Dawn

Dawn

Saturday, April 02, 2016

Ponters Pensées

The Donald: Say what you like about the man but he has a way with English. His egregious gaffe about punishing women who've aborted – which may well cost him the Republican nomination - has been dismissed by him as a trivial bit of misspeak. Is this the first time this noun has been aired? Would you believe it's not? According to Google Ngram, it emerged in 1800 and has rocketed up in use since 1980. Presumably in the USA. But even if this setback does spell the loss of thne nomination for Trump, it doesn't mean the end of this soap opera imbecile; he's resiled on his pledge to support whoever is nominated. What fun is in store for we docile observers.

Spanish Banks: The special features of Spanish banks are: 1. the number of advisers sitting in them, waiting for customers to whom they can give face-to-face advice, and 2. the number of offices they have across the country. The latter sprouted like weeds during the bum years and you can imagine what this did to the overheads. Not to mention the scope for errors. So, now, of course, the banks are backtracking as fast as the law allows them. Continental Europe's biggest bank – the previously rapacious Santander – has just announced plans to close a mere 450 branches around Spain. We have 2 within 200 metres of each other here in Ponters. So I wonder which one of these is for the chop-

Question: Which countries in Europe have the fattest people? Well, a tad to my surprise, these are Malta, the UK and Spain. That said, I have noted before that Spain is reported to have the sort of fat person we don't see a lot of in skinny Ponters, where the women would rather die of lung cancer or starvation in their 60s than have an ounce of excess fat. The prediction is that the UK will be the most obese nation in Europe by 2025. But I doubt it'll have caught up with the USA by then. Where fat family 'grazing' is a sight to see. Especially from behind. Or behinds.

Theism versus Science: The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it. Whereas . . . . Thank-you for this, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Google: Did you fall for their MicDrop April Fools' joke yesterday? I, for one, had no idea what their fake Send button meant, not knowing what MicDrop was. If you didn't see it, it's because there was an almight furore over the problems this prank caused and Google withdraw it pretty rapidly.

Facebook: Their latest irritating wheezes seem to be Related Articles and People Also Shared, whenever one shares the post of a friend. Is there no limit to their capacity to distract and irritate? I fear not.

Finally . . . A greeting to the 2 lady pilgrims I met in my regular tapas place yesterday. I do hope they found the place in San Antoniño I recommended to them for the night and didn't have to walk on to Caldas de Reis and, in compensation, to bathe their sore feet in the hot thermal waters there - after several days of drenchings by our springtime 'showers'. As they say here – April: The month of a thousand rivers. And it's hardly started!


Another day, another glorious dawn. This is a Google Photos collage of 4 fotos taken this morning, I'm hoping they'll send me a panorama soon.
But . . . More rain on the way.  So, a shepherd's warning.

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