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:

• Foreign demand for property in Spain fell by 13% in the first half of 2026, with second-home buyers leading the decline and every major foreign market contracting together for the first time. Prices too high?
• Pv city is experiencing the same backlash to the possible new rules in the rental market. Around 30% of properties have been withdrawn from the market at least temporarily, making it even more difficult to find a place right now.

Politics:

• An explanation of the suspension of the Lei de Los Nietos
• State-owned and state-backed companies have become the largest beneficiaries of the EU’s Next Generation, receiving a total of €12bn. Many of these compete directly with private companies. Perhaps they were better at filling out the forms.

(US) Americans were the largest group of foreigners to visit Pv city in late summer, possibly reflecting the large number contestants and their supporters here for the September triathlon races. As I think I’ve said, not everyone here will be pleased at an influx of big tippers.

Local News

• On the day on which I was going to mention here that I snapped not one but 4 closed shops a little down from the main square in Pv city’s old quarter, I saw this article on the continuing encroachment of large international stores into the retail market – where sellers are called minoristas. The foto is of the new Centro Comercio being built near my barrio. Ironically, Eroski is a Basque supermarket . . . .
• How to make a claim if you run into a wild boar in Galicia. Assuming you survive it, of course. And you have a better lawyer than the boar.

Europe/The EU

The EU is facing an unprecedented dilemma: Its four biggest economies are all heading into elections or political upheaval, potentially hamstringing the bloc’s ability to get anything done.  The paralysis Brussels fears as Europe’s election cycle gathers pace is already beginning to take hold, with last week’s summit exposing how difficult it is becoming to forge the compromises the bloc needs. . . . The bloc’s internal malaise could hardly come at a worse time. From Trump’s undermining of the transatlantic alliance to an ever-widening trade imbalance with China, the EU is facing mounting geopolitical and economic pressures on multiple fronts.

The Middle East/West Asia War

The latest update from Naked Capitalism.

The United States of Trump America

Trump: My decision on Russia is a very simple one. I am in the process of negotiating Peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine and don’t want to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table. Great progress is being made, and that includes current hostage negotiations! Perhaps more importantly, Russia is doing very little, if anything, to help the Islamic Republic of Iran, compared to what they could be doing, and I want to keep it that way, and will, unless stupid people get in the way.

Someone else

• He’s now trying to argue it’s about some secret plan he has to end the war in Ukraine. You have to be a special kind of stupid to believe this guy’s lies at this point.
• Trump is one of the greatest megalomaniacs in history and he’s been given the most powerful office in the world and there’s no one around him to stop him or say No to him. And he’s drunk on it. His particular genius as a politician, his particular gift as a demagogue, is that he manages, through vicious mirth and expressing his hatreds, to give permission to people to liberate themselves from the strictures of decency and to become the worst version of themselves. And I don’t think we’re going to come back from it for a while. I think Trump has affected the culture profoundly. I think we are a different country now. [Well a divided one, certainly.]

I recommend you go to Spy at 40 on Substack to see what they wrote, at length, about Trump in October 1988, pulling no punches. He got 10 out of 10 for ‘inherent loathsomeness’ 38 years ago. And hs gone downhill ever since. Lord Acton would have known why.

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.

Russia v Ukraine

President Zelensky: If Russia stops, it’s peace. If we stop, it’s goodbye Ukraine.

The Way of the World

On whether humans could be cloned, . . . The answer may be surprising, because Homo sapiens is probably one of the easiest species to work with in vitro. “It is very easy to culture human embryos. From a biological and technical standpoint, I would say cloning humans would not be complicated. The entire limitation is ethical“.

Our future . . . . Billionaires are preparing a dystopian world for us.

Spanish

• Revisor. Ticket collector/inspector.
• Suceso: Event
• Vuelco: Rollover, Overturning. Upset. Turnaround. Capsizing.

Finally . . . You Have to Avoid Laughing

A poor priest in Ecuador died when a large crucifix on the wall behind him fell on him when he was celebrating Mass. One inevitably wonders if this was divine punishment for something he’d done. But probably not. Especially, as the Mass was being streamed live.

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.