Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain- I think we can agree that there's a degree of irony involved in this report.
- How on earth can it happen that a Manchester woman ended up stranded in Ibiza after getting drunk at a christening and boarding a plane with nothing but her debit card and a mobile phone? Not the inebriation, of course, but the flying without any form of identification.
- In 1800, the inhabitants of Ferrol here in Galicia repulsed an attack from the dastardly British, a success which they naturally celebrate each year in August. A very convenient date for partying, of course.
- Well, that didn't take long. A day after me predicting something would eventually be done about the gypsies illegally taking over most of the trading on Pontevedra's Sunday flea-market, the local press reported that the authorities had decided to close it down again. The reason given is that its current location is incompatible with the new GastroEspacio (Food-hall) on the first floor of the permanent market in the same street. Which I find disingenuous; surely a legal, well-managed flea-market would bring potential customers for the food-hall. I'm guessing it will eventually be re-established in another street - or perhaps back in Vegetables Square - and the whole cycle will begin again. IGIMSTS.
- Meanwhile . . . I was confused to see this knapsack alongside one of our large rubbish bins, until I realised there was a guy sitting inside the latter going through the garbage. Which smacked of desperation but did explain the cardboard box propping up the lid:-
- As I've noted, the annual total of 'pilgrims' on the Camino Portugués passing through Pontevedra has risen in 10 years from 5,000 to 90,000 this year and is expected to reach120,000 in the 2021 Holy Year. There are concerns that it's getting as saturated as the Camino Francés but the Galician Xunta says that new variants will relieve the pressure. Such as one I'd never heard of - the Camino de la Geira o de los Arrieiros, which starts in Braga, down in Portugal, and bypasses Pontevedra on a more internal route. So, we can now say with conviction that the total number of caminos has passed 40. All of them 'authentic' long-standing pilgrim routes, of course. Nowt to do with money.
- Citing the year 2021 reminds me that - to no one's surprise - we might not get the AVE high-speed train by the (latest) forecast year of 2020. This is because trials on the new rails are not taking place because the special train - nicknamed The Heineken because of its colouring - is not available for some reason or other.
The USA/Nutters Corner
- Ffart is reported to have asked whether it would be possible to explode a nuclear bomb in the epicentre of a hurricane off the coast of Africa, so as to prevent it reaching the USA. The answer is said to have been: "We'll look into that, Sir". ´Which I suspect happens quite a lot.
Spanish
- Word of the Day: Manguera.
Finally. . . .
- I won't bore you with the details but Sunday saw an astonishing feat by a chap called Ben Stokes in a cricket match between England and its traditional greatest rival, Australia. There's a report below and I suspect/hope it will impress even those who have no idea how a 5 day cricket match is played. Or, indeed, makes any sense at all. As it addresses sporting genius and its impact on us.
THE ARTICLE
Ben Stokes: True greats shape world around them, Matt Dickinson, Chief Sports Writer, the Times
The very best of sporting days — and who will dispute that yesterday at Headingley is right up there with the most astonishing of them? — are not just mesmerising for the thrills and the unscripted drama but for the confirmation of athletic genius.
Think Diego Maradona in 1986 proving, beyond all argument, that he was one of the finest footballers who ever lived; Usain Bolt running 9.69 seconds not just in any race but the 100m Olympic final in 2008; Jonny Wilkinson striking that drop goal in 2003 to win a rugby World Cup final almost as though he were waiting for the ideal moment to demonstrate that he was built of different stuff from you, me and, well, most humans.
It felt like that with Ben Stokes yesterday: a sense that perhaps only he, of everyone on the planet, was capable of that innings, those shots, that audaciousness. It was as if that place, that time, and that seemingly impossible challenge called for one man.
Some feat when you think about it that, of more than seven billion people, it felt as if only one ginger-haired left-hander from Cockermouth could muster all the truly extraordinary mental and physical abilities, not only to save a Test match, and an Ashes series, but to make us wonder if, among us, there are very rare folk who have a superpower.
Stokes’s hitting was almost incomprehensible to 99.9999999% of us who would not even see a ball from Josh Hazlewood as it whizzed past our ears, never mind repeatedly smack it deep over the boundary ropes like a competitive dad teaching his ten-year-old a lesson in the park.
What is sporting genius (and the term is used unapologetically)? The ability to dribble like Messi or hit a forehand like Federer or drill a five-iron to six inches like Woods is just one astonishing facet.
The greats shape the world around them. They make even top-class foes like Australia look amateur. They seize the stage and make it their own. They don’t just deliver the best lines — they write them.
To those of us of a certain age, certain parallels were, of course, unavoidable. Nostalgia consumed us, especially when Sir Ian Botham appeared on Sky Sports moments after Stokes walked off to a standing ovation. Asked by The Times to pick the greatest sporting Briton a few years ago, this writer went with Botham. Others had their Redgrave, Charlton or Faldo but as I wrote at the time, it will always be an exercise that makes demands not of the head but the heart.
To be a young cricket addict watching the 1981 Ashes was to be struck with awe at this swashbuckling idol, smashing Dennis Lillee for sixes (no helmet) and then rampaging in to take wickets even with bad balls. Beefy’s belligerent swagger felt thrillingly un-English. To me, aged 12, he was a superhero.
Perhaps the very best thing about Stokes yesterday was to feel, even in middle-age, that same wonderment — and to see it in the faces of three generations gathered together. The very best of sport, and the very best athletes, draw the world together in communal joy. You look at each other, with crazy grins, and ask “how is that even possible?”
Who expected Stokes to be such a bonding force when he was preparing to go on trial last year, accused of affray, after a street brawl in Bristol. He was found not guilty but, at that point, we all had reason to wonder what we made of him. No doubt he asked himself that question too: “How do you want to be remembered?”
After yesterday, we are a lot closer to the answer.
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