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.
England
- I've been searching in charity shops for copies of John Le Carré novels. This is a commission from a strange Dutch friend back in Galicia who prefers to read them in English. That's not why he's strange, by the way, but – anyway - my purpose here is to note that all English books have their titles running in the same way, from top to bottom. You do have to incline your head when running along a shelf and this is a bit of a nuisance. But it's nothing compared with the same task in Spain, where there's no standardisation. So, you can imagine what a real pain in the neck such an exercise is there.
- There's an endless supply of charity shops in England, of course. One sometimes has the impression hollowed-out High Streets have been entirely given over to them.
- By the way . . . Le Carré's novels are invariably to be found under C. I eventually discovered. Maybe his forename really is John Le . . .
Spain
- A warning to ignorant – not to say stupid – drivers on Spanish roads this Xmas. Well, any Xmas, in fact.
- And one for all drivers.
- The Independent yesterday labelled Ciudadanos a 'far right party'. One wonders what term they's come up for these resurrected Francoists.
The UK and Brexit
- Richard North here asks – after yesterday's bizarre events – who is going to blink first. The bed-blocking, intellectually inflexible Mrs May or the buffoonish, discourteous, cretinous MPs who harangued her in the kindergarten of Parliament yesterday. His final comments: Whether Mrs May's deal survives, nobody can even guess. But if it's her deal or no deal, she still has the whip hand. Apart from the brain-dead "ultras" and the increasingly pathetic Ukip rump, the message that a "no deal" Brexit is bad news has generally sunk in. And the person standing between a deal and disaster is Mrs May. I just wonder how many loud-mouthed MPs are going to take it to the wire and beyond, when the reward for caving in is the status quo, i.e. the interim period, for a couple of years, compared with the certain disaster of a "no deal" Brexit.
- Meanwhile, yet another vast non-surprise from across the Channel: The EU rebuffs Mrs May's plea for help. Why on earth would they go along with it? Everything is going swimmingly for them. They are technocratic civil servants with huge power and no electorate to answer to. As they always have been. And they've had lots or practice in thwarting the popular will - France, Ireland, the Netherlands and, most obviously, Greece. Oh, and Italy right now. They have, it's said, a higher purpose. As demonstrated by the introduction of the euro and all the economic consequences such a blatantly political initiative was bound to bring in its wake. Happily for Germany, as it turned out. As some said it would.
- Anyway, an apt cartoon from the Times:-
- Word of the day: Villancicos
Finally . . .
- I snapped Boris Johnson hiding from the consequences of his recklessly vainglorious contribution to Brexit opposite Sainsbury's supermarket in Headingley this morning:-
© [David] Colin Davies
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