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 Spanish ’empty’ interior is very much in the news . . . Elon Musk has ignited a fresh debate over Europe’s renewable energy future by proposing that the sparsely populated regions of rural Spain could serve as a massive solar generator for the entire continent. There are, of course, some practical barriers to this. Experts acknowledge that, while Spain is rapidly expanding its renewable capacity, dedicating its rural interior to powering the rest of Europe remains a hypothetical scenario rather than a planned reality.

A quiet revolution is happening in Spain. The “Empty Spain” phenomenon has evolved into a structured, government-backed opportunity for expats, digital nomads, and entrepreneurs looking for a high quality of life at low cost. . . . For those tired of the rat race and priced out of urban centres, Spain’s villages offer something better than a virtually free, crumbling house: they offer a viable, affordable, and beautiful future. Possibly.

If you’ve noticed an increase in e-scooters in the streets of your city, this could be due to local entrepreneurs using them to deliver drugs. Said the VdG yesterday: Although these can’t transport large quantities, their mobility makes it easy to serve customers anywhere, anytime. The mandatory registration announced by the government could limit this practice.

The recent – and imminent – rains aren’t doing much for the construction of the new commercial centre that I pass 4 times a day. I now suspect that September will be a tough goal. And I even fear it won’t open before Xmas. Just as it didn’t last year.

Talking of rain . . . I’m a little tired of my Galician friends telling me that this bad weather is just like England’s. Some facts:-

• Manchester is the wettest city in England.
• Manchester’s average annual rainfall is roughly 800–850mm.
• Santiago de Compostela’s is1,600–1,900mm, i.e. twice as much.
• But it’s true to say that Manchester’s rain is spread throughout the year not concentrated outside the summer months, as it is here.

Anyway, we did get our sunny day of respite today, ahead of another promised storm tomorrow.

Europe

Says The Guardian here: Europe’s supermarket shelves are packed with brands billing their plastic packaging as sustainable, but often only a fraction of the materials are truly recovered from waste, with the rest made from petroleum.

A useful site? Buy European.

Venezuela

What’s in a name?

The USA

See my earlier Trumplandia post.

Reviews of that Melania ‘documentary’. . .

• The Independent. Taster: The First Lady is a preening, scowling void of pure nothingness in this ghastly bit of propaganda. Hitting cinemas as the streets of America remain filled with the angry and grieving, the vulgar, gilded lifestyle of the Trumps makes them look like Marie Antoinette skulking in her cake-filled chateau, or Hermann Göring staring up at his looted Monet.
• The Guardian: A gilded trash remake of The Zone of Interest – Dispiriting, deadly and unrevealing.

Trump says he’s not concerned by the appalling reviews and the poor tickets sales to his wife’s ‘documentary’. I confess that, if I were looking at 28m dollars in my wife’s account for doing sweet FA, I wouldn’t be either. But, then, I’m not president of the USA,

Spanish

• Desidia: Apathy, neglect, laziness.
• Patinete: Scooter.
• Farlopa: Blow, nose candy, coke. [I assume cocaine].
• Bocachancla: Bigmouth, blabbermouth.

English

Looking for something else, I found this on my laptop:-

British v American

• Flat – Apartment
• Sweets – Candies
• Car – Auto(mobile)
• Got (past participle) – Gotten
• Nappy – Diaper
• Zip – Zipper
• Tap – Faucet
• Rubbish – Trash, garbage
• Motorway – Highway
• Lorry – Truck
• Bonnet – Hood
• Aluminium – Aluminum
• Pavement – Sidewalk
• Motorway – Interstate
• Biscuit – Cookie
• Boot- Trunk

Five of the American terms aren’t recognised by my (British English) spellcheck. Sadly, the other 11 are . . . A losing battle.

Did you know?

Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas reports that:- A Mexican engineer devised a few years ago a technology capable of retaining rainwater and transforming it into a solid gel that keeps roots hydrated for weeks. With reservoirs at critically low levels in many areas, any advancement that helps to make better use of water becomes a vital asset. In this context, a striking and promising proposal has emerged: so-called powdered water, a technology that allows rainwater to be stored in the soil and released gradually as needed by the plants.

You Have to Laugh

From a reader . . . The year is 2036 and Trump is dead and buried. An enterprising individual decides to set up a business charging customers 10 dollars to piss on his grave. One customer arrives and hands over his 10 bucks and is told that he’ll have to travel to Los Angeles. Why LA?, he asks. I thought Trump was buried in Florida. He’s told that Trump is, indeed, buried in Florida but the queue stretches all the way to California . . .

Meanwhile . . . If you’re an illegal immigrant in the US, it’s said that the best place to hide is in a cinema showing the Melania ‘documentary’, as no one is going into these.

Finally . . .

I was talking to a 30-something waitress who’d come here from the Dominican Republic, having graduated there in Ecology. I mentioned – can’t recall why – Adolf Hitler. She said she’d never heard of him. I was rather taken aback. But should I have been? Quite possibly this could happen with Spaniards of her age. And eve in the USA and th UK. I will check.

P. S. I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have known Hermann Göring either. Or Josef Goebbels even.

Finally . . . Finally . . .

My jasmine continues to be confused. Having de-bloomed when the weather turned cold, it’s now re-blooming again, well ahead of the normal. Possibly encouraged by quite a lot of water around its roots.

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 there.

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