Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
-
Christopher
Howse: A
Pilgrim in Spain.
Spain
- Brexit fall-out. It's an ill wind . .
- Here's some statistics on high-speed train passengers per km:-
- Japan: 166
- Germany 83
- France 50
- Spain: 15
Some support, then, for the view that the AVE is essentially a vanity project, the money for which would have been much better spent on bringing Spain's 19th century traditional railway into at least the 20th century.
- Here in Galicia, we're inured to being at the back of the queue when it comes to modern rail lines. Here's a diagram of plans for better goods-train links between Portugal, Spain, France and Germany. Note the dotted lines and bear in mind that the forecast for them to become solid is many years from now. And almost certainly hopelessly optimistic:-
- The north coast city of Santander has a web page aimed at foreign tourists, highlighting the new Centro Botín there. Needless to say, no native speaker of English was bothered with a request to take a look at Google's translation. Meaning that the 'historical centre' (el casco historico) is given as ‘the motorcycle helmet of the city’. For Spanish speakers, more nonsenses here.
- If you want to understand how the ludicrous Spanish property boom happened between 2002 and 2007, click here. I only wish - recognising it for what it was - I'd bothered to get in and out after a couple of years.
- And here's a good discussion of the impact of the Catalan farce on Spain's politics.
- Reader Sierra has praised Correos for its performance with Amazon deliveries. I endorse this and now have to admit that the good bit about the new certificado system is that I didn't have to show my ID or sign a digital pad. Can't recall if I had to do the former under the old system but suspect I had to write my number on the form.
- Around 8pm tonight, you can catch this discussion of last Wednesday on the BBC World Service. [Yes, I know, Mr Mittington, that this is an ambiguous sentence].
The USA
- Below is a review on Fart's first year. It's from The Times, a newspaper considered to be right-of-centre in the UK but probably not in the USA. Worrying sentiments:- Once a president wins one term he is the favourite to win another . . . There is a good chance that Mr Trump will be in office for another 7 years. . . . As long as Wall Street remains buoyant, few analysts will be willing to bet against Mr Trump winning a second term. Even if it has little to do with him. And even if his promise to save jobs - at Carrier, for example - is being shown to be empty.
- Meanwhile, we have the fun of this. And the certainty of more to come.
- And regular developments around links with Russia, the latest being finance via the Natioanal Rifle Association.
- At the other end of the political spectrum, the crazies of the Left contine to justify the alt-right reaction. Click here for a podcast on the cultural marxism that now pervades US universities and which the speaker decribes a an ideology that is fast resembling a new religion. Horrific.
The UK
- I see that the England football team, at no 16 in the FIFA list, now ranks below that footballing giant, Croatia. Germany remains at number 1. Partly thanks to their skill at netting penalty kicks.
The Spanish Language
- I've noted that Spanish is more wordy than English. But sometimes it's the opposite case. For example, Las Dianas means 'the parents of Diana'. Or 'Diana's parents', of course. As opposed to las dianas, which means 'the targets/dart-boards/bullseyes'.
Spanglish
- The latest English gerund to become a Spanish noun?:-
Nutters Corner
- Last week saw the annual blessing of animals on the feast day of San Antonio. In the fotos in our local press, there were many stupid jackets on display. Some of them on humans.
Galicia
- Good news - Local scientists might have cracked the challenge of breeding octopuses in captivity. Sometime soon, the chances will increase of your 'Galician' octopus actually being from here.
- Bad news - The university of Vigo is installing software to check for plagiarism in all final year papers and postgrad theses.
Those 'low ethics' again.
Pontevedra
- Salford - across a river from Manchester - is part of Greater Manchester but quite definitely not part of the city of Manchester. The same applies to Poio - my barrio - and Pontevedra. Which helps to explain why one half of the main bridge between them is in a good state of repair but the other isn't.
Finally
- I'm helping the 10 year old son of a neighbour with a re-sit of his English exam. Such is his ignorance of the basics, I'm at a loss to understand how or what he's been taught over the years. But I'm not at all surprised at his mother's comment that his teacher is obsessed with grammar. 'Twas ever thus here in Spain. Verbal communication comes a long, long way behind.
THE ARTICLE
Trump’s first year has been a political circus like no other: Rhys Blakely, The Times Washington correspondent.
Beneath a grey
Washington sky — which he would later insist was “really sunny”
— Donald Trump placed his hand on a Bible once used by Abraham
Lincoln and promised to “faithfully execute the office of president
of the United States”.
A year ago today, much
of the country was still in shock: a billionaire former game-show
host whose sex life had once kept New York’s tabloids entranced had
stormed to a stunning election win. A twice-divorced billionaire, he
had won the votes of evangelical Christians and given voice to the
frustrations of blue-collar whites. He had beaten a rival whose
fundraising had dwarfed his. He had, said an army of chastened
pundits, rewritten the laws of political physics.
According to one
account, nobody was more surprised than Mr Trump. He is said to
have assured his wife, Melania, that he would lose. Yet all of that
was merely a warm-up.
Over the past 12 months
America’s 45th president has overseen a political circus unlike any
other. He has been rebuked by the British prime minister for
retweeting far-right propaganda and he faces allegations that his
campaign was in cahoots with the Kremlin. This week the press was
awash with reports that his lawyers secretly paid a porn star called
Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged fling — and
much of America seemed hardly to raise an eyebrow.
His erratic and
grandiose behaviour has prompted speculation about his mental health.
Last week he became the first president to ask to sit a test to
screen for early signs of Alzheimer’s, hoping to dispel rumours
that his mind is fading. Last night, with the federal government on
the brink of a shutdown, Republican leaders were cursing him for his
confused messages on immigration, the clearest issue of his campaign.
The blitzkrieg of Trump
news has been unrelenting, and much of the commentariat still appears
dazed. The anniversary of his inauguration has been marked by a slew
of new polls: most Americans have deemed his first year a failure,
think the country is headed in the wrong direction, believe his
policies are directed at helping the wealthy and are afraid that his
use of Twitter is dangerous.
Among Republican
voters, however, he remains popular: nine in ten believe his first
year has been a success; four in ten call it a “major success”.
Recent history suggests
that once a president wins one term he is the favourite to win
another. So for all the outrage at his bullying tweets, for all the
horror expressed at his boasts about the size of his nuclear button,
for all the concern prompted by his disdain for politics norms —
for all of that, there is a good chance that Mr Trump will be in
office for another seven years.
The tone for the Trump
era was set on the first day when the hapless Sean Spicer, White
House press secretary at the time, insisted that the inauguration
crowds had been the largest in history. They clearly were not;
Kellyanne Conway, the president’s pollster, would later claim that
Mr Spicer had been using “alternative facts”.
A week later chaos
broke out at US airports as the White House rushed out a ban on
travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries. Barely a fortnight
after that Mike Flynn, the national security adviser, was fired for
lying about his contacts with a Russian official.
As the weeks ticked by
the sense grew of a West Wing at war with itself, and Mr Trump became
outraged at leaks emanating from his staff — but, according to the
author Michael Wolff, many of those leaks came from the president
himself. Alone in the White House in the evenings he would spend long
hours on the phone to billionaire acquaintances who would then spread
the gossip.
On May 9 Mr Trump
stunned Washington when he fired James Comey, the FBI director. Of
all his impulsive acts this threatened the largest consequences. Mr
Comey would later tell Congress that Mr Trump had urged him to ease
off an FBI investigation into Mr Flynn.
The sacking of Mr Comey
led to the appointment of a special counsel — Robert Mueller,
former FBI chief — to untangle the Trump campaign’s ties to
Russia. Mr Mueller has brought criminal charges against four Trump
campaign staff — so far.
The summer months are
traditionally quiet as temperatures soar. Under Mr Trump, however,
there was no respite. In July it emerged that his eldest son, Donald
Jr, had agreed to meet a Kremlin-linked lawyer during the
presidential campaign, believing that she could supply compromising
material on Hillary Clinton. Steve Bannon, the populist provocateur
who served seven months as Mr Trump’s political strategist, later
called this meeting “treasonous”.
In August Mr Trump
appalled many with his reaction to a rally of white supremacists in
Charlottesville that culminated in the death of a counter-protester
when he said that “both sides” were to blame for the violence
For many of his
supporters, however, Mr Trump’s unorthodox approach is its own
reward: they delight in what they say is his refusal to bow to
political correctness. Others applaud the advance of a traditional
Republican agenda: he has cut taxes by $1.5 trillion over the next
decade and he appointed Neil Gorsuch, the most conservative justice
on the Supreme Court.
He has also pulled out
of the Paris climate accord, withdrawn his blessing from the Iran
nuclear deal, proclaimed Jerusalem the capital of Israel, opened up
Alaska to new oil drilling and cut reams of regulations. Arrests and
raids by America’s immigration services have increased, and in
Syria and Iraq the Isis “caliphate” has been obliterated.
The US stock market has
been climbing all the while to record highs, and as long as Wall
Street remains buoyant few analysts will be willing to bet against Mr
Trump winning a second term.
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