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

Spain is set to receive a tourism windfall of more than €4 billion as the Iran conflict sends holidaymakers flocking west. What’s wrong with, say, Albania?

Wow! An ‘historic’ moment in Almería as temperatures spike to a searing 43C in the middle of the night. The surge was caused by a ‘heat burst’ – a weather phenomenon capable of generating rapid temperature rises of more than 10C in less than 10 minutes, while causing humidity to plummet in the blink of an eye. More on them here.

Just what I needed to read as my copper tubing around the house is springing leaks. . . Spain is short 25,000 plumbers. This is decelerating property construction.

There’s a narrow street in Pv city’s old quarter which is nicknamed Tapas alley. The owner of 2 places at the top of it has confirmed that all the tables outside the restaurants below his are unlicensed and that they don’t permit the obligatory car width of 3m. His tables, he insists, are the only ones licensed and regularly checked by the police, – because a neighbour once complained about an excess of them – and each of them 12 costs him €100 a month. This is all hard to believe but it is what the previous owners told me years ago, when they had to go to court because of the neighbour’s complaint. Spain is different.

The World Cup

This is a BBC article on the financial winners and losers from the competition. Notably. the original price for seats to Sunday’s Final was just under $33,000 but some are on re-sale at $2.3 million. The DvP has pointed out that you could buy 9 flats in our fair city for the latter unimaginably high price.

For the seriously interested in a post mortem . . . This and this are analyses of the pattern of the England-Argentina game. Both presenters condemn the reaction of the English team manager to England taking the lead with 35 minutes to go. When, as someone else put it, he allowed the – previously nullified – Messi to . . . Messi (sic). As one of the video presenters puts it, it was a case study in what not to to when you take the lead against strong opposition with a star player. We await to hear what the English players thought. Especially the outspoken Bellingham.

The Middle East War

The latest update from Naked Capitalism. The 6th escalation of Dr Strangelove. And Iranian retaliation.

The United States of Trump America

Trump’s prime-time address of last night was framed around “free and fair elections.” The WSJ has published these (totally unsurprising) key takeaways from it:- :-

• He opened by citing achievements including child investment accounts in the tax bill and lower drug costs via the “TrumpRx” program. [He cited decreases of 70, 80, 90%. This claim is exaggerated. It can only be chalked up to Trump’s penchant for hyperbole.]
• He announced he was declassifying a large batch of intelligence documents he said proved the Chinese government sought to meddle in or sway the 2020 election. He blamed a “deep state” within U.S. intelligence agencies for concealing this. [The WSJ noted that U.S. intelligence found no indication China or any other foreign actor compromised the 2020 election outcome, and a 2021 review found no proof of foreign interference affecting results.]
• He claimed his administration had found hundreds of thousands of non-citizens on state voter registration lists.
• He urged legislators to enact extensive voter identification requirements and cast doubt on the integrity of both the 2020 and the upcoming November midterm elections.
• He repeated he won’t sign any other legislation until the Senate passes the SAVE America Act (which would tighten election rules), and is pushing Republicans to change Senate rules to get it through.

Here’s The Guardian’s take on the address, under the heading: Trump makes unverified claims of China ‘election meddling’ as critics fear a ploy to challenge midterm results. Opponents warn the president’s address about 2020 election loss is a bid to sow confusion ahead of midterms that could deliver big losses for Republicans.

And here’s comments on it from Paul Krugman. Trump can’t get no respect.

So, again . . . Is the US Constitution really so deficient that nothing stop this man? It certainly seems so. Should there be provision for a mid-term presidential election, so that the people can decide on worthiness for office, not a partisan Congress?

By the way . . . Hearing Trump talk of something being “catastrophically short of standards of fairness and trust” would be hilarious if he were just the janitor of Trump Towers. As it is. . .

Attached below is my longstanding alphabetical list of all the negative adjectives applied to Trump over the last 10+ years. The question is: Would Trump ever accept even one of these as applying to himself? I rather doubt it. BTW: There might well be others! But ‘Funny’ isn’t one of them.

The Way of the World

Ironically, it was my Argentinean friend, Alex, who first told me of this theory, before the game against England. Or perhaps a variant of it, viz. that FIFA wanted and would somehow arrange a lucrative repeat of the last Final – France v. Argentina. P. S. Given the refereeing laxity, I rather doubt the claim that some steam was taken out of the theory by Argentina’s victory over England.

Spanish

• Esparcimiento: Leisure, recreation, entertainment, relaxation, amenity, amusement.
• Pinchar: To click, play, puncture.
• Quilate: Carat/karat.

English

Until the 1970s, harass was pronounced in the UK with the stress on the first syllable. In a comedy series of that time, the main character mispronounced it with the emphasis on the second syllable, which was seen back then as funny. In time, the stress shifted as people regularised this, either forgetting – or not knowing – it was funny/wrong. So, it ceased to be. P. S. Google translate has the stress on the second syllable, in what I think is a British accent. The people rule, not some stuffy academy. . .

Did you know?

Why chilli peppers are so called . . . Because when they appeared in Europe they were seen as an alternative spicy-upper to the extremely expensive black pepper from the Spice Islands.

Finally . . .

That Trump list:- [I can’t get the original column widths]

A	Arrogant, Autocratic, Alienating, Anti-intellectual, Angry
B	Bullying, Boastful, Braggart, Belligerent, Bigoted, Blowhard, Bad-tempered
C	Chaos-creating, Clueless, Cheating, Combative, Child-like, Childish, Capricious
D	Disruptive, Dishonest, Deluded, Delusional, Divisive, Destructive, Disorganised, Devious, Dissing/Disrespectful, Despotic
E	Exaggerator, Egotistical, Egocentric
F	Fox News-Obsessed, Follicly challenged, Fraudulent, Fantasist, Fast-food-Guzzler
G	Garrulous, Global-warming-denying, Gaffe-prone
H	Hyperbolic, Hateful, Heartless, Humourless, Hollow
I	Idiotic, Insulting, Insensitive, Irreligious, Incompetent, Inconsistent, Ignorant, Islamophobic, Inattentive, Insecure, Inimical, Incoherent, Illogical, Irrational, Intemperate, Inept, Impatient, Intimidatory, Insane
J	Jealous
K	Kinglike, Kinky, Know-all
L	Liar, Lazy, Low esteemed, Laughable
M	Misogynistic, Media-obsessed, Menacing, Mad
N	Nauseating, Narcissist
O	Obsessive, Orange-hued, Obnoxious
P	Paranoid, Putin-admiring, Petty, Pussy-grabbing, Populist, Posturing, Pugnacious, Poseur, Philandering, Phony, Politically inexperienced, Psychologically suspect.
Q	Quixotic, Querulous
R	Russia-dependent, Rabble-rousing, Reckless, Racist, Resentful, Revengeful, Ridiculous
S	Short-attention-spanned, Self-centred, Self-obsessed, Stupid, Self-vaunting, Susceptible to flattery, Swaggering, Small-minded, Self-interested
T	Twitter-obsessed, TV-obsessed, Tyrannical, Trade-disrupting, Threatening, Triumphalist, Thin-skinned, Throwback,
U	Unfriendly, Unfaithful, Unintelligible, Unreliable, Unwilling to listen, Unaware, Untrustworthy, Unpredictable, Undisciplined, Un-self-aware,
V	Vocabulary-deficient, Vengeful, Victim, Vain. Vulgar, Vindictive, Vandal
W	Wearisome, Weird, Whoring, Worrying, Wrathful, Wrong-headed, War-mongering, Would-be dictator
X	Xenophobic
Y	Yankee . . .
Z	Zig-zagging

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If you´re thinking of moving to Spain, this link should be useful to you.