Thoughts from Galicia: 1.1.18

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.

Just odds and sods today . . . 

• President Fart: If you can stand it, here's the Guardian's report on his end-year farteting of his achievements. No surprises there.

• The English Language: Eleven phrases you might be mis-using:-

- “For all intensive purposes” - “For all intents and purposes”

- “I could care less” - “I couldn’t care less”

- “One in the same” - “One and the same”

- “On accident” - “By accident”

- “Fall by the waste side” - “Fall by the wayside”

- “Irregardless” - “Regardless”

- “Self-depreciating” - “Self-deprecating”

- “Jive with” - “Jibe with” [Think I was guilty of this one last week]

- “Tongue and cheek” - “Tongue in cheek”

- “Make do” - “Make due”

- “Nip it in the butt” - “Nip it in the bud”

More tomorrow.

• Social Media: Silicon valley is 'eating your soul', it says here. Join the rebellion,

• Galicia: Pouring with rain this morning. Just what we need . . .

• Pontevedra: This is an ad for a teaching assistant job here. The (estimated) net salary of €6.14 per hour is way below what I pay my cleaner. Actually, so is the gross salary. I guess it makes sense to someone. Don't all rush.

• Liverpool tourists: Some of the daft questions they've asked:-

1. An American lady, on disembarking from a cruise liner: How high are we above sea level?
2. Is Abbey Road included in the bus tour?
3. Referring to the Liver building: What are those birds up there? 
4. Where does the Leeds-Liverpool canal go?
5. Are the Beatles statues at the Pier Head life sized? They are 8ft//2.4m tall.
6. What is the Wirral peninsula?

• Nostalgia Corner: I read just now that the Levi denim jacket is 'the new hoodie', a must-have fashion item in 2018. Here's the one I wore every day at university, my friends tell me.  But corduroy, not denim, I have to admit:-

I recall mine being rather lighter than this. Bleached by (occasional) washing, I guess.

Welcome to 2018. I've baptised it by ordering 12 bottles of red wine from a bodega in Tordesillas which I visited in 2015, on a camino.