Dawn

Dawn

Monday, January 15, 2018

Thoughts from Galicia: 15.1.18

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.

Spain
  • More bad news for the PP party and Sr Rajoy in particular. The sails of the newish centre-party Ciudadanos – not yet implicated in any corruption – are full of wind. And, for its part, the far-left-of-centre Podemos party seems to be losing out to the more moderate PSOE socialist party.  A flight to the centre?
  • War has been declared down in Andalucia. But, happily, only against obesity.
Portugal
  • As I've noted before, the ticket system on the Oporto metro must be one of the more challenging in the world. So, queues(lines) are to be expected, as each newcomer wrestles with the instructions. Especially when – as at the busy interchange of Trinidade – there's only 1 machine. Or where – as at the much less busy Casa da Música – there are 3 machines but only 1 of them takes notes. Yesterday, when the Scandinavian couple in front of us finally got to the machine at Trinidade they turned to us in desperation for help. Which I was pleased to provide, of course.
  • To other western europeans, Portuguese is often alleged to sound more like an east european tongue than a Romance language. So, I wasn't too surprised yesterday when the Russian owner of a café said that she and her compatriots found it much easier to get their tongues round Portuguese sounds than, say, Brits or Germans.
The USA-cum-Nutters-Corner
  • The ever-obliging Mr Trump:- I am not a racist. I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed. How does he know these things he's always boasting about with such conviction?
  • As it happens, I've just read this comment to a Times article, giving one answer to my question: You know what? I'm not sure he is a racist. I'm not even sure he's a liar. The bloke is a moron who only has a few strategies to deal with a world that he's too dim to understand in any depth. He attacks anyone who's in his way, using whatever he sees as the most accessible pressure point; so Hillary's crooked, Obama's not an American, Mexicans are rapists, etc. If a racist slurs work best, that's what he'll use. In any given moment he'll say whatever he thinks will progress him to the next bit of the conversation; he has no ideas whether it's true or not, and he'll contradict himself tomorrow without embarrassment. He doesn't lie, he bullshits. It's not the same. A debatable point, I think.
Galicia
  • This is a good story but I do wonder if it's true, even if all the signs suggest it is. 
  • Then again, I've just found this. It's ever harder to distinguish fact from fiction.
  • Here, courtesy of my friend David, is something on my favourite white wine of the moment, Godello. 
Finally
  • In these days of coffee cassettes and the like, it seems impossible to find simple paper filters in supermarkets. But I can advise that a clean handkerchief – assuming you're old-fashioned enough to use one – is a pretty good – if messy – substitute.
  • When I quit Facebook last week, I put a message there saying that one alternative for accessing my posts would be Google Plus. Checking this morning, I see the readership number has gone from 58 last year to 57 now. So, I'm assuming all my FB readers have taken up the other option of an RSS reader . . . .
Today's Cartoon

Millions of years of evolution, just to lose our hair.
P. S I suspect the face is that of a Catalan secessionist . . .

P. P. S. From a site called The Pride of Spain.

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