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
- President Sánchez has gone on the attack over his Masters, publishing his thesis and threatening to sue anyone who accuses him of plagiarism. Still a way to run.
- More generally, one commentator has talked of the masteritis that inflicts the upper echelons of the political class here. And the previously ignored ability to buy these in a country of 'low ethics'. It seems those days are over and the Spanish public has now become sensitised by the media to the widespread fakery. See the Guardian on this here.
- I've talked of how things - in this de facto federal state - are delegated to Spain's 17 regional governments and then, perhaps, to the even more numerous provincial governments. But I hadn't been aware that each of them sets its own university entrance exam - the selectividad. You can imagine what difficulties this causes, if you want to work outside your region. Especially if the latter has forced you to dedicate very many of your study hours to learning a local language which you're very unlikely to use if you work elsewhere. Some university big cheeses are now calling for a single, state-wide exam. Can't see that happening.
- Still on education . . . It seems you're very much spoilt for choice, if you want to take a university course. There are 3,000 of these on offer.
- And talking of anniveraries . . . Unless you live in a cave, you'll be aware it's 10 years since Lehman Brothers collapsed and the global financial crisis began. Here's El País on how well prepared Spain is for the next one coming along the track. Not terribly well, it seems.
Matters Galician and Pontevedran
- So, why I am posting these 2 fotos? . . .
- Well, because they've just appeared at the start of a 400m stretch I drive through on the way to the place where I park before walking into town twice a day. There are no houses on this stretch, in comparison to the road I drive along before I reach it which has lots of houses and a 50kph limit. The only logical explanation I can think of is that ALL roads within the Urban Zone of Pontevedra city now have a 30kph(19mph) limit, regardless of the sense this makes.
- It's yet another pinprick and it got me wondering just how Spain has changed - for the better as well as the worse - over the 18 years here I'll be celebrating next month. So, I'm working on a list. Or 2 lists, really. Suggestions are welcome. I say this despite the fact that, in 18 years, not a single reader has ever repsonded to similar appeals. So, I won't be disappointed if this happens again.
- Finally - and more positively - here's a nice melody from Julio Iglesias, with an accompanying lovely video on Galicia. JI comes here annually for some seafood. We're quite close . . . :-
Postscript: The 2 new signs have actually appeared where I sometimes park my car, take out my bike and cycle into town. Maybe I'll do that every day now, rather than crawl along the 400m stretch in fear that yet another radar trap has been installed,
Postscript 2: If you're daft enough to make the trip to Finisterra after Santiago de Compostela, the small lighthouse in the video is all you'll see. Apart from the sea and the horizon, of course. Not the big lighthouse; that's in La Coruña.
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