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: If there’s a RV in brackets after a (paywalled) link, you might be able to read it via a Reader View extension to your browser, avoiding the paywall. If there is no RV, it will mean that the article is free to view or listen to. Or that I’ve forgotten to type it . . .

Cosas de España/Galiza

The clans that run Spain’s economy and business. (RV)

Not so long ago the Spanish Post office would deliver mail daily, even on Saturdays. Now, they seem to have almost given up on this service. I got today what I’ve described as my monthly mail delivery – 5 letters and 2 magazines, all from the UK. As the magazines are at least 2 weeks late, my belief was endorsed that everything is piled up for delivery all at once on a future date.

There was an article in the Voz de Galicia today on the dangerous pest of Asian wasps in Galicia. There were a couple of fotos in it – one of a person in protective clothing firing something from a rifle – at a nest, not a wasp . . . and the other of two nests in the eaves of a house. The caption of the latter referred to dos niños (2 kids), instead of dos nidos (2 nests). Quite a difference,

Of a morning, I read the daily papers in the Liceo Casino, a private club whose café-bar is open to the public. Last week, I mentioned to one of the waitresses that I’d noticed that a man was in the inconsiderate habit of taking 3 papers at once to his table. She replied that he’d also been identified as the person who’d been ripping out pages and that they were going to move the papers to the reception area to prevent this. Which happened as of today. Hopefully temporarily, as it’s a bit of a nuisance to go back and forth a few times. Life can be a bitch. Or a ‘iss a beach’, as the Spanish usually put it.

Europe

Amid war hysteria, bloc rearmament remains a joke.

The Middle East War

How the Oil War’s Aftermath Will Transform the World Economic Order.

The United States of Trump America

• Except gas, the price of everything is really going down. And gas prices will go down very quickly once Iran accepts defeat and does a deal, just after the November elections.
• Vote for the Republicans in the mid-terms and I will ensure the deal with the Iranians includes a $5,000 cheque for every American.

Exactly How Trump Broke [US]America.

The WSJ has an article this morning entitled What could happen if the Republicans win the November elections. This is behind a paywall and Reader View doesn’t work. So, there’s a Perplexity summary of points made in it at the end of this post. Overview: The article sketches a scenario in which a strong GOP midterm victory would effectively lock in Trump’s dominance for the rest of his presidency and reshape both parties. For many, a nightmare scenario, of course. And absolute condemnation of US democratic governance

Relevant Books

• Betrayal: Trump, Putin and the New Age of Conquest
• 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.

Social Media/The Way of the World

Sarah Ferguson – the ex-wife but continuing friend of the disgraced ex Duke of York – is not a woman with whom I’d care to spend any time at all, catholic as I am in my tastes. So, it’s a tad upsetting, though not very surprising, to read that she’s being given a million dollars/pounds for her tell-all autobiography. I guess I’d be even more upset, if I had spent time with her and featured in it. . . .

This foto – from El País – is a group of what it called divulgadores who were attending an event in Japan. It seems that these – possibly ‘streamers’ in English – are a niche or sub-niche within the niche of ‘influencers’ in the world of social media commentators/’creators’. One gets confused.

Anyway, these divulgadores clearly set up pop-up mini-studios from which they can comment on live events and earn money via advertising or product promotions. No wonder the ‘legacy media’ is dying.

Spanish

• Trifulca: Brawl, dogfight
• Chutar: To shoot, at a goal/target
• Ristra: String. Braid.

English/Did You Know?

You Have to Laugh

The Arc de Trumph

Finally . . .

In a match against Greece last night, the German team had 14 shots at goal, while the Greek team had just one. The result was 1-0 to Greece. As they say, that’s football.

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

The WSJ article “Here’s What Could Happen if Republicans Win in November”

Core scenario if Republicans overperform

• Trump would spend his final 2 years with a friendly Congress, giving him an “enormous tailwind” for domestic and foreign policy and leaving him as the most powerful figure in U.S. politics heading into 2028.
• Some version of his promised $5,000 “Trump Dividend” to every adult citizen would likely be paid, cementing the idea that major economic benefits flow directly from a Trump-led GOP.
• Congressional checks on the White House would stay weak; big decisions on trade, immigration, AI policy and regulation would be led by the administration, with Congress largely deferential.
• Corporations seeking regulatory relief, tariff changes or new policies would have to work directly with the White House, since there would be “no way around it.”

Impact on Trump’s legacy projects and foreign policy

A Republican win would push Trump’s personal legacy initiatives “into overdrive,” explicitly naming:

• The Kennedy Center renovations, the proposed Triumphal Arch, and the White House ballroom as projects likely to advance, alongside other initiatives.
• A continuation and possible broadening of his current foreign‑policy approach; if voters appear to accept his handling of the Middle East and Venezuela, that could give the GOP cover to extend similar policies to places like Cuba.

Consequences for the GOP and Democrats

• Trump’s grip on the Republican Party would tighten further; any viable 2028 GOP presidential candidate would almost certainly need his endorsement, and the influence of critics such as Tucker Carlson would likely diminish.
• Democrats would be thrown into “total disarray,” with internal problems exposed in 2024 seen as unaddressed and acute enough to spark calls to “completely dismantle” the existing party structure and start over.
• In governing terms, Democrats could become “completely irrelevant” for Trump’s final two years, unable to block his agenda with a minority in both chambers

The Usual Links

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.

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.