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

I take with a pinch of salt UK tabloid reports that hotel, restaurant and bar owners around Spain are on the verge of bankruptcy because ’unwanted’ Brits are staying away and so tourist receipts are well down. But this has the ring of truth about it: Spain’s hotel sector slams the ‘price-gouging’ 300% hike in the cost of new ETIAS travel permits for Brits. [And others, it should be said.]

‘Stop the madness’: There’s said to be outrage in Spain after La Liga agrees to play a league match in the USA. It does seem a rather crazy idea, driven by greed, I imagine.

Cousas de Galiza

While our premier local resort of Sanxenxo has set its face against one, other towns and cities – including Vigo and Pv city – are said to be considering the low-hanging fruit of a daily tourist levy. Perhaps as much as €20 per person. Doubtless this would result in yet more free concerts and firework displays for the locals. Not to forget even better Xmas lights.

I hope to live to see this . . .The Miño, a railway highway: The railway line that follows the course of the river Miño along the border with Portugal, linking Vigo with Ourense, is to be renovated. The line dates back to 1881 and has sections wedged between large embankments and trenches, with many curves, adapting to the riverbed. Traffic interruptions due to landslides are frequent. Changing it to a railway highway will involves work on overpasses, tunnels, and stations, as special trains will run on the tracks carrying semi-trailer trucks, or even full trailers on the wagons.

Portugal

Someone’s happy about moving to Portugal. Note 1:  Social media can be helpful but there is a lot of wrong information out there. Note 2: Portuguese isn’t an easy language. [It’s the pronunciation that’s the problem.] And to think that, if it weren’t for Easyjet, Liverpool airport would have closed decades a go, as being redundant.

The UK

Just in case you need to know, the UK´s best airport is said here to be Liverpool’s . . . And the worst is nearby Manchester’s.

THE MAGA REALITY TV SHOW

Trumpisms

• We could not find a city with worse crime statistics than Washington. [As reader David points out, there are at least 18 of these and 17 haven’t had their policing taken over by the National Guard.]
• Companies and governments will pay my tariffs, not consumers.[Well, at least this is not as untrue as his years-long claim that only foreign governments will pay them.]

To no one´s surprise A Trump biographer has revealed that there is someone behind the scenes pulling the strings of the president’s administration.

Will anyone in MAGAworld notice? Trump is contradicted by his own Truth Social AI chatbot. It disputes a number of the president’s claims and also criticises his tariffs policy.

Demythologising US gun law history. This podcast episode will surely surprise many folk, including – I suspect – the majority of Americans. Available on other platforms too.

Quotes of the Day

• Cancelling the monthly job reports is textbook authoritarianism.
• Ever since that latest weak jobs report, Trump has been frantically trying to convince the American public that the economy is doing great. He is failing, and predictably so. Experience shows that trying to talk up the economy when people don’t perceive it as good never works, even if the data are favorable. It’s even less likely to work when the data actually aren’t good, and calling people who point out economic weakness BUMs isn’t likely to help. [Economist Paul Krugman]
• Anyone who either lives in Washington DC or looks at crime data knows that this Trump’s stats are malicious nonsense. But we can’t take it for granted that the rest of the country will understand that that Trump’s lying, And if I may say, it’s the responsibility of the news media to make that clear. Don’t say ‘Trump makes contentious claims about DC crime.’ Don’t say that there’s ‘a dispute over DC crime data.’ Just say that he’s lying.” [Ditto]

Russia v Ukraine

• Trump and his aides have shifted from suggesting a deal on Friday to end the Ukraine war could be close to describing Friday’s meeting with Putin as a “listening exercise”. [‘Managing expectations’.]
• Trump’s best way of securing a swift end to the war is to let the Russians win

Spanish

Airoso: Graceful, elegant. Unscathed.

English

Might amuse some . . . New tenses. And an example of usage.

Did you know?

Reader Alex has put me on to this fascinating article.

Finally . . .

Driving in Spain is always a challenge but the holiday traffic along the coast road made it even more so this morning, when I went to help a visitor get her gas bottle (bombona) connected. A trip of normally 13 minutes took 40 and wasn’t helped by folk blocking exits, reversing out of one-way streets or, of course, doing a U-turn on a roundabout entirely in the outside lane.El modelo español, as it’s called in Portugal. Only in Portuguese.

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

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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.