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 Galicia/España
Spain’s government has proposed a law to protect children from online threats that includes virtual restraining orders for felons, a higher age for opening social media accounts and health screenings for teenagers to detect related emotional disorders. See here.
Spanish farmers are now as revolting as their French brethren across the border.
If this continues unchecked, everyone in the world will be coming to Spain for their holidays. But when?
Spain has seen an astronomical rise in this type of holiday rentals, over 17% in the last year. So . . . A huge anti-tourism protest is planned for Malaga: Fuming locals are to ‘take to the streets’ to decry ‘property exploitation’ and ‘shit salaries’ that have made the city ‘unliveable’.
. Asks The Guardian . . A year on, Spain’s ‘historic’ menstrual leave law has hardly been used. Why?. Women in Spain have the right to time off work with period pain, but limits the legislation and lack of awareness mean few have taken it
The UK
A leftwing view of a rightwing demagogue.
Invasive Asian hornets have been a big problem in Spain for quite a while but the’ve now survived a UK winter for the first time. The species has been blamed for decimating European honeybee populations, raiding hives and feeding worker bees to its young.
Ireland
France
Last week S&P Global downgraded France’s credit rating, hammering the final nail in the coffin of the Macron presidency. . . France appears to be slipping into bankruptcy.
The USA
A comment usually applied to the UK: ‘It’s all about class’ . . . The aristocrats who martyred Trump – America’s elites aren’t as smart as they imagine they are.
Reader David has reminded me that some Brit on Reddit – commenting on MAGA – came up with a perfect solution. MAGBA should replace MAGA. Make America Great Britain Again.
BTW . . . As a felon, Trump is now banned from entering 37 countries . . .
Long but interesting. . . Biden’s secret support for Iran America is far from Israel’s best friend.
The Biden administration sees Iran as America’s main partner in the Middle East and the lynchpin of US grand strategy. You might need Reader view to see the last bit.
Russia
The Way of the World
More bad Bulgars . . . Some crooks think big. None more so than Ruja Ignatova, an Oxford-educated Bulgarian, who founded the fake cryptocurrency scheme OneCoin. This fleeced investors out of $4.5 billion and earned her a place on the FBI’s top ten most wanted list. I’ve seen numbers very much higher than $4.5 billion but, anyway, the woman evaded capture, even though she was thought to be living in Germany. A BBC documentary has some interesting suggestions as to who was protecting here and where she might be now.
English
Racism: There are numerous definitions of this but since when did it cover religion? I ask because the Guardian wrote of : Mr Farage’s blatant racism at the start of the campaign – claiming that Muslims lack British values. I’ve read the Koran, I’m sure, more times than the writer of that and, as an ex-Catholic atheist, can say it has some very lovely bits and some horrible bits. You can make a nice religion from it or a nasty one. Does this make me a racist??
Finally . . .
I have wondered . . . Scroll down here to the Overrated section.
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.
- 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. Finally, some advice on getting a mortgage.
Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain 
Racist because most Muslims are not white Europeans. Rather, they are mostly brown skinned people from the Middle East, Africa, or Asia. Though they were also originally a semitic people, anti-Semitic has been taken over to express hatred of the Jewish people and their religion.
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Hola, Maria.
I confess it’s never struck me that most Muslims are brown or black, even though I lived for 7 years in 2 Muslim countries.
I thought of your comment when reading these comments just now. I wondered if – because nearly all of the 600,000 immigrants not allowed into the UK would be brown or black – you would the comments would class as racist. I see them as more ‘culturalist’ than racist. Which, if you lived in parts of the UK – eg Bradford – you might understand why.
“I’d like to see limit mass migration reduced to around 100,000 a year rather than 700,000. Not every country relies on mass migration. Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Poland and other Eastern European countries are managing quite well without high levels of migration. They recognise that the character of their countries depends on maintaining what is distinctive about its population.
The most important thing is for all British people of every background to agree that we must limit migration or else lose what makes Britain attractive to all of us. It doesn’t mean refusing all claims of asylum, nor does it mean stopping all work and study visas. It just means limiting migration to a level that can be absorbed and a level that does not risk changing the character of our country forever.”
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Yes, there is a cultural question, too. But the first impression upon seeing a person is their appearance. From that, people will make an assumption. That assumption will be strengthened or diluted depending on the person’s culture. A Christian Jamaican will be better regarded than a Muslim Bangladeshi. But, at first glance both will be repudiated. That is racism.
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Like you Colin I lived in a Muslim country for 7 years. Just the one.
There were several hundred Brit expats in and around Casablanca. They almost all lived on the same 3 streets forming their own British enclave. They didnt integrate, learn basic words, or mix with Moroccans.
I asked many people why they all lived together. Most of the time they said it was to be near “friends”, feel as if they belonged, to be comfortable. I wouldnt call these cultural reasons. More the need to feel safe, secure and within a certain comfort zone.
Which brings me to two questions.
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Hi.
I’ve no idea how much the Muslim alleged ‘ghettoes’ reflect a concern for safety, etc. It certainly be part of the mix but I still believe the main factor is cultural. Where I am now – Heald Green – is heavily ‘Asianised’ – with many immigrants from Muslim Pakistan and Bangladesh and from Hindu India. But it’s not at all like what parts of large Northern cities are like. The immigrants around here seem to have assimilated and I don’t believe any of them have much concern about safety. They certainly seem to do very well materially. But it’s quite possible the immigrants here come from more ‘sophisticated’ bits of the sub-continent, as opposed to the rural villages of the Punjab. It’s inevitable, I guess, that folk from the latter will want to bring their culture and their language(s) with them and to stay among their kind. After all, there’s a huge difference between a religion-based culture of centuries ago and a modern Western society.
As for expats in Iran and Indonesia, I’d agree they tended to stick together, one reason being they tended not to learn the local languages, whether they’re British or French, German etc. And, of course, they weren’t permanent immigrants, just temporary expats. So, they didn’t see the need to assimilate. Contrast the Brits in, say, Galicia who do learn Spanish and do assimilate. There are no British ‘ghettoes’ in Galicia. Contrast the South. Which I wrote about here 24 years ago . . .
https://thoughtsfromgalicia.com/the-costa-del-sol/
Casablanca sounds like Southern Spain to me.
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Interesting to hear your thoughts. Thank you sir.
Fascinating about Heald Green, I lived next door in Cheadle Hulme. Back in the 80’s the only Indian was the takeaway on Turves Road 🙂
A few miles away in Sale, my Uncle & Auntie say they have been inundated with people from Hong Kong, who come with a lot of money and are buying up all the large properties surrounding Washway Road.
Casablanca itself is a huge sprawl of choking traffic and fumes. I think the City is around 4 million, and then there are all the outlying areas. It has a spectacular Mosque built on the shore, where the corniche more or less starts. It has a superb medina (or had). The shanty towns are initially a big shock to the system. Yet, a visit to a family despite their poverty, would have them putting on the best feast possible. Even if it meant they didnt eat much for the next couple of days.
In Rabat where I lived, I experienced this a couple of times with one of my employees Mohammed, and also another employee whose father got sick, and we converted my van in to a temporary ambulance for a morning. Salé where I had my small business became temporarily famous as our industrial zone was quite rough and literally fallling to pieces. It was therefore used to shoot Black Hawk Down as it was considered the most similar place to Rabat was probably my 2nd favourite medina (after Fes). Marrakech is fun, but obviously very much for the tourist, the prices too.
It was in Salé medina I picked up a motorised satellite with access to over 4000 channels. This was in 98,
Going back to Casablanca, the French colonial influence and language still remained strong. Rabat has a beautiful French quarter not far from the Medina. However up in t’t north more or less Larache to Tanger, most people speak Spanish. Tanger receives a lot of Spanish tourists, and the corniche could easily be mistaken for any south coast Spanish tourist town.
I have some very fond memories to say the least.
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P.S Didnt get the email yesterday to tell me your latest publication was available. FYI.
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Lat 2 comments – David BTW
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I know . .
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