Pontevedra Pensées: 1.1.17

Happy New Year to all.

There's a major row brewing here in Galicia over the issue of disposable sheets. These are usually provided, I read, by the owners of our many cheap/free camino hostels or albergues. Some of which are private and some - most? - public. The regional government - A Xunta - has decided this doesn't reflect well on Galicia and has said it's going to make it compulsory to provide sheets made of one material or another. Possibly someone has shares in a relevant company. Maybe not but, as I say, that's how cynical you get here.

Galicia has 3 out of the 10 most dangerous road stretches in Spain - another possible reason for the highest car insurance premiums in the country. I was a bit shaken to realise I regularly use 2 of these. For the record, the most dangerous of these is the N640 between Caldas de Réis and Villagarcia. Happily, I never have a reason to use that one, though I did pass the start of it this morning, driving from Santiago to Ponters.

More Galicia news - The local tax office - La Hacienda - has used drones to discover that there are numerous properties around the region on which municipal taxes - 'rates' in the UK - are not being paid. Fair enough but you have to ask why they had to wait for this invention before undertaking such an investigation. The houses - or their extensions and swimming pools - are hardly easy to hide.

A nice new-to-me Spanish word - verborrea. Which means verbosity. And which, fittingly, seems to be a combination of verbo and diarrea.

I see that the modern English Pronunciation of HP - hire purchase or buying on credit - has officially become haitch pee, at least as far as Sky News is concerned. Used to be aitch pee, in case you're wondering.

I took fotos of all the closed shops in the little street I mentioned the other day but decided these would be boring. But here's one of the specialist shops in the street – A Knifery & Umbrellery:-

Another specialist shop there is a mattressery - Una colchoneria. But this is still  open, so no foto.

Finally . . . The Spanish for 'year 'is año and the Galician/Gallego is ano. But ano means 'anus' in Spanish. So I got to wondering how Gallego speakers – galegofalantes – would say 'Happy New Year'. In Spanish it would be Feliz Año Nuevo or just Feliz Año. But would Gallego-speakers really say Feliz Ano, or 'Happy New Anus' to Spanish ears? Well, the question got more complicated when I discovered that – according to Google – ano not only means 'year' in Gallego but also 'anus'. So, I wasn't too surprised to find – again via Google – that Gallego-speakers don't say Feliz Ano Novo or Feliz Ano but, instead, Feliz Aninovo. Or, rather, that's what Google said the first time I checked. The second time, they told me that, yes, it would be Feliz Ano Novo. Or 'Happy New Arse'. Who'd have thought it?

I'm not at home so don't have access to my cartoon collection. So, here's something that made me laugh (a lot) last night. I suppose I'd better stress again that, though an atheist, I have many relatives and friends who are theists. So, nothing personal . . .