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
Politics
- The failure of the several far-left parties to unite is said to have dealt a severe blow to the PSOE’s chances of remaining in office.
- Lenox Napier writes on the imminent elections here.
The Galician rental market has lost 16,000 premises in the last 7 years, against a background of an increasing population and not a lot of new construction. So, foreigners and venture funds aren’t the only factors behind the crisis of poor supply and higher prices. And possibly not the major ones. But they are convenient scapegoats.
The prolonged absence of rain has made it difficult to hunt the increasing population of wild boars in Galicia. Because the dry soil leaves fewer tracks and the heat exhausts the dogs.
Portugal
The footballer Cristiano Ronaldo earns €200m a year. He’s been fined €250 for flouncing out of a training session, after he was told he’d be a substitute for a match. If my maths are correct, this is 00.000125 % of his annual income. Must have really hurt.
The Middle East/West Asia War
The latest update from Naked Capitalism.
The United States of Trump America
The always-entertaining David Rothkopf tells us here why Trump is the biggest US traitor since Benedict Arnold, who worked with the British during the War of Independence.
On the same theme . . . In the past week, the president of the United States has conclusively turned (US)America into an ally of the Russian Federation (RV). Donald Trump has now abandoned pretense and is openly aiding the Kremlin in its war against a friend and partner of the U.S. The American commander in chief has abandoned the Western order, the most successful—and powerful—security arrangement in human history. To judge from the available evidence, he has not done so out of a cold calculation of the national interest. Instead, he has based his decisions on his own interests; his open admiration for Russia’s dictator; his resentment of Ukraine’s democratically elected president; and quite possibly other factors that so far have remained obscured from the American public.
Trump has displayed a uniquely unpresidential trait by attacking judges that he thinks are standing in his way. This was evidenced by a tirade against the judge who is demanding that the administration stop construction on the East Potomac golf links. He called her a ‘crazed lunatic’ and suggested she ‘may be insane.'”
It’s hardy surprising that the Republicans are reported to be panicking.
And that the Democrats and Independents are worrying about how a humiliated Trump will react.
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
Putin appears to have persuaded the malleable but foolish Trump to take part with him and President Xi of China in a summit aimed at forcing Ukraine to end the war by surrendering. Which isn’t playing well outside the MAGA Christian nationalist core which sees Russia as some sort of saviour of their creed.
Spanish
- Apatridia: Statelessness
- Toque de queda: Curfew
- Cinegética: Hunting, eg of wild boars
English
An obsolete word from the 1850 novel Vanity Fair:– Hatchment: This was as a funeral memorial displaying a deceased person’s coat of arms, usually painted on canvas or wood within a black, diamond-shaped frame. It was hung over the entrance of their house, remaining there for around 6 to 12 months. It was then moved to the parish church and kept as a permanent memorial. The custom arose in Britain in the early 17th century, from the practice of carrying a knight’s or nobleman’s heraldic shield before the coffin and displaying it in church.
Did you know?
The winner of a clerihew contest sponsored by Games magazine in 1983:
Did Descartes
Depart
With the thought
“Therefore I’m not”?
Finally . . . You Have to Laugh
.
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.
