueless person.
• 2. An acronym for “double income no kids with a dog.”. Commonly used on social media and in forums to describe millennial and zoomer couples who’ve chosen not to have children and instead focus on their careers while having a dog as a companion.

Strange to relate, in the UK at least, prices for the services of a vet seem to have risen significantly in recent years. Hence this headline in today’s Times: Is your vet a wolf in sheep’s clothing?

Did you know? . . .

In Scotland, the number of people aged 18 and older on antidepressants is 1,020,000 – almost a quarter of the adult population.

Finally . . .

The aphorisms of 18th-century German physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: There is a great difference between still believing something and believing it again. Still to believe that the moon affects the plants reveals stupidity and superstition, but to believe it again is a sign of philosophy and reflection.

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. And this is something on the so-called Beckham Rule, which is beneficial – tax-wise – for folk who want to work here.