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

Thank God for sun and sand. And for endless cheap labour from South America . . . The Spanish economy caps off a remarkable 2024 by being responsible for 40% of all GDP growth in the eurozone. The blot remaining is, of course, a high level of unemployment, especially among the young – 18-35 year-olds. Oh, and the housing crisis.

The Golden Visa scheme will end in April. But you can still apply. Some critics see this as a very retrograde step.

Franco lives on, 50 years after his death.

Cousas de Galicia

It’s quite a while since I commented on one the starkest contrasts one sees in Galicia – that between the beautiful country side and the ugliness of many constructions. This is el feismo, for which Galicia is nationally famous. The author of the travel book I cited yesterday addresses it thus . . El feísmo arquitectónico es uno de los fenómenos característicos de Galicia. El visitante lo advertirá en cualquier paseo por sus ciudades, villas y aldeas, porque está presente en casi todas. Consiste en una forma de construir y transformar el paisaje con una especie de falta de armonía estética en la que no falta la creatividad. Su forma más emblemática quizá sean las fincas cerradas con somieres viejos, pero se manifiesta de modo mucho más dañino en la omnipresencia de los tejados de uralita*, la superposición de estilos arquitectónicos que se dan de tortas unos con otros, las paredes y muros sin rematar, los edificios que quedan a medio hacer y no se terminan jamás… en general, en la falta de respeto por el patrimonio, ya sea paisajístico o urbano. Es una constante en Galicia: una naturaleza de belleza sobrecogedora en la que casi todo elemento humano construido después de 1960 es un pegote de fealdad y cutrerío. En su vertiente más dadá, el feísmo adquiere formas que maravillan, como la reutilización de un bidé a modo de maceta para plantas o la muy habitual bañera vieja convertida en abrevadero para los animales. Incluso es reivindicado como una suerte de reciclaje ingenioso y una cuestión de supervivencia. Lo de si la omnipresencia del granito rosa es un rasgo de feísmo o no, lo dejamos al criterio del lector.

• Material de construcción hecho a base de cemento y de fibras, generalmente de asbesto, usado sobre todo en cubiertas y tejados.

Portugal

I confess I’ve also noted a lot of feismo in Portugal. Especially as regards road-side shopping parades and high-rise buildings in cities. Again, a huge contrast with the beauty of the countryside. But at least there’s a culture of gardening in the North, and possibly further South too.

The UK

Interesting – and amusing – see that Nigel Farage is learning – the hard way – that a mentally-challenged, multi-billionaire with huge mouth and a massive megaphone can be capricious. Will he survive the onslaught? I guess a lot of folk are hoping the blows are mortal. Certainly Richard North, who says he knows Farage well.

The grooming/rape gang crisis . . . The last thing the UK needed was a low-voted government beholden to a religious minority of any sort, whether that be Muslim, Christian, Sikh or any other denomination. Especially if there are extremists within the religion. But it looks like it’s got one for the moment.

I’m wondering if this is the breed of dog what was recently seen wandering around the Ukraine battlefield.

The EU and the UK

An interesting explanatory article on a 1992 defining event which we Boomers can remember, as well as possibly some younger Brits. It was an interesting time. With massive consequences

The USA and Greenland

The King of Denmark has altered the royal coat of arms to feature Greenland more prominently  amid Donald Trump’s declared interest in buying the territory. [The polar bear is bigger on the new one.]

The Way of the World

When – not so long ago – I was young, we all used to talk of the Left, the Right and the Centre. Not to mention the Centre-Left and the Centre-Right. But, now, everyone sees his/her opponents as being of the Far Left of the Far Right. Very probably down to the cloaca of social media and its impact on the mainstream media (MSM). So, the entire world has become rather like Spain, where everyone is still either a Fascist or a Communist. But, whereas Spain is edging forward, away from tribalism, the rest of the world has embraced it. It will surely end in tears. Unless social media is banned. Or at least – like modern capitalism – significantly reformed.

Case in point – The Labour government is trying to brand as ‘far right extremists’ any and everyone who comments on its failures – at local and national levels – in respect of the Pakistani rape-gangs. Which will surely backfire, if it hasn’t already. Many of their natural voters are not Muslims. It’s another example of how the Left – in both the UK and the USA – has lost its way in the last 20-30 years. Largely thanks to the (questionable) philosophies of M Derrida and M Foucault.

Richard North puts it thus: In branding anyone who wanted light shed on the ongoing cover-up on racially-motivated rape of working-class white girls, as far-right, the PM clearly fails to understand that the epithet has been so over-used and debased that it has lost it power to suppress comment.

The loss to the world of the (Old) Left is something of a tragedy. At least in the Anglo world. I don’t know if this has happened on the European continent, for example.

Quote of the Day

Reading this, I inevitably thought of both Trump and Musk . . . In 1914, professor of Philosophy at Oxford, opened a course thus: “Gentlemen — As are about to embark upon your studies, I would like to remind you of an important point. Some of you will go into one of the professions. Some may go into the army, some into industry and commerce; some may become country gentlemen. A few will become teachers or dons. Let me make this clear to you. Except for the last category, nothing you will learn here will be of the slightest possible use to you – save only this – that, if you work hard and intelligently, you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot. And that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole, purpose of education.

However wise the prof’s words, I guess he’d be cancelled now for his sexism – assuming there were some women in his class. But perhaps not. Of course, what he didn’t know – or say, if he suspected it – was many of his students wouldn’t survive the imminent WW1 to take up one of the careers cited. Sad.

Spanish

• Macarrada: Una acción u objeto caracterizado por ser muy ostentoso y de muy mal gusto. Coloquialmente, se refiere a algo que es vulgar, exagerado, de gusto inferior, o llamativo de manera poco elegante.
• Caer: To fall. But also To appeal to/be liked by. As in this headline: ​?Que ocurre si tu pareja les cae a tus amigos mejor que tu?
• Ingente: Huge, enormous, vast, etc.
• Desfachatez: Nerve, effrontery, gall, impudence, etc.
• Duro: A reader has rightly said I need to say what this is/way – 5 pesetas, as a coin I guess. I’ve heard it only once, back in Andalucía in 2001, as the price of a barra de pan.
• Dar la talla: To rise to the occasion, it seems – in an article on Spain’s young folk buying generic Viagra and Cialis

Finally . . . Did You Know?

Around 3,500BC, ceremonial centres of great magnitude developed in the valley of Peru’s Rio Supe, notably at the site of Caral, where archaeologists have uncovered sunken plazas and monumental platforms four millennia older than the Inca Empire. The extent of human habitation around these great centres is still to be determined. The founding of Urak and Ur, in Mesopotamia, occurred around the same time.

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.