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

Political life goes on, despite major setbacks for the PSOE coalition government.

Property matters . . .

• Mark Stücklin continues to educate us on the Spanish property market(s).
• Some legal advice here on letting your property here in Spain. Sounds like a minefield. Good for lawyers. Who, generally speaking, are not big earners in Spain.

Which reminds me . . . It’s taken 15 years – in a country where property is in short supply – for a developers to be given permission to convert a ‘skeleton´ eyesore on the outskirts of Pv city into 93 flats.

I was helping a friend today to register her identity on the site of the Tax Office. A problem arose when we couldn’t find United Kingdom in the list of countries for nationality declaration. She was using the English translation offered by the Hacienda and it wasn’t where it should have been. It turned out to be in the R section, not in the U section. Because it’s Reino Unido in Spanish. I imagine that some folk not familiar with Spanish nomenclature fail to find it. And scream in frustration.

I’ve mentioned that the horizontal gash in the hills I can see from my salón window is the new A55 Pv city by-pass. As it serves no real purpose and has minimal to nil traffic, it’s now referred to as a ‘ghost road’. One can only guess at why it was commissioned and why its vast expense was incurred.

Take a look at this foto and see if you can see anything odd in it. Answer at the end of this post.

The UK

A new poll suggests that Brits increasingly believe that the UK is divided, that ‘culture wars’ exist and that life was ‘better in past’. The country might not be unique in this regard.

The mad, bad world of MAGA

• Trump knows the art of altercation like the back of his perfectly normal hand.
• It’s worth reminding ourselves of this 1920 comment from the journalist and satirist H.L. Mencken: On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. This is regarded as a critique of democracy’s susceptibility to demagoguery.

English

Populism is consonant with demagoguery in that they often coexist and reinforce each other, but they remain distinct concepts. Populism is a political ideology or movement that champions “the people” against “corrupt elites” and often involves a simplified, antagonistic view of society divided into “pure people” versus “evil elites.” Demagoguery, on the other hand, is a rhetorical style that relies on appealing to emotions, fears, and prejudices, often using lies or misinformation to sway public opinion. So Trump is a demagogic populist, I guess. And an authoritarian on top of that.

Shellacking: A heavy defeat, drubbing, or beating; used particularly in sports and political contexts. US English, I suspect.

The Way of the World/Social Media

Social media bloodlust is a tragedy for all of us . . . On social media there is no gatekeeping or decency, no respect for feelings of the bereaved or for life itself, and it is desensitising us all. Will the pendulum swing back? Depends on Gen Z and Gen Alpha, I guess.

Spanish

• De guardia: On call, on stand-by.
• Guardería: Playschool, nursery, kindergarten.
• Polizón: Stowaway. Fare dodger.

Did you know?

The Russian for ‘railway station’ derives from London’s Vauxhall Gardens. Their name became associated with pleasure gardens and entertainment venues throughout Europe. When the first Russian railway was built, the terminal at Pavlovsk was called – вокзал (vokzal) – and this came to mean any major railway station.

You Have to Laugh

What you might call a thesaurus-y approach . . .

Finally . . .

I made a beginner’s mistake today at a roundabout frequently . . . I entered the inside lane and signalled left, indicating I wasn’t taking the first exit. This was interpreted by the driver waiting there – as it would be by every Spanish driver – that I was doing a U-turn, not leaving at the 2nd exit. This motivated him to quickly drive across me, bent on leaving 2 exits later, all the time in the outside lane. If I were a Brit new to this Spanish approach to roundabouts – el modelo español – I would surely have hit him. The wise thing to do is never to signal, forcing other drivers to hang back until your true intentions are clear.

I leave you with the regular comment of my French ex – Not anoodder fookeeng road storee!

The foto

There’s an electricity socket in the ceiling near the top of the pillar. The waitress I pointed this out to collapsed in laughter at the sight of it. And, I guess, at the prospect of using it. Somehow.

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 . . .

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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.