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

David in La Coruña tells me that KateGate continues a todo gas in Spain, with perhaps the favourite nonsense being that she’s dead and has been replaced by a double. Back in the UK, this writer suggests that the way the coverage has morphed into a grubby obsession shows the internet at its sewer-like worst. Absurd conspiracy theories, she says, have poured out of the gutter of US social media, exposing the madness of modern America. I guess that in the UK there’s less interest in/exposure to Spain’s contributions to this revealing farce. Of course, cretins have always existed in huge numbers but they’ve never had a megaphone each until now.

Talking of royal families . . . This is where Spain’s loves to do its skiing.

The Corner tells us here that foreign-born residents in Spain now account for 18% of the population, compared with 14% in the UK. It’s surely much easier to assimilate foreigners – and give them the jobs locals don’t want to do – if they speak the same language, profess the same religion and are culturally similar. And, not to say, of a disfavoured colour. Well, not most of them.

It’s reported that tourist taxes began trickling our way some time ago. And we know there are going to be more of them in Spain because a mayor of a southern city has said: “We are going to reach a point where it’s necessary to impose a tourist tax.”. I can’t help wondering what makes them ‘necessary’, so much as easy to impose and collect. Low hanging fruit, in other words. This article has it that: Tourist taxes are used to shift the tax burden from residents to visitors, generate additional tax revenue, fund local environmental and cultural initiatives, and generally discourage over-tourism by encouraging visitors to stay in less-frequented areas. Perhaps only the last of these objectives really ranks as ‘necessary’. As opposed to opportunistic.

Odd to relate, under a new right-of-centre mayor, Valencia is going the other way and abolishing its tourist taxes.

Talking of that lovely city . . . The Guardian here has some wonderful fotos of the spectacular last night of the Fallas.

The Way of the World

One of the problems faced by newspapers is the soaring cost of paper. This is said to reflect the fact that Amazon buys up most of the world’s supply. Helped, I guess, by other packaging-heavy companies such as Hello Fresh.

A nice follow-up comment here about TikTok developments in the USA:Yes, TikTok sucks. But the rules for tech giants must be better than ‘It’s only bad if China does it’ . If US lawmakers genuinely cared about protecting their citizens’ data, they would develop robust federal privacy law, pass data transparency rules, crack down on the data broker and adtech industries, defend encryption and enforce no-tracking across apps. And why not? Well, doing that wouldn’t serve the US government and domestic tech industry interests.

Social Media

As soon as I confess I’ve re-discovered the good side of the internet in Reddit, along comes this plaintive cry: First it was Facebook, then Twitter. Is Reddit about to become rubbish too? The internet used to be full of special-interest forums populated by anonymous users sustaining a niche community, but most have either shut down or are rarely used. It is on Reddit where the last remnants of the forum culture of the old internet remain. But, as it prepares to make its stock market debut this week, opening itself up to corporate investment and further venture capital, such communities are at risk of going extinct entirely.

English

Hench: (Of a man) Having a body that looks big, strong and well-shaped, as it if has’ done a lot of exercise.

Did you know? . . .

In 1359, the teenaged Geoffrey Chaucer took part in a military campaign to annex parts of France. He was captured and ransomed for GBP16, or GBP8,000 in today’s money.

Finally . . .

I saw this headline and, for a second or two, wondered who this famous Chris might be: Archaeologists find spectacular gold ring engraved with Chris’s face. Hats off to the unwittingly amusing subeditor.

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.