Dawn

Dawn

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain: 21.9.19

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.   
                  Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spanish politics
Life in Spain
  • Moving to Spain can be good for you in many ways, it says here. Though not if you're looking for good career growth. I have to admit I'm astonished that 52% of expats say the health service couldn't be better. To me, it seems to suffer from some of the same problems as the UK's NHS. For instance, long delays in getting GP appointments, leading to patients using Urgencias as a substitute, resulting in waiting times there of at least 5 hours. Maybe only in Galicia. Or just Pontevedra.
  • That was the good news for expats. For Brits, the bad news is that Brexit is going to make things tougher, at least down south where most of them want to live. So, if you're resident here but aren't yet on the padrón, you might want to get your skates on.
  • I know the name Elcano from Spain's training ship but I confess I wasn't aware that the man was the only navigator to return from Magellan's circumnavigation of the world.
  • I don't recall seeing these unfortunate folk in Madrid's Paseo del Prado last May, despite walking much of it.
  • A distressing tale. With a twist.
The UK
  • Richard North, facing what he thinks is the racing certainty of a No Deal Brexit, says the current British government either has a strategy to ensure this or is afflicted by 'an almost unbelievable level of incompetence'. He plumps for the former.
The EU
The USA
Nutters Corner
  • Fox News claims that Ffart 'doesn’t want to make the Mexicans mad by slapping tariffs on them because they’ve been so helpful' in reducing immigration. As an observer observes: When will this idiotic argument die? Tariffs are not a tax on Mexico, they are a tax on American companies that import raw materials from there to build products and on American consumers who have to pay a higher price for those products and those made completely in Mexico. Tariffs do not mean Mexico would pay for the wall, it means we would pay for the wall. Trump keeps repeating this ignorant lie and his sycophants parrot it on command. They really should call Fox and Friends the Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest show.  Hard to disagree.
Spanish
  • Words of the Day: 
  1. Niebla
  2. Escurridizo: Elusive; Slippery; Sneaky.
Finally
  • I have mint at the bottom of my garden. Which is odd, as I never planted any there. The mint I did plant is at the top of the garden and I thought it spread only by rhizomes underground. But Quora tells me:- Mint can reproduce by rooting on any stem margin, by leaf cuttings, root division, seed, and stolons. In nature, however, they only really “reproduce” by flowering and seeding. So that explains that. I think.

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