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

Spain, it says here, is cracking down on British tourists, in an attempt to curb overtourism and anti-social behaviour. Holidaymakers now face stricter entry rules, higher taxes, and fines of up to £2,517. It should be noted that these measures will apply to all vacationers, not just Brits.

I wonder if the day will ever come when a limit is placed on Camino numbers. This year’s total will exceed 500,000, not including the many who don’t register when they arrive in Santiago de Compostela. This official total is more than double that of 10 years ago and 7 times what it was 20 years ago. As for the Camino Portugués passing through Pv city, this year the total will be 11 times more than in 2009, when I did my first walk on it. Again, these official numbers understate the true situation.

Lenox Napier writes here on cars powered by electricity and other things.

There’s a case going through the courts around long-running, massive corruption on the part of senior members of the government of Castilla y León, uncovered 10 years ago! Not all of the 17 accused are on the bench, as 2 of them have died. I can’t pretend to understand the details but the sum involved is €75m, in a scheme that was, somehow, ‘both simple and complex‘. Perhaps simple in concept but complex in its operation. The trial began in mid September and will continue for another 3 months, involving 43 sessions. Oh, yes, it involved the creation of turbine farms.

I wrote yesterday that Pv city’s taxi drivers were outraged by private cars (VTCs), picking up folk at ranks when there are no taxis there, as they’re supposed to operate only via reservations. I’m sure they’ll be even more outraged by the astonishing suggestion of the VTCs that, in the interest of consumers, the authorities align licences with actual demand.

I might have discovered a web page that is even worse than Renfe’s – that of Pontevedra FC. After 3 tries, I can state with conviction that neither the access process nor the password recovery process work.

Mad MAGAworld

The braver of the 2 ex-presenters of Shrinking Trump claims here that his cognitive collapse is clear. My guess is the no one in the White House has the courage to correct his goofs Or not to his face anyway. And Katherine Leavitt can be guaranteed to lie barefacedly about them.

Donald Trump has built a regime of retribution and reward. . . Trump’s commutation of the George Santos’ sentence is another of his gestures to demonstrate that House Republicans will swallow any embarrassment and insult with servility. It represents the obverse but essential element of the retribution system – the rewards system. Which began on the day of Trump’s inauguration.

Another echo . . . In January 1939, the head of the German state bank wrote to Hitler warning that his economic policies were bringing the finances of the state to the edge of ruin and wrecking the bank and its currency. Hitler’s response was to sack the entire board and to replace all the directors with more pliant men.

The Way of the World

The (shocking) new misogyny.

Gaza

• A disturbing article on Hamas intentions.
• The latest Empire podcast on Palestine: Gaza: The 1948 war.

Spanish

• Arrabeles: Suburbs, outskirts. Slums.
• Tinglado: Racket, trick, plot.
• Desbaratar: Disrupt thwart, foil, etc. eg un tinglado

Did you know?

I think we did already know this . . . ‘Sycophantic’ AI chatbots tell users what they want to hear.

You Have to Laugh

I am told that a certain friend of mine, as an undergraduate at Cambridge, was of an extreme nimbleness, an agility which he could not well control. One day that grave and reverend personage, the Master of his college, happening to meet him, remonstrated with him thus: ‘Mr. Dash, I am sorry to say I never look out of my window but I see you jumping over those railings.’ Mr. Dash was equal to the emergency, for he respectfully replied, ‘And it is a curious fact, sir, that I never leap over those railings without seeing you looking out of that window.’

Finally . . .

Throughout Wales there’s a speed limit of 20mph – or 33kph – in residential areas. Here you see this inexplicably applied to a short cul-de-sac. In stereo . . .

Here in Pv city, the mayor went one better and introduced a limit of 10kph, or 6mph. But the signs saying this appear to have been taken down. I imagine his chauffeur-driven car is one of the many with didn’t comply with it. [I just checked with an AI engine which says that: A 10 kph limit is not general for the entire city, but in specific pedestrian areas there is a restricted limit of 6 kph. Or 3.6mph. Also widely ignored by cyclists and e-bikers/scooterists, with apparent impunity.]

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.