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

The property crisis

• Spanish housing starts rise 11%, but nowhere near enough to solve the housing crisis. It’s the highest level in a decade, but Spain is still building nowhere near enough homes, especially in the places where they are most desperately needed.
• The 2 controversial decrees that fell and rose again – temporarily? – within 3 days. They certainly won’t survive a PP-Vox coalition. Says Mark Stücklin: The decrees appeared to be as much about political positioning as housing policy. . . . The PM appears determined to fight the election on housing, but not on his government’s record or the underlying causes of the crisis. Instead, he wants to frame it as a simple moral choice between ordinary people, whom he claims to defend, and property speculators or “vulture funds”, supposedly protected by his political opponents.  . . . It is a clever political gamble, but one that reduces a complex housing crisis to a simplistic contest between good and evil, with little room for serious debate about what might actually work. . . . The manoeuvre has prompted accusations of constitutional fraud. . . . With housing now an election battleground, political theatre looks set to take precedence over practical solutions. Whoever wins, Spain faces years of difficult reform at best, or more policies that make the problem worse at worst. A dirty game, politics.

Society

• A short but interesting article on pensions.
• The Spanish and noise . . . Lenox writes here – very amusingly – of a confusing but very Spanish event in his Almerian village of Mojácar.

Local News

A foto of the acampada that I forgot to post yesterday . . .

Tonight they’re having a fariola. which is: A Galician festival or popular gathering where people come together to play traditional music, sing, and dance. Being serious can also be fun in Spain

The Middle East War

The latest update from Naked Capitalism. Increased tanker toll.

The United States of Trump America

Trump

A day in the life of the man who acts as the US president. Or, rather, doesn’t . . .

• He took the US another step in the direction of 1930s Germany – appointing a taxpayer-funded state photographer to follow him around producing Trump’s twisted version of events. Possibly to be nicknamed ‘Leni‘.
• He imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC).
• He extended thanks to Putin, for agreeing to sell diesel fuel to the US in return for the lifting of US sanctions on fuel exports from Russia.
• He appointed Katie Zacharia as his new White House press secretary, describing her as ‘a loyal and brilliant supporter’ and ‘a devoted fan and member of MAGA’. She used to work on Fox News. Which was quite possibly all she needed have done to get the job. She has 4 kids and one wonders if they’ll be proud of her career as the mouthpieces of a monumental liar.
• In his role as a comic, made us laugh with a few good jokes:-

– The Nobel Peace Prize committee had made a disgraceful and embarrassing decision [i.e. to give the award to someone other than him]. They are a radical ideologues who are anti-democracy and enemies of civilisation. It’s just another sign of how Norway and all these others are ripping off our country.

– I’m also preventing wars you don’t know about – China against Taiwan, North Korea against South Korea, Japan against North Korea.

– I got Greenland, for free.

– Hecklers are all losers paid by radical left scum.

– You can no longer say ‘Hi, mum’. You have to say ‘Hi, gestating [parent]‘

A bit of the turning tide . . . . A number of prominent Republicans joined Democrats on Friday to condemn Trump for lifting sanctions on Russian diesel and the plan to livestream the execution of the former army major who carried out the Fort Hood attack in 2009.

The other day, I cited this puff for a book due to be published very soon – Trump is the vessel, not the disease – the product of a system decades in the making, fueled by powerful interests, weakened democratic institutions, and a media ecosystem that too often chose access and complicity over accountability. Maybe US citizens should be grateful to Trump for so clearly exposing just how had things are in their country. And for giving them the Herculean take of cleaning out the Augean stables. Are they up to the task? Can they overwhelm the powerful entrenched forces arraigned against them? Vamos a ver, starting in November. We live in hope. In our own interest as well as those of the USA.

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. This is not simply a book about Trump. He is the vessel, not the disease – the product of a system decades in the making, fueled by powerful interests, weakened democratic institutions, and a media ecosystem that too often chose access and complicity over accountability. The book confronts the defining questions of our time: How did we get here? Why did so many institutions fail when they were needed most? And what must we do now to defend democracy before it is too late?
• 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.

Spanish

• Petardeo: Backfiring.
• Triaje: Sorting. Triage.
• Lasca: Flake, chip, slice

Did you know of?

The blind Brit explorer who Russia thought was a spy.

Finally . . . You Have to Laugh

In 1208 BC, this was chiselled in an Egyptian monument praising the achievements of the pharaoh in suppressing rebellion in colonies along the Levantine coast: The Jews have been thoroughly dealt with and will never trouble anyone again.

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.