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

Time is short today, as my daughter and grandson are up from Madrid and I’m on grandfather duties. So, I’m very grateful to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for these 4 items:

• High wage earners in Spain will be hit with a new tax starting this year – the ‘solidarity quota’, affecting those earning over 4,900 euros per month, or 58,800 a year.
• Spain’s Directorate-General for Traffic has said that it will further reduce alcohol limits for driving sometime this year – by 60%.
• The Government is about to ban those irritating commercial calls made to mobiles.
• Seventeen tips for foreigners buying property in Spain in 2025.

Advice on how to avoid rip-offs in Spanish bars and restaurants. Which we seem to be free of here in Galicia. Fewer guiris, I guess.

The USA

It’s hard, in this week of gobsmacking announcements from the White House to avoid devoting a lot of attention to Donald Trump. So . . .

Trump the Man

Here’s what’s said to be the latest psychological profile on a man whom half of US folk either don’t realise or don’t care about the fact he’s an ignorant, insane psychopath. Or not yet at least.

Trump and economics

• Does President Trump understand money? The WSJ editorial board says it’s baffled by his pronouncements on tariffs and inflation.
• Then there’s the threat to put tariffs on countries which apply a Value Added Tax(VAT/IVA) to American products. Dear dog, does be expect Coca Cola, say, to be free of this tax? Does he even know how it works? Is there absolutely no one in the White House who’s brave enough to argue with him?

Trump and Putin

As a negotiator, Trump is either a cretin or the genius he never tires of telling us he is. There’s little doubt where the majority opinion lies, outside the MAGA core. Even within the Republican party, I suspect. For, on the surface at least, Trump seems to be astonishingly gullible: Putin told me he wants peace and I believe him on this. Well, we all do but it depends on what terms, and Trump appears to have mortally weakened the West’s negotiating hand. Genius or imbecile? The Russians are reported to think it’s the latter, with mockery and rejoicing in Moscow over his pre-meeting unilateral concessions to Putin. They might well be right.

Some third party overviews

• Why trump prioritises Putin over NATO
• Trump’s behaving like an agent of the KGB: After a Russian invasion of Europe, no KGB officer could have dreamed of sitting opposite a US president who had already threatened to colonise Nato- member Canada or invade Greenland, which is part of Nato-member Denmark. He surely could not dared to imagine a US president Or invade Greenland who was openly contemptuous of NATO Who was openly contemptuous of NATO, the alliance at the heart of the West’s defence against Russia since WWII? Could he ever have dreamed of a US president who agrees with him that Russia was provoked into invading Ukraine by the desire to joint Nato and the European Union – another multilateral bloc that Trump believes is close to an enemy? That the US soft-power vehicle USAID would be shut down? No master spy would, surely, have come up with the idea that the US could destroy its standing in the Middle East With a mind-bogglingly loopy plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza of its people and dump them in neighbouring desserts? That, surely, would deliver the Kremlin undreamed of opportunities as America’s plans were slapped away and Trump pulled Washington’s funding for its allies in Egypt and Jordan. But that’s what has happened. The Oval Office is occupied by a man who, by accident or design, seems to be prioritising the interests of Russia more than those of this own country – or its staunch allies.

Trump and NATO

Trump has effectively killed this as it’s currently constituted, not just because of his view on Ukraine’s (non)membership but because of statements made by him and Vance over what the USA wouldn’t do in the face of Russian aggression against a NATO member. An open invitation to Putin, some would say. Time will tell how correctly.

The USA, Ukraine and Europe

• Europe is left reeling by Trump over Ukraine peace talks with Russia. EU allies fear having to pay for postwar security despite being cut out of negotiations.
• European leaders state the obvious – There’ll be no lasting peace if Europe is not involved in the negotiations
• Trump has sold Ukraine down the river – and shown the UK what ‘America first’ means in practice,

The future of the USA

• A pariah state, facing product and tourism boycotts from not only Canada?
• Continuing Muskocracy?
• Continuing oligarchy sans Musk?
• Another failed autarchy?
• Everyone’s enemy?
• The civil war some have predicted?

Russia

Putin’s ultimate goal in Ukraine is to reshape the world order. The Russian leader is less interested in squabbling over territory than showing the US and Nato who is the boss. And staying alive and in power, I guess. Given how many lost Russia lives he has to justify.

Quotes of the Day

• We wanted to saw the western world into pieces, but [Trump] decided to saw through it himself.: Yevgeny Popov, a Russian television presenter and an MP in Putin’s ruling party.
• If Trump demanded his head should be the Apple symbol, this would probably happen. [A depressing thought in so many ways.]
• Welcome to a new age of empire. It’s the new imperial powers of US, China and Russia that now display the telltale ambition to expand territorially and hoover up raw materials needed for the next industrial revolution, plus the military strength to redraw borders at will. 

AI

Anyone who publishes anything knows that self-editing one’s drafts is both essential and difficult. And, therefore, time-consuming. Given the verbosity and the repetition in the AI answers I get, it’s clear that AI machines can’t do this. And possibly might never be able to, given what it takes to do it.

Spanish

• Cabello: Hair, haircut, hairstyle
• Pretendiente: Suitor, beau. Pretender
• Picazón: Itch

Did you know?

Archaeologists say they’ve found the palace of Britain’s last Saxon king – of the 9th century,

Finally . . .

When it comes to prolixity, human travel writers are far worse than AI engines. I read and whittle down a lot of these ahead of road trips. Yesterday, I reduced an article on Braga in Portugal from 24 pages down to just 1. Admittedly, fotos took up a lot of space but, even so. . .

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.