Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain- HT to Lenox of Business Over Tapas for this nugget: El País reveals a surprising genetic study: ‘After 8 centuries of Muslim domination that began and ended in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, one would expect that the genes of Arab and North African origin would have left their mark on the current inhabitants of the south much more than those of the north. However, recent research from the University of Granada has not found the slightest evidence of it. The current Andalusians are so similar to the rest of the Spaniards, and in fact to the rest of Europeans, that a Martian geneticist who knew nothing of history would be unaware of the Arab occupation of the peninsula. My guess is that some folk will find this conclusion controversial.
- Galicia is reported to have 2,000 'a-legal' cemeteries. I wonder what on earth that means. Probably nothing to the occupants, who are no longer on earth but in heaven or hell. Maybe. Meanwhile, only a few of the cemeteries have been 'regularised' under a law of 2014.
- Back in 2010, as a result of the ludicrous construction boom between 2002 and 2008, Galicia had more than 39,000 unsold new houses. This total is now a mere 22,000, after a fall of only 6% in 2018. Around 20 of these are in a row right behind my house. Deteriorating rapidly. I wonder if they'll ever be sold. Meanwhile, they're almost certainly on some bank's books, at a grossly inflated market value.
- Shoppers' Note: Be careful at the summer sales.
- Liturgical note: Sunday's procession was, in fact, in honour of the feast of Corpus Christi, not of the feast day of San Juan. The former falls 60 days after Easter (or on the Sunday thereafter) and so is moveable. This year it coincided, on the 23 June, with the feast day of St John, 24 June. Hence my confusion.
- Along with numerous articles on Boris Johnson, I've just read an updated biography of the man. To say the least, he's hard to characterise/summarise, being a mix of people as diverse as Churchill and Trump. And both brilliant and stupid. And both principled and unprincipled. As of now, I find it impossible to say whether he could deliver any sort of Brexit other than the hard Brexit which is the default option in the absence of an agreement with the EU.
- On this, Richard North writes today that Johnson's 'fruit salad of verbiage' delivered in a recent BBC interview contains a proposal which has nil chance of flying. I guess one day we'll know if this is true or not. At the moment, though, the probability is of yet another extension of the UK's departure in October, in the teeth of fierce resistance from M Macron and other EU leaders.
- For those really interested, there's a couple of perceptive articles on 'BoJo' here (from The New Statesman) and here (from The New Yorker). Both US journals, of course.
- The institution is currently concerned with little but the horse-trading taking place in respect of the successors to various big-wigs. Needless to say, there seems to be some skullduggery taking place. The sort of thing that allowed the hapless Luxemburger, Jean Claude Juncker, to come through as the about-to-depart President of the EU Commission. Mrs Merkel might or might not get her choice for this post. If not, I think we can sure that the head of the European Bank, the ECB, will be German. Possibly the more powerful job.
- Shyster Jim Bakker: If Donald Trump doesn’t win in 2020, Christians will suddenly die.
The USA
- Here's how the country's appalling evangelicals will try to prevent this happening.
- Word of the Day: Gente
- As you'll surely know, paracetamol is an analgesic. In the UK, it's sold in supermarkets but only in limited quantities of a small tablet size of 500mg. Here in Spain, it's only available in pharmacies and yesterday I was offered 500, 650 or 1,000mg tablets. I opted for the last of these - in a box of 40 - and wasn't too surprised to see the legend on the box that it should only have been available on prescription . . .
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