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
- I admit to being rather confused by what's happening in the Med around Europe-bound refugees. And about what exactly Spain is doing/offering, against the problem of real problems with illegal immigrants over the last decade. Here's a relevant Guardian article.
- Less contentiously, here's The Local with (again?) Spain's Unesco World Heritage sites.
Life in Spain
- The young lady who achieved the highest mark in the recent university entrance exam here in Galicia – previously the selectividad but now the ABAU - got 13.9 out of 14.0, or 99%. (In Spanish, 99,286%). I'm not sure how this is possible but it seems she only failed to get 100% because she didn't understand a word in the English exam.
- On this subject, here's a table of the marks required above 10.0 (71%) for 26 university courses in Galicia.
As ever, I'm surprised how high some subjects rank. For example the Maestro course for infant teachers. And am pleasantly surprised that 3 Law courses are included. In contrast to the Anglo world, these normally don't demand high marks.
- En passant . . . The young lady who got the highest mark is extremely pretty. I wonder if that will help or hinder her in whatever future career she embarks on.
The EU
- From Germany to Italy, Europe is rebelling against those sanctimonious freeloaders in Brussels - and I'm delighted, says an ex-lover of the EEC/EU, a chap called Tibor Fischer, in the article below.
- As for the future . . . Whether Merkel hangs on or not, the EU is facing an existential crisis. A basic problem is the membership: whether it’s 28, 25 or 30, it’s probably impossible for that many states to agree on anything but the most anodyne, vague measures. Ain't that the truth. Meanwhile in . . .
Germany
- Angela Merkel defused the crisis in her government last night, reaching a face-saving compromise with Horst Seehofer, the interior minister, to curb illegal migration into Germany. The deal calls for special transit zones on the German border with Austria where asylum seekers already registered in other EU countries will be held before being sent back. The aim is to stop secondary migration, when refugees use Europe’s open borders to reach Germany. I'm not clear how this fits with the principle of free movement of people in the EU under the Schengen agreement. Maybe in form if not in substance. Or spirit.
The USA
- Here's an article on Kim Jong Un's gaming of Fart. Putin next.
- Hard to disagree with this assessment from Rachel Sylvester in today's Times:- Tory plotting is turning politics into farce. Just when the country needs grown-ups in charge, May’s cabinet of curiosities are behaving like selfish amateurs. The plotting, hypocrisy, ambition and vanity that are so clearly on display in the Conservative Party mirror the politics of ancient Rome, but today’s cabinet ministers seem not so much ruthless as ridiculous. At a time when we badly need grown-ups in government, we are led by a bunch of amateurs obsessed by their own ambition. The amazing thing is that the opposition Labour Party – as the polls show - is even less impressive. Woeful times.
Galicia/Pontevedra
- Yesterday I went to the wonderful ironmongers (ferretería) in the city's old quarters to buy a singe screw. The shopkeeper pondered whether to charge me anything, then said 10 cents, but then reduced it to 5. In the UK, I'd have had to spend at least a pound(€1.12?) for lots of screws I'll never need. It saddens me that this sort of shop probably won't survive another 20 years. Even 10 maybe.
- Case in point . . . A mom-and-pop clothes shop is the latest to close down in Pontevedra's old quarter, very possibly to be converted into another (money-laundering) jewellery shop or yet another tapas bar. I'll let you know.
- I'm occasionally really (but irrationally?) irritated by the obsession of local papers with local events, 'facts' and lists. Yesterday, a large headline told us that Galicia ranks number 5 on the national list of deaths from melanomas caused by over exposure to the sun. No risk of that this week, of course.
The World Cup
- Here and here are blame-game articles on Spain's surprise exit.
- Should it have been a red card for the Mexican player who slyly trod on Neymar's ankle at the edge of the pitch? Identifying and punishing 'violent play' is one of the ends for which VAR is designed. So, why wasn't it used?
- Of course, Neymar's histrionics didn't help. As one British commentator put it: His pain threshold seems to be remarkably low. I'd hate to meet him coming out of a doctor's office after an injection.
© David Colin Davies, Pontevedra: 3.7.18
THE ARTICLE
From Germany to Italy, Europe is rebelling against those sanctimonious freeloaders in Brussels - and I'm delighted: Tibor Fischer.
As Angela Merkel lurches from one acrimonious negotiation to another to steady her government and the EU, one thing should be borne in mind: the great lie of the Remain camp is that “Europe” in some way means those sanctimonious freeloaders gathered in Brussels. More and more, what we are seeing is Europe itself fighting back against the EU – and the control, homogeneity, and finger-wagging it thrives on.
Long before it was fashionable I was a big fan of Europe. I remember going on a school skiing trip when I was 15 and sitting in an Italian bar, nursing a cognac, watching a topless go-go dancer, and thinking "more".
Like many things Europe seems to have been invented by the ancient Greeks, although they saw Europe as principally Greece, just as sometimes the French and Germans see Europe as France or Germany.
Europe has been a cultural, scientific and economic entity for at least a thousand years. Scholars moved from Bologna to Paris to Oxford, bantering in Latin. Artists sought patrons in all the courts of Europe. Van Gogh was miserable in Brixton. Haydn coined it in Austria, Paris and London. Beethoven’s greatest symphony, the Ninth, was commissioned by Brits. Engels ran a factory in Manchester. For Nietzsche there was no culture outside of Paris. Hungary’s great footballers were coached by Scots and Lancastrians. All without the help of bureaucrats in Brussels.
And the famously insular British? Shakespeare wrote about Athens, Rome, Venice, Verona and Elsinore, and I find it hard to think of a major English writer who hasn’t had one work set in either France, Italy or Germany.
Of course there were disagreements, some awkward military encounters and some people who had to be burned at the stake because they didn’t understand the Bible properly, but the continental intercourse has always been lively and free-ranging.
It was Victor Hugo who, at an international Peace Congress in Paris in 1849, used the term the “United States of Europe”. He died in 1885 with an inscription in his room: “I represent a party which does not yet exist, the party of revolution, civilisation. This party will make the Twentieth Century. There will issue from it first the United States of Europe, then the United States of the World.” This is what happens when you get involved with poetry.
Though this party still doesn’t exist, and nor does the United States of Europe, the federalist impulse is alive in the EU, until recently chiefly backed by most Germansand Merkel. But Europe is intervening. It was the new kids who cut up rough first. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Then Poland. Then Austria. Now Italy, and even in Germany the issue of the migrants has engendered an atmosphere of “every nation for itself”.
There is a problem with politicians. They’re not usually troubled by crisis. Sun Tzu‘s great observation that the best general never fights a battle may be true, but how can you prove you’re the best general and not just a lazy, lucky or cowardly one? Politicians prefer crises, so they can be seen to save the day, to snatch the infant from the burning building, rather than getting down on their knees in the dirt to check the wiring, so the tower doesn’t burn in the first place. Some sensible measures 10 years ago could have erased or at least curbed the problem of illegal migrants.
Perhaps it’s hindsight but I don’t recall bitter disputes with the original European Economic Community
It didn’t happen so, whether Merkel hangs on or not, the EU is facing an existential crisis. A basic problem is the membership: whether it’s 28, 25 or 30, it’s probably impossible for that many states to agree on anything but the most anodyne, vague measures. Anyone who’s tried to organise a family holiday will know that satisfying just four or five parties is exhausting.
Perhaps it’s hindsight but I don’t recall bitter disputes with the original European Economic Community. Instead of seeking greater control, the EU and its acolytes in the member states, hooked on “European” solutions to every problem, should listen to Europe, and back off. The flowers and the fruit should move freely, but to steal from Voltaire, everyone should be left to cultivate their garden, and their garden gate, as they see fit.
As Angela Merkel lurches from one acrimonious negotiation to another to steady her government and the EU, one thing should be borne in mind: the great lie of the Remain camp is that “Europe” in some way means those sanctimonious freeloaders gathered in Brussels. More and more, what we are seeing is Europe itself fighting back against the EU – and the control, homogeneity, and finger-wagging it thrives on.
Long before it was fashionable I was a big fan of Europe. I remember going on a school skiing trip when I was 15 and sitting in an Italian bar, nursing a cognac, watching a topless go-go dancer, and thinking "more".
Like many things Europe seems to have been invented by the ancient Greeks, although they saw Europe as principally Greece, just as sometimes the French and Germans see Europe as France or Germany.
Europe has been a cultural, scientific and economic entity for at least a thousand years. Scholars moved from Bologna to Paris to Oxford, bantering in Latin. Artists sought patrons in all the courts of Europe. Van Gogh was miserable in Brixton. Haydn coined it in Austria, Paris and London. Beethoven’s greatest symphony, the Ninth, was commissioned by Brits. Engels ran a factory in Manchester. For Nietzsche there was no culture outside of Paris. Hungary’s great footballers were coached by Scots and Lancastrians. All without the help of bureaucrats in Brussels.
And the famously insular British? Shakespeare wrote about Athens, Rome, Venice, Verona and Elsinore, and I find it hard to think of a major English writer who hasn’t had one work set in either France, Italy or Germany.
Of course there were disagreements, some awkward military encounters and some people who had to be burned at the stake because they didn’t understand the Bible properly, but the continental intercourse has always been lively and free-ranging.
It was Victor Hugo who, at an international Peace Congress in Paris in 1849, used the term the “United States of Europe”. He died in 1885 with an inscription in his room: “I represent a party which does not yet exist, the party of revolution, civilisation. This party will make the Twentieth Century. There will issue from it first the United States of Europe, then the United States of the World.” This is what happens when you get involved with poetry.
Though this party still doesn’t exist, and nor does the United States of Europe, the federalist impulse is alive in the EU, until recently chiefly backed by most Germansand Merkel. But Europe is intervening. It was the new kids who cut up rough first. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Then Poland. Then Austria. Now Italy, and even in Germany the issue of the migrants has engendered an atmosphere of “every nation for itself”.
There is a problem with politicians. They’re not usually troubled by crisis. Sun Tzu‘s great observation that the best general never fights a battle may be true, but how can you prove you’re the best general and not just a lazy, lucky or cowardly one? Politicians prefer crises, so they can be seen to save the day, to snatch the infant from the burning building, rather than getting down on their knees in the dirt to check the wiring, so the tower doesn’t burn in the first place. Some sensible measures 10 years ago could have erased or at least curbed the problem of illegal migrants.
Perhaps it’s hindsight but I don’t recall bitter disputes with the original European Economic Community
It didn’t happen so, whether Merkel hangs on or not, the EU is facing an existential crisis. A basic problem is the membership: whether it’s 28, 25 or 30, it’s probably impossible for that many states to agree on anything but the most anodyne, vague measures. Anyone who’s tried to organise a family holiday will know that satisfying just four or five parties is exhausting.
Perhaps it’s hindsight but I don’t recall bitter disputes with the original European Economic Community. Instead of seeking greater control, the EU and its acolytes in the member states, hooked on “European” solutions to every problem, should listen to Europe, and back off. The flowers and the fruit should move freely, but to steal from Voltaire, everyone should be left to cultivate their garden, and their garden gate, as they see fit.
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