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

For the fans of Gaudi, here’s an episode of the BBC’s Great Lives on this Catalan architect, who came to an unusual end, as I recall.

Making money as a world class scientist if you work in Spain is a Kafkaesque bureaucratic mess, it’s claimed here.

The Manchester Evening News writes here on the growing anti-tourist mood in bits of Spain, and on the government’s plans to do something about the problem and its root causes. However factually wrong the article might be, it’s better than the stuff served up by the national British tabloids.

There are several Moors and Christians festivals in southern Spain. Here, courtesy of Lenox Napier, is an FB reel about one of the oddest. Some poetic licence, I fear.

The UK

The country is said here to be losing one of its claims to fame – civility. I can’t say I’ve really noticed this in the last 4 months.

Iran

• The positive/optimistic take on Iran’s attack on Israel . . . Iran has just exposed how impotent it really is. Tehran must now fear it lacks the military power needed to realise its malign intentions
• And the view of someone who thinks – like me – that Iran was dumb to fall into a trap set by the Israeli president, for his benefit but to the detriment of the Middle East, if not the entire world.

Quote of the Day

There are some ideas so wring that only a very clever person could believe in them.

So wrote George Orwell, probably about communism. I wonder whether he’d have included transgenderism in that category. Quite possibly, if this is a valid comment: In essence, Orwell was criticizing the tendency of intellectuals to become enamored with overly complex or impractical ideas, simply because their intelligence allows them to rationalize and defend such notions. The quote is a commentary on the potential pitfalls of intellectual elitism and the need to maintain a grounding in common sense. Not to mention science.

The Way of the World

A revealing article on the farcical – but seriously unfair – non-binary option for international marathon races.

Spanish

• HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for this item. These are some of the words used by Spanish politicians to describe their colleagues in the mire: Asesino, botifler, bruja, canalla, catastrofista, ególatra, facha, felón, feminazi, gánster, gentuza, gilipollas, golpista, incompetente, lamebotas, mariposón, mediocre, miserable, okupa, rata chepuda, sociópata, terrorista, tirano, traidor… Lenox says there are – should you need them – a few more in this eldiario article. I’m not sure you’d get away with any of these in the House of Commons. Where everyone is ‘my honourable friend’. Even on your own side.
• Echa a andar la semana: ‘The week has begun’, I guess. Or ‘To start the week’. Lit. ‘To throw to walking the week’.

Did you know? . . .

Orwell’s wife wrote a poem about the year 1984, 15 years before he penned his famous novel.

Finally . . .

To (blackly) amuse . . .

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.