Dawn

Dawn

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Ponters Pensées: 27.7.16

Spanish Myths: A French Dominican priest, visiting Andalucia in 1705, recorded his astonishment that people here believed that the ship in which the prophet Jonah fled God's presence was from Cadiz; that the Three Wise Men were Spanish kings who sailed from Cadiz to the Holy Land; and that St James, the alleged apostle of Spain, travelled from Tyre in a Cadizian vessel and disembarked at Cadiz. No one believes any of these now, of course. Everyone knows, for example, that St James landed here in Galicia, at Padrón, in a crewless stone boat that had brought him 'back' to a place no one knew he'd ever been to. And that his corpse played hide-and-seek with the locals for about 900 years, before finally being put into a silver casket in Santiago cathedral. We've moved on a lot in 300 years.

Well, I'll Go to the Bottom of Our Stairs!: Or, putting it another way: Blow me down with a feather!

  1. The EU will give Spain another 2 years - on top of 9 already - to get its deficit down to the 'sacrosanct' 3%. Of course, no one with a brain thinks they'll do this.
  2. In the UK this week a horse with odds of 200-1 romped home to victory - the longest winning odds in the centuries-old history of racing there.
  3. RT TV has been reporting on manipulation in the US media in favour of Mrs Clinton. They might well be right to do so, of course, but they are the blackest of pots. You have to admire the chutzpah.
  4. Galicia is second only to Aragón when it comes to 'irregularities' in the description of properties in municipal Catastros. I'd have assumed it was top of the class.
Pontevedra Corridas: As part of our annual big fiesta during the first 2 weeks of August, we normally have 4 bullfights over the 2 weekends. This year there's only 3. Reduced interest or a question of finance and 'austerity? Dunno.

I Guess it Seemed a Good Idea to Someone: They're re-surfacing the roads on the northern approaches to and exits from Pontevedra city. But they've left undisturbed the large white sign you see on the road as you approach from Villagarcia:-
VEDRA
PONTE

Finally . . . A shattered illusion: For a while now, Google have been recording the hits to this blog at  800-2,000 a day. But I had my suspicions and yesterday I researched the issue of bots, especially those originating in Russia. And I've now done something to stop the recording of hits from these infernal, eternal machines and expect a big drop in numbers. I imagine I'm of interest to Russian bot-managers because I occasionally cite nonsense from Moscow's outrageous propaganda channel RT TV. I do hope I'm on some file as a subversive.

GALLERY

Everyone knows that Spanish women use fans, sometimes to very erotic effect. Against that, I can't recall seeing a fan here in Pontevedra since I arrived in 2000. But, yesterday. when the temperature had hit 35 degrees, one of the city's guapas allowed me to take this foto. And then gave me permission to post it here:-




Postscript 1: An Anglican bishop commenting the Islamic terrorists thereat to priests: - The only weapon we have is prayer. God help them, then.

Postscript 2: As I write, RT TV is majoring on Mrs Clinton's income. I guess we can expect to hear about President Putin's some day soon.

No comments: