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Sunday, July 23, 2017

Thoughts from Galicia: 23.7.17

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
- Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain. 

If you've arrived here because of an interest in Galicia or Pontevedra, see my web page here.

Life in Spain:-
  • To start positively  . . . . Here, here and here are some road trips in Spain recommended by The Guardian. Or possibly by someone who is paying them.
  • Less positively, an article on the world's loveliest rivers fails to cite one from Spain. Not even our Cañon del Sil. The closest they get is Portugal's Douro. Which is admittedly very pretty:-
  • Not a huge surprise to read that Spain has more bars per capita than any other EU country. As of cities, I suspect that Pontevedra's old quarter would come high on the list.
  • As we know, Spain is home to some weird festivals, some of which involve animals and some of which don't. Here's a Galician one I reported on, after I'd attended it a couple of years or more ago.
  • One of the great things about Spain is that things still happen here which have been banned as 'sexist' elsewhere. But now there's a bit of controversy around this one.
  • Things continue to hot up in Cataluña. The good news for Madrid is that the percentage of residents in favour of secession is reducing. The bad news is that many of these won't turn out to vote against a referendum on October 1, allowing the nationalists to win the day.
  • Meanwhile, here's news of one town which wants to quit Cataluña.
  • In its fight with Barcelona, Madrid latest step is to demand regular explanations as to where money transfers are going.
  • Today comes the news that 73% of Spanish learner drivers fail the test the first time round. When you experience how they later approach roundabouts, you wonder why this figure is so low. But perhaps it's not their fault. Here are 2 diagrams from one of our local papers yesterday, once again trying to tell people how to approach both normal roundabouts like this one:-


and also the new turborotondas such as this one in the centre of Vigo:-


So, the incompetent and hapless Sean Spicer has quit as Trump's mouthpiece. Probably the best thing he's ever done, of course. Here's a niece Guardian piece about this development.

I mentioned yesterday that Spain was one of the few countries in which bankers are being made to pay for their illegal actions of the last decade. Here's Don Quijones on what's not happening in one US case.

The Daily Telegraph used to be a good right-of-centre UK newspaper. But it's now regarded as little better than the country's dreadful tabloids. Evidence for why this came yesterday from the list of Most Read articles on line - Justin Bieber banned from China in order to 'purify' nation. Ye gods!

Finally . . .  Yesterday I was complaining to my my neighbour and to the plumber who was doing some work for her that my lawns had been invaded buy a horrible grass. This one, in fact:-




When I showed them an example of it, they fell back in astonishment. But that's gramón, they both exclaimed. It's the best grass you can have for a lawn. OK, it's painful to walk on but it's resistant to everything extreme cold. I concluded that neither of them knew anything about grass and real lawns. And then I realised why the woman in the agricultural shop last week had looked nonplussed when I asked if they had something I could use to kill it.

Today's cartoons:-

1. This is a Spanish one centred on the recent acceptance of Iros by the Royal Academy. I need someone to tell me what it's all about and why it's funny . . . 


2. A traditional British cartoon:-

I'm doing the warm-up

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