Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain- Here's someone's list of how Spain is superior to the USA. I'm happy to publish a list of the reverse situation.
- Another sign that Spain is a progressive society. I'm hoping it arrives in time for me.
- Tourism in Spain must move from low to high quality, they say. Or some of them, at least.
- A couple of arresting arrests:-
2. An 88 year old Galician has been done for driving at 156kph on an autovia. As he was already restricted in various ways after several offences, the question arises of why he's allowed to go anywhere near a road. Maybe a friend of the local mayor. Or police chief.
- Something even more arresting:- The ex-mistress of the former King of Spain could be questioned by the Serious Fraud Office over her claims that he demanded a commission for helping to secure a €6.7bn rail deal for Spanish companies in Saudi Arabia. Prosecutors in Madrid sent a request to the British authorities to interview Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, who claimed that Juan Carlos asked for a share of a secret €80m payment by Spanish businesses to win the deal to build a high-speed rail line in 2011.
- Meanwhile, the ex king has just won a sailing race in the Ria de Pontevedra.
- Seriously bad news for me . . . Yesterday's report on the modernisation of O Burgo bridge in Pontevedra said it won't re-open until October at the earliest. We all know what these dread words mean.
- Meanwhile, shopkeepers on the normal Camino route - Rúa Real - are complaining of the loss of business as pilgrims have realised they're better off going directly down to Santiago bridge, not down to O Burgo bridge and then traipsing left or right to go over one of the alternatives.
- There's a castle - La Mota - near Medina del Campo that I pass each time I drive to and from Madrid. I've even visited it. But I don't recall hearing that the infamous Cesare Borgia was imprisoned there in 1507, but escaped with the connivance of the local bigwig charged with his detention.
- I'm not sure I believe this but I've just seen an ad on British TV for Christmas trees - in mid bloody July. Possibly an ironic event.
- Electric scooters are a deadly menace in Washington DC. We must never allow them on London's streets. See the first article below.
- Oh, look. I have my own fascist salute . . .
I'm reminded of Roderick Spode:-
Wouldn't Fart be perfect for the role of Spode in a new film of his life?
- On a wider US front, here's a couple of extracts from an article by the ex-editor of the Wall Street Journal:- There’s a lot to unravel about the Epstein file. We will see soon enough whether the charges of sex trafficking of minors and other ghastly crimes pressed against him this month by prosecutors pan out. But the central puzzle is this: how did a man with a notoriously well-known taste for young girls, a man who had pleaded guilty — in a knocked-down bargain from much more serious charges — to solicitation of under-age girls for prostitution more than a decade ago, spend much of the past ten years enjoying what might be termed the normal life of an American plutocrat and the company of some of the world’s most powerful people? . . . The most disturbing speculation is that he built a vast network of men — and a few women — in powerful positions who shared his alleged predilection for sex with under-age girls, and that we are about to witness the exposure of a sordid scandal that will lay bare the rotten core of American high life. Hmm. See the full article below.
- Just for reader Perry: This is the side view of one of the 2 houses on the Lerez side of O Burgo bridge. Which I think would make a perfect pilgrims' albergue:-
THE ARTICLES
1. Electric scooters are a deadly menace in Washington DC – we must never allow them on London's streets: Samantha Herbert, the Daily Telegraph.
I have lived among them. I have watched them take over a city. And now back in London, having just returned from my stint in Washington DC, I beg the powers that be: do not let electric scooters invade our cities.
I was one of the millions living in north America who awoke one morning to find curious rows of shiny new rental scooters had mysteriously appeared on the corner of every street.
While initially intriguing – cheap, fast, a fun way to dash to the shops perhaps – within days it was clear these contraptions were a plague upon the city. And worse still, they were multiplying.
Lacking a seat and therefore not qualifying as proper motor vehicles, these electric scooters were not legislated for or against under any US national law, leaving it to individual city authorities to decide what to do when overnight a cocky startup dumped a fleet of scooters on its streets.
A law unto themselves, riders of the new toys, which can reach speeds of 15mph, aren’t required to wear helmets, carry insurance, or have a valid driving licence. So no safety, no responsibility, and often no road sense.
Cycling to work, commuters riding the rentals fast filled the bike lanes, whizzing past with zero warning, little understanding of the roads and often no regard for traffic lights or unsuspecting crossing pedestrians.
After several near-misses swerving to avoid unexpected scooters zooming towards me, or being knocked off balance by them weaving erratically between bike riders, the swarms of electric scooters filling the roads like locusts had made an enemy of me.
And that was just on my bike. I can only imagine (and draw from the innumerable looks of shock, horror, and rage seen on faces after accidents or very close calls) the frustration of the city’s drivers at these pests darting from every angle.
Accurate data on injuries and fatalities linked to electric scooters is hard to come by because the industry is so new, but counting media reports from the Associated Press, there have been at least 11 deaths in the US since the beginning of 2018. It is rare to see riders wear helmets or protective equipment of any sort.
With an estimated 38.5 million trips taken on rentable scooters in that same year, the already worrying figure pales in comparison to the number of serious injuries.
In Austin, Texas, public health officials counted 192 scooter-related injuries in just three months last year, nearly half of which were head injuries, including 15% that were traumatic brain injuries like concussions and bleeding of the brain. Less than 1% of the injured riders wore a helmet.
Of course these figures also do not take into account injuries to others – to drivers, cyclists and pedestrians – who although in theory are protected by the prohibition of scooters in pedestrian areas, are no longer safe on the sidewalk.
In DC alone half a dozen scooter companies now operate, each allowed to distribute up to 600 electric scooters per permit, meaning thousands can run in the US capital, which is just over a tenth of the size of London.
With its giant roads, and sidewalks that stretch beyond the widths of most rural British carriageways, the chaos I have witnessed in DC would be nothing compared to the havoc these things would wreak on the old Victorian lanes of Britain’s cities.
Popular with tourists who deem old-fashioned walking too slow a method by which to enjoy the historic sites, scooters now flood many of DC’s most prized monuments.
With one of the supposed perks of them being the fact that one can simply abandon the scooter whenever you are bored with it, in practice that means they are dumped anywhere and everywhere.
Piled on sidewalks, kicked over by the haters, scooters fast become a hazard and major blocker of walkways for pedestrians, pushchairs and the disabled, as well as becoming a ghastly eyesore surrounding so many of DC’s important and otherwise beautiful landmarks.
So far Britain has been saved from this plague by its strict road regulations, but dozens of international tech companies are batting on the door, desperate to get in to this prime new market.
Already causing mayhem, deaths and serious injuries across Europe now too, if the government allows, soon London will undoubtedly fall first victim to this dangerous new trend.
Trafalgar Square will be a sea of buzzing two-wheeled bumper cars. A walk along the South Bank will soon require a safety warning. Our glorious parks will see piles of the abandoned grown-up toys blocking paths and ruining dearly held iconic views around monuments.
There will be deaths. There will be horrific injuries. There will be untold hours of frustration, fear and annoyance for every other user of our roads and public walkways.
Having escaped the infestation in the US, I for one hope Britain becomes the one country to buck this worrying trend.
Otherwise I live in dread of the morning I wake up here to find – like an unwelcome sack of coal from Father Christmas – that overnight the start-ups have won, and the electric scooters have arrived.
2. Parties with the famous kept Epstein afloat: Gerard Baker, the Times.
Despite a conviction for soliciting under-age girls, the financier created a pyramid scheme of social activity in New York
I met Jeffrey Epstein once. It was at a screening a few years ago of a new film in a cosy little theatre in some plush Manhattan hotel. It was an instructive encounter in many ways. I was with my late-teenage daughter and he was seated directly in front of us with a female companion who looked roughly the same age as my daughter.
Not knowing much about his history I assumed rather naively that perhaps he too, aged sixtysomething, was doting fondly on a young relative. It was my daughter who disabused me after the screening, saying that the couple had been interacting throughout the show in ways that, shall we say, would not normally be considered filial.
Perhaps more interesting than his choice of companion, though, was his evident intensity of purpose. He was eager to ingratiate himself, and it must be said, was charming and easy company. We were introduced after the screening by one of the grandes dames of New York society, Peggy Siegal. In her impressively imperious way she told us we were both people who simply must get acquainted. I was the editor of America’s largest-circulation newspaper. Jeffrey was “absolutely brilliant”, a financier who’d made a fortune doing something nobody could quite figure out, but whatever it was he’d done it well enough to own a mansion on the Upper East Side, an island in the Caribbean and several other homes.
Mr Epstein was unfailingly solicitous. The next day he invited me to lunch. I declined because by then I had learnt a little more about him, and though my social radar is not always as sharp as it should be, I was dimly aware that this might not be the kind of company the editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal should keep. (The only similar intimation I’d ever had was the evening I was introduced in a downtown restaurant to Jenna Jameson, author of How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, but that’s a story for another time.)
Undeterred, his office kept sending me invitations. I declined them all, including the last, to an intimate dinner with Mr Epstein, Woody Allen and his wife — and adopted daughter of his ex-wife — Soon-Yi Previn. You could not make this up.
I recount all this not to tell you of the desirable figure I cut in New York, though I won’t be upset should you get that impression. I do it to illustrate a point about the complexity and range of Mr Epstein’s social interactions and what they tell us about New York high society.
There’s a lot to unravel about the Epstein file. We will see soon enough whether the charges of sex trafficking of minors and other ghastly crimes pressed against him this month by prosecutors pan out. But the central puzzle is this: how did a man with a notoriously well-known taste for young girls, a man who had pleaded guilty — in a knocked-down bargain from much more serious charges — to solicitation of under-age girls for prostitution more than a decade ago, spend much of the past ten years enjoying what might be termed the normal life of an American plutocrat and the company of some of the world’s most powerful people?
There are some lurid putative explanations. Perhaps he was an agent of US intelligence? Perhaps he was using his mysterious wealth to pay off powerful people in the judiciary and politics?
The most disturbing speculation is that he built a vast network of men — and a few women — in powerful positions who shared his alleged predilection for sex with under-age girls, and that we are about to witness the exposure of a sordid scandal that will lay bare the rotten core of American high life.
Perhaps. But I think part of the answer can be found in that movie screening. Mr Epstein worked assiduously after his risibly brief stint in a more or less open jail in Florida to reintegrate himself into New York society. It is assumed that anyone who took the bait had some nefarious intent or shared his depraved tastes. But the truth is more complex. Mr Epstein diligently deployed his tools of money, charm, intelligence and friends to build a very valuable social network.
Quite a few people advance in New York society by creating a kind of pyramid scheme of social activity. If you can persuade one A-lister to come to a dinner party you can steadily build that into a glittering community. I’m sure Mr Epstein wasn’t the first to deploy that old trick of telling Celebrity X that Celebrity Y had agreed to come to dinner. And then extending for the first time an invitation to Celebrity Y with the enticement that Celebrity X would be there.
For Mr Epstein it was essential that he rehabilitate himself, and in New York there is no cleaner bill of social health than being friends with all the important people in this furiously ambitious city. Many successful New Yorkers with drive — Wall Street chiefs, media figures, entertainment moguls, top-flight lawyers, professional socialites — are all so eager to advance their own careers, interests, fortunes, that they’ll scramble over a mountain of ordure to get ahead, holding their noses as they slip and slide through the muck in the hope that the next connection will unlock the door to more money, more fame, more esteem.
A prominent New York writer urged me, not long before the latest arrest, to swallow my doubts about Mr Epstein and get to know him, because he had a fascinating social network and — he was emphatic on this point — because he was a really decent guy. As I suspected at the time, he was half-right.
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