Awake, for morning in the bowl of night has flung the stone that puts

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

Says the London Times: A corruption cloud is hanging over Madrid. The government is mired in scandal, overshadowing the nation’s economic success. By which it means the macro GDP growth and, as elsewhere, the further enrichment of those already well-off.

En passant . . . A fairly typical Spanish headline: The Estepona mayor is back in court this week, to fight the demand for a 5-year sentence, as corruption cases mount. . . .

It looks like others have noticed the impact of inflation on food prices. A plucked chicken. Far higher than the increase in real incomes over the last 20 years, I suspect. Hitting the poorest hardest, of course.

This is an article on the type of fish – con sabor menos intenso – favoured here in Galicia – el marrajo/o marraxo, which is translated as mako (= mako shark/shortfin/mackerel shark). Also porbeagle but this is actually a cousin. It’s certainly not a mackerel; but is just as fast and likes to eat them. As I do. But, as I’ve said, not most Spaniards.

Taking a coffee on the Camino yesterday, I was surprised to see 2 Caminoers in their 60s walking in the direction of Santiago de Compostela each pushing a wheeled suitcase. I was even more surprised a minute or two later to see them retracing their steps towards Portugal. My first thought was that they were looking for their tourist flat – now a common sight in the city. But my final thought was they were heading for the nearby Rías Bajas hotel and that a taxi must have dropped them off some way off from it and they’d got lost. The occasional use of taxis between hotels is more common now that ‘pilgrims’ range from the very young to the very old. See my forthcoming treatise on Caminoers . . .

My lawyer told me yesterday that the notary – after a delay of 4 weeks – has finally got round to putting his signature next to mine, so the PoA in favour of my daughter can now be picked up and the bill paid. I think I’ll leave that for a while. Quite a while, in fact. At least 4 weeks.

Europe

German beer festivals aren’t what they were, at least not in one town . . . A German music and beer festival has aroused a little controversy by blackisting all the songs Germans like to sing. Visitors to the Bergkirchweih festival in Erlangen, Bavaria, will be denied the pleasure of bellowing out such staples as The Bellringer of Dingolfing about a lady who is only too happy to get her bells out and play them for you, and the marginally less cryptic Joana (You Horny Bitch). All set to that oom-pah rhythm which brings to mind lederhosen, bratwurst, alcohol and the Anschluss. The council’s equalities police say they only wish to ensure the festival is a joyous and inclusive experience and that the best way to do that is to ensure it resembles a camp for Brownies presided over by a former member of the Baader-Meinhof gang.

The Middle East War

The latest update from Naked Capitalism.

The United States of Trump America

Caitlin Collins gets the truth about the audience for the 14 June bash on the White House lawn. 

Quotes

• Re the June 14 event . . . I am thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and does so without a guitar, the man who loves our Country more than anyone else, and the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists,’ and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!
• The President of the United States is in late stage frontotemporal dementia (FTD). [He spent Saturday posting 57 lunatic messages. See the list of these below this post.]
• Trump has effectively lame-ducked himself in pursuit of retribution. [And, of course, severely damaged the Republican party – which, some would say deserves everything coming to it in November.]
• Yes, Trump is a dreadful man and has done some awful things but, if the alternative is a Democrat, I will still vote for him. [This is the confessed attitude now of right-wing commentators such as Meghan Kelly and Tucker Carlson, who’d presumably vote for Stalin or Hitler, if he was the Republican candidate. Surely a conclusive argument against the election of a powerful head of state in these divisive times. And one in favour of a parliamentary system of government.]

Why Trump’s dark fantasies are crumbling. Some nice observations here. Podcast or Video

Trump’s media meltdown – method or madness? Podcast or Video

Spanish

• AOVE: Extra virgin olive oil
• Marcado: Scored, marked
• Revuelto: Scrambled

English

Minoritarian government: In political science, minoritarianism (or minorityism) is a neologism for a political structure or process in which a minority group of a population has a certain degree of primacy in that population’s decision-making, with legislative or judicial power being held or controlled by a minority group rather than a majority that is representative of the population. Minoritarianism is sometimes used to describe minority rule, rule by a dominant minority such as an ethnic group delineated by religion, language, or some other identifying factor.

American English didn’t shift to center and harbor at one single moment; the spellings were gradually standardized in the United States in the late 1700s and the early 1800s. American spelling diverged from the British centre and harbour around then, as part of a wider push toward a distinct American written standard after independence.

Did you know?

On a standard map, Greenland looks huge. As large as Africa, in fact. But it isn’t. The Mercator projection makes it seem 14 times bigger than it actually is.

You Have to Laugh

Iceland facts.

Finally . . .

A friend of mine is being treated – expensively – for cancer. She has a Go-fund-me site here. Please consider donating to help her live to see her 3 children grow up.

TRUMP’S 57 (Un)Truth Social posts of last Saturday

• 11:15 AM – Attacks judge who said he couldn’t put his name on the Kennedy Center
• 12:03 PM – Says he may perform and give a speech at the America 250 event instead of artists who cancelled
• 12:08 PM – Says Obama filled the Reflecting Pool with Garbage
• 12:09 PM – Attacks Biden
• 12:09 PM – Posts edited photo of Columbus Circle in DC with the caption “CLEAN”
• 12:10 PM – Attacks Biden again
• 12:11 PM – Posts AI photo of him and George Washington riding horses in front of the White House with a space shuttle and race car in the background
• 12:11 PM – Attacks Rosie O’Donnell
• 12:11 PM – Posts photo of him in front of the American flag
• 12:11 PM – Brags about his endorsed candidates winning
• 12:12 PM – Attacks Obama and Biden over the reflecting pool
• 12:12 PM – Posts photo of him pointing at the camera
• 12:13 PM – Posts photo of the UFC event cage he’s building at the White House
• 12:13 PM – Posts an AI image of a “golden dome” for the White House
• 12:15 PM – Defends Jaxson Dart, calling him a “winner” and his critics “losers”
• 12:45 PM – Posts an AI image of him as a NY Knicks basketball player dunking on Governor Kathy Hochul
• 12:56 PM – Posts an AI image of him with Tom Brady
• 1:03 PM – Posts a garbage can labeling it “The Obama Presidential Library”
• 1:16 PM – Says America is back
• 1:16 PM – Says America is back again
• 1:16 PM – Says America is back for the 3rd time
• 1:55 PM – Posts an AI image of him golfing
• 2:55 PM – Says he’s in “excellent health”
• 3:17 PM – Promotes his Fox News interview with Lara Trump
• 4:33 PM – Attacks the Pope again
• 4:54 PM – Posts a weird image of him staring at Greenland (which he has posted already)
• 4:57 PM – Posts an AI image of the “drone port” he wants to build on top of the ballroom
• 5:33 PM – Attacks Biden
• 5:33 PM – Attacks Biden x2
• 5:34 PM – Attacks Biden x3
• 5:34 PM – Attacks Biden x4
• 5:34 PM – Attacks Biden x5
• 5:35 PM – Posts cartoon image of Governors Newsom, Pritzker, and Hochul saying they like crime
• 5:36 PM – Posts meme about Republicans who voted to release the Epstein files losing their primaries
• 5:36 PM – Posts an old tweet of his where he attacks “disloyal” Republicans
• 5:37 PM – Posts an old tweet where he said he wants to stop the world from “killing itself”
• 5:37 PM – Posts a mock up of a “Trump Peace Prize”
• 5:37 PM – Posts a photo of a B-2 bomber with the caption “Trump energy 2026”
• 5:37 PM – Posts a photo of his face on Mount Rushmore
• 5:38 PM – Posts an image of him kissing the American flag
• 5:39 PM – Compares himself to George Washington
• 5:39 PM – Says you were convinced to think a photo of a family sitting on a car is “evil” and billions were spent to do that
• 5:50 PM – Says we should “physically audit” Fort Knox
• 5:50 PM – Posts an image of him cosplaying as a navy commander
• 5:51 PM – Posts another image of his face on Mount Rushmore
• 5:51 PM – Posts another photo of him and George Washington
• 6:09 PM – Attacks Biden again
• 6:09 PM – Attacks Biden x2
• 6:09 PM – Attacks Biden x3
• 6:09 PM – Posts an old photo of himself and King Charles
• 6:12 PM – Posts an old photo of himself and President XI in China
• 6:12 PM – Posts another photo of himself and President Xi
• 6:22 PM – Posts a photo of himself walking in China
• 6:48 PM – Says the U.S. should have a ballroom because China has one
• 7:03 PM – Says he wants to cancel his America 250 celebration and replace it with a MAGA rally [Which is more or less what it was always going to be. Hence the withdrawals.]
• 7:56 PM – Promotes Mark Levin’s show on Fox News
• 7:59 PM – Promotes his Fox News interview with Lara Trump.

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 on X at Thoughts from Galicia. And on Substack here. 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.