Colin Davies

1 October 2026

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. If there’s RV2, it means a second click on RV might let you see the article though the first RV click didn’t work.

Cosas de España/Galiza

Property: ‘Spain’s greatest problem’, says the populace.

  • Spain’s coalition government has approved a package of interventions in the housing market. (RV/RV2). These include protection against evictions until 2030 and a ban on investment firms from buying homes until 2028. If rubber-stamped by parliament on Friday, these measures could benefit up to 5m tenants across Spain.
  • More intervention. [?tinkering?] . . . The government has approved a rent reform that caps rent increases at 2% in an effort to control prices. This comes on the day it was revealed that inflation is approaching 5%. Most real estate industry players agree that the decree fails to address the root of the problem: the country’s chronic housing shortage.
  • As my daughter in Madrid has found when buying property, in a ‘low-ethics’ society, there are always ways for agents to get round government-imposed limits. That said, a common reaction is to take a property off the market, making the supply situation worse. See the article.
  • Spain’s shocking housing shortage is set to break the one million homes barrier by 2028. This is driving real property prices back to levels last seen in 2005, shortly before the catastrophic bursting of the real estate bubble. Since 1980, the real disposable income of Spanish families has multiplied by 1.8 but real housing prices have skyrocketed, multiplying by 3.5 over the same period. This massive divergence has created a severe barrier to entry for young buyers and new foreign residents trying to access the market. I rather doubt the government is much concerned about the latter, whom they label ‘residential tourists’.
  • Living alone in Spain has become an unaffordable luxury, as the price of doing so more than doubles the cost of a flat-share. Single tenants renting a permanent one-bedroom flat now pay an average of €984 a month across the country. That represents a massive 132% premium over renting a single room in a shared property, which averages €425 nationwide. In major cities, the cost for privacy is even more punishing, with the jump from a shared room to an independent home tripling in key urban markets.
  • Here’s The Guardian’s Spanish correspondent on property market developments. Nice quote: Spain’s highly decentralised system, with power divided at a local, regional and national level, is once again the perfect cover for politicians to do the minimum and blame each other while individuals suffer. And: There are no magic bullets on housing. Fixing it will require hard work, smart planning, laser focus and an open mind. Winning progressive politicians have only now started treating this problem with the urgency it deserves.

Meanwhile . . . More on Renfe’s plans for a long-awaited decent web page (RV/RV2).

Locally, there’s hope that the warming climate will allow the cultivation of various types of nuts up here in the North West. While, I guess, not damaging the wine industry.

The UK & The EU

Whatever the British PM (or M. Macron) says, rejoining the EU is a non-starter, claims this knowledgable commentator, who, by the way, never supported the Brexit deal. Others might well differ but would have to argue his points, I guess.

The Middle East War

The latest update from Naked Capitalism. The narrative is still confusing.

The United States of Trump America

Quotes

Trump

  • On the critics of his Iran war in MAGA and on Fox News: They have one thing in common – low IQs. They know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it too! They are NUT JOBS and TROUBLEMAKERS. [With a leader like that . . . . ]

Sane folk

  • Dear Leader is using YOUR tax dollars to make this insane propaganda with a musical track that says ‘Love Me’ on repeat. Why is the U.S. Government paying for cult-level media like this? ‘Love me’ over images of Trump feels like some weird psychological play. Regardless, it’s propaganda with our tax dollars. [And doubly illegal.]

Me

  • It’s several decades since I first heard the expression – said to be Russian  – that a fish begins to stink from the head. In the USA, as it happens. Nowhere can it be more true these days than in that benighted country.

So many to choose from . . .

. . . Voting Republican in November

Relevant Books

Spanish

  • Concentración: Training camp. As well as: concentration, focus. Merger. Rally, gathering,
  • Desperdicio: Waste, wastage
  • Espolear: To spur on, encourage

English

To drop a dime on someone: US slang meaning to inform on them, snitch on them, or report them—especially to the police or another authority. It comes from the days when a local call from a public phone cost ten cents—a dime. So it meant making a phone call, often discreetly to report someone. Cf. UK slang: To grass on someone, to rat on someone, and to shop someone.

Did you know?

The famous British understatement is not an aspect of modern culture. It goes back over a thousand years, when it was a feature of Anglo Saxon poetry – eg Beowulf – whence it moved into ordinary speech. See here.

You Have to Laugh

Finally . . .

As it’s the start of the month . . .  Some readers, I hope, will know that the verse I cite at the top of my posts is the opening quatrain of Fitzgerald’s wonderful – but very ‘free’ – translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which you can read about here. Some verses are well known, of course, eg:-

The moving finger writes; and, having writ,
moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit
shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

My favourite:-

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
doctor and saint, and heard great argument
about it and about: but evermore
came out by the same door as in I went

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

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.

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