Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Note: One or two of the items below have been borrowed from Lenox Napier's Business Over Tapas of today.
Spain
- The place of cash in Spain these days.
- Talking of bank cards . . . I've just taken delivery of one of these, having read of the greater scope now given to crooks by contactless payment developments. Analogous to the ability to grab you car key code. Porsche, for example, now provide buyers with an aluminium box for their key. Says a rich friend.
- And talking of cash . . . From Think Spain: Another record tourism year is forecast for 2019 based upon figures for June, with visitor numbers having been steadily rising annually. It is probable that the July numbers will be much higher than this year's current average of 6.4m per month. In the first half of 2019, 38.2m foreigners visited Spain, an increase of 2.8% on last year, and their spending per head rose by 3.7%. It will end one day, though the sun will only get hotter. Perhaps because the sun will only get hotter. Bad for the south but good for the north, I guess.
- Meanwhile, the Guardian certainly thinks Spain will be seeing fewer (poor) Brits. Parts of the country will be rejoicing at this prospect, I suspect.
- As for those - mostly South Americans - toiling at the coal face of the tourism industry, there's increasing evidence that they're being treated as slave labour. Very often illegally. One thing's for sure, the salaries they enjoyed - if that's the word - when I came here 19 years ago have been greatly eroded both by inflation and by greedy, unscrupulous bar and hotel owners. Especially the Kellys. See below.
The Way of the World
- Alain de Botton’s "The School of Life: An Emotional Education" is here to remind us that life is made up of constant and inevitable dissatisfactions, that all humans are muddled, inconsistent, difficult to understand and intrinsically flawed, and that our contemporary belief that it’s possible to be enduringly happy is a destructive myth that’s driving us to collective rage. De Botton points out that for thousands of years humans knew better. For the Buddhists life was a vale of suffering, the Greeks expected tragedy, Christianity believed we were divinely cursed. “All substantial endeavours — marriage, child-rearing, a career, politics — were understood to be sources of distinctive and elaborate misery.”
- So many insane Republican reactions to choose from but this is possibly the worst.
- Interesting to see that one nut attributes gun slaughters to the absence of god in the hearts of young people. This in a country which has greatly higher levels of religious affiliation than any other western nation.
- Henceforth, Fart will be known here as Ffart. If you don't know why, check a US news report. Though possibly not on Fox, where his latest gaffe will probably go unreported.
- It is very hard to credit that anyone could be this stupid.
- But this is encouraging:- Most US Catholics aren't really Catholic. I wonder how they think their god views this. Assuming they still believe in a god. 'Cultural Catholics' only??
- Words of the Day:-
- Una Kelly: A hotel chambermaid'. Origin:- Mujeres que limpian habitaciones.
- Alpargata
- The vision of flies is vastly better than ours. Actions we take move much faster in their world, allowing them to leap out of the way of the swatter or rolled up newspaper well in advance of its arrival at the spot they used to occupy. So, the advice is to move very slowly towards them. And then strike when close. If the bloody thing is dumb enough to still be there.
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