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

I confess to surprise at reading that dismissals have followed the train crash in Cataluña. Hitherto, they haven’t been a notable feature of Spanish corporate or political culture. In contrast, no official was sacked or successfully prosecuted for the far worse crash here in Galicia 12 years ago. Indeed, the ADIF director of safety has just been acquitted of negligence. Though the driver was convicted of negligent homicide.

As for the crash in Andalucía. the preliminary finding is that it resulted from the rupture of the soldering between old and new track pieces in 2023. Which surely raises some key questions.

The Bay of San Simón near Vigo is famous for a 1702 battle in which British and Dutch forces destroyed both the Spanish bullion fleet and the French and Spanish warships guarding it. It contains an island which is featured in this article on a obscure episode in the history of Pontevedra.

Here’s an article on the narcosub recently caught heading our way with the largest ever consignment of cocaine, They’re getting bigger and bigger. So I wonder if one day, we’ll see narco aircraft carrier off our coast. Or at least a narcocrucero.

I had thought it had been Storm Ingrid battering us at the weekend but I read this morning it was Storm Joseph, and that an unnamed ‘zone of cold air’ will arrive tomorrow, bringing us very cold winds from the North over the next 2 weeks. Not yet as bad as the winter of 2000-1, but bad enough. And to think it was warm enough a few weeks ago to fool my jasmine into blooming! Nothing if not variable, our coast.

Meanwhile, much of the forest upstream seems to have floated down from the hills and embedded itself between the arches (‘ojos’) of O Burgo bridge. Putting an end to canoeing on the river.

And my route towards town through the marshlands of Alba has been closed, as a tributary of the river Lèrez has overflowed the small bridge over it. Never experienced that before. At least the shift to a North wind will mean much less rain.

The UK

‘Amelia’ is an AI-generated schoolgirl. She was created to deter young people from far-right extremism in Yorkshire but – with the aid of a Grok AI tool – she has been subverted to become a far-right social media star. Which is more than a tad ironic. An example here.

The USA

See my USA TODAY post of a couple of hours ago.

María´s story of herself as an immigrant.

The Way of the World/Social Media

France’s National Assembly has backed a bill that would ban social media access for under-15s. This is part of a growing trend of restricting social networks for children, triggered by increasing evidence of the damage they can cause to mental health. In Europe, Denmark, Greece, Spain and Ireland are also considering a ban. The UK government has launched a consultation on banning social media for under 16s.

This is unlikely to happen in the USA, where guns are considered by many/most to be more important than kids’ lives

Spanish

• Punta: Tip, point, end, corner. Bit/pinch of, eg salt.
• De punta a cabo: From one end to the other.
• De punta: On end.
• Jugar en la punta: To play upfront.
• Horas puntas: Peak times.
• Hora punta: Rush hour.
• Velocidad punta: Peak speed.

Did you know?

There’ll be an eclipse here in Spain in August. You won’t be alone viewing it.

Finally . . .

There’s a reader of this blog who never misses an opportunity to label everyone who voted for Brexit an imbecile. I thought of him/her today when reading an article on an eminent British historian of whom it was said: Notwithstanding his lifelong fascination with the Mediterranean, [he] was a Brexiteer in 2016. In the run-up to the referendum on EU membership, he chaired ‘Historians for Britain’, arguing that the European project was a deterministic myth used to silence other visions of European community, and that British legal and parliamentary traditions are incompatible with the EU’s regulatory framework. I’d have loved to have got them together and to listen to my anonymous reader trying to convince the historian he was a fool.

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 there.

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