Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain- Spain’s most celebrated writer believes the fascist past is still present, says the New York Times, here.
- El Mundo reports that an eminent Spanish scientist, now working at Cambridge university, claims that a Nobel prize winner wouldn't get a job teaching at a Spanish university, because of a requirement for at least 400 hours of prior teaching. This, she averred, didn't happen anywhere else in the world.
- There are, of course, many ways that EU states can thwart the principle of 'freedom of movement', perhaps the most obvious being competence in one of the other official languages, on top of Spanish and, usually, English.
- There's been another fatal goring at one of Spain's many bull running/taunting events. This time in Pinoso, in Alicante province. See here and - less objectively - here.
- This is a foto of the 200,000th 'pilgrim' this year to apply for a Compostela certificate in arriving at Santiago at the end of her camino. How fortunate she was pretty and photogenic. And a policewoman to boot. With very nice legs.
- Pontevedra's new 'Gastronomic' Space - La Gastroespaza - above the seafood market will open, they say, on the August 22, a month late. I look forward to visiting it. It will boast not just a vinoteca but also a merluzateca, in homage to a fish - the hake - which the French say is bland and tasteless but which is highly honoured in Spain. Here in Galicia - as in Portugal - you can't get away from it. Nor the paprika usually sprinkled on it. Not my favourite dish.
- It's also said that the (patient) granite slabs will be laid on O Burgo bridge this week. I shall be watching . . .
- The e-scooter providers are beginning to pay a price for their ruthlessly greedy exploitation of what is undoubtedly a potentially valuable invention.
- There seems to be a widespread view in the USA that prayer is the only answer to the problem of mass shootings. But what do you do if your god doesn't bother listening to you? Or, worse, tells you to sort it out yourselves, as it's your own fault because he gave you free will? Assuming he exists, of course. And what if he doesn't? See the Friendly - but justifiably angry - Atheist on this here.
- We wait to hear Fart's (non)response to the latest atrocities, which have nothing to do with 'Islamic terrorism'.
- Word of the Day: Gemelo. This usually means 'twin' but, thanks to the Spanish version of the article on the fatal goring in Pinoso, I now know it also means the calf muscle.
- The preferred Spanish for 'a hard Brexit' appears to be un Brexit salvaje, though I have seen un Brexit duro.
- Unlike my daughters, I'm not a great reader of novels. But somehow, somewhere I must have heard or read good things about Tibor Fischer, as I've just finished one of his and am now embarking on a second. Probably because they are philosophical, cynical, sardonic and, often, laugh-out-loud funny. Can't ask for more. So, highly recommended.
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