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

HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for this item on the consequences of a massive and growing tourism sector:- Tourism in Spain: Now so Expensive That Spaniards Can’t Afford It. Spain has spent decades building its economic identity on tourism. But in 2024 and 2025, an uncomfortable paradox has become impossible to ignore: the country that receives more foreign tourists than ever is, at the same time, a destination that its own citizens can no longer easily afford.The numbers don’t lie: domestic tourism declined in 2024 by 0.8%. But the truly worrying figure is another: domestic trips fell by 2.3%, while trips abroad by Spaniards skyrocketed by 12.1% in the same period.

Spain is rolling out free condoms for 16-22 year olds in pharmacies across the country in a bid to make protection the norm. 

The Diario de Pontevedra suggests that, if you have enough money to buy 6 flats in Galicia’s most expensive city – La Coruña – you might want to consider instead splashing it out on a ticket for the World Cup Final in New York. The paper cliams that a ticket bought for c. 6k dollars can now be sold for 2 million. Of course, with that you could buy more than 6 flats in any other Galician city. Even more in most Portuguese cities. Or just one small town house in a cheap barrio of London.

Hmm. Almost 90% of folk from Pv province taking international flight do so from Oporto. One wonders why. . .

With one thing and another, scallops are in short supply this year in our coastal waters and imports are having to be brought from . . . Scotland. I guess the breeding waters are just as cold there.

Google Maps claims there are 19 health food stores in Pv city. This might be an exaggeration. But, however many there really are, I think I’m right in saying none of them existed in 2000. Neither did any vegetarian restaurants back then, whereas we now have at least 3 of these.

Europe

The far-right party AfD continues to gain strength. This is said here to reflect fear over Germany’s economic and social future, and frustration at politicians’ seeming inability to move the dial.This gloom seems well founded. Germany is facing a cocktail of profound and destabilising economic challenges As in the UK and elsewhere, I guess.

Iran

More comments on the ex Shah which rang a bell for me . . .

• The shah developed an obsession with picayune matters of status and protocol. He became so enraged when a local newspaper ran a photograph that made it appear he had bowed to a visiting British politician that he ordered the arrest of everyone involved. Their release was secured by having the paper run a new photograph showing the foreign minister bowing to the shah.
• The shah’s response to setbacks was petulance and denial. All would be sorted. He dismissed complaints about 30% inflation as fantasy, misinformation peddled by his enemies.
• Said one observer: He needed to always be at center stage, not to cede the limelight to another for even a moment. It just really brought home to me the insecurity of the man.

The United States of Trump America

Iran then, the USA now . . .

• By the mid-1970s the shah was steadily maneuvering himself into a trap, a potentially fatal snare common to autocrats everywhere. Because the autocrat is father of all things, because he insists on taking credit for all good so he will also be blamed for all that goes wrong. If in his own mind the shah stood at the threshold of delivering his Great Civilization to his grateful subjects, those subjects faulted him for the hyperinflation, the failing electricity, and the swaggering bullyboys who ran the local city hall. In the personality cult he had fostered, the King of Kings owned the potholes.
• When 1978 began, Iran bore many of the distinguishing characteristics of dictatorships everywhere. The most obvious of these was fear. Then there was that other feature intrinsic to dictatorships, one that often leads to grinding inertia or grievous self-inflicted wounds: stupidity, a default mode of profound, even impregnable passivity that grows more acute the closer one gets to the locus of power. This passivity is also rooted in fear, of course, the worry of losing one’s standing within the power structure but it is the constant second-guessing of what might please the strongman or his representative that causes the lower-level functionary to gradually lose the ability to act or think independently at all. To the contrary, the best and safest course in this timorous society is to never question or initiate, to simply go along with whatever edict or passing whim works its way down the chain of command. The inherent danger of this arrangement is the chance that someday an idea of truly exceptional idiocy will come along, and there will be no one with the foresight or courage to stop it. Say, a war against Iran . . .

Why Trump was dreading his birthday. Podcast Video

The Way of the World

In the UK at least, it’s reported that teenagers are rediscovering that reading is the key to happiness. Children from 8 to 18 are enjoying books more, the first such rise in a decade, as a way to rela and get away from social media.

Spanish

• Sebo de vacuno/res: Suet. Beef fat.
• Arrubazón: Beaching. ‘A lot of fish in one place along the coast’.
• Aminalar: To daunt, unnerve, intimidate

Did you know about?

The rise and fall of shopping malls.

You Have to Laugh

Another uncomfortable Finn . . .

Finally . . .

The annual foto of the pride my of my bougainvillea. More than 40 years old, I believe. Don’t tell anyone but its roots are in my neighbour’s garden.

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 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.