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 fortunes of the egregious far-right Vox party continue to rise. They are now in coalition in Extremadura with the PP party, which has accepted the principle of ‘national preference’ for those seeking social services. The question arises around the implementation of this – If, like me, you have permanent residence, will your nationality or the colour of your skin determine whether or not you get the same preferential treatment as Spanish nationals? And will the colour of your skin be relevant even if you have citizenship as a regularised illegal immigrant? Presumably not , s this is what Vox objects to.

Brussels has sent a “letter of formal notice” to Madrid, marking the first official stage of a legal challenge to the detailed check-in and car hire processes imposed on visitors to Spain. But Madrid is an old hand at ignoring this sort of thing and dragging out the procedures for up to 10 years. As with the illegally high fines for not reporting overseas assets than came in back in 2012.

Spain’s driving licence rules for over-65s are getting a refresh in 2026 – here’s what you need to know. 

Something else I wonder about re the police driving around Pv city’s old quarter – Will they ever do anything about the e-bike riders who slalom between pedestrians at 20kph? Outside the 2-week periods of enforcement they announce in advance, I mean. (Astonishingly, some bike riders don’t seem to become aware of this policial initiative, leading to fines.)

Crazy weather. After one of the wettest winters in decades, our spring in Galicia was the driest since 1990. And, yesterday, the dial reached 35 degrees here in Pv city, which would be very high for us even August.

Iran

This paragraph again put me in mind of someone closer to hand . . .It’s hard to explain why a ruler who helped engineer the greatest transfer of wealth [from the West to the Middle East] in the history of mankind saw himself and his wife, in a mere five years, propelled from the height of imperial splendor to a grim and fugitive exile. “I think maybe we spoke too loud,” she said years later. This might well be true, but it surely isn’t the full answer. Collapse on the magnitude of what occurred in imperial Iran in the 1970s simply cannot be attributable to the actions of one king or even one royal couple alone. Rather, it required the determined incompetence or cowardice of a great many actors.

The World Cup

Hard to avoid the negatives . . .

• It has taken just one game to expose FIFA’s introduction of ‘hydration breaks’ as a complete nonsense. Unless you’re a host broadcaster, of course. Because the 3-minute intervals are the perfect chance to plug lucrative advertisement deals. Reminding the football world once again of the painful realisation that this is never going to be a tournament to miss out on a quick buck. The opening game between Mexico and South Africa was just 24 minutes old before it stopped. [And it certainly affects the flow of the game, with Canada losing momentum in their game last night against Bosnia and Herzegovina.]
• Welcome to Trump’s World Cup, a depressingly angry version of football uniting the planet.

But there is some good news . . . After being roundly booed at a recent NBA match, Trump didn’t attend the first US game last night. So, they won.

The United States of Trump America

• Trump’s birthday bash is as corrupt a MAGA event as there could possibly be. It’s the humiliation of the USA. Podcast Video
• The UFC event on the White House lawn captures something about this moment in our history. It’s vulgar, it’s violent, it’s commercial, it’s grandiose, it’s tacky, and it dishonors a place once thought worthy of care and respect. In other words, it’s Donald Trump.

It’s hard to imagine anyone disagreeing with this AI-generated report on what Trump’s social media messages say about him.

The Way of the World

The degradation of the internet and its consequences . . . A counterfeit world. The internet’s oldest rule to “remember the human” is being wrenched apart by AI. Fake videos, forged photos, ready-made scams, and flat-out lies now crowd the web, and AI’s biggest boosters are charting a dangerous new path: Forget the human, forfeit the truth. A report exposes the hidden cost of AI on the public. Beset by an excess of AI-powered fraud, everyday people are losing their trust in reality—and in one another.

Spanish

• Atragantarse: To choke, gag.
• Hacer un juego de palabras: A long way to say ‘To pun’ . . .
• Cautivo: Captive, prisoner

Did you know?

A manual that explains every pointless meeting you’ve ever attended.

Finally . . . You Have to Laugh

Another uncomfortable Finn . . .

Finally . . . Finally . . .

This is a bit of Janine Jansen – widely considered one of the true greats of the violin, known for a playing style that combines “gripping presence with infinite subtlety of tone and phrasing”.

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 no longer post on Facebook. But I can be read on X at Thoughts from Galicia. And on Substack here

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.