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

The disgraced ex-king is now even less popular than he was, as a result of writing a tell-all memoir and issuing a self exculpatory video.

A consumers’ association has accused El Tráfico of being complicit – through omission – in fraud around the marketing of the about-to-be compulsory emergency lights. These are not connected to a GPS signal, so are useless for the purpose intended.

Videos of wild boar families wandering around Galician towns are not exactly rare. And now ‘superpopulation’ of this animal is being blamed for swine fever outbreak in Spain. It looks like hunting them will increase. Sometimes by archers in trees. Not sure why. Safer?

The ‘Atlantic blanket’ has wrapped itself around Galicia this last week. More accurately, the ocean has dumped itself on the region. Which didn’t really justify a reporter on national TV last night saying that this was a daily norm for the region. But, truth to tell, winter is certainly lluvioso there. [BTW . . . I haven’t watched Spanish TV for years. It hasn’t improved.]

The UK

In a long-overdue move, wildly overoptimistic government assumptions about how much electricity can be relied on from intermittently generating wind farms have been reduced by about 30% – with big consequences for the Energy Secretary’s 2030 carbonisation plans. The downgrade makes wind power much less attractive as a contributor to decarbonisation. Costings will now need to recognise the need for more gas-fired generation to make up the difference, while the correction also UPS the pressure to push through many more wind farms.

The USA

The White House’s new media ‘bias’ tracker is a desperate gimmick. The site isn’t exposing misleading reporting – it’s revealing the bubble Trump increasingly inhabits There really is something being exposed here, but it’s not the reporting. It’s Trump’s own increasing desperation and his decreasing ability to countenance anything other than flattery and sycophancy.

The lies used to justified the US war against South America are already crumbling.

Russia v Ukraine

Putin continues to humiliate Trump by refusing to discuss peace plans. Not that the latter seems to notice.

But it’s reported that domestic support for Putin’s war against Ukraine has dramatically dropped. One wonders what impact this will have, even if it’s true.

The Way of the World

An estimated 19.9 million people in Myanmar – more than a third of the population – require urgent humanitarian assistance, internal displacement has reached a record high of more than 3.5 million people and, according to the UN, an estimated 1.1 million children are without access to protection services, increasing their vulnerability to violence, neglect and exploitation. Two global meetings – one rubber/stamped by the UN, the other by the US – that should have confronted the emergency in Myanmar came and went with little evidence that world leaders are remotely interested in addressing the deadliest humanitarian and political crisis facing Southeast Asia in half a century. President Trump, still searching for that elusive Nobel Peace Prize, appeared at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Malaysia to claim he’d saved millions of lives by securing peace between Thailand and Cambodia, while failing to mention the catastrophe next door in Mayanmar.

And then there’s Somalia . . .

Spanish

• Tentadora: Temptress.
• De corta edad: Young, of tender years.
• Esto tiene tomate: This is tough; this is a tough one.
• Dar la lata: To nag

You Have to Laugh

Finally . . .

Murcia city justified my decision to maintain my intention to visit it. And to enjoy rabo de toro there. These are a few fotos taken in the amazing Casino, which is a private club, not a gambling joint.

I was impressed that it had a Billiards Room, but the 3 tables seemed to me to be smaller than the snooker table in my grandfather’s pub, though larger than pool tables. I’m guessing they were genuine billiards tables, from a previous century.

An AI answer . . .

• Snooker table: 366cm x 183cm
• Billiards table: 274cm x 137cm
• Pool table: 244cm x 122cm [For wimps, then}

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The Usual Links . . .

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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.