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

ABC is not a paper I read. So, HT to Lennox Napier for this citation in his estimable weekly news round-up Business Over Tapas: Irish Hispanist historian Ian Gibson opined in an interview with the paper that: This country has been corrupt for centuries. Adds Lennox: Gibson links structural corruption in Spain with a national identity marked by centuries of fear, an obsession with purity, and a culture based on the picaresque. Full interview here, in Spanish. There’s a Google translation below, with only the worst mistakes corrected . . .

Lennox takes us into summer here with a few political observations.

In Spain’s tourist hotspots tourist flats can now reach 33% of total properties. The article says that countrywide, there’s a deficit of 450,000 homes. But an AI search gives this at 2.7 million, for a population of around 49m(5.5%). This compares with the alleged UK ‘cumulative’ deficit of 4.5million on a population of 69m(6.6%) – assuming this is like for like.

Cousas de Galicia

The VdG today on Tuesday’s fatal fiesta fracas: A Feud and a Bad Marriage: The failed marriage proposal between 2 Roma families in Ribeira last Tuesday ended badly after a stumble, a glass falling to the floor, and a subsequent feud between 2 young men. All witnesses speak of this initial confrontation, but investigators suspect it was merely a spark in the tinderbox. One side was Los Bentos, based in Santiago, and the other was a family living in a village in Ribeira. The simmering conflict stemmed from a previous marriage between 2 members of those 2 families that went awry, with allegations of domestic violence. For now, the feud continues only on social media, with videos and death threats.

During the end-June heatwave, the local sea temperature reached an astonishing – for Galicia – 21 degrees but it has since fallen back to 17. I haven’t been in the sea since almost losing my manhood to it in 1999, off the island of Ons. When it seemed to be just above freezing point.

When taking my grandson to a football session at 8.45 this morning – equivalent to 6.45 in other countries – the Caminers on O Burgo bridge put me in mind of Attila and his Hunnish hordes.

Which reminds me . . . A local paper today lists several restaurants in Pv city favoured by Caminers. None of them is a basic tapas place. And the list includes the 4-star Parador hotel. Which rather says it all about the modern Caminer.

MAGAWorld

I’m not making this up . . . Trump is known to “not read” traditional briefings and to prefer televised content, as evidenced by his limited engagement with the written President’s Daily Briefing. So, in their quest to make this a better match Trump’s media consumption habits and preferences, White House staff are considering giving Trump a video in the style of a Fox News broadcast. This would include graphics, animations (such as maps and exploding bombs), and even have a Fox News producer or personality involved in the production.

The U.S. is the only major global tourism economy forecast to see a decline in international visitor spending in 2025. Stats:-

• International visitor arrivals fell 3.3% in Q1 compared to 2024.
• Projected total international arrivals for 2025 show a decline of 9.4%.
• International visitor spending is projected to drop to c.$169bn in 2025, down from $181bn 2024—a 7% decline and a 22% drop from the pre-pandemic peak.
• In March, Canadian bookings fell 40%, air visitors from Mexico dropped 23%. European inbound travel fell 17%

So, not exactly a booming bit of the total tourism sector, which accounted for c.9% of GDP in 2024.

To remind ourselves . . . Current Trump Lies (or at least the biggest ones . . )

• Biden’s economy was a disaster.
• Everything negative since I took over is down to Biden.
• If there is a recession, it will be Biden’s recession.
• Biden was the worst President in American history
• My first 100 days/6 months have been the greatest in American history.
• Tariffs are paid by the counties exporting to us.
• Every country has been ripping us off for decades
• The EU is evil.
• The EU was created to rip off the USA. (The exact opposite of the truth, of course.)
• There is no inflation. (There is, of course, and it’s rising)
• Prices are reducing.
• Gas is down to 1.98 a gallon in 5 states. (It isn’t)
• The economy is doing great (cf. job losses just announced).
• I am more popular than ever. (The latest polls say the opposite)
• Everyone will love my BBB.
• No one will lose Medicare or Medicaid
• My BBB won’t increase the deficit; it will reduce it.
• Everyone who disagrees with me is really nasty.
• I pay a lot of tax in Florida. (There is no income tax in Florida)
• I have a lot of friends in Florida (As if)

A couple of truths . . .

• I will arrange mid-term primaries against any Republican who opposes me.
• I will kill any Republican who voted against my BBB. (OK, only possibly true)

Should be fun . . . Musk says he will ‘primary’ every Republican who voted for the BBB and will also start a new political party “that actually cares about people.”  We will see.

Spanish

• Melenudo: Hirsute. Long-haired. What Franco called the Beatles. Los melenudos.
• Rasguño: Scratch.
• Cazar: To hunt. But also To pursue/hunt down and To catch.
• A solas: Alone. In private
• Endrina: Sloe.
• Furgón: (Prison) Cell

Did You Know?

The Beatles visited Spain only once, in 1965. For a concert in Madrid, which Franco said was a failure . . .

Finally . . .

Ian Gibson on Corruption in Spain

During the presentation of the comic ‘The Incombustible Life of Salvador Dalí’ (Comic Planet), the renowned Hispanicist Ian Gibson launched an unexpected reflection that overflowed the literary act. His intervention, halfway between historical analysis and emotional confession, became a portrait that, in his opinion, is an ailment that makes him have “the soul for the soils.”

«Corruption is in the people and in politicians. They express what is in the people, ”Gibson said with a shady gesture, and then add that” this country has been dragging corruption for centuries. ” For him, this problem is not limited to public office, but transcends a logic that permeates much deeper layers of collective identity.

Gibson, author of some of the most famous biographies about Federico García Lorca or Antonio Machado, said that “the Spaniards have a serious identity problem.” He ruled out that it was a simple historical amnesia: “To have amnesia you have to leave alive,” he said, and in his place, he described that what happens to Spain is that there has been, historically, “too much ‘fake news'”.

Gibson states that the concept of “the reconquest” did not exist as such in the Middle Ages, and it was “an invention of the nineteenth century” reinterpreted from an economic perspective. «When Castilla conquests, everything about the Moor becomes a profit. Everything is gain. That word: ‘win’, summarizes everything. Here we will win a lot, but at the expense of what? In its analysis, what is presented as heroic deeds would actually be looting operations normalized by the culture of profit. For Gibson, that mentality has dragged to this day.

Later, the Hispanist connected this historical inheritance with political news. In his opinion, the regional system has favored that “every local politician” sees in corruption “the possibility of a dignified life”, in a country that, he recalls, is the inventor of the picaresque novel. Far from seeing it as a destructive criticism, Gibson presents it as an uncomfortable but necessary diagnosis: “To survive you have to grab the trap.”

He also criticized that many recent political scandals are taken with resignation, or even with understanding, as if it were an inherent fatality. “Here there has never been a true feeling of the future,” he lamented: “Everyone grabs what they can, because there is no other way out.”

In his statement, Gibson pointed out that there is an “obsession with clean blood”, that inheritance that, according to him, the Nazis collected from the Spain of the Catholic Monarchs. He recalled how documents were falsified for centuries to prove that one did not have “a drop of Jewish or black blood,” and how that generated “a business”, an industry of social fear and exclusion. “How do these people know how to do it?” He asked rhetorically when talking about those who looked out with those fraudulent roles. «Because people were afraid of being considered ‘dirty’, and that was a life project. That obsession with blood has hurt us a lot.

“We are already fried,” he said almost desperately. «We know that the right has always been marked by corruption, but it is not just a thing. It is structural ». In his final reflection, Gibson avoided falling into a partisan speech: he did not defend any political bloc, nor offered easy solutions.

Ian Gibson has scripted ‘the incombustible life of Salvador Dalí’, a work in which, together with the illustrator Quique Palomo and published by Planet Comic, he runs through the personal and artistic life of the painter and touches the most spoken themes that surround his figure, such as his relationship with Gala, his political inclinations to the Franco regime or his infinite esteem. The work is based on ‘The Nonar Life of Salvador Dalí’, the biography of 1,000 pages that Gibson wrote in 2006, which becomes 152 in this new format.

In the face of his next work, Gibson declares that he is thinking a lot about “his countryman” James Joyce and his ‘Ulysses’. He wants, with his age, to return to someone who is from his land.

My thanks to those readers who take the trouble to Like my posts.

The Usual Links . . .

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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.