Thoughts from Galicia, Spain: Thoughts from Galicia, Spain: 20.8.18

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. Garish but informative.

Matters Spanish

You'd have thought that very high unemployment levels would have prevented this sort of thing. One of those alleged structural deficiencies?
Spain, warns the Guardian here, is heading for a toxically porcine future. With consequences for the already high consumption of water in a (mainly) hot and dry country. Not to mention the methane. And the nitrates. Still, the price of jamón might fall . . .
A warning about Spanish secret cults.
Impressive local initiatives.

The EU

The Commission is said to be toying with eliminating summer time. Many millions of citizens have commented on this idea.

The USA

Truth is not truth, insists Fart's lawyer, doing an excellent impression of Putin. What would you expect?

Social Media

How did digital technologies go from being instruments for spreading democracy to tools for undermining it? Or, to put it a different way, how did social media go from empowering free speech to becoming a cornerstone of authoritarian power? More here. And here.
If you want proof that social media is a performative space, then ponder this: 9% of UK Instagram users are buying outfits online just to photograph themselves in and then returning them to retailers.

Galicia and Pontevedra

August is not just the month when everywhere you turn there's a fiesta and fireworks; it's also the month when the main concern of the local newspapers is reportage on the bloody fiestas. At least in Pontevedra.
I do a lot of people-watching in summer, sitting outside my favourite water-hole. One of the regular features of the holiday traffic is a couple in their 40s with a bored looking teenage daughter tagging a metre or two behind. But rarely a teenage son. Wonder where they are? At football camp?
Hmm . . Arrests for drug possession in Pontevedra province in 2017 were - at 4,600 - 66% up on 2016.
One of those endless local news items . . . Centenarians here in Galicia currently number around 1,750. Within only 12 years, they're forecast to total 3,500. Double, for the non-numerate.
And another . . Among the 17 Spanish regions, Galicians complain most about electric companies' services.
And another . . . A cyclist is injured every 2 days here in Galicia.

Finally . . .

Do sparrows go north for the summer? Or south for the winter? I ask because the 30-40 who nest in my roof seem to have disappeared, leaving all the seed for the – increasingly chubby – collared doves and wood pigeons:-

Thoughts from Galicia, Spain