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’

NB: LINKS. The archive.ph way to get behind a paywall in Spain is now closed off. A VPN doesn’t help in these circumstances but a Reader View in you browser might well do so. For the moment, when I post a link, if there’s a RV in brackets after the link, you might well be able to read it that way, If there is no RV in brackets, it will mean that the article is free to view. Or that I’ve forgotten to type it . . .

Cosas de España/Galiza

On his last day before retirement, a (right wing) investigating judge finally managed to finally send the PM’s wife for trial. So, he can now dine out on it with like-minded friends. The case centres on accusations that she used her relationship to advance her career and co-direct a program at Madrid’s Complutense University, while also using public resources and government staff for private interests. All of which she denies. And of which the Public Prosecutor says there’s no evidence. Hazte Oír, an ultra-Catholic group acting as a private prosecutor, is seeking 13 years in prison. As they say, Spain is different.

Nine years after the arrest of traffickers nabbed in Pv with what was then – and still is – the largest ever cocaine haul, the Supreme Court has finally sentenced 31 of the 40 accused. All of these benefited from the “undue delay” rule, under which their sentences were reduced. Prison terms that would have totalled well over 200 years were reduced to c. 100. A reflection, of course, of the slowness of Spanish justice, born of clogged courts. And, perhaps, of the investigating-judge-led process itself.

This is a ‘Complete Guide’ to the Camino from the Daily Telegraph. It’s a useful overview of today’s – much-changed and often overcrowded – Camino but, of course, is less than complete. . . . BTW: The numbers are understated, being the 60% who register in Santiago de Compostela for an official certificate of completion of the minimum number of kilometres, which is nowhere near the total of the longest options.

The massive influx of athletes to Pv city for the Triathlon World Championship Finals has led to some unusual – and prohibited – scenes on the roads surrounding the city. Traffic police have spotted several cyclists training on the AP-9 motorway, where bike traffic is strictly forbidden. These include a German national – possibly the one whose vehicles are parked in front of my house. If so, I hope the fine was heavy . . . .

The Middle East War

The latest update from Naked Capitalism.

The United States of Trump America

• Trump runs the USA as he did his businesses. As a result, The USA is regarded as less creditworthy than almost every other developed economy. Hence, it’s paying more on 10 year loans than almost anyone else.
• Because he has a severe lack of seriousness that equals his zero lack of attention, Trump is almost inhuman in the fact that he doesn’t have the mental capacity to understand that serious problems require sustained attention. He reaches for “hoax” and “fake” and “annihilation” and “obliterate” as ways to dismiss something he doesn’t want to deal with, would never deny, or doesn’t understand. The latest of these, of course, is concern about what unrestrained AI will do to humanity. Or ‘dash SI’, as he’s demanded we now all call it.

Trump’s latest address to the UN was maximum Trump. Only, if possible, even worse. It was met by total silence, after walkouts by Iranian and Cuban delegates. A wide range of adjective was applied to it, all of which you’ll have heard before. Ad nauseam. Is to possible for a leader to shame his/her country more than this? This is a decent comments on it.

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.
• Profiles in Cowardice, by Jacob Weisberg. Cited in this podcast.

AI

As I shut the fridge door this morning and went to leave the kitchen, my brain reminded me I’d meant to take some mealworms out of the fridge for the robin. I asked Perplexity if AI can do this without being programmed to do so? The [unsurprising] short answer was: Yes, but only in a limited, probabilistic sense. AI can remind you without a programmed reminder but it can’t retrieve a completely private thought that it has never observed. It can infer likely intentions from context, which may sometimes feel remarkably like remembering something for you. AI could sometimes remind you of something you had previously mentioned, planned, or habitually done when it detects that you are about to leave, even if you did not set a formal reminder. This is generally called a proactive or context-aware assistant. Such systems can use time, location, calendar entries, messages, routines, and device sensors to decide when a reminder might be useful.

Spanish

• Salvo que: Save that, unless
• Tòrtola turca: Collared dove.
• Camilla: Gurney. Stretcher. Concave stretcher.

Did you know?

Some etiquette rules from way back when. I was taught at least 2 of them as a child in England.

You Have to Laugh

After news of the attack on Pearl Harbor was broadcast on Irish radio, a couple misheard it as referring to the nearby Bell Harbour, and raised the alarm. The town of Ennistymon was briefly put on alert against a Japanese invasion. This is usually told as (ultimately) a community-level reaction, though oral-history versions sharpen it into a memorable “local couple barricaded the road” vignette.

Finally . . .

So far, my attempts to attract a robin(petirrojo) into my garden by providing their favourite tidbit of meal worms has brought me magpies (urracas), a wood-pigeon(paloma turca) and a rat(rata). But no robin.

Finally . . . Finally . . .

This is the web page of an artist friend of mine. I can probaly get you a discount . . . roz site

My thanks to those readers who take the trouble to Like my posts.

An AI reminder: How it might work

Suppose you often say: “I must take the documents to the post office tomorrow.”

A sufficiently connected assistant might notice that:

• it is the next morning;
• you are preparing to leave home;
• you are heading towards town;
• the documents are still at home or the errand is not marked complete.

It could then ask: “Before you leave, do you still need to take the documents to the post office?”

That is different from a normal reminder set for 9:00. The AI is making an inference from your words, your routines and your current situation. Research prototypes have explored linking reminders to places, objects, recurring activities and previous conversations rather than relying only on manually entered alarms.

What AI can’t do reliably

AI cannot directly access the kind of fleeting intention that suddenly comes back to your own mind. If you merely thought, “I must take my umbrella,” but never said it, typed it, or otherwise gave the AI a signal, it has no information from which to recover that thought. It might make a sensible guess from the weather or your behaviour, but that is prediction—not remembering your actual forgotten intention. It could also produce annoying or wrong reminders, especially if it has incomplete information. Current AI memory is much more reliable for things explicitly stated or repeatedly observed than for unspoken, one-off thoughts.

What would be needed

For this to work well, an assistant would probably need permission to use several kinds of information:

1. conversations or voice notes;
2. calendar, email and messaging content;
3. location and movement;
4. knowledge of your usual routines;
5. possibly phone, smartwatch or smart-home sensors;
6. confirmation that an earlier task has or has not been completed.

It would also need a good policy for uncertainty. Instead of confidently saying “You forgot your passport,” it should say: “You are leaving for the airport. Would you like to check that you have your passport?”

That distinction matters for privacy and safety. The system should ask rather than silently act, and you should be able to inspect, correct or delete what it has remembered.

The Usual Links .

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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.

This – from veteran blogger Lenox Napier – is an excellent weekly newsletter (Business Over Tapas) on all matters Spanish. Indispensable for those who needs insights on how and why things happen here.

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.