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

Phase 1 of the besieged PM’s survival strategy – Playing hardball with the USA, NATO and Brussels. Apparently successful.

Spain regularly gets into hot water with Brussels over its discriminatory taxes. The most famous was the 2012 Model 720 law on worldwide assets, which took over 10 years to be modified. This is the latest example, in respect of taxes on non-resident property owners.

It’s arguable that, with local tax evasion being relatively high, foreigners are low-hanging fruit for the Hacienda.

Cousas de Galicia

In a city that is rich enough to be constantly developing, it can be slightly eerie to walk down a street you haven’t visited in a few years. Two-storey buildings have been replaced by flat blocks: small shops have closed: and new supermarkets have appeared. Progress . . .

There’s a van that comes round collecting scrap metal. It has a loudspeaker message on a continuous loop, itemising the stuff you can give them. I can hear it from half a kilometre away at the bottom of the hill and it’s slightly irksome having to listen to them wending their way slowly up said hill, into my (large) cul-de-sac and then out of it again and all the way back down the hill. But it’s very irritating when they park on the hill 30 or 40 metres below my house and stay there for 15 or 20 minutes droning out the same tinny message every 10 seconds.

Israel v Iran

Is it Netanyahu’s strategy to give Trump the chance – whatever his Maga base thinks – to play the big man and to take credit for the destruction of Iran’s underground nuclear facilities? If so, who can confident this will fail? All the world’s autocrats have learnt how to play Trump. A narcissistic man-child, as someone labelled him yesterday.

I guess we’ll know the answer to this within 2 weeks. Maybe. Meanwhile, the optimists believe that: For all Trump’s bellicose rhetoric, he will welcome a diplomatic outcome, rather than commit the USA to an air campaign that might well prove inconclusive.

Fingers crossed.

The USA

• I run the country and the world.
• I will never get a Nobel Peace Prize for all the deals I’ve done. But the people know and that’s all I care about. [As if!]

Possibly the most impressive thing about the president is his imagination: Yesterday he insisted he should be the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, something that India roundly denies. He also claimed credit for resolving conflicts in Rwanda, Serbia and the Congo. But who ever believes someone who lies as easily and as compulsively as he breathes?

Stoppress: Pakistan is said to be about to nominate Trump for a Peace Prize. I wonder what they want from Trump.

Two interesting FT articles:-

• Maga’s battle for Trump’s mind: A bitter fight is on between restrainers and neoconservatives.
• The war on Iran is splitting Trump’s Maga movement: As a decision on involvement looms, some of the president’s most ardent supporters have turned against him.

Quote of the Day

Netanyahu’s battle is for existential survival — that of his own political career. Trump’s instincts are equally ruthless.

Spanish

Pasatiempos: A better word than puzles, it seems, for word games and other non-jigsaw puzzles.

You Have to Laugh

How Trump plays golf . . . See the first few minutes of this.

Finally . . .

My daughter and grandson came up from Madrid today, in one of the dreadful S106 carriages. She noted something else, apart from the noise, vibration and discomfort . . . the temperature varied from carriage to carriage.

Which reminds me . . . There are several stretches of the high-speed line between Madrid and Ourense which are single track. This reduces its capacity to about a fifth of the same distance in 2-track Andalucia, for example. But the good news is that the time for the trip will soon reduce from about 4 hours to 3.5. They say.

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.
• This post of mine contains several relevant articles from ThinkSpain.
• 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.
• A comparison of UK and Spanish living costs.
• And here’s a personal guide to moving to Spain – to work, not to retire.
• What to do if your visa application is rejected
• Finally, from a tax lawyer: Everything you need to know about taxes and healthcare when retiring to Spain.