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/Galiza

Good to know that Spain ranks among Europe’s safest countries. [One wonders how the Dutch get it so right. Calvinism . . . .?]

Talking of crime . . . It’s unimpressive that Spain’s leading lawyer – the Attorney General – stands accused of corruption. On the other hand, it’s impressive that the police arrest senior politicians who are then investigated and prosecuted by a judge. Even in they do end up in a luxury jail north of Madrid.

I posted a foto of a Pv city shop called Coosy last week. And now I read that a Pv fashion designer’s brand is brand Cossy. Related? Or a spelling error? Or two.

Flashback to 2002

I haven’t watched Spanish TV for possibly more than 20 years. At the end of this post, there’s something I wrote in my original blog, Things Spanish, which concentrated on one thing at a time. [P. S. I do have a list of Spanish TV series which I’ve been told are excellent and I really hope to get round to at least one of them some day.]

Europe

France again . . From an article on unfriendly countries . . . Masters of the Gallic shrug and eye roll, the French have a habit of living up to the stereotype of being one of the world’s grumpiest nations. If you want to avoid being dismissed as just another irritating touriste, you’d better learn the cultural cues, avoid small talk (too shallow), and brush up on your grammar and pro- nunciation tout de suite – or else expect a withering look and dispiriting reply in English. Does geography matter? Absolutely. As much as I want to love Paris, I find the Parisians positively chilly – the barging on the metro, the disapproving tutting in boulangerie queues, the rude taxi drivers, the surly waiters that look straight through you as if you’re wearing an invisibility cloak when all you want is steak-frites. Don’t take it personally, it’s just the way things are done here. If you want a friendlier welcome, go south where things get warmer on every level.

ALICE IN MAGAWORLD

From Mr Self-Aware:

The presenters of The Rest is Politics USA believe that Trump deserves credit for the ceasefire but they raise some very serious questions about a lasting peace agreement and about US politics. Click here for the podcast.

It’s been reported that Biden got many more prisoners released than Trump and that Trump’s peace deal is essentially Biden’s, the only substantive change being that Netanyahu decided to go with it now – for whatever reason. I don’t know for sure if this is true or not but, like others, I wonder whether Trump’s boast of a new dawn for Middle East is premature. Time will tell, of course and one qualified observer believes that Trump himself – via his ‘ego-show’ – has already ‘knee-capped’ the chances of a lasting peace. See the article and, especially, the video here. Where more critical questions are posed.

Very probably why Trump adores the Egyptian president. Follow the money, as they say.

My question . . . The USA managed to tame the Robber Barons. Will they tame the Robber President and the Robber Oligarchs?

Quote of the Day

If good things come out of ego and cynical motives, then let’s hail them.

Spanish

• Un playlist: Guess
• El weekend: Ditto
• Lunfardo: The RAE: Slang originally used by the lower class of Buenos Aires, some of whose words and expressions were later introduced into the popular Spanish of Argentina and Uruguay.

English

• To Truth (with a capital T): To lie on a Hitlerian scale.

Finally . . . The Flashback

February 2022:

There’s a programme on Spanish TV called Operación Triunfo. It’s been showing for 5 months now and essentially consists of the schooling of 15 youngsters in how to sing and dance, followed by the elimination of each of them down to the last 3. Then there is a dramatic final show to select the winner, by popular acclaim. This programme has totally devastated all the viewing records and has become an obsession of the media, including the newspapers. At the moment, either the programme or replays seem to be on two of the TV channels, regardless of what time of the day or night you switch on.

Not being a great fan of the programme – most of the performers sing very badly, even if they have been taught to gyrate well – I was rather surprised to read an editorial in one of the heavy British newspapers praising what it saw as its qualities and even cited the objectives of the BBC’s charter as being the standards met by it. I thought this was taking things rather too far but did agree that it highlighted how much telebasura [tellyrubbish] is normally shown on Spanish TV.

Even from the little I saw over the months, it was pretty clear who should win – and who eventually did win – the programme. This was a farm girl from near Granada who has an excellent voice. The touching thing is that – at least when things began – she was about 15 stone [210 pounds] in weight. As a result, she was referred to as La Gorda, The Fat One, by all and sundry. Her size meant that she didn’t actually jump around as much as the others but, such was the superiority of her voice, this didn’t matter much in the end.

Now that she has won, the final three contestants are being groomed to compete for the dubious honour of singing Spain’s entry for the next Eurovision song contest and I would be surprised if Rosa [La Gorda] won this as well. Since the programme began, she has lost about 4 stone [56 pounds] and is beginning to look more and more like the orthodox beauties which endlessly parade across Spain’s TV screens.

I read an article this week about how the inventors of Operacion Triunfo – somewhat successfully it has to be said – designed dramatic tension into the programme, which they now expect to franchise around the world. So, I am now wondering whether they actually ensured that the best voice by far belonged to the least physically attractive of the contestants, just to create a dilemma for the endlessly superficial audience. If so, it was a master stroke and the Spanish public was vindicated. But I suspect not. Meanwhile, the entire crew of contestants are issuing daily CDs which immediately race to the top of the charts and I wouldn’t be surprised if they issued the phone directory in song next week, such is the hysteria which surrounds them.

Back on earth, the ‘Spaniard’ who won 3 gold medals at the winter games, but who looks and speaks remarkably like a German and has a name to match, appears to have had his 3rd medal taken back while they await confirmation that he had taken a performance-enhancing drug. I understand this is made from the ovaries of Chinese hamsters. Anyway, I wonder if they will strip him of all his medals and whether, as a result, the TV will stop referring to him as the greatest Spaniard who ever lived and refer to him as ‘German’. That’s if they refer to him at all, of course.

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.