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

Chose your number – of illegal immigrants seeking residence status:-

• The corner: 1.3m
• Breitbart: 1.3m, with 400,000 living outside Spain
• The Diario de Pontevedra: 1.2m
• The Guardian: More than 1m
• The i: More than 1m.

The i newspaper certainly thinks it’s a good thing that should be copied in other European countries.

Talking of staggering stats . . . . Reports suggest that 900 to 1,000+ deaths have already occurred in Spain’s current heat wave. This number is arrived at by adding to those attributed directly to heat – eg heatstroke – existing conditions fatally worsened by it. Plus whatever excess there might be for ‘normal’ deaths in this period, as with Covid.

Spain achieves a very high ranking in one area – that of LGBTQ rights.

On the other hand . . . The Civil War continues . . . Admittedly as jaw-jaw.

Oh, no. Another bloody band-waggoning citation for Pv city . . . And, of course, it’s not exactly error-free.

Portugal

Not good news if you have arachnophobia. Or just don’t want to die.

The World Cup

Good to see that the USA went through to the final 16 last night, despite being down to 10 men.

The Middle East War

The latest update from Naked Capitalism.

The United States of Trump America

• What Trump’s D.C. makeover is really all about. Podcast Video
• Trump Blurts Out a Vile Scheme to Rig the Midterms as the Polls Take a Brutal Turn.
• WSJ editors tear into Trump family’s ‘brazenly open’ cash grab: ‘Demeans the office’
• Not exactly a surprise that the USA is losing its citizens in record numbers.

Spanish

• Rescisión: Termination, withdrawal, rescission, cancellation, etc.
• Varillero: Car bodywork restorer.
• Apenas: Hardly, barely, just

English

My daughter wants to know why ‘rehydration breaks’ aren’t called ‘drink breaks’. Maybe a preference for Latinate words over Anglo Saxon . . .

Did you know?

• The FA wrote the rules of football in 1863. The rules you actually play by? Written in a greenhouse. Sheffield. 1858 5 years earlier.
• Two friends from the cricket club went for a walk one autumn afternoon. They wanted something to do when the cricket season ended. So they started a football club. The first one on earth. Their headquarters was a greenhouse. Their pitch was the field next to it. There was nobody else to play. So they split into Married v. Singles. Then they wrote rules. No hacking. No tripping. No holding. Free kicks. Throw-ins. Corner kicks. The crossbar. Heading. Eleven players. 90 minutes. Referees. All Sheffield.
• When they played London in 1866 and headed the ball, London laughed at them. Nobody’s laughing now.
• In 1867 Sheffield hosted the world’s first football competition. Four years before the FA Cup. When football turned professional, Sheffield refused. They chose the game over the money. And the game left them behind.
• In 2004, FIFA gave Sheffield FC the Order of Merit. The only other club to receive it? Real Madrid. Eighty thousand seats. One of the greatest clubs on earth. Sheffield FC play in the 9th tier of English football. Two thousand seats.
• Sheffield started it all.

You Have to Laugh

Down in Andalucía, A burglar left his mobile phone inside a house that he’d entered and hours later called to have it returned.

Finally . . .

Possibly the best/worst example of a split phrasal verb that I’ve ever seen, courtesy of the BBC . . . As good as Kane and Bellingham are, there will come a day when they do not bail under-performing team-mates and their head coach out. Not to mention ending a sentence with a proposition. Which used to be verboten but ain’t now.

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.