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/Galicia

Surely good news.

There was a film crew on the streets of PV city’s old quarter yesterday. Making a film on Castelao, they told me. The Galician writer and artist I recently mentioned.

The water-planes appeared in my evening sky last night, travelling to and from the bay into the hinterland. I thought they might even be heading for nearby Portugal [infra] but there was a fire up in our hills, in a place called, ironically, Aguasantas.

Portugal

Seven people have already died in fires which are raging throughout North and Central Portugal. Here’s this morning’s VdG on them: Horror y caos en Portugal, con 200 incendios: Al menos 7 personas, entre ellas varios bomberos, han muerto ya a causa del fuego. Y más de cinco mil luchan desde el fin de semana contra las llamas que proliferan por todo el país vecino. Numerosas carreteras y 6 autopistas están cortadas a la circulación. Aunque con mucha menos virulencia y daños, el fuego también regresó a parroquias gallegas como A Gudiña, Muíños, Oimbra o Arbo, en las que se reprodujeron episodios de años anteriores. Poca humedad y vientos terrales del Este que llegan muy secos propagan los incendios en esta zona de la Peninsula.

Both in Portugal and here, one horrific aspect is that some of the fires are deliberately started.

The smoke from the fires has hazed our sky all day today. And it will surely affect our dawn tomorrow.

The EU

Why Europe will not catch up with the US.

The USA

• A new book, “Lucky Loser”, shows that the popular caricature of Trump as a canny real estate titan — one painstakingly crafted by him, and by television producers — is more fiction than fact. . . . The book is damning of Trump’s financial management, but his talent for self-promotion and ability to walk away from the wreckage of failed plans shines through on every page.
• Rather more importantly . . . Is the US really on a brink?

Iran

Now very much a global threat. But what’s to be done about it?

The Way of the World/Social Media

The new fascism. Nice quote: The internet – the great digital accelerator of individualism and chaos – creates an immersive life-world of prejudice and delusion.

Quote of the Day

This is probably true. It did for BoJo. . . I wonder which quality it is that the British hate most in their politicians? Vanity is certainly up there. Haughtiness undoubtedly is too. But I think the winning – or rather losing – quality may be hypocrisy.

I like her phrase Van Gogh’s ear for diplomacy. And her comment: as if “this is what the law says” also makes it morally right reminded me of the Nazi defence: Das Gesetz ist das Gesetz. The Law is the Law. An AI statement on this: The appeal to legality served to justify and enforce the Nazi regime’s inhumane policies. This strategy of invoking perceived legality was an important tool used by the Nazis to legitimize their crimes and make resistance more difficult. They abused the concept of the rule of law to commit injustice.

Spanish

Zozobrar: To capsise, keel over, founder, sink, overturn.

Did you know?

Angkor Wat in Cambodia is four times the size of the entire Vatican City. It was built when the empire of the Khmer far exceeded in wealth anything in Europe.

You Have to Laugh

Finally . . .

A query: What do men carry in their man-bags that they didn’t use to? A phone, wallet and bank and ID cards, I guess. Plus possibly a passport, if travelling. An e-reader? Cosmetics? A breathalyser? I guess that the demise of more formal wear like suits means they do have fewer pockets these days. But is a bag really essential? I don’t have one, of course.

Finally, Finally . .

MY YEAR IN THE SEYCHELLES

• Part 1: 12 September 2024: Why VSO?
• Part 2: 13 September 2024: The Leaving of Liverpool
• Part 3: 14 September 2024: An interlude: The Seychelles back then
• Part 4: 14 September: Departure, Nairobi and Arrival
• Part 5: 15 September: Arriving in Mombasa
• Part 6: 16: September: The YCWA in Mombasa
• Part 7: 17 September: The Flight to Mahé

Part 8: Our Reception

It was raining torrentially as we got into and out of the tiny launch which had taken us to the dock.

A small knot of officials was sheltering in the doorway of a large corrugated-iron shed, marked ‘Customs’. Martin set off first and I followed, running the twenty yards or so to the protection of the shed, where we were we went through some customs formalities. The rain was beating so hard on the metallic roof, it was almost impossible to hear what anyone was saying. More relevantly, a 6-hour deafening roar had impaired our hearing somewhat. So, unable to make out anything anyone was saying, we shook hands with several smiling faces and moving lips. We handed over our yellow slips and had our passports duly stamped. Martin was collared by an amiable-looking man in a grey suit and I was whisked away into a nearby Morris Oxford by a benign, middle-aged man in khaki shirt and shorts. When my hearing returned, I took his accent to be American but, in fact, he was an Ulsterman – the Director of Education, Mr Patrick Taylor.

Paddy, as he was called by everyone in the Seychelles, was not in love with the islands. As he drove me to his house round the north-eastern tip of Mahé, I was subjected to an uninterrupted criticism of the islands in general and their inhabitants in particular. I later concluded that Paddy hated the place because it didn’t – and couldn’t – compare with Nigeria, his idea of God’s own country. There, he’d had sway over a population and a budget of many, many millions. In the Seychelles, the population barely reached 45,000 and, by all accounts, Paddy couldn’t get his hands on the purse-strings.

But, at the time, I had no idea of Paddy’s prejudices and took his words as gospel. As he was reciting his grouses – and they were legion – I was mentally formulating a letter to VSO surprising them with the news I’d contracted malaria, typhoid and beriberi. So could they please arrange for my immediate return.

The Seychellois, I heard, were a lying, dirty, cheating, thieving race who’d sell their own mothers for a pittance, if they could muster the strength to move from their beds. They hated work; their language was foul; they cheated you in the shops (and everywhere else, for that matter); their French patois (Creole) was not a real language but a mumbo-jumbo reminiscent of baboon talk, lacking syntax, grammar and every other attribute of a language except, possibly, words. They robbed your house twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. And, if you were stupid enough to grow vegetables in your garden, they’d steal them as soon as they poked their way to the top. Incest, rape, and VD were rampant. Indeed, the Seychelles – far from being the original Garden of Eden some imagined them to be – were a living hell.

Paddy’s wife – lovely as she was – endorsed everything he said. But, then, she did repeat everything he uttered, right down to his after-beer belch. I wasn’t surprised to hear – some days after my stay at their house – that Jane Gunn had lain awake all night there, crying her heart out and wishing she was back in rainy, safe old England.

Needless to say, the Taylors’ ideas of the Seychelles and its people were jaundiced to a degree. They represented British expatriates at their worst – holed up in the expat sector of town – always the most salubrious – and only venturing out to traduce the locals. But, at the time, I was grateful for their hospitality.

For one thing, I was able to wash off the grime of thirty six hours of travel and to change into my tropical gear – white socks, white shirt and white trousers. When we sat down to dinner, Paddy and his wife began on a eulogy to Nigeria which they were never to finish as long as I knew them. The joys of the place – hunting, driving, fishing, shooting. But here in the Seychelles? Nothing. The greatest crime the islands perpetrated against Paddy was to have no wild life for the shooting of. Just to show me how keen he was on this, Paddy brought out his two expensive hunting rifles and let me help him clean them. Thus did my brand-new and pristine white trousers suffer their baptism of oil.

The Taylors had no children but they had 2 dogs. Two nondescript mongrels which they treated as offspring, kissing and caressing them as if they were young children. In return, they received the disobedience of young children. The black one was called Sooty and the white one Blanche. Even after the Taylors had known Martin and me for several months, they continued to call me Martin and him Colin. In retaliation, we took to calling the dogs by the wrong names. But I doubt that this ever got through to Paddy’s wife.

I slept uneasily that first night in the Seychelles, aware that if I awoke to see a bamboo pole coming through the window and making its way to my trousers I was not to grab it. I would only lacerate my hands on the razor blades inserted down its entire length.

My thanks to those readers who take the trouble to Like my posts, either after reading on line or in my FB group Thoughts from Galicia. A shout-out to Noémi, who blitzes them from time to time as she walks on the camino towards Santiago de Compostela.

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. If you do this but don’t read the posts, I will delete your subscription. So perhaps don’t bother if you have other reasons for subscribing . . .
• 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. And this article ‘debunks claims re wealth and residency taxes’. Probably only relevant if you’re a HNWI. In which case, you’ll surely know what that stands for.