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 devastating floods . . .

• I suspect I am one of many who don’t expect heads to roll. Nor even resignations of senior (pension-rich) politicians.

• You will have seen that more than insults were hurled at the king and queen as they tried to tour the township worst affected by the floods. Here’s the FT’s take on this.
  Amazing to read that they never had a drop of rain in that place.

• Some relevant info . . . In 2023, the newly elected centre-right PP government disbanded the Valencian Emergency Unit that had been established by the previous left-leaning PSOE administration. This dismantling was part of the PP’s electoral program and was demanded by its coalition partner, the far-right Vox party, who had called the unit a “chiringuito” (a “boondoggle”). The abolition removed a layer of protection for the population in emergencies. The investment in it had represented only about 0.03% of the Valencian budget but it had not been fully staffed and implemented when it was disbanded.

• A relevant quote . . . It’s a well-worn axiom in politics and public service that, when mistakes are made, the problems arising are usually surmountable if handled quickly and openly. What invariably does greater damage are attempts to cover up failures, in the context where the truth will usually out.

• A relevant cartoon, sadly all too accurate . . .

• Very good to read of volunteer efforts around the country. In line with the perception that the Spanish are not terribly considerate of others but, ironically, make the world’s best Samaritans. Go figure, as our American cousins say.

France

No wonder desperate folk are risking the Channel . . . Drug gangs ‘threaten to turn France into a ‘Mexicanised narco-state’. As deadly violence comes to peaceful cities, the new interior minister declares war on the dealers.

The USA

Donald Trump: Copy and pasted below is as much of an article – The Art of the Bullshitter – as I can get. Fascinating reading.

As for Kamala Harris: If she loses, she can reflect on her party’s mania for progressive ideas on immigration, policing and race. .

Russia

A setback for Putin? . . . Preliminary results show that the pro-western incumbent has won a second term in office in the Moldovan presidential election, marking a significant boost for the country’s EU aspirations and a clear rebuke to Moscow. The run-off election was seen as a crucial indicator of whether the country’s long-term geopolitical alignment will be with Russia or Europe.

The Way of the World

Cans of Lake Como air on sale for €10 to tourists: In this dreamy lakeside town, visitors have long been able to buy fridge magnets, posters, biscuit tins and other souvenirs. Now locals are aghast at an unlikely new piece of tourist tat: sealed cans containing Lake Como air. The 400ml empty containers are being sold for €10 at two locations in Como as well as in Menaggio and Lenno, popular destinations on the lake. The cans, which bear an aerial image of a motorboat spreading across the blue backdrop of the lake’s pristine waters, have been on sale since early October.

Quote of the Day

He walked with the studied tread of someone who knows he’s had too much to drink: John Steinbeck, in Sweet Thursday, I think. I quoted this – very possibly imperfectly – to my travelling companion last night as he weaved his way to his room, after a Rioja and 2 large brandies. .

Finally . . .

• Reader Perry – as I knew he would – took up the challenge of accessing the site on the battle of Uclés in 1809. See the Comments. Good man, Perry. Who seems to have had an amazing life.
• A tad eerie . . . A friend in Pv city called me a short while ago to tell me that the police had rung her to ask if she knew me. They knew of her web page and asked her to call me and tell me a window of my car was open in a car park in this town. We are both left wondering how they connected he with me, but I am, of course, very grateful to the kind soul who, I guess, told them of my open window.
• Welcome to new subscriber, my old friend, Nick. Not my friend, Old Nick, who’s always on my shoulder. .

Travel notes

• Having forsaken the storm-tossed Levante, we’re now spending a couple of days seeing the sights of lovely Baeza and Úbeda, before ending our road trip in Toledo later this week.
• We’re staying the night in the beautiful little ‘Renaissance’ town of Baeza, in a charming boutique hotel just spitting distance from the zona monumental. And only 5 minutes from a free car park where you can leave your car window open and not get anything stolen. . . . I even have wifi in my room . . .
• Getting close to Úbeda and Baeza on the N322, we drove for miles through a hilly area where, as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but olive trees. My old friend, who’s seen olive groves in 3 other countries was truly astounded at the sight. No surprise to find there’s a museum dedicated to virgin olive oil near Baeza. Never having met one, I hope one day to come across a museum dedicated to virgins . . .
• I’ve said that Hotel Europa in Albacete is rather glorious, despite being only 3-star and despite being superior to many other hotels with the same ranking. On Treep, several people have marked it as Terrible, reducing its mark from 4 or 5 to only 3. I wonder if this reflects the fact that it was built some time ago and the – beautiful to us – wood-rich furnishings didn’t go down well with these folk. Who might have wanted something far more modern. And, yes, it’s true that the fittings in the (large) bathroom are from a couple of decades ago, and the wifi is weak in the rooms. In fact, this was the 4th hotel in succession in which I’ve had to write my draft blog post in the lobby of the hotel

The Art of the Bullshitter

Sure, Donald Trump is the greatest bullshitter of the modern age, but he stands on the shoulders of giants, from P.T. Barnum to Bill Clinton.

They’re eating the cats. I’ll build a great wall, and Mexico will pay for it. It was the biggest inauguration crowd ever.

I used to think the proper response to Donald Trump’s bullshit was through the sober, fact-based lens of journalism. But, over the past decade, I’ve changed my mind. I now think that asking journalists to pour the best years of their lives into fact-checking him is as daunting and pointless as asking Siskel & Ebert to review the entire Pornhub back catalog.

Most Trump supporters know it’s fake, and they don’t care. In fact, Trump’s propensity for bullshit is not a political liability, it’s a superpower. 

Let me explain. It’s not true that Haitians in Ohio were eating the cats and dogs. It is true that a lot of migrants have been arriving into the country illegally. And that’s an awkward fact for the Democrats in an election year. They’d rather the electorate look elsewhere, but Trump’s bullshit about eating cats forced voters to face a truth his opponents wished to conceal. 

And here’s the magic trick: When Trump does assert something outrageous like the migrants are coming for our pets, he’s basically buying his own convenient bullshit. That’s not quite the same thing as lying. 

The flimflam man

Of course, Trump does lie—all politicians do, and he probably lies more than most, but his genius exists outside the binary of truth and lies. It’s the netherworld of flimflam, hyperbole, sales pitches, and ad copy delivered with the quiet dignity of a wet T-shirt competition. Trump is a very modern artist: weaving, as he likes to say, a barrage of anecdotes, fake and real statistics, gossip, and memes into a nebulous and suggestive species of patter. To put it the way the maestro might: A lot of people are saying Donald is the Greatest Bullshitter of All Time. 

And that’s why the Democrats get Trump so wrong. They have tried to paint him as an American Hitler, a Russian agent, a man consumed with evil and hatred. But what they fail to understand is that Trump’s casual relationship to the truth is an echo of great politicians in the past. He is hardly the first bullshitter to ascend to the White House; he’s just the best to ever do it. In this respect, Trump is the crack-cocaine variant of many of his predecessors. Ronald Reagan was a folksy, sentimental bullshitter, as if a president was a Hallmark greeting card. Bill Clinton was a slick bullshitter, a genius at spinning stories at the dawn of the cable news era. And let’s not forget that when then-Vice President Richard Nixon wriggled out of a scandal in his famous Checkers speech, he was able to survive because he deflected a serious allegation about industrialists buying his influence by serving up a bunch of bullshit about his dog, Checkers. 

Lying and bullshitting are related, but the differences are important. The late philosopher Harry Frankfurt examined the distinction in his seminal tract: On Bullshit.

xxx

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.

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.