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

HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for these 2 item .

From El Economista here: ‘The Government plans to encourage the return of 1.7m Spaniards living abroad. A new sub-delegation called ‘Ciudadanía Española en el Exterior y Políticas de Retorno’ has been formed to serve emigrated Spanish workers in the expectation of recovering a workforce with experience abroad’

Idealista brings us: The towns and cities where the cadastral values will change in 2024. Towns in provinces such as Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Valencia, Almería, Cantabria, Burgos and Salamanca will undergo changes. Meaning higher municipal taxes – the IBI.

And ThinkSpain tells us here how to get the best out of Valencia’s fallas.

The UK

Anti-racism “campaigns” are no longer campaigns but exercises in hypocrisy. Over the past decade something odd has happened. The way people interpret bigotry has become selective. . . . Double standards are everywhere. Rationale here.

Q: Why have we turned royals, like so many people in public life, into horrible content mines for our shallow entertainment? Even our most seasoned politicians cannot last more than a few years of being drained for stuff.

A: The dark side of being human is massively magnified by Social media?? Trolls rule.

France

Are the French really the perennial gold medallists in the art of grumbling?

Maybe they are, for a Frenchwoman writes: Cyclists have turned Paris into hell on earth. The city is being ruined by bicycle lanes, e-bikes, and the nastiest cycling culture in the world. Certainly doesn’t sound like Haarlem or Amsterdam.

Russia

Putin’s transformation into the new Stalin is now complete. Despite Russia’s sham presidential election this weekend, Putin’s 24 years in power hark back to centuries of empire-building dictatorships.

Quote of the Day

By and large, ordinary people hate the obsessive – usually self-flagellating – tearing-up of history at the behest of wokeish Gauleiters serving the tyranny of now. They have instead a respect for history and tradition, for the nuclear family and the nation state, which is inimical, almost incomprehensible, to the elite that controls our institutions. This elite has acquired for itself unchallengeable power but it has no hegemony among the population and, every so often, a referendum comes along to prove that fact beyond dispute.

Which is why – as I said recently – that the founders of the EEC/ECM/EU sought to set up a technocratic polity that could/would ignore the views of the ignorant electorate(s). If you don’t believe this, read The Great Deception and their own statement then and since. It’s not exactly a secret

The Way of the World

Some 18th century London grafitti:-

This City is a World that’s full of Streets,
And Death’s the Market-Place where Mankind meets;
If Life were Merchandise, that Men could buy,
The Rich would only live, the Poor must die.

Spanish

How to say Zara – and other brand/company names – properly. Not to mention Cataluña and Andalucía.

English

Vegan leather: ‘Wokespeak for “plastic”’.

Did you know? . . .

Scientists are said to be baffled by a new species of bizarre organism found in a deep sea dive. This, along with more than 100’ other marine animals, has been found in the unchartered waters of the Bounty Trough. More here.

Finally . . .

Last evening, in the local Asian grocery, I found myself next to a woman in a niqab. So very possibly Saudi Arabian. I could, of course, see nothing of her except her eyes. Which were stunning. And mesmerising. Like some here. And like some Spanish eyes during the mask-days of Covid. Rather unsettling. But not as much as seeing her drive off in a huge Mercedes. Which seemed rather incongruent to me. Even more so than with the hijab more frequent around here. And the chadoor of Iran. The Middle Ages clashes with the 21st century.

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.