Awake, for morning in the bowl of night has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight.
And, lo, 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

Ceuta

• The government this week formally declared the growing crisis there to be of interest for national security. Presumably this means extra measures, such as sending in the military.
• Ceuta’s population of 80,000 is not much less than that of Pv city. So, it’s not hard to imagine what it would be like to have 10,000 asylum claimants camping out in the streets and on the beaches.
• Nor it is hard to imagine ‘vigilante’ groups taking action into their own hand to force some of them off the beaches. Or to burn down their tents and shacks. Or to stop them getting into facilities set up for them. Or even to stop the Red Cross from handing out provisions. All of which are reported to be happening in Ceuta. I’m not, of course, saying this is right. Just that it’s not hard to imagine it happening here,

Talking of excess numbers . . . Spain’s infrastructure is straining at the limit, as it heads towards the 100m tourist mark this year.

The Minister of Transport has responded to Ryair’s CEO in what is not an infrequent manner in Spain: If you don’t like our rules, go somewhere else. Stuff the customers.

In happier news . . . Our nearby resort of Sanjenjo/Sanxenxo – the Marbella of Galicia – this weekend will make the biggest ever tortilla. I guess it beats bullfighting, as least as regards safety. Unless everyone comes down with gastroenteritis . . . Anyway, it will involve 17,000 eggs.

Less happy news is that Spain might well be facing a major earthquake and that Galicia is one of the regions prone to these. I bet my insurance doesn’t cover it.

The United States of Trump America

Quotes

• Trump’s renaming of a Great Lake [from Ontario to the Lake of America] – pushes [Trump] America to the brink of absurdity.
• We don’t have an ocean. We need an ocean named America.

Insanity on stilts . . . This is a post critical of Republicans that Trump re-posted:-

As someone commented: Wait until Trump finds out he leads the Republican party.

So, what is the CIA up to with Russia? And why has Trump distanced himself from whatever it is?

At the court of Emperor Don, the ruler has decided to go with the advice of sycophant counsellors who say the GOP’s poor election prospects stem from the voters not knowing about many of his accomplishments – the dozens of new stock-market highs, a decline in fentanyl deaths, the “sealed” southern border, the increase in domestic-manufacturing production. Accordingly, he will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on promoting himself and his record. Essentially, a referendum on him. Which must rank as excellent news for the Democrats.

In common parlance, these people have complexes named after them: Oedipus, Electra, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Napoleon, Don Juan, and The Messiah/God. Will Trump’s only lasting achievement be that he joins this list? As a pejorative label need I say.?

Relevant Books

• To be published in October. Can be pre-ordered now: Wtf America?!: The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy. On Amazon or here.
• The final pages of Kurt Andersen’s fascinating run through the USA’s history – Fantasyland: How America went haywire. A 500 year history.

The Way of the World

How to spot a psychopath. Interestingly: Different disciplines have many different names for these – malignant narcissist, dark triad, coercive controller, primary psychopath, grandiose narcissist, corporate psychopath, Machiavellian, dark tetrad, covert narcissist, and toxic leader. These are all traits that said to be part of the same phenomenon – the Dark Personality, or the Persistent Predatory Personality. You very likely know one of these. Possibly one more than you did 10 or 11 years ago.

In his book Hive Mind: How your nation’s IQ matters more than your own, Garrett Jones says there’s a correlation between the IQ of a nation and its perception of bad government and corruption. For countries with a high IQ of around 100, there’s usually a low perception of the latter. This is true particularly of several Asian countries at the top end of the rankings – though not China – and of advanced Western democracies. Though the data is not yet available, it’s a safe bet that, for the USA after 2 Trump administrations – the perception of bad, corrupt government has increased, making the correlation lower than it was 10 years ago. Although the match might be the same if it’s found that, thanks to voters electing Trump not once but twice, the US IQ is calculated now to be lower than it was 10 years ago. But possibly on the way back up, as the penny has belatedly dropped, even among MAGA voters..

Spanish

• Hacer rubia: To act like a blond = To act stupidly
• Enseres: Belongings
• Hostigamiento: Harassment

Did you know?

The longest sentence in English literature.

You Have to Laugh

Finally . . .

This Global Warming is a tad inconsistent. I’ve mentioned the fall of more than 20 degrees in the temperature this week and the very unusual period of rain, but along with the latter has also come winter-levels of humidity. When I switched on the dehumidifier at 6 this morning, the screen read 87%. Twelve hours – and litres of water – later, it’s only fallen to 62. But at least the sun is out this evening.

Finally . . . Finally . . .

Well, the mystery of my readership deepens. Yesterday’s total of visits was possibly an all-time high, at almost 7 times the average of last week. But the link-views ratio was well down on normal, suggesting that many visits could have been from bots. One possibly endorsing factor is that a significant percentage of visitors was from Vietnam and China. Hard to believe I have many readers there. I expect the numbers to fall soon, hopefully back to the pre-end-August level.

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.