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

Acoso inmobiliario (real estate harassment) – A huge negative consequence of Spain’s unstoppable property boom in cities popular with tourists.

Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas tells us that Vox isn’t the only far-right party in Spain. Even further to the right is Acabó la Fiesta (The Party’s Over) and the Falange Española de las JONS, and now there’s the Núcleo Nacional, a far-right youth group.

Galicia’s genetic secrets.

Ravachol is now an ex-parrot. Improve your Galician by reading this article on our last big early-Lent event, ending in his immolation. Here he is, just before setting out on his way to the flames . . .

The raging seas have thrown up – literally – evidence of just how many illegal octopus traps there are in our coastal waters. BTW: These are called cacharros, or ‘pots’. Not to be confused with cachorros, or ‘puppies’.

A bit of Iberian etymology . . . There’s a long river which flows through both Spain and Portugal – the Duero or Douro, respectively. This name comes from the Latin Durius, which scholars say had prior Celtic/pre-Celtic roots, such as Proto-Celtic dubro/dubros, meaning “water” or “river,” akin to modern Welsh dŵr (“water”) and Breton dour. An alternative theory proposes a pre-Indo-European root like dur- or dor-, common in Western European river names (e.g., French Doire, Italian Dora). Another suggestion is dubos (dark/black), as in Dublin and Doolin (Ireland) and Douvres, and Doubs (France). Anyway . . .  By medieval times, the name had evolved into the Galaico-Portuguese Doiro, before splitting into into its 2 modern variants.

The USA

See my earlier Trumplandia post.

The Way of the World

Sadly, however hard it is to believe it, this might well be true – The people in power don’t care about the children. Neither today’s nor tomorrow’s.

Spanish

• Espantajo: Scarecrow
• Bravura del mar: Fierceness of the sea, choppy sea.
• Dar abasto: To supply

Did you know?

In May 1884, a group of schoolboys on a beach in Zanzibar came upon a large mass of pumice stone – a relic of the eruption of Krakatoa. Welded to its surface were some very odd things . . .

BTW: I lived on Java for a few years and regularly looked out towards Anak Krakatoa, (Krakatoa’s Child), the small island left after the volcanic eruption of 1883. It’s off the Western tip of the island, not the other end, as in the 1968 film Krakatoa, East of Java. Allegedly: Producers discovered the error during production but kept the title because it sounded more exotic, atmospheric, and marketable than “West of Java”. Maybe.

You Have to Laugh

Another Finnish nightmare . . .

Finally . . .

Talking of humour . . . After (mildly) upsetting a friend last night, I got to wondering about the role of exaggeration and insult in Scouse humour and got this (accurate) info from Perplexity: Yes, Scouse humor – Liverpool’s signature style – strongly emphasizes exaggeration and amicable insults. Scouse wit thrives on over-the-top expressions which amplify everyday arguments into absurd chaos. Insults are tossed around playfully among mates, usually with affection rather than malice. This style blends Irish immigrant surrealism with Northern English traditions of witty put-downs, fostering camaraderie through ridicule that’s rarely meant to wound.

I know, to my cost, that not everyone finds this funny. Especially a non-Scouse ‘victim’ of it.

Finally . . . Finally . . .

The maps I forgot to include when I wrote about Iberia’s make-up in 200 BC:-

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.