Thoughts from Galicia: 14.10.17

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

• Only in Spain?: There's a bit of Cataluña -  Vielha - which will declare independence if the region succeeds in seceding from Spain. All rather unlikely, though.
• During this lull in the Cataluña v Spain proceedings, the analysts are hard at work improving your understanding of the mess. And some of them are pretty incisive:-

1. The Guardian: Suspended animation and bewilderment
2.  Reuters: An effective alternative?
3. The Local: A step forward?
4. The Guardian: Towards federalism?
5. CNBC: Spain's nuclear weapon.
6. Time Magazine: The Crisis in Cataluña. The Reality Check.
7. The NY Times: Can Spain reform and keep Cataluña et al?
8. Antonio Carty: A heartfelt aspiration.

• Somewhere among that lot is the nice - and accurate - comment: Millions of people have the impression that two bullies, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Mr. Puigdemont, are leading them toward a terrifying situation: if not a blood bath, at the very least a lot of sweat and tears.
• And probably this as well: The government in Madrid will seize the opportunity to feed its own nationalist base and take electoral advantage of the situation, while it tries to restore its dignity and authority after the humiliation suffered during its pathetic and failed attempt to stop the referendum from taking place. Most probably, Madrid will keep the judicial pressure on Catalan leaders, and end up holding them accountable for breaking the law. Also very probably true.
• And this - possibly a tad OTT: The harmful and dangerous rise in polarization of Spain’s people against the region of Cataluña is being most duplicitously and deliberately provoked, as an energizing exploitable crisis, by the failing minority rule of the ‘Popular Party’ Spain’s central government. The P.P’s are the torchbearers of Franco’s divided fascist Spain.  . . . The PP’s seem outrageously and arrogantly inept but are working a deliberate strategy. Twice they have lost a ruling majority, they see provoking Catalan and polarizing the attention of all Spain, as a way to gain back their dwindling conservative support, they’ve been losing the people’s support because of all the many mounting court cases and scandals against PP politicians for crime and corruption as well as their fundamental hopeless economic failure and injustice.
• As for the vainglorious Sr Puidgemont . . . Pressure is growing from allies of the regional president for him to lift his 'suspension' on a declaration of independence. Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), a radical anti-capitalist party that helps prop up Puigdemont's 'Together for Yes' (Junts pel Si) coalition in the Catalan parliament, published a letter addressed to Puigdemont on Friday morning in which it insists that "the proclamation of the republic is necessary". "If they (the Spanish government) intend on continuing to apply the previsions of article 155 of the Spanish constitution – with the formal requisites now already met – and they want to continue threatening and gagging us, then let them do it with the republic already proclaimed," the letter notes. The move follows a similar call from major pro-independence organization Catalan National Assembly (ANC), which released its own statement late on Thursday saying the suspension should be lifted due to the "rejection from the Spanish state of any kind of proposal of dialogue". It can only end in tears. Lots and lots of them. Collective insanity.

Which reminds me . . . I really don't know the answer to this but in how many western developed countries could this sort of thing happen? I doubt anyone would do it in Britain but, then, it's not only Spain that's different . . 

On a more macro level . . . How the world turns and how this is relevant to Cataluña. Superb.

Brexit: Richard North: The thing is that the hacks do not understand the issues here, while the Kuenssberg's of this world regard the detail as "boring" and "nerdy". They prefer to stay in the more familiar territory of personality politics, reporting on the Brussels talks as an extension of the Westminster soap opera, but with a few foreign actors. 

Donald Trump has boasted that: “Fake” is one of the greatest of all terms I’ve come up with. As someone has said: Other F-words are available.

Theists do get themselves into some terrible messes. Reading about Pontevedra yesterday, I learnt that Sister Lucia of Fatima fame might well have been 2 different people, with very different views. And that the phony Lucia was probably installed by freemasons. Click here for more on this fascinating tale . . . And talking of mad Christians, this strikes me as about right, as regards American evangelists at least: This is what evangelical Christianity is these days: fear, lies, and uncritical support of an unhinged president who panders to the only base gullible enough to stay by his side no matter how many awful things he does.

As I live near oyster beds and mussel farms in Galicia and, more importantly, as someone concerned for the future of the planet, I was very concerned to read that: Populations of mussels, clams and oysters produce “ridiculous” levels of climate-warming gasses on a par with herds of cattle. Scientists have warned they're producing large amounts of the strongest greenhouse gases - methane and nitrous oxides - from the bacteria in their guts. This methane bubbles out of the water contributing to global warming. It has to be stopped. It's the least we can do . . .

Spanish Trivia:-

1. When they built the railway station at Canfranc [On the Franco-Spanish border] it was on a grand scale and with no expense spared. It had to be bold and modern - an architect's dream come true, built in iron and glass, complete with a hospital, restaurant and living quarters for customs officers from both France and Spain. To give you an idea of its size - there are 365 windows, one for each day of the year; hundreds of doors; and the platforms are more than 200m long. The question is, how did such an extravagant station, high up on a mountainside in a village with a population of just 500 people, ever see the light of day?
2. HT to Lenox of Business Over Tapas for the news that unexplained major fires are a frequent occurrence in Spain. There have been, he says, 141of these in different recycling plants across Spain since February 2012. But I doubt anything compares with the scale of the sudden conflagration that allegedly engulfed all the alleged flax factories in Spain after the start of an investigation in the late 1990s into one of the EU's largest ever CAP frauds. For which Spain was mightily fined. Though I'm not sure she ever paid up. 

English Trivia:-

1. In the John Lewis department store near my younger daughter's house, a notice by the coffee machines in the café says you can get milk sachets after you've paid. So I was (doubly) surprised to see on offer a 'White Americano'. And I might have got to see what this was, if I hadn't pressed the 'Americano' button by mistake. My point is – Why offer a White Americano – actually a contradiction in terms – if you can take a (black) Americano and add milk to it after you've paid for it? I guess it makes sense to someone, if not to me.
2. I forgot to say that neither my incoming daughter nor I had phone coverage at Liverpool airport, despite having roaming on on our (albeit) Spanish phones. Am I being cynical to suggest this forces people who can't communicate with each other to use the prince's-ransom carpark?
3. If you drive down Menlove Avenue from my sister's house near the top of Penny Lane to the airport, you'd think Liverpool was a magnificently beautiful city. More than 2 miles of little but sandstone walls and trees, as you pass through the lovely barrio of Calderstones. There are trees even on the wide island down the middle of the 4-lane road. See here,  And these 2 fotos:-

Spanish-English Trivia

1. There's said to be a horrible new trend in the UK – pigging - starting a romance with an 'ugly' woman and then revealing it was a pathetic joke, or a bet with your mates. It's said to stem from a 1990s US film but some will recall the 1956 Spanish film Calle Major, directed by Juan Antonio Bardem. See the IMDB write-up here. One or two reviewers cite earlier films with the same theme. So pigging ain't that new. But, then, neither are very nasty men. 

Finally . . .  To end on a postive note . . . Here's what I've been saying for years now: Look to Galicia for textured complex whites — Godello and Albariño in particular. From this page. I favour the Godello  over the Albariño. If you can find it . . .