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
- As you'd expect, the 2 parties slugging out for the right-of-centre vote in the face of a resurgent left-of-centre PSOE – PP and Ciudadanos – are seizing the opportunity presented by the increasing numbers of refugees heading for Spain.
- And Brussels is worried about this, says El País here.
Life in Spain
- I didn't know residents of the Balearic Islands were entitled under the law to a discount of 75% of the price of their flights to the mainland. Not that Ryanair are playing ball, it seems. Maybe the government doesn't compensate them.
The USA
- I wonder if Fart knows that Hitler's slogan from 1923 onwards was Make Germany Great Again.
- Which reminds me . . . Sound familiar?:-
- They gave him a rapturous reception. He left the huge hall with storms of applause and wild cheering ringing in his ears.
- That the gamble had been absurd - or that the strategy had been flawed from the outset - never entered his head; nor that his own constant interference had compounded the problems. The crisis had sharpened his sense, never far from the surface, that he had to struggle not just against external enemies, but against those who were inadequate, incapable, or even disloyal, in his own ranks.
The UK
- Ye gods! The cider industry is moving further and further away from the use of apple as its principal ingredient. Sickly-sweet fruit ciders now make up 27% of the market. Herefordshire orchards are threatened because of 'non-cider cider'
- Someone took a video of a boa constrictor eating a pigeon on a London street. We could do with some of these here in Pontevedra city. Snakes, I mean. We already have the bloody pigeons.
Social Media
- The latest revelation about the sins of Facebook is that it's been promoting dangerous homemade cancer “cures” more prominently than information from charities including Cancer Research UK. Bogus cancer cures included apricot kernels, homeopathy, electric shock machines and vegetable smoothies. Can you imagine the reaction to a traditional newspaper or publisher doing that?
- Facebook's new dating app allows users to choose from 5 different genders. Is that really enough these days?
Galicia and Pontevedra
- Here's details of the Spanish drama series - Fariña - about Galician drug-smuggling. The English version on Netflix is called Cocaine Coast, by the way.
- More here on the battle to get the Meiras palace back from the undeserving Franco family. Astonishingly, the latter are suing the Galician government under the 'hate crime' banner. Even more surprising is the claim that the Xunta would be legally obliged to pay the dictator's heirs a monumental sum for maintenance since it was 'gifted' to him 43 years ago.
- Saturday and Sunday evenings saw bullfights in Pontevedra city, accompanied by the usual post-corrida bingeing of drunken, wine-spraying, vomiting, urinating kids aged 14 and upwards. I don't recall this from earlier years but the headline news in one of yesterday's local papers was of complaints from residents, hoteliers and restaurant owners, and demands that – like the weekly botellón we used to have in the old quarter – these annual 'happenings' be moved to the other side of the river. This will probably happen. Eventually. Spanish tolerance is possibly not what it used to be, when it was associated with not being Franco-like autocratic/authoritative. Or, even worse, judgmental.
- Nice bit on our Ribeira Sacra/Ribera Sagrada.
Finally . . .
- My announcement of success is filtering out the Amazon bots from my page views was premature. They are still ahead of the game . . . Bastards.
© David Colin Davies, Pontevedra: 6.8.18
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