Awake, for morning in the bowl of night has flung the stone that puts
the stars to flight.
And, lo, the hunter of the east 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

This is another version of a‘sacred heart’ picture, this time featuring the presidenta of the Madrid region, kindly supplied by reader María.

It’s on a pair of socks, which sold out nationally in a few seconds of coming on the market.

This is a bit of a cartoon in today’s DdP – one of the 3 Kings, Baltazar.

Evidence, I guess, that Spain still has a way to go in understanding how feelings can be hurt even when you don’t want/intend them to be.

Cousas de Galicia

I walk past this dental practice 4 times a day but have only just noticed this mistake.

I must go in and ask if you have to be vegetarian to be a patient there. [Yes, I know it’s ‘lentil’. .]

Just in case you want to read a review of Pontevedra FC’s giant-killing performance of last Friday . .

The UK

Having successfully broken into the(white)wine market, England is now tackling the huge olive oil market, where profit margins right now are very probably even higher. But I don’t suppose suppliers in Greece. Italy or Spain are quaking in their boots. Not just yet, anyway.

The USA

A prediction, from a UK political columnist . . The second instalment of Donald Trump’s presidency will not be as disruptive – or as transformative – as might have been expected. The clue to this was the striking change of tone in his public pronouncement as soon as it was clear that he had won the election. The campaign rhetoric had featured all the familiar bellicose threats of vengeance against his enemies and endless self-pitying diatribes about the last election having been stolen from him (and, he implied, from the American people). Then, literally overnight, both his message and his manner were transformed into more or less rational and uncharacteristically generous expressions of gratitude to his supporters accompanied by promises to unite the nation with a plausible plan for recovery. He is still, of course, intending to pardon the January 6 rioters who invaded the Capitol and thereby debauched America’s most sacred democratic institution. But the blood curdling calls for vengeance and reckless defiance of the world order are fading, to be replaced by what sound almost like considered judgments. Most significantly, his intervention on the Ukraine war – which he has always insisted he could end on the first day of his presidency – is now taking the shape of an explicit advance warning to President Zelensky that he must expect to make some territorial concessions for the sake of peace. Saying this out loud before he has even been sworn in as president is inappropriate and unconstitutional but it is obviously intended to save time. On the day that he enters the White House, the deal might be nearly done. It seems likely that he is getting some grown-up advice and that he is prepared to listen to it, being aware now that he has a second chance for a respectable place in history. He is unlikely to allow this mission to be derailed so his reliance on Elon Musk as his Rasputin, will not survive the year. He has decided that he wants to be remembered as a sound president who saved the American dream, not as a dangerous outlier elected in a moment of popular desperation. He will not make his inaugural entrance in the same way that he did the first time – waving his fist in the air like a tin pot dictator – and his speech will be statesmanlike rather than belligerent.

Social Media

How to save our children from smartphones.

Quotes of the Day – on The Musk

• How much does Musk actually know about British politics and the likely consequences of his motormouth interventions, and how happy is the Trump White House likely to be with his attempts to usurp the remit of their own Secretary of State? [I think we know the answers to these questions].
• I bow to nobody in my admiration for Musk as a visionary and entrepreneur. I look at SpaceX, Neuralink and Tesla and thrill to his creative audacity. On politics, however, he has become deluded and dangerous. All the empirical rigour he applies to engineering is conspicuously absent.  Musk, has become an ideologue. Like the wokesters he detests, he is suppressing evidence he doesn’t like and shoehorning anything convenient into the rigid template he now imposes on the world.

You Have to Laugh

Some readers might recognise this as the penultimate stage in sweeping a tiled floor, using a dustpan.

It reminded me today of seeing a recent FB post which went: This is my message to the line that’s left after using a dustpan – Fuck you!

Finally . . .

And I thought my WiFi code was complicated . . .

Finally . . . Finally . .

I’m halfway through a long book called The Dawn of Everything. I’ve cited passages from this but my determination in finishing it has been undermined by a (long) comment from reader Jessica, who basically dismisses it as complete rubbish. Possibly even capitalist/fascist rubbish. Rightly or wrongly, I have the impression that Jessica is of the Historic Materialism school, which the book’s authors very probably aren’t. If you want to know what this is, here’s an AI-provided capsule on it:-

HISTORIC MATERIALISM

This is a theory of history and social development proposed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It asserts that the material conditions of human existence, particularly economic factors, are the primary drivers of historical change and social progress.

Key Principles

1. Material Basis: Human life and society are fundamentally shaped by the material conditions of existence, rather than by ideas or consciousness
2. Modes of Production: History can be understood through the lens of different “modes of production,” which are specific sets of resources and human labor that drive economic systems
3. Class Struggle: Historical development is characterized by ongoing conflicts between social classes, particularly those who own the means of production and those who labor
4. Economic Determinism: The economic structure of society (the “base”) determines its social, political, and intellectual life (the “superstructure”)
5. Social Revolution: When the productive forces of society come into conflict with existing relations of production, a period of social revolution occurs, leading to changes in the economic system and societal structure

Societal Development

Marx identified a sequence of modes of production throughout history:

1. Primitive communism
2. Slave society
3. Feudalism
4. Capitalism
5. Socialism/Communism (predicted)

Each mode of production is characterized by specific forms of ownership, social relations, and methods of extracting economic surplus

Implications

Historical materialism suggests that social progress is driven by technological advancements and changes in the economic base of society. It predicts that capitalism will eventually give way to socialism and then communism through class struggle and revolution. [Though it hasn’t so far.]

This theory has had a significant impact on sociological and historical analysis, providing a framework for understanding social change and development through an economic lens.

ME

My thanks to those readers who take the trouble to Like my posts.

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.