Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain: 6.8.19

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable. 

                  Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain

Spain

• It's a bizarre coincidence that all of today's items relate to food, in one way or another:-

1. Cucumber and I are the best of enemies. So, gazpacho is not for me. Here in Spain, I have at least one chef who endorses my approach to it: Cucumber in gazpacho is gastronomic terrorism, said Dani García, a chef who runs a 3-Michelin-star restaurant. García told the Observer that he could not abide the 'disruptive feistiness' of cucumber in gazpacho. More here.
2. But, of course, not everyone hates cucumber. Or gazpacho containing it. The Local reports on a very odd development here.
3. Spaniards seems to enjoy bickering over how their food should, or shouldn’t, be prepared, someone has said. This is very true but, TBH, the wider truth is that Spaniards enjoy bickering full stop/period.
4. I learnt yesterday that the iconic British dish of fish and chips is thought to have come from Sephardic Jewish immigrants, specifically those from Spain and Portugal where a popular dish known as 'pescado frito' (flour-coated fish fried in oil) had been enjoyed at least a couple of centuries earlier. This news came from an admirable (German) lady who gives a great recipe for F&C here.
5. Dear god! Is nothing sacred? A Spanish company is marketing Polish jamón as if it came from the Alpujarras mountain range down in Andalucía. Genuine providers are up in arms. Or should that be 'trotters'?
6. What goes in must come out. But, surely, not in this appalling fashion. Another marriage of the internet with the dregs of society.
7. Something even worse than chlorinated chicken.

The UK

• Richard North has been saying for months - years even - that it matters not a jot what ploy the British parliament comes up with; if there is no deal agreed between the UK and the EU by October 31, there is absolutely nothing it can do to stop a hard Brexit. Very simply, this is because is is the DEFAULT OPTION under Article 20. And yesterday a government minister finally went on the public record saying this. Astonishingly, the UK Remainer MPs appear to have been totally ignorant of this truth, giving the impression - like Canute - that their mere words would evade reality. That a hard Brexit is the default option explains why Johnson's government is demanding that the EU blinks first in their high-stakes game of bluff and counter-bluff. To repeat . . . If it doesn't, and if the British government maintains its current stance, there's nothing that can stop a hard Brexit. This is, of course, why the pound has sunk to almost its lowest level ever against the euro. It had already fallen a lot but there remained a (now rapidly vanishing) residual belief that an October 31 hard Brexit could still be avoided. But there are few optimists now. 
• On the possibilities . . . North has this to say this morning: With dreadful slowness, the penny is beginning to drop: Boris Johnson has absolutely no intention of seeking to renegotiate Mrs May's Withdrawal Agreement.  . . . The only way MPs could have guaranteed prevention of a no-deal exit was to have ratified Mrs May's Withdrawal Agreement. And since they refused that option 3 times, they are faced with the consequences of their own actions. 

The USA/Nutters Corner 

• American's gun culture is melting down, says Stephen Colbert here. Funny and hard-hitting but tragic.
• I almost enjoyed Fart's impersonation of a post-tragedy presidential speech, in which he nearly proved capable of reading someone else's sentiments on a teleprompter. 
• I just checked and found that I didn't have 'disgusting' nor 'dangerous' on my A-Z list of adjectives for Fart. But I do now.

Spanish 

• Word of the Day: Espabilar. 
• I'm pleased (and proud) to say that espabilado is the word most frequently applied to my 7 month old latest grandson. It's in the genes . . .

 Finally . . .

• Reading Tibor Fischer's Under the Frog, I came upon this sentence: His own mother, if he was waiting to be executed, would only say things like “Make that noose tighter” or “Is it permissible to tip the hangman? Guess who it put me in mind of.
• A bit of Spanish humour . . .