Colin Davies

18 April 2024

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

At the macro level . . . Economic growth is proving more robust than in the rest of Europe and is expected to remain so in the coming year; according to an IMF report it will be the second fastest growing developed economy in 2024-25, behind only the US and Canada – driven by consumption, services exports, and immigration. But investment and productivity growth, the foundations of high and sustainable long-term growth, remain stagnant, says McKinsey

At the micro level . . . Another reason not to like the tourists who’ve have lifted your local economy for the last 5 decades . . .The threat of another parched summer is pitting tourists against local residents and Left against Right in battles over water in the country’s holiday hotspots, says the FT here.

Lenox Napier picks up here on the growing anti-tourist mood – turismofobia.

Russia v Ukraine

Richard North writes here today on the implications of Ukraine’s looming defeat, for the UK at least. RN cites, inter alia, this Politico article of yesterday, headed: Ukraine is heading for defeat: The West’s failure to send weapons to Kyiv is helping Putin win his war. I guess we can blame the US Republicans for that.

AI

Hard not to be frightened. Or at least worried.

The Way of the World/Transgenderism

Spanish

A Galician friend, after last night’s ‘undeserved’ success against Manchester City, has labelled Real Madrid La niña de la curva. Who’s profiled here.

Did you know? . . .

  • A UK schoolgirl has found an “astonishing” fossil from one of the largest creatures ever to live. She and her father were walking along the sand when they saw 3 pebbles that somebody had perched on top of a boulder. Except that one of the three was not a pebble: it was part of a fossilised bone from an enormous ichthyosaur, a carnivorous marine reptile that lived in the age of the dinosaurs about 202 million years ago. It is estimated to have measured around 25 metres from nose to tail, making it as long as a blue whale.
  • This is a foto of the Ichthyotitan severnensis taken back then:-

Finally . . .

Horace Greeley – a US newspaper editor, publisher and politician – had appalling hand-writing. In 1870, a town in Illinois invited him to address ts lecture association, to which he responded:-

  • Dear Sir, I am overworked and growing old. I shall be 60 next Feb. 3. On the whole, it seems I must decline to lecture henceforth, except in this immediate vicinity, if I do at all. I cannot promise to visit Illinois on that errand – certainly not now.
  • The town replied: Dear Sir, Your acceptance to lecture before our association next winter came to hand this morning. Your penmanship not being the plainest, it took some time to translate it; but we succeeded; and would say your time ‘3d of February,’ and terms ‘$60,’ are entirely satisfactory. As you suggest, we may be able to get you other engagements in this immediate vicinity; if so, we will advise you.

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.

3 comments

  1. As with the UK it is possible to consider the economy in Spain and take the glass-half-empty as opposed to the glass-half-full view. So, there is no denying that the overall picture is dragged down by the low productivity, the high unemployment, and the giant public debt. However, one thing seems to have changed lately. An economist declared this to be the best thing to happen to Spain in the last 50 years. And that is the improvement in the trade balance, which for 40 years prior to the last decade was always in the red. Now, this is partly the result of the grpwth in tourism, and perhaps the growing impact of using alternative souces of energy to oil and gas, but it also has been affected by spain’s increased prowess exporting goods. That includes pigs and pork meat, and stuff like that, but also pharmaceuticals, cars, cosmetic products and automotive components. Maybe a cause for celebration?

     

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  3. I read the Politico article. If Ukraine makes it past summer, it will only be a short respite, I fear. Assuming that Tango Man gets back in to the White House that is.

    Europe as a whole isnt going to stop the Russkies, we would need 5 years to think about it, another 5 to debate it, and at least 10 more to decide to do anything, like erm fight back.

    Hopefully it will take Putins band of gangsters longer than that to reach our little Galician enclave. And by then I will be too old to care

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