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 relatives of the victims of the horrendous train crash near Santiago de Compostela more than a decade ago are still fighting against the exculpation of the relevant director of the company responsible for track safety.

Another slow process that might finally be reaching a conclusion is that of local council permission for repairs to a building in Pv city’s main square that caught fire 8 or 9 years ago and has been an eyesore ever since.

Apart from Caminoers, the other plague that warmer weather brings to Pv city is that of panhandlers. There’s a new crop this year and these haven’t yet learned that they’re wasting their time with me.

I have to confess that, when a see a young man driving an expensive car, I wonder if he isn’t employed in the highly successful local activity of drug smuggling. [This – particularly of cocaine – plays a notable but informal role in Galicia’s economy, historically linked to fishing communities and money laundering. While it generates significant black market revenue, its net contribution to official GDP is small and debated due to costs like lost productivity and enforcement. Early 2000s data had illegal drugs moving €4 billion yearly in black money, equivalent to major sectors like dairy.]

The UK

The whimsical US president cancelled the duty on whisky he’d previously imposed in a tantrum. If he’d actually understood king Charles’ digs at him, he’d surely have at least doubled them.

The Middle East War

The latest update from Naked Capitalism.

The United States of Trump America

Some more TDS from me . . .

An eminent psychologist speaks on Trump’s personality and mental health:-

• The incidences of malignant narcissism is low in the population. As is that of frontal lobe dementia.
• Trump’s combination of these is extremely now. Especially in world leaders.
• His only strategy is self-preservation.
• He now speaks at the level of a 4th grader [aged 9, I believe]
• He has a pathological need to be the best at everything, including as a religious leader.

Other quotes

• Q. Why does the stock market keep responding to Trump? A. It’s because they keep expecting him to be rational.
• Nicole Wallace: I’ve never seen him focus on anything as much as he’s focusing now on the ballroom.
• Trump cares more about prosecuting James Comey than his own war in Iran, while waging the latter to get back to the JCPOA agreement be ripped up in 2018.  

Commentaries

• The astonishingly partisan Supreme Court deals a blow to the voting rights Act and, say some, deals a mortal blow to democracy. See here and, with some laughs, here.
• How Trump will make things even uglier for himself and the Republicans. Podcast Video
• How Trump is preparing to take over the midterm elections.

Trump made a reference to someone’s big ears. One theory is that he’d become obsessed with those of king Charles the previous day but hadn’t felt able to comment on those . . .

See below for commentators I follow via Podbean podcasts or YouTube videos.

The Way of the World

So, what some of us have believed for decades is now gaining currency – nuclear is essential to get away from oil and the problems of the Middle East cockpit. France has long believed this. German and the UK didn’t and closed facilities. Guess who was right.

Hope for the future . . . ?

Spanish

• Flechazo: Fig. A ‘crush’ on someone
• Chistorra: Thin, cured or fresh pork sausage from northern Spain (especially Navarre and the Basque Country).
• Chicharrón: Pork rinds (especially crispy fried skin), pork crackling/scratchings. Or deep‑fried pork belly.
• Cata: Testing, sampling.

English

Topical definitions:-

• Personalism: Where loyalty to the leader, rather than institutions or rules, becomes the central organizing principle of government.
• Patrimonialism: Some political scientists prefer this label, meaning government functions like an extended private household of the ruler, where jobs, favors, and power are distributed through personal loyalty networks rather than formal procedures.
• Sultanism: Refers to a leader who treats the state as their personal domain and overrides institutional norms.

Each of these labels emphasizes that the system is less about stable institutions or laws and more about the president’s personal authority and his inner circle’s loyalty.

Did you know?

The last UK-US war – its beginning and its end.

You Have to Laugh

Another uncomfortable Finn . . .

Never observed in Galicia . . .

Finally . . .

As it’s the start of the month . . .  Some readers, I hope, will know that the verse I cite at the top of my posts is the opening quatrain of Fitzgerald’s wonderful – but very ‘free’ – translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which you can read about here. Some verses are well known, of course, eg:-

The moving finger writes; and, having writ,
moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit
shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

My favourite:-

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
doctor and saint, and heard great argument
about it and about: but evermore
came out by the same door as in I went

My thanks to those readers who take the trouble to Like my posts.

The Usual Links . . .

The US commentators I follow, all on Podbean and/or YouTube for free:-

• The Daily Beast Podcast/Video
• Inside Trump’s Head Podcast/Video
• The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent Podcast
• The Rest is Politics US Podcast/Video
• The DSR Network Podcast
• The Politics Girl Video. Amusing
• The Daily Show Video. Very amusing

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 And on X at Thoughts from Galicia. I no longer post 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.