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 right-of-centre The Corner reports here on EU pressure on the socialist government to create a ‘credible fiscal strategy.’

Fascinating Spain brings us the largest salt lake in Europe.

And The Guardian promotes here the ‘healthy pleasures of rural Andalucía.

A fine Easter prospect . . . The VdG today: 200 roads on El Trafico’s screens: The radar map this Easter barely leaves any Galician road not monitored by the DGT. This year’s operation will focus on speeding, alcohol consumption and phone use, especially on short journeys. 78 fixed and 131 mobile cameras will monitor the 1.5m journeys expected for Galicia. Quite a change from 25 years ago. When many dirivers would do up to 200kph on the A52 and A8 to and from Madrid. And drive home well stewed. As the road deaths proved. Now very much reduced.

The UK

I’ve written of relatively small houses with several cars parked on the ex-front lawn of smallish semi-detached(duplex) houses. I walked past this house this evening, where there were 6 cars in a small space. Maybe they rent out parking spaces. Or have a very large family.

Nearby, though, is this large-ish house with no at all cars in the drive. Or, indeed, occupiers in the house, it seems.

My son-in-law tells me there are many empty houses in this South Manchester/North Cheshire barrio, which he puts down to property purchases made by successful business folk with a view to money-laundering I guess he might be right.

China

Demographics are destiny?? Does the nature of the threat from China fully justify all the noise which is made about it?  . . . In economic terms, the threat is receding fast. After decades of stellar growth, China’s medium to long-term economic prospects are at best mediocre and at worst grimly dispiriting. Now gone almost entirely is the idea of China as an unstoppable economic leviathan that will inevitably eclipse the US and Europe. Already it is obvious that this is not going to be the Chinese century once so widely forecast. Instead, Western commerce is looking increasingly to India as the economic superpower of the future. Which is probably good news

The Way of the World

Let’s hear it for Gen Z . . . Allegedly, they’ve had enough of woke and the strictures of identitarianism.

An article that bears repeating . . . On the danger of smartphones and social media for pre-teens.

English

Evidence-based: A redundant bit of English which precedes all reported research these days. As if in the past it were done by sticking a finger in the air

Finally . . .

Forced to show us his bald pate when entering the House of Commons, the very vain new MP for Rochdale, ‘Gorgeous’ George Galloway:-

I stumbled across this comedy series the other day and have binged on its 2 series.

Superbly acted and very funny in the understated British manner. So, not a gag-a-second brought to you by a team of writers. Just one in this case. One of the actors, as it happens.

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.