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 government’s plan to give 500,000 migrants residency status has prompted a backlash, with the right-wing PP party saying it will “increase the pull effect, overwhelm public services and exacerbate the housing crisis”. The far-right Vox party claims it amounts to an invasion and threatens the Spanish national identity. One thing might be certain – an increase in the vote for the governing PSOE party. Unsurprisingly . . . Public concern about immigration has risen in Spain, with polls showing it’s now among voters’ top worries, alongside housing and unemployment.

Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas cites a report that: Tourism is becoming less seasonal: foreign arrivals are growing more in the off-season than in summer. Tell me about it. As I’ve written more than once, these days I can’t be sure of a table on my favourite terrace – even as early as 6pm – from May through to October. Mostly bloody not-very-poor ´pilgrims’, of course.

Our latest storm – possibly the 5th in a short period – now has a name – Leonardo. It’s forecast to affect us for 2 weeks, ending just as Lent begins. The Xunta is expecting overflowing rivers – of which we have a lot – and local flooding. Probably wise.

Please help me to spread the Spanish myth that it rains every day of the year here in Galicia.

The USA

See my earlier Trumplandia post.

A Bitcoin wipe-out erases the entire Trump-era gains. The cryptocurrency tumbles as the US president fuels geopolitical uncertainty. . . . This has happened as Trump’s own crypto ventures face scrutiny after it emerged that he sold a 500 million dollar stake in his family’s crypto empire to an Abu Dhabi royal known as the “spy sheikh” in a secret deal just days before the US presidential inauguration.

We need to brace for the real-world impact of Trump’s master plan for the dollar. The US president may want a weaker dollar in order to make American goods more competitive.

The Way of the World

A brave new dormant world . . .

Spanish

• Recuento: Count. Account.
• Perpetrar: Carry out, perpetrate.
• Alunizaje: Ram-raid.

Did you know?

New ways to fleece tourists.

You Have to Laugh

Shakespeare was not a man but a woman – a dark-skinned lady, of Jewish origin, born into a family of court musicians from Venice – one Emilia Bassano. So claims a ‘feminist historian’ called Irene Coslet. Bassano’s authorship, she says, has been hidden by “Western-centric and Eurocentric ideology”. She notes that “A-She-Speaker” is an anagram of “Shakespeare”. To my not-very-great surprise, Coslet’s ideas are not widely accepted by Shakespeare scholars and are considered by some to be a left-wing conspiracy theory, and black-washing.

Finally . . .

I read that the film Hamnet has sparked a craze for a single male earring. I wonder how many folk know that: Sailors wore gold earrings for a mix of practical, superstitious, and cultural reasons. At a time when most sailors couldn’t swim and expected to die at sea, a gold earring served as payment for a proper Christian burial, if a body washed ashore. Assuming it wasn’t just nicked, of course.

Finally . . . Finally . . .

A possibly irrelevant warning . . . . Having seen a very positive comment, I bought this 380 page book but soon very much wished I hadn’t. It joined a very short list of books I couldn’t finish. Or indeed, hardly start. If only I’d read the negative reviews! It’s written like a romantic novel by an author who has no trivia filter and can’t write a noun without putting at least one adjective in front of it. And who essentially reproduces the subject’s diaries and letters, line by line. But, of course, tastes differ and there are many readers who see it as well-written and fascinating in its (immense) detail. It takes all sorts.

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.