Thoughts from Galicia, Spain: 3.8.18

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.

Spain

• The latest opinion poll puts the PSOE party well ahead of both the PP and Ciudadanos in voter affections. My guess is that the split in the Left has been at least temporarily healed.
• Here's The Local being even more serious than usual, on the subject of Franco's remains and what might be done with them.

Life in Spain

• What would we do without The Local's advice on how to prosper here in Spain? Here they are on 1. How to complain about the heat like a true Spaniard; and 2. What to eat and drink to stay cool during the current heatwave.
• By coincidence, I saw this recipe for one of their items – salmorejo - this morning.
• Yesterday, I read an article entitled Why being lazy and procrastinating could make you wildly successful. One of the headings was: Why procrastination works. The author insisted that leaving things to the last minute would force you to focus on the project at hand and make you more efficient. It put me in mind of my daughter in Madrid last week being driven to distraction by the ad agency she works for doing exactly that, despite her efforts to force them to get their act together. I refrained from asking her if she'd felt the process had maximised her efficiency. And I know what answer our Dutch friend, Vincent Warner, would give to that question.
• Talking about Spanish culture . . . I was reading on the terraza of my regular bar last night, when a group of 6 or 7 Spaniards sat at the next table and began to talk, not loudly but – of course – simultaneously. So, I moved to a table further away. As if I were in Britain, I started doing this as discreetly as I could, so as not to draw attention to my action. But then realised:- 1. They'd never notice, and 2. Even if they did, they'd never think I was moving because they were being noisy and disturbing my tranquility. It just wouldn't occur to them.

The USA

• A couple more things about Hitler which put me in mind of someone else:-

- Hitler: "I must in all modesty describe my own person: irreplaceable. No one could replace me. I am convinced of my powers of intellect and of decision making."

- The inexorable disintegration of coherent structures of rule was therefore not only a product of the all-pervasive Führer cult reflecting and embellishing Hitler’s absolute supremacy, but at the same time underpinned the myth of the all-seeing, all-knowing infallible Leader, elevating it to the very principle of government itself. Moreover, Hitler had in the process swallowed the Führer cult himself, hook, line, and sinker. He was the most ardent believer in his own infallibility and destiny. It was not a good premiss for rational decision-making.

The UK and Brexit

• I read an article in the Daily Telegraph yesterday in which the author berated the British government for being incompetent – no argument there – and for not preparing well in advance for the failure to reach a deal with the EU. I wondered what Richard North would think about the article. If you do too, you can find his vicious riposte here. Essentially, North dismisses the writer as ignorant and stupid to the point of insanity.

Galicia and Pontevedra

• Galicia's most sought cocaine narcotraficante is a chap nicknamed Saro, currently thought to be AWOL and running hash between Morocco and the Spain's south coast. He's said to be the owner of a 7-engined, super-fast speedboat capable of 70knots (126kph/78mph). You can see a diagram of it here.
• If you're a pious Catholic who knows about Fátima, you'll be interested to learn that you can visit the room in which Sr Lúcia had further apparitions after she'd moved from Portugal to a convent here in Pontevedra. I'm not sure if praying there would (allegedly) entitle you to reduced time in Purgatory via special indulgences, but I suspect so. Reading this, I've been surprised to see that, while one of her 2 apparitions was of the Virgin Mary, the other was of Jesus, out in the street.

Finally . . .

• Reading (again) about Hitler and thinking about Fart, I was reminded of the old Marx dictum that History repeats itself. First as tragedy and then as farce. I suspect Fart is more of the latter than the former but who knows?

© David Colin Davies, Pontevedra: 3.8.18