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

Old Madrid is disappearing under wave of the global rich. The new Madrileños have bought property in the city centre, fuelling a boom that is transforming the capita.

Noémi now gives us a guide to Barcelona’s food markets. Or a second chance to learn about them, if I already posted this . . .

If you drink coffee here in Spain, you should know that most cafés and bars will serve you something called Torrefacto. This is coffee whose beans are roasted with added sugar (up to about 15–20% by weight), so the sugar caramelizes and partly burns onto the bean, giving it an especially dark, bitter, and smoky flavour and a shiny, blackish surface. It is sometimes mixed in some proportion with naturally roasted coffee to give café blends a stronger body and to help preserve the beans. It is cheaper, more bitter and more-often accused of causing cancer, as it exposes you to higher levels of certain “burnt” compounds. Details available on Perplexity, or any other AI engine. It is mainly responsible for the claim that Spanish coffee is shit. Or: Torrefacto has been double roasted and finely ground until it is the gastronomic equivalent of Semtex. Some say this doesn’t matter as “The most important thing about Spanish coffee is sitting, chilling and drinking.” Hmm. In “The New Spaniards”, John Hooper wrote: The Spaniards’ addiction to torrefacto is all of a piece with a nation in which there is very little that is bland, gentle or reassuringly soft. So is the way in which they use the word ‘descafeinado’ in a wider and universally pejorative sense to mean ‘watered down,’ ‘artificial’ or ‘bloodless.’ Their seemingly instinctive enthusiasm for whatever is bold, strong and decisive has bedevilled their history.”

Portugal

I couldn’t agree more . . . Forget France – Portugal is Europe’s best destination for a wine holiday.

The UK

In a way, the current British PM is even more powerful than Trump. For . . . He has a unique talent – to alienate absolutely everyone. [That’s a view from the Left by the way]

The USA

See my earlier Trumplandia post.

Query: Would any other democracy permit Stephen Miller to act as he does – as the president’s (vile) puppeteer?

Quotes of the Day

The pendulum never stops in the middle.

Russia

I guess you’ve read the reports . . .

Spanish

• No hay fallo: No problem, That’s ok
• Ser mucho de fiar: To be trustworthy
• Gamba: Prawn. But also viol, from viola de gamba. I think because gamba is ‘leg’ in Italian

You Have to Laugh

An Amazon driver followed the guidance of his satnav/GPS into the Thames Estuary, whereupon his van got stuck on a dangerous footpath that goes out to sea. My guess is that Google’s computer thought this was the shortest route from A to B. Been there, done that . . .

The Finnish: P2.

Finally . . .

Wildlife section:

• I seem to have entrapped the entire local population of field mice. No number 12. Or was it 13?
• After weeks of trying to lure a robin back into my garden – via ground-level seeds and daily sod-turning – I finally succeeded yesterday. Not not today.

Finally . . . Finally . .

Every Monday evening, my cleaner switches on the vacuum cleaner and I lose the wifi, even though all the lights are on on the modem. I was going to ask if anyone – Perry? – had any idea why this happens but I just got this from Perplexity: Yes, plugging in a vacuum cleaner can cause WiFi loss – even if modem lights stay on – because of power surges or electrical interference, rather than the modem fully disconnecting. Vacuum cleaners have powerful motors that draw significant electricity, potentially overloading shared circuits or outlets in older homes. This can trigger a brief voltage drop or surge, causing the router (often separate from the modem) to reset or glitch without affecting modem lights. The vacuum’s motor emits electromagnetic fields that may disrupt WiFi signals, especially if the vacuum is near the router. This interference can weaken connections to devices without dropping the modem’s link to the ISP.

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.