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 Galiza

Galicia is said to be a region of myths. In fact, the economies of one or two places depend on these. One I read of recently relates to a woman called Reina (Queen) Lupa. Lupa is Latin for she-wolf* and she’s said to be a symbol of transformation, mystery, and tradition for Galicia and the Camino de Santiago – because she was involved in the burial of the bones of someone alleged to be St James (the Elder). See here on her, in English.

* Used at the time to designate women of strong character. For which Gallegas have a national reputation to this day . . .

From my salón window, I can clearly see the gash in the distant hills which is the white elephant of a new but unneeded Pv city bypass – the A-57. So, I know that this is rarely troubled by traffic. It’s unfinished and might never achieve this status. It currently runs from a town called Vilaboa to the outskirts of Pv city, so it’s something of an irony that the residents of the former have gone public with complaints of how useless it is for them. There are, they say, serious deficiencies such as problems with signage, safety barriers, road surface and access – compromising road safety. Not a huge success, then.

As I’ve said, the negative of being surrounded by tables of foreigners is that there’s no Spanish being spoken, to set against the plus of there being no smoking. When surrounded by Spaniards, it’s the contrary. I moved 3 times last night to get away from smokers. And, yes, all of them were women.

Shops in Pv city can have funny names. For example:-

• Pull&Bear
• Inside
• Stradivarius
• Foot on Mars

The UK

Oh, dear. Writes AEP: Labour’s civil war is pushing Britain towards a bond crisis. Party rebels risk destroying what little confidence remains in the UK’s long-term prospects. ‘Twas ever thus when Labour has a large majority; rebels within the party feel they can say and do whatever they like, with impunity.

AEP’s comment on something I touched on yesterday . . . It is obvious that sickness benefits have become a backdoor to early retirement. The definition of mental illness has been extended so promiscuously that it can be gamed – with every trick explained on TikTok – to subsidise a benefits lifestyle by shockingly large numbers of under-30s. And there is no sign that the government will do something about this. Indeed, it’s doubtful that – given internal resistance – they can do anything about it.

Back to yesterday’s topic of the feckless Gen Z . . . The state increasingly appears to incentivise the young to be ill rather than productive. 

ALICE IN MAGAWORLD

We’ve long ago reached the point where it’s impossible to say anything new about Trump’s intelligence, abilities, character, personality and mental health. It’s now just a question of degree. I’ve cited a coupe of times my list of all relevant adjectives, put together over the last 10 years but now I commend a reading of the write-up on him included at the end of this post.

The note includes the phrase ‘third-rate strongmen’. which is a nice lead into this hard-hitting article, entitled: We’re Being Ruled Over by the World’s Biggest Losers. With the sub-heading: They effectively control our fates, but deep down, they know they’re sniveling, pathetic, and inadequate, and it eats them up.

And talking of Miller . . .

Here’s an article sent to me by an American friend who sought refuge from Portland here in Pv city 2 or more years before it became ‘war-ravaged’ . . .What’s the opposite of fascism?

The Real USA

Trump tariffs are taking their toll on America by stealth.

Russia v Ukraine

Soon to be expanded into Russia v East Europe?

The Way of the World

You don’t have to be much of a cynic to fear that Trump’s Gaza peace plan isn’t going to fly. Or at least not for long. Here’s one negative take on it, from The Guardian.

Spanish

• Aguja: Needle.
• Agujetas: 1. Shoelaces. 2. Muscle stiffness, soreness. [eg after Pilates with weights on your ankles . . .]
• Calar: To penetrate, permeate. To stall.
• Airado: Angry. Aerated [Liverpool dialect, apparently].

Finally . . .

This delightful picture appeared somewhere in my reading. It’s good fun imagining what the young man has said to the girl he fancies . . .

TRUMP

Source: Occupy Democrats, quoting from an essay entitled History is watching. And this time, it’s our names on the line.

Donald Trump just faced one of the most viciously brilliant [brilliantly vicious?] — and accurate — descriptions of his abominable character that we’ve ever read. Author Oliver Kornetkze did not hold back. Here’s how he described Trump:-

Behold. The festering carcass of American rot shoved into an ill-fitting suit: the sleaze of a conman, the cowardice of a draft dodger, the gluttony of a parasite, the racism of a Klansman, the sexism of a back-alley creep, the ignorance of a bar-stool drunk, and the greed of a hedge-fund ghoul—all spray-painted orange and paraded like a prize hog at a county fair.

Not a president. Not even a man. Just the diseased distillation of everything this country swears it isn’t but has always been—arrogance dressed up as exceptionalism, stupidity passed off as common sense, cruelty sold as toughness, greed exalted as ambition, and corruption worshiped like gospel. It is America’s shadow made flesh, a rotting pumpkin idol proving that when a nation kneels before money, power, and spite, it doesn’t just lose its soul—it shits out this bloated obscenity and calls it a leader.

The Trump regime—this carnival of third-rate strongmen, grifters, sycophants, and sadists—isn’t innovating anything. It’s copying. It’s importing the authoritarian model wholesale. They’ve read the Putin playbook, dog-eared the best parts, and now they’re running it in real time. And the cruelty? That’s not a flaw in the system. That is the system.

Trump, a failed businessman and serial conman, didn’t stumble into power because he had a vision. He stumbled into it like a raccoon into a jewelry store: overwhelmed, opportunistic, and desperate to grab everything shiny before the lights come on.

He brought with him a gang of similarly hollow, self-serving goons—parasites in flag pins—who recognized that brute force and spectacle could serve as a perfect cover for mass-scale corruption. All they needed was enough boots, enough masks, and enough Americans too scared or too exhausted to resist.

Occupy Democrats: Kornetzke urges Americans to avoid being overwhelmed by the torrent of frightening moves the Trump administration has made. Instead, he urges us to “resist the paralysis” that might result from that torrent, for the sake of both ourselves and our patriotic predecessors who fought for our freedoms and defeated fascism in Europe in World War II.

And now for something completely different . . . .

As it’s the start of the month . . .  Some readers, I hope, will know that the verse I cite at the top of my posts is the opening quatrain of Fitzgerald’s wonderful – but very ‘free’ – translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which you can read about here. Some verses are well known, of course, eg:-

The moving finger writes; and, having writ,
moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit
shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

My favourite:-

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
doctor and saint, and heard great argument
about it and about: but evermore
came out by the same door as in I went.

If you enjoyed any or all of that, here’s an article on the Persian poetic tradition.

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.