Dawn

Dawn

Monday, December 02, 2013

Wild boar stew: Mail for the guiris; A new app; La Celestina; and some fotos.

One of my commitments on Saturday was lunch (at 3.15) with Los Porcos Bravos, who are a fine bunch of lads who form a 7-a-side football team which plays twice a year (here and there) against the Sheffield Stags. The lunch was of stewed wild boar and was delicious. Despite their presence up in the hills, wild boar doesn't feature much on seafood-dominated Pontevedra menus. I wish it did, along with cabrito (kid) and even cochinillo (suckling pig). As it is, I have to go down to Portugal for these. Anyway, here's the blog of Los Porcos Bravos, for those whose Spanish (and English) is up to it. Recently there's been an enjoyable interview with another resident Brit, Larry Bowles. In both Spanish and English. Enjoy.

I was amused yesterday to read the Facebook comment of a British expat who lives up in the hills. She was looking for the recipient of one letter in a bunch she'd been given by the local postlady to distribute to "the English in your area". Not unusual, apparently.

An interesting new development for those with smartphones . . .


Here's a pretty good description of positive thinking, if not of the whole philosophy of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT):- 

Stop kicking against the pricks. Pretend to be happy and easy in your mind and you will be. For, though thought doesn't change the facts, it often influences a situation by moderating our feelings and controlling our judgement.

The interesting thing is that it was written in 1499 and put into the mouth of one of the characters in Fernando de Rojas' La Celestina. It's been said of de Rojas that, if Cervantes hadn't existed, he would've been acclaimed as the author of "the greatest imaginative work produced in Spain". Whereas I suspect he's hardly known outside the Hispanic world. Still, it's a LOL great read. The English title, by the way, is The Spanish Bawd, even though Celestina means 'matchmaker' or 'go-between'.

Finally . . . As my camera is on the blink again, these are possibly the last fotos I'll take with it:-

An unusual roundabout; no one has yet driven into the signs at the front of it.


A UFO I saw when leaving my house the other night. It wasn't there when I came back half an hour later, so I guess it landed somewhere. Or went back to planet Zog. No, it's not the moon, which was elsewhere in the sky. Where else?


And, finally . . . .  The house below mine which has now been under construction for 8 months. As I may have said, it looks more and more like a bunker. And, as he's a native of Pontevedra, I suspect it's being built for the Spanish President, Mariano Rajoy. For when the revolution finally comes.

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