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

Idiotic politicians with the right questions but the wrong answers? Why Spain’s housing policies keep getting worse.

Another gang-busting success for Galicia’s forces.

Which reminds me . . . An enterprising local company has been banned from taking folk on a boat trip along the route favoured by one of our leading narcos.

This could well be the focus of a future road trip. It’s between Madrid and Burgos, in what The Olive Press calls ‘remote north Spain’ . . . As opposed to ‘a remote bit of almost northern Spain’.

For a few weeks, there’ve been are no bloody learner drivers to irritate me with their max of 25kph and with the stupid way they’re taught to negotiated roundabouts. It turns out that, in July and August, there haven’t been/won’t be any instructors or examiners to attend to them. So, the testing centre I pass 4 times a day has been like a graveyard. Meaning I haven’t had to prepare for a car emerging from it pulling out right in front of me. Though one did from nearby this morning . . .

There actually was a crash in out little street this afternoon, when a driver lost control and smashed into the back of a neighbour’s parked car. Fortunately, it was empty and the driver at fault didn’t appear to suffer any injuries other than payment of her ‘excess’ (franquicia) and a rise in her insurance premiums.

The Middle East War

The latest update from Naked Capitalism. Even though the Iran conflict is not in a very hot kinetic phase, the accumulating pressures, both military and economic, have built to a point where they are generating desperate-looking from the Trump Administration. And that is before considering that Ukraine is now in visibly desperate straits. 

The United States of Trump America.

Quotes

• Did Trump latch onto the US affinity with financial greed?
• Is that a squirrel on Trump’s head.
• Apparently, an unshakeable 35% of (US) Americans really do deserve Trump.

A volcano of corruption – the scandals of Trump’s first term now seem quaint.

Trump has lost 21 of his 21 lawsuits to suppress voters, including in front of Republican judges. Now a legal reporter argues that, as the president continues to suffer defeats, his tactics are getting “ominous.”

The NYT reflects on the Reflecting Pool saga, giving us details not previously reported and showing how it became a striking reflection of the 2nd Trump administration’s willingness to skirt laws, expend millions of dollars, ignore facts and punish truth-tellers in the service of the president’s demands to put his mark on the capital.

While it may seem a parochial to discuss American Christianity, it has become a very powerful force in the US, not just through Evangelical support of Zionism but also on the broader and more durable plane of social values.  . . .  The metamorphosis of Jesus Christ from a humble servant of the abject poor to a symbol that stands for gun rights, prosperity theology, anti-science, limited government (that neglects the destitute) and fierce nationalism is truly the strangest transformation in human history. It should come as no surprise that the rise in religious extremism directly corelates with the rise in political extremism; both are rooted in fear.. . . We’ve normalized dysfunction and far too much of American Christianity has assumed the role of conductor on the crazy train.

See more on this theme in the final pages of Kurt Andersen’s Fantasyland. Which just as easily could have been entitled Madland. Or Badland.

Spanish

• Encomendado: Entrusted, commissioned, mandated, commanded, enjoined
• Cuña: Wedge, chip, chock
• Anhelar: To long/yearn for

English

Yesterday’s missing link. The 30 most misspelled words.

Did you know?

An everyday question: Will my dog eat me if I die?

Finally . . . You Have to Laugh

In an Irish village. In Plymouth, as I recall. And in several places around the world . . .

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. And this, on the annual costs of owning property here.