wake, 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

Yesterday’s electricity blackout lasted more than 12 hours here in Pv city. Less in other places. This is a UK newspaper’s headline: Blackout risk was ‘made worse by net zero’. Experts say reliance on solar and wind power risks making grid more vulnerable to outages. I’ve no idea if this is true or not but I did wonder last night if ‘heavy reliance on solar and wind farms’ was a major factor behind the suggestion that ‘abnormal atmospheric conditions’ were the probable cause. Of course, there will be other ‘experts’ who reject the headline.

Talking of responsibility . . . So, who’s really to blame for Spain’s housing crisis​? Tourists, greedy landlords or someone else? One opinion here.

Random notes on life here, from my phone’s fotos of headlines of the last few weeks. . .

• Spaniards sleep badly hours-wise. (Raising the question: Then how come they live so long?)
• The government says there are 9,150 illegal tourist lets in Galicia. (More evidence, I guess, of a ‘low ethics society’. And of the Xunta’s lack of action.)
• Pv city has grown for the 5th year in succession and now numbers 84,400 souls. (Meanwhile, the villages around it have all lost population.)
• Tourism in Pv province grew 9% in the year to end March (as folk discover the cooler North).
• In contrast with the rest of the country, Renfe continues to deny travellers from and to Galicia the chance to buy train tickets more than a few weeks in advance. (As well as to charge us a lot more).
• As a result, travellers resort to flights more than elsewhere.
• Renfe says the Galician rail lines are the busiest in the country. (But are still incomplete)
• An 80m2 flat in Pv city now costs €71,500 more than 10 years ago, a 60% increase.
• 35% of Spain’s workers are overqualified for the jobs they do, the highest in the EU. (Luxembourg has the lowest.)
• 35% of workers in Galicia’s hostelry sector are increasingly ‘young’ or foreign.(From South America, usually.)
• The number of Galicia’s ‘parejas de hecho’ grew 29% last year. (I believe these all have a court-endorsed arrangement, giving rights similar to married couples).
• ‘España vacía’ continues to grow, with 32 of the nation’s villages becoming empty last year.

The UK

I read that the major supermarket M&S has been dealing with a massive cyberattack for several days now and that some shelves are empty. Most shocking is the news that they are bereft of supplies of Colin the Caterpillar cakes.

Ireland

This is a podcast on modern Ireland. One of the fascinating revelations is that, when contraception was still banned there, the Pfizer factory in Ringaskiddy vin County Cork was making Viagra for the entire world.

LA LA Land

Sadly credible . . . President Donald Trump – amid dreary approval ratings as he finishes his first 100 days – has called pollsters for several major networks “negative criminals” and said they should be “investigated for ELECTION FRAUD”. He is increasingly using government resources to attack the media.

A fascinatingly revealing article in The Atlantic states that: It is a truism that Trump has never felt governed by the traditional rules of politics. And he has always been convinced of his own genius, his pure gut instincts. But never more so than today. And it cites Trump declaring: ‘I run the country and the world’. I wonder what the 2 shrinks will make of that in their next podcast. It does, of course, fit with their diagnosis of malignant narcissism and their prognosis that he’ll get even worse. And then suffer the consequences of overreach. Another impeachment? Assassination by a GOP supporter? Whatever, the sooner the better.

The article rehearses these informed views of Trump of 4 years ago:-

• A moron: Secretary of state, Rex Tillerson
• More dangerous than anyone could ever imagine: Secretary of defense, James Mattis
• The most flawed person I have ever met: Chief of staff, John Kelly
• A laughing fool: National security adviser, John Bolton

They all sound like understatements now . . .

The phrase about minions cited in the article – obeying in advance – seems to me another way of saying working towards – a fear-based response to the perceived wants of a viciously insane dictator. [Is there any other kind?]. Stalin probably enjoyed the benefit of it too.

From a week ago . . . The Economist: The tariff madness of king Donald. As his policy turns on a dime, pity those tasked with justifying his actions.

Ukraine v. Russia

A comment on the latest Russian position of wanting a ceasefire . . . Don’t be deceived: Putin is taking Trump for a fool. Who’d be surprised​?

Stoppress: The latest news . . . Russia has appeared to effectively reject Trump’s peace deal proposal, as Putin’s top diplomat issued an ultimatum to Washington. The Russian President’s foreign minister has said it was “imperative” that Moscow gets “international recognition” of its sovereignty over Crimea, as well as Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. But who knows? Putin might yet say this was done without his involvement by some junior person . . .

Net Zero

Predictable and predicted . . . Yesterday’s massive blackout. Which surely must have caused some deaths.

Spanish

• Arremolinar: To swirl, whirl. Mill around? [Used of folk outside a Madrid office yesterday]
• Bollo: Bun, roll, scone
• Trapo: Cloth, rag.
• Muñeca de trapo: Rag doll, I guess.

English:

Hipster: Said to have originated as 18th century slang for an opium addict. As these used to lie on their side to smoke.

The challenge of English spelling . . . In March 1939, students at McGill University dictated this sentence to a dozen faculty members: Outside a cemetery sat a harassed cobbler and an embarrassed oculist, picknicking on a desiccated apple, and gazing at the symmetry of a lady’s ankle with unparalleled ecstasy. The participants included 3 English professors, the head of the journalism department, and a proofreading instructor. Only one person spelled everything correctly. The average participant misspelled 4.25 words.

I suspect the number would be higher these days . . .

Finally . . .

Reaching for my stock of candles last night I noted that one of them had a mass of specks around the wick. These turned out to be hundreds of tiny ants embalmed in the solidified wax. None of the other candles did, so I have no idea why this one was so fatally attractive to the hormiga/formiga hordes. Some scent or other? [An AI answer: Ants are attracted to burning candle wax if it contains sweet or food-like scents. Those with repellent scents like peppermint or lavender can help keep ants away.]

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 . . .

I can also be read on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/colin.davies.752861 or on Substack at https://doncolin.substack.com/

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.