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

Lenox Napier – Am I an immigrant or an expat? And do Spaniards agree with my answer?

This is said to be Spain’s favourite breed of dog . . .

Surely not!

It must be spring . . . A glamorous foto of Ana Obregón has appeared in the press, equvalent to the first cuckoo in the UK. Now aged 70 and no longer in her traditional bikini . . .

Cousas de Galicia

The administration of Spanish justice is famously slow, so it was disconcerting to read in the VdG this morning that the backlog of cases here in Galicia has doubled in the last 8 years. And that, at the end of 2024, there were 217,000 cases unresolved. Even more now, I guess.

Those narco-speedboats . . . News today that the police are proceeding against 23 folk involved in the illegal manufacture of these, in Galicia, North Portugal and other parts of Spain.

Four times a day, I walk down a street in Pv city’s old quarter which has 6 or 7 bars in a 50m stretch. These open late at night and close very early in the morning. It’s not in the ‘booze barrio’’ down by the market, possibly explaining why the residents have successfully brought noise-related cases against the bars and forced at least 2 closures. This is important to me as I plan to move down from my eyrie to the old quarter one day and I’d prefer to be able to sleep at night.

More generally/importantly, it reflects increasing concern – and action – about excessive noise in the city. And possibly elsewhere around Spain. Spain is gradually less different in this regard. I look forward to the day when the 4 people at the next table to mine aren’t all ‘conversing’ by shouting simultaneously. But I fear it’ll be a long time. Meanwhile, I guess senescent deafness would help.

By the way, the bars that were closed down didn’t help their case by not being properly licensed. Which seems to happen a lot. (The cases took 3-4 years to resolve.)

There was a gale throughout last night in Pv city, possibly the cause of me waking at 5. But at 08.10 – right after a fierce gust – the wind suddenly stopped dead. Quite weird to experience. I guess this happens at sea. Where we effectively are on this Atlantic coast

Portugal

I’ve been to Lisbon’s Time Out market/food hall a couple of times and wasn’t too surprised to see that a large percentage of reviewers are disappointed by it. It’s an impressive place but it’s always packed and the seating is inadequate. I prefer a smaller equivalent in Oporto but I decline to reveal its location. I’d rather not have to queue for half an hour for my stripped pork sandwich and then have to stand to eat it, with a glass of wine in my other hand.

France

Relations between France and America might be about to get even frostier. Right-wing US commentators have reignited an absurd rumour about the wife of the French president: namely, that she was actually born male and has been hiding her transgender status from the world. The most prominent proponents of this outlandish conspiracy theory are two Trump-supporting, conservative voices: Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, who last week supercharged the gossip after claiming it was true in a YouTube video.

The Nutter-in-Chief

Showing great respect for Trump, Putin kept him hanging on for 30 minutes before deigning to talk to him. Which certainly smells like disrespect, if not downright contempt

Quotes from his latest interview:-

• I’m tougher with Canada only because it’s meant to be our 51st state. . .
• One of the nastiest country to deal with is Canada. Trudeau’s people were nasty and they lied. [The usual projection, of course]
• Canada and Mexico cheat [on trade matters]
• I have a very good relationship with Putin, president Xi and with president Kim Jon-Yung of North Korea. [Playing ‘The Fantasist’].
• I think if should be called the Trump Card, rather than the Gold Card. That would sell better. I expect one million to be sold. . . . Yes, it will be hard to vet all the applicants but, if any bad person buys one, we will give them their 5 million dollars back and tell them to leave the country.
• Nobody knows more about judges than me, except perhaps the chief judge.
• Something needs to be done about bad judges.
• We’ve been the fat, dumb, foolish country that allowed everybody to rip us off. [More projection[.
• We’re a much different country than we were just a few months ago.

Says the Guardian here . . .Trump is trying to crush the arts – and he’s starting with the Kennedy Center. This is of a piece with the intimidation of the press and the closing, by executive order, of the radio station Voice of America. .. . In his blunt and brutish way, Trump, who characterised his and Vance’s public bullying of a foreign president as “great television”, understands the power of spectacle, of showbiz, of culture and the arts. BTW . . . Along the way, Trump finds yet another excuse to use one of his favourite phrases – ‘radical left lunatics’. Folk whose views differ from his.

Musk

Said to be furious that people are being mean to him. Which he regards as mental illness. [Projection yet again.]

Other Nutters

Members of ‘Sycophancy Unbound’. People who know what side their bread is buttered on:-

• Laura trump: History will regard Trump and Musk as the saviours of this country, and of the whole world.
• Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller: It’s now well established that Trump is the greatest negotiator, the greatest deal-maker, the greatest diplomat and the greatest peace-maker that we have ever seen in this country.
• Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick: Trump is the most important, the smartest, the most capable leader in the world.
• Attorney General, Pam Bondi: We all work for the greatest president in the history of our country

Is it possible they’re all taking the piss?

The USA

Prospect Magazine: Trump and his cronies are smashing up democratic norms, government institutions and the postwar international order. There are no signs yet that anyone will stop them. Opening para: Fearful of divine retribution for slavery, Thomas Jefferson remarked that he trembled for his country when he imagined that God is just. Some observers today are also trembling. They perceive Donald Trump as a type of punishment, a providential comeuppance, a cosmic payback for American political immoralities. The thought arises because the Trump presidency reflects and intensifies a disgraceful repudiation of the United States’ best aspirations, traditions and prospects. It constitutes a stunning and unprecedented defeat, imposed not from abroad but from within. Final para: Increasingly, you hear elegiac talk about how everything, including republics, has an end. Increasingly, you sense desperation that the American dream is faltering and there is no apparent means of saving it. The incumbent president promises to make America great again, but his well-documented mendacity suggests that his real promise is to destroy it.

The Way of the World

I’m fond of saying it’s The Age of the Bureaucrat. The New Humanist organisation thinks it might be The Age of the Narcissist. Maybe we’re both right. Trump, of course, is a narcissist of the malignant sub-category.

Quote of the Day

‘Free speech’ should be understood as a marketing term, not the actual practice of X, Meta or [least of all] Truth Social.

Social Media

How on earth did the absurd accusation about Macron’s wife gain global traction? A professor of social psychology at the University of Cambridge, points out that we live in an increasingly fragmented media environment. “We don’t have central dissemination of news. Instead people are in tiny echo chambers, slavishly trusting their chosen sources of information. It’s hard for us to share the same reality. Those are ideal conditions for conspiracy theories to thrive. Even if people don’t fully believe in a rumour, they might share it as a symbol of their beliefs or the political group they support.” Another professor observes that the likes of Owens and Tucker have “a built-in, conspiracy-minded audience. The Macron transgender accusation is clearly recycled. The exact same story was peddled about Michelle Obama and Jacinda Ardern. The fact that many current world leaders, especially Trump and his allies, are engaging in conspiracy theory rhetoric means that it’s harder to outright dismiss it. Tucker and Candace are piggybacking on Trump.” For the cash benefit, of course. What a world.

Spanish

• Arrimado: Freeloader
• Trágala: Lit. Swallow it. Like it or lump it?
• Estiércol: Manure, dung.
• Darse vuelta: Go round (and round)
• Priónico: Prionic

English

• Prionic: Related to a prion, which is a pathogenic type of misfolded protein.
• Yottabyte: A multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix yotta indicates multiplication by the eighth power of 1000 or 10²⁴ in the International System of Units, and therefore one yottabyte is one septillion bytes

Did you know?

The ‘long black’ is the coffee you should be ordering this year. And no, it’s not an ‘Americano’. It’s all about the ‘crema’, apparently. And that slightly more silky, smooth mouthfeel when you take your first sip. And maybe the amount of hot water. As a drinker of Americanos, I can tell you that this varies a lot around Spain. Maybe depending on the torrefacto quotient.

Finally . . .

I ask you. . . If you were introduced to a 78 year old man looking like this, wouldn’t you immediately think he was nuts, even before he opened his mouth?

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. But see here on this. 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.
• Getting a mortgage in Spain: Some advice on this challenge.