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.
Travel Trivia
- I drove from Cologne to Hamburg yesterday, where I'll be staying with an old (Anglo-German) friend for the next few weeks. Here's some observations on the 5 hour drive on the A1 autobahn that might just interest 1 or 2 readers:-
- Lots of roadworks
- So, many slowdowns and jams.
- The number of lanes on the A1 varies from 2 to 4.
- There was a huge number of trucks and tankers. When they line up at an exit, the stationary queue stretches for kilometres.
- The absence of a speed limit operates only between 8pm and 6am. During the day, it ranges from 80 to 130, with many changes. Through the roadworks, it can fall to 60 or even 40.
- Quite a lot of drivers seem not to know/care about the rules and pass you at speeds of up to 180kph.
- So many (black) estate cars passed me this fast that I wondered if I was back in Portugal. Does Germany also give a tax break for these cars?
- There was no sign of a petrol station for at least 100km north of Cologne. After that, they were available pretty regularly. But very expensive, of course.
- There were no warnings – Spanish style – of radar cameras. But I'm assured they are there.
- As when I drove to Cologne from France, I saw very few instances of stupid driving yesterday. There was very little tailgating and nothing by way of light-flashing or (Spanish style) permanently indicating to demand that you get out of the way. This probably reflects the fact that lane discipline is very good and overtakers quickly return to their previous lane.
- I wasn't surprised to read just now that the annual road mortality rate per 100,000 people is lower in Germany than in Portugal and France but was surprised to see it's higher than in the UK. Spain's rate, by the way, is far lower than it was 10-15 years ago. A very impressive reduction.
USA 10.6
Portugal 7.8
Italy 6.1
Austria 5.4
France 5.1
Japan 4.7
Germany 4.3
Spain 3.7
Denmark 3.5
UK 2.9
Sweden 2.8
Switzerland 2.6
Norway 2.2
The worst rate is Thailand's, at 36.2. The lowest is Monaco's, at 0.0, followed by Micronesia, at 1.9.
Matters Hamburg
- Driving through the centre last evening reminded me of what a pretty city this is. Like all the German cities I've visited so far, it majors on trees.
- But it's bloody cold, which comes as a shock after an autumn of above-normal temperatures in Spain, Portugal, France and even Germany(Cologne). Arriving here, I was forced to don a pullover and dump my summer trousers in favour of jeans.
- My friend here has corrected by English translation of untergang. It means, he says, 'downfall' and such like. Not 'death'. But I maintain that, even so, you're not likely to see it at the top of a staircase . . .
Matters Spanish
- It's getting a lot colder there too. Not so much a belated autumn as an early winter in some parts.
- The Supreme Court is going to look (yet) again at the issue of who pays the stamp duty on mortgage deeds. Clarity might yet emerge.
Matters UK
- Mrs May:-
- Yesterday in parliament she launched 4 steps which can do nothing more but bring us closer to a "no deal" scenario.
- They say the era of robots is coming, but it has already arrived. It's not just "Theresa Maybot", who has the communicating prowess of a Powerpoint presentation with glitchy slides, and the strategic talent of a computer chess game in beginners’ mode. It's also the increasingly dystopian state she presides over: a combination of creative famine and department cuts is imprisoning us in a world of pointless targets and meaningless numbers.
- Below is a perspicacious article on the lady from a disappointed Brexit supporter who - like Richard North, me and many others - supported what's now known as the Norway/EEA option.
It's hard to believe she has long to go.
Spanish
- Word of the Day: Puente.
© [David] Colin Davies: 23.10.18
THE ARTICLE
This is Theresa May's Brexit – and she's squeezed all the vision out of it: Tim Stanley; The Daily Telegraph.
Never forget: we are living through Theresa May’s Brexit. She defined what the referendum was about, she set the red lines, she decided what kind of deal Britain should pursue. So when she told the House on Monday that she’s within 5% of doing a deal, beware. It’s not what the country needs, it’s what she thinks she can get – and what we’ll end up with is a Brexit shaped by both this woman’s remarkable strength of will and her catastrophic lack of political vision.
Don’t let her tell you there was no alternative. My preference [as per Richard North's Flexit] was for the Norway option: tell the EU we’re leaving, apply to join the European Economic Area, buy Britain time to negotiate a free trade deal in the future. Alternatively, we could have offered the EU a free trade deal asap – take it or leave it – and while they thought it over, prepare for a no-deal by putting in place the necessary infrastructure and lining up some juicy tax breaks. The money we’d save on the divorce bill – £39 billion – could help launch a lot of new businesses back home.
These models assumed that it was best to avoid lengthy negotiations with Brussels (ie let the EU set the terms of engagement) as that would mean Britain getting right royally screwed over - because the EU is clever and it doesn’t want Brexit to succeed. Instead, lo and behold, Britain did sit down with the EU, did run with a complicated European game plan and it did get screwed
The fault for this lies directly with the Prime Minister. As a Remainer, she just didn’t get it: Mrs May assumed that Brexit was about immigration, so she put controlling free movement at the heart of her agenda and failed to seize the moral high ground by guaranteeing citizenship rights straight away. But more important are the deficiencies that come with being the supreme technocrat. She sees life as a series of challenges to be overcome in order and by careful steps. Mrs May followed the EU’s route to Brexit, which seemed reasonable enough: first we talk money, then citizenship, then Northern Ireland, then trade. But the EU set a trap – the Irish border – and Mrs May walked straight into it when, last December, she signed up to a customs union backstop option for Northern Ireland. This was not only unnecessary but, if she’d understood the referendum, she’d have known instinctively that it was counter to the spirit of Brexit. Brexit is about sovereignty and self-government; there’s nothing less sovereign than letting the EU split up the UK.
Even this need not have been a killer moment if Mrs May had reigned in her bureaucratic desire for control. The Cabinet was not consulted on her chosen solution; her Chequers template deal was presented to them as inevitable, with the warning that if they rejected it, they’d not only be sacked but lose their ministerial cars and have to walk home
When Mrs May says that she’s delivering what the people want – as she reiterated in the House – then by any standard of our democratic tradition she is lying. No one voted for Chequers; no one voted for either an all-UK indefinite backstop customs union (as “indefinite” is what all backstops by definition are) or for an extended transition period. No one voted for the UK to leave only to continue to abide by rules over which Britain would cease to have any influence
Of course, compromise to get what you want in the end can be fine: never let the perfect be the enemy of the good. There is, for example, nothing inherently wrong with a few extra months of transition – if you can tell the public what they are buying time for and what we’ll get at the end. The greatest tragedy of Mrs May’s leadership is that she has squeezed the vision out of Brexit
During the referendum it was my side – the Leavers –who were starry eyed and idealistic. They won not on detail (the experts had a monopoly on that, and 52 per cent of us ignored what they said) but on the simple premise of national self-determination. A vote for Brexit was a vote of confidence in your country. Remain, by contrast, was the party of pragmatism, no less patriotic, just realistic. “We don’t love the EU,” they said, “no one does! But, on balance, we’re better off in than out.
Now the roles are reversed. Watching the People’s Vote march for a second referendum at the weekend was eye-opening: why didn’t these people tell us they loved the EU so much two years ago? Today they drape themselves in the EU flag; they talk of human rights and solidarity. They have become the ideologues at the same time that, thanks to Mrs May, Leavers have been sunk into a sea of practical detail that it requires a PhD in constitutional law to understand
In Mrs May’s hands, Brexit has become boring – and the odd thing is that this has done nothing to reassure those who still worry it could be apocalyptic. Rather than her leadership generating a sense of calm, it has spread panic, because she never tells us where everything will end up. What will Brexit Britain look like? Low tax? Fewer regulations? Free trade? Who knows! It ought to come with a day of celebration: a pop concert and commemorative mugs. Instead it looms in the calendar like a dentist appointment, and the best Mrs May can offer is a Festival of Britain, which, knowing her, will focus on modern-day slavery and the gender pay gap
Beyond that, we are assured that Brexit might not be all that bad, although – and she’s absolutely clear about this – it is tricky. Thank goodness she wasn’t behind the Apollo moon mission. “I’m not sure we should be going or how we’ll get there, but the good news is the rocket is 95 per cent completed.” That’s one spaceship I would not get in to
The remaining argument in her defence is perhaps she is a bad pilot but she is the only one we’ve got, and you’ve got to admire her for trying. For thinking this, we are being far too British. Too nice. Too chivalrous. It’s a damning indictment of her colleagues for not having the courage to dump her – and of Mrs May, too, for not grasping her own limitations. Prime Ministers set the tone, even if they can’t lead, and her style has convinced too many people that there are indeed no other alternatives to this tortured process, and so we must endure it. That is not so. Brexit can be beautiful, but we need a Prime Minister who, when they close their eyes, can see it for the opportunity it might yet be.
Never forget: we are living through Theresa May’s Brexit. She defined what the referendum was about, she set the red lines, she decided what kind of deal Britain should pursue. So when she told the House on Monday that she’s within 5% of doing a deal, beware. It’s not what the country needs, it’s what she thinks she can get – and what we’ll end up with is a Brexit shaped by both this woman’s remarkable strength of will and her catastrophic lack of political vision.
Don’t let her tell you there was no alternative. My preference [as per Richard North's Flexit] was for the Norway option: tell the EU we’re leaving, apply to join the European Economic Area, buy Britain time to negotiate a free trade deal in the future. Alternatively, we could have offered the EU a free trade deal asap – take it or leave it – and while they thought it over, prepare for a no-deal by putting in place the necessary infrastructure and lining up some juicy tax breaks. The money we’d save on the divorce bill – £39 billion – could help launch a lot of new businesses back home.
These models assumed that it was best to avoid lengthy negotiations with Brussels (ie let the EU set the terms of engagement) as that would mean Britain getting right royally screwed over - because the EU is clever and it doesn’t want Brexit to succeed. Instead, lo and behold, Britain did sit down with the EU, did run with a complicated European game plan and it did get screwed
The fault for this lies directly with the Prime Minister. As a Remainer, she just didn’t get it: Mrs May assumed that Brexit was about immigration, so she put controlling free movement at the heart of her agenda and failed to seize the moral high ground by guaranteeing citizenship rights straight away. But more important are the deficiencies that come with being the supreme technocrat. She sees life as a series of challenges to be overcome in order and by careful steps. Mrs May followed the EU’s route to Brexit, which seemed reasonable enough: first we talk money, then citizenship, then Northern Ireland, then trade. But the EU set a trap – the Irish border – and Mrs May walked straight into it when, last December, she signed up to a customs union backstop option for Northern Ireland. This was not only unnecessary but, if she’d understood the referendum, she’d have known instinctively that it was counter to the spirit of Brexit. Brexit is about sovereignty and self-government; there’s nothing less sovereign than letting the EU split up the UK.
Even this need not have been a killer moment if Mrs May had reigned in her bureaucratic desire for control. The Cabinet was not consulted on her chosen solution; her Chequers template deal was presented to them as inevitable, with the warning that if they rejected it, they’d not only be sacked but lose their ministerial cars and have to walk home
When Mrs May says that she’s delivering what the people want – as she reiterated in the House – then by any standard of our democratic tradition she is lying. No one voted for Chequers; no one voted for either an all-UK indefinite backstop customs union (as “indefinite” is what all backstops by definition are) or for an extended transition period. No one voted for the UK to leave only to continue to abide by rules over which Britain would cease to have any influence
Of course, compromise to get what you want in the end can be fine: never let the perfect be the enemy of the good. There is, for example, nothing inherently wrong with a few extra months of transition – if you can tell the public what they are buying time for and what we’ll get at the end. The greatest tragedy of Mrs May’s leadership is that she has squeezed the vision out of Brexit
During the referendum it was my side – the Leavers –who were starry eyed and idealistic. They won not on detail (the experts had a monopoly on that, and 52 per cent of us ignored what they said) but on the simple premise of national self-determination. A vote for Brexit was a vote of confidence in your country. Remain, by contrast, was the party of pragmatism, no less patriotic, just realistic. “We don’t love the EU,” they said, “no one does! But, on balance, we’re better off in than out.
Now the roles are reversed. Watching the People’s Vote march for a second referendum at the weekend was eye-opening: why didn’t these people tell us they loved the EU so much two years ago? Today they drape themselves in the EU flag; they talk of human rights and solidarity. They have become the ideologues at the same time that, thanks to Mrs May, Leavers have been sunk into a sea of practical detail that it requires a PhD in constitutional law to understand
In Mrs May’s hands, Brexit has become boring – and the odd thing is that this has done nothing to reassure those who still worry it could be apocalyptic. Rather than her leadership generating a sense of calm, it has spread panic, because she never tells us where everything will end up. What will Brexit Britain look like? Low tax? Fewer regulations? Free trade? Who knows! It ought to come with a day of celebration: a pop concert and commemorative mugs. Instead it looms in the calendar like a dentist appointment, and the best Mrs May can offer is a Festival of Britain, which, knowing her, will focus on modern-day slavery and the gender pay gap
Beyond that, we are assured that Brexit might not be all that bad, although – and she’s absolutely clear about this – it is tricky. Thank goodness she wasn’t behind the Apollo moon mission. “I’m not sure we should be going or how we’ll get there, but the good news is the rocket is 95 per cent completed.” That’s one spaceship I would not get in to
The remaining argument in her defence is perhaps she is a bad pilot but she is the only one we’ve got, and you’ve got to admire her for trying. For thinking this, we are being far too British. Too nice. Too chivalrous. It’s a damning indictment of her colleagues for not having the courage to dump her – and of Mrs May, too, for not grasping her own limitations. Prime Ministers set the tone, even if they can’t lead, and her style has convinced too many people that there are indeed no other alternatives to this tortured process, and so we must endure it. That is not so. Brexit can be beautiful, but we need a Prime Minister who, when they close their eyes, can see it for the opportunity it might yet be.
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