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 has had 4 train crashes in 5 days. Railway workers are naturally concerned re safety and have called a strike for February. The death toll from the biggest crash is now 45.

Spain, says the PM, won’t be joining Trump’s Board of Peace. In which she won’t be alone.

I think I owe a HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for the news that Público had an article and video on the International Brigades that took part in Spain’s Civil War almost 90 years ago. Click here for this. Some say the far-right Vox party is still fighting it, albeit democratically.

Venezuela

No surprise to read that the ex VP – now a sort of P – agreed on Maduro’s excision before the event took place. So, possibly a lot richer now. Despite being an ardent socialist.

Canada

The Canadian PM, along with European leaders, has declined to join Trump’s bizarre Board of Peace, In his usual petty and fraudulent way, Trump then tried to turn this into a strong-man initiative on his part:-

Trump’s Board of Peace

Some see this a global finance-related ploy/play, bound to benefit the crooked, grifting Trump family . . . Built on the legal footing of a UN Security Council resolution, it will enjoy international legitimacy as a sovereign organization not accountable to any particular state. The structure is designed as a potential financial vehicle shielded by diplomatic immunity and extraterritorial privileges, a prerogative reserved until now for a few financial entities, such as the Bank for International Settlements. With the power to dissolve the organization at will and to appoint his successor, Trump has created a new kind of personal international entity that could rival nation-states and multilateral organizations. Its charter makes it similar to multinational corporations but with diplomatic status and sovereignty. It’s a 21st-century version of the Western colonial trading companies.

BTW . . . It’s not true that those who’ve signed up – including Putin! – have paid a billion dollars each. The first 3 years of membership are free. Thereafter, it’s a billion for permanent membership, at Trump’s pleasure. But, in theory, only if you pay up during the first year. There’s no evidence that a fee of any size has been paid by any of the c.20 countries – none of them Western European – that have signed up.

The Board might not last longer than Trump. Or ever actually come into being.

The USA

I published a special post on Trump a couple of hours ago. It contains my updated schedule of all the adjectives that apply to the Great Orange Hope of MAGA..

Donald Trump’s Davos appearance was billed as the moment the President of the USA would reassure a nervous world. Instead, it became a spectacle of vanity, contradiction and geopolitical illiteracy that underlined just how dangerous his worldview has become. Standing before global leaders at the World Economic Forum, Trump did not so much deliver a foreign policy address as indulge in a performance aimed at his MAGA base and an imaginary audience that endlessly admires, fears, and obeys him. The substance of the speech barely mattered. The damage did. What the world witnessed was a president confusing bombast with leadership, swagger with strategy, and contradiction with strength. It was geopolitics performed as self-parody. Nowhere was that clearer than in Trump’s fixation with Greenland. He presents it as if it were an underperforming golf resort he might snap up at auction, a frozen land waiting for the Trump logo.

Trump wasn’t the only despised American in Davos. Commerce Secretary Howard Klutnick was heckled and booed, while some senior Europeans even walked out on his address. . .

But where was the evil eminence chauve – Stephen Miller? Behind the arras and the throne?

China

I’ve long believed that reliance on oil was a major facto in global instability, if only because so much of it came from the Middle East. Not to mention Russia. So, I guess this fascinating article could be true. A China-Europe energy alliance could deliver a new world order. Xi Jinping has seized on the transatlantic rift, leaving Donald Trump’s global agenda in the dust.

Spanish

• Apuntalado: Shore up, buttressed, propped up, etc.
• Azotea: Rooftop. Terrace.
• Rocambolesco: Bizarre, fanciful, outlandish. A fine-sounding word. Perfect for Trump.

Did you know?

A pretty young woman called Natalie Harp goes everywhere with Trump. She carries a portable printer, laptop, and paper to provide him with articles and social media updates, especially during golf outings and events. Around 35, she previously worked – surprise surprise – as a television presenter on a far-right network and has the ‘Mar-a-Lago face’. Her nickname is ‘the human printer’.

Finally . . .

Storm Ingrid is having fun at our expense. I walked back to my car at lunchtime in a very cold hailstorm, And the snowline is creeping down the mountains, having now got to 400m. Visible from my salón window. It ain’t always warm in Spain, even down South.

My thanks to those readers who take the trouble to Like my posts.

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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 there.

If you´re thinking of moving to Spain, this link should be useful to you.