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

Positive news . . . The rest of Europe coalesces around Spain’s view of the US-Iran war.

Negative commentary . . . Something I’ve been saying for a while – The macro-micro gap. Not exclusive to Spain, of course.  . . If you scratch beneath the polished surface of Spain’s macroeconomic miracle, a sharply different – and divided – picture emerges. [BTW . . . If you read the Comments to my posts, you might well soon see one from a regular but anonymous (Spanish?) reader telling us that, no matter how bad the Spanish economy is, the UK’s is worse. Which is true, of course. He/she clearly thinks I have an obligation to make such negative comparisons with the UK and that I don’t because I am a Brit with the proverbial beam in my eye.]

Meet the racist cop lampooning populists — and uniting Spain. ‘Torrente for President’ is smashing box-office records by mocking Vox as well as the left, proving the broad appeal of political parody.

The post-Brexit legal/financial minefield for Brits [and other non-EU folk, I guess] moving to Spain. Visa routes, consulate appointments, document legalisation, regional bureaucracy, and language barriers now stand between would-be residents and their new life in Spain. Online forums are full of contradictory advice, and many people only discover crucial requirements after they’ve already made costly mistakes. Low hanging fruit for the Hacienda?? More here.

Spain faces uncharted territory it approaches the end of the storm name list, with just 2 left in mid-March. Spain recorded its 19th named storm of the 2025-26 season with the arrival of Storm Therese, and with more circling in the Atlantic it raises the prospect of a mini-list looming. This is a historic first since storm naming began in the 2017-18 season. The previous record was 17 storms in the 2023-24 season. Our temperatures yesterday were 9-10 degrees the normal average. As I said, summer has leapfrogged spring, just in time for the current puente, born of today (St Joe’s feast-day) being a bank holiday in Galicia.

Europe/the EU

LeMonde editorial: War in Iran: Spain’s resolve stands in stark contrast to France’s stance, which seems more accepting of US-Israeli strikes. Historian Laurence Badel analyzes the reasons behind the Spain’s ‘no to war’ position and the impact of this decision on the European diplomatic landscape. . . . Spain’s position, justified in the name of international law, does not call European diplomatic integration into question. BUT: While specific positions [such as those of Spain and Ireland] don’t upset the balance of EU institutions, the practices in recent years of the Commission and its president could undermine it. 

The US-Iran War

Success? . . Defeat is anathema to Trump. So, what is the off-ramp which will allow him  to claim success?

• The straits of Hormuz are opened? [Possibly as a result of Iran-EU negotiations].
• The nuclear problem is resolved? [Ditto].

Trump and Netanyahu are no longer fighting the same war. . . . It might finally be dawning on the [slow learning] US president that Israeli and US interests in the region are not fully aligned. . . The US state has understood for decades that the US and Israel’s interests do not fully align. Trump would have known it too if he had not sacked most of the US government’s foreign policy specialists on taking office last year. [Well, that rather assumes he’d have listened to them.]

The USA

See my earlier post on the delusional, bellicose president.

Quote of the Day

To complete yesterday’s quote: Bad situations can get worse. And that’s the history of the Middle East.

Spanish

• Lambonería: Adulation. Cuddles. Ass-licking . . .
• Aturdido: Groggy.
• Tozudo: Stubborn.

English

Well, Scottish really . . . The name Auchinleck is pronounced Affleck. As in Ben.

And Irish . . The name Ní Mhuircheartaigh is pronounced “knee wurk-uh-hart-ee”, or “Nee Murra Hurty”.

Did you know?

Talking of the Gaelic . . .

Long before the famous Hitler Diaries . . . In 1762, the Scottish writer James Macpherson announced he’d “discovered” an ancient Gaelic epic composed by Ossian, son of the heroic warrior Fingal, and published Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem in Six Books in 1762. He presented it as a faithful translation of lost manuscripts, and the work was quickly hailed across Europe as a “Celtic Homer,” inspiring Napoleon, Jefferson, and Romantic poets such as Wordsworth and Byron. Critics, most notably Samuel Johnson, attacked Macpherson for never producing the original Gaelic manuscripts and for reworking traditional material so freely that the result reads more like an original composition than a translation. Modern scholars and recent mathematical analyses of the “social networks” of characters in Ossian show very close structural parallels to Irish texts such as Acallam na Senórach, reinforcing the view that the poems were largely invented or heavily adapted by Macpherson rather than genuinely ancient. Even though Ossian and Fingal are now seen as a literary hoax, the cycle had a major impact on European Romanticism and the vogue for Celtic mythology. Some modern commentators argue that Macpherson’s work can be appreciated as creative fiction rather than a genuine antiquity, while still acknowledging that the “ancient bard” Ossian was essentially a fabrication.[This is also said of George Borrow’s wonderful 1843 book ‘The Bible in Spain’, which feature sections on Pv city and Vigo.]

[BTW . . . McPherson is also known for his struts. . . ]

You Have to Laugh

Waling past the rail station’s car park yesterday, I noted that – of the 15 poles at the pavement’s edge – about half of them looked like this one. Or worse . . .

At least they serve their purpose.

Finally . . .

I’m re-reading a book I bought in 2002 – Adam Sisman’s ‘Boswell’s Presumptuous Task: Writing the life of Dr Johnson’. I was amused to find that I’d written in the frontispiece back then: ‘An excellent read’. Which it is. So, I recommend it.

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.