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.

Preamble

Today started badly when, at 4am, I heard my 4 year old grandson coming down from the attic flat. When I put him in my bed, he went straight off to sleep. I didn’t, of course.  . . . But things got worse. After I’d got up and drafted most of this post, a glitch in LibreOffice caused me to lose it. Ironically, this was connected with automatic backups and the only document not backed up automatically on my laptop was my blog! So, what follows is the best my memory could do. Assisted by the History of web pages read.

Good job I had nothing better to do today than to try to solve this problem.

Cosas de España

To my rescue came 2 posts from the estimable Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas, inter alia:-

• Cars he has known, here in Spain.
• More seriously/less amusingly, corruption here in Spain.

Cousas de Galiza

If you’re thinking if driving into Pv city in the next 2 weeks, don’t. Our annual Fiesta de la Pelegrina starts on Friday and the roads are already chaotic, thanks to closures and diversions. BTW: The sign you will see for a closed street/road is not Calle/Carretera Cerrada but Rúa/Estrada Pechada. Which is Galician, of course. No problem if you’re Portuguese.

On the other hand, if you want the experience of a bullfight with a jolly but less-than-expert audience, now is the time to visit the city. Details here.

Retail shops regularly close down in Pv city but round about now we get the first of the pop-up outlets selling or hiring out medieval costumes for our Feira Franca on the first weekend of September. Who said the Spanish aren’t into planning?

Europe

AEP – always an EU sceptic, of course – claims here that: Europe has hit rock bottom. The neo-mercantilist bet to make the euro ‘work’ has, at last, gone horribly wrong. All 4 pillars of the EU’s economic strategy and great power project now lie in ruins. Every domino has fallen. But perhaps not because, as Mao said when asked about the consequences of the French Revolution on 1789 replied: ¨It’s too soon to say¨.

THE MAGA REALITY TV SHOW

Trumpisms

• During my first admininistration we took in billions of dollars from China. [More utter bilge. Not a single cent]
• I have nothing to do with do with the DoJ investigation into treason by Obama. I learnt about it just as you did. [As if. Does he really take us all for fools? Or just doesn’t care either way?]
• My poll numbers are the best ever – 70% plus overall and 90% plus for Republicans. [He is massively ‘under water’]
• The jobs and economy data are fake. False. Rigged to discredit Trump.
• The good news is that people are saying we did a great job with the Rose Garden. We had to do it. [cf. ‘A concrete slab. Like a car park, devoid of life’.]

The real good news is that more and more Americans are coming to realise just what sort of monster they put in the White House, despite having experienced his first presidency. Below is a schedule on terms applicable to Trump. I first produced this around 2017 but I’ve had no need to add many words to it since then.

Can this woman be any more stupid?

Spanish

Para and Por . . . I’ll get it right one day. . . María advises that P’alante is really a shortening of Para adelante.” Forward, go ahead, straight on, keep going. [Not, as I wrote Por alante/adelante.] In galego it’s pa’diante, from para diante.

Adds María: Para is used with aquí and allá thus: P’aquí is a colloquial contraction for Para aquí and P’allá is for Para allá. In everyday speech, especially in Caribbean and Latin American dialects, Para (meaning “to” or “towards”) is often shortened to Pa and combined with adverbs of place to indicate movement or direction. So P’aquí means “over here” or “this way,” and P’all means “over there” or “that way”.

If that’s not enough for you, here’s an AI comment on these phrases:-

The difference between “por aquí” and “para aquí” is in the kind of movement or location they describe:

“Por aquí” means “around here” or “through here.” It indicates an indeterminate location, general area, or movement within or through a place (e.g., “por aquí hay muchos bares” = “there are many bars around here”). It suggests wandering, passing, or presence in a general area.

“Para aquí” means “to here” or “towards here.” It indicates direction or destination—something or someone is coming to this specific place (e.g., “¿Es para aquí el paquete?” = “Is the package for here?”). This use is about reaching, aiming for, or bringing something to a particular destination.

In summary: “por aquí” focuses on general area or movement within a space, while “para aquí” points to a specific direction or destination towards here.

Apart from the difficulty every foreigner has with Por and Para, my defence is that I’m also assailed on a daily basis by both Galician and South American usage, alongside Castellano usage. And I ain’t no spring chicken. I’ll let you know what my bilingual 6 year old grandson says on the subject. Maybe.

Finally . . .

Aphorisms from Norman Macdonald’s Maxims and Moral Reflections, 1827:

• By speaking contemptibly of our enemies, we disgrace our own hostility.
• We would be successful in most enterprises of life, were we to take that advice to ourselves which we give to others in similar circumstances.
• Severity of punishment deters minor crimes, but renders greater ones more certain and determined.
• Pride, like love, is sure to discover itself; because it can only derive value from the success with which it affects others.
• Were there no fools there would be no flatterers.
• The less we know of ourselves, the worse qualified we are to judge correctly of others.
• No end can be honorable that is dishonorably obtained.
• The better a man is known to himself, the more easily he is understood by others.
• There are two sorts of people that are never contented: they that do not know what they desire, and they that attempt impossibilities.
• The failure of many designs is owing to a confidence of success.
• A sure way, sometimes, to expose our virtue, is to endeavor to conceal it.
• A man is more deserving of success, that claims not adulation as his first conquest.
• We advise others better than ourselves.
• Most men have two principles, one practical, another professional.
• In cunning, our pride oftener dreads disappointment than our interest.
• Most men know how to take offence; but few know how to forgive — pride is always impatient; magnanimity, tolerant and pacific.

TRUMP A-Z

A	Arrogant, Autocratic, Alienating, Anti-intellectual, Angry
B	Bullying, Boastful, Braggart, Belligerent, Bigoted, Blowhard, Bad-tempered
C	Chaos-creating, Clueless, Cheating, Combative, Child-like, Childish
D	Disruptive, Dishonest, Deluded, Divisive, Destructive, Disorganised, Devious, Dissing/Disrespectful.
E	Exaggerator, Egotistical, Egocentric
F	Fox News-Obsessed, Follicly challenged, Fraudulent, Fantasist, Fast-food-Guzzler
G	Garrulous, Global-warming-denying, Gaffe-prone
H	Hyperbolic, Hateful, Heartless, Humourless, Hollow
I	Idiotic, Insulting, Insensitive, Irreligious, Incompetent, Inconsistent, Ignorant, Islamophobic, Inattentive, Insecure, Inimical, Incoherent, Illogical, Irrational, Intemperate, Inept, Impatient, Intimidatory, Insane?
J	Jealous
K	Kinglike, Kinky, Know-all
L	Liar, Lazy, Low esteemed,
M	Misogynistic, Media-obsessed, Menacing, Mad?
N	Nauseating, Narcissist
O	Obsessive, Orange-hued, Obnoxious
P	Paranoid, Putin-admiring, Petty, Pussy-grabbing, Populist, Posturing, Pugnacious, Poseur, Philandering, Phony, Politically inexperienced, Psychologically suspect.
Q	Quixotic, Querulous
R	Russia-dependent, Rabble-rousing, Reckless, Racist, Resentful
S	Short-attention-spanned, Self-centred, Self-obsessed, Stupid, Self-vaunting, Susceptible to flattery, Swaggering, Small-minded, Self-interested
T	Twitter-obsessed, TV-obsessed, Tyrannical, Trade-disrupting, Threatening, Triumphalist, Thin-skinned
U	Unfriendly, Unfaithful, Unintelligible, Unreliable, Unwilling to listen, Unaware, Untrustworthy, Unpredictable, Undisciplined, Un-self-aware,
V	Vocabulary-deficient, Vengeful, Victim, Vain. Vulgar, Vindictive
W	Wearisome, Weird, Whoring, Worrying, Wrathful, Wrong-headed, War-mongering
X	Xenophobic
Y	Yankee . . .
Z	Zig-zagger

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.

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.

If you´re thinking of moving to Spain, this link should be useful to you.