Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spanish Politics - There are numerous reports and videos on the Catalan developments on the net. Choose your side/perspective and read on. Or look at a selection of both and remain confused. Or clear and angry.
- Here's the BBC, trying to be objective and balanced, and so upsetting everyone.
- HT to Lenox of Business over Tapas for the citation of this video from the Spanish government - Everybody's Land - to stress/prove the strength of Spanish democracy. Interesting timing.
- Readers Perry and María have written on how it works being an autonoma in Spain or a sole trader in the UK, highlighting some significant differences in the promotion of entrepreneurialism in the 2 countries. More specifically, the opposite of this in Spain. So harsh are the ab initio social security and tax provisions here that the Tax Office (the Hacienda) has been known to advise would-be autonomas not to rpor anything until they have sufficient revenue to bear them. In other words, to operate 'on the black'.
- The autumnal rains have arrived in force, I'm told. For once, I'm happier here in Heald Green, where the sun's shining today
- Another successful triathlon event in Pontevedra city.
- Richard North this morning: Today will be as unpredictable as ever, as we all struggle to understand what is going on in an environment that gets madder and madder by the day. [Postscript: It's just been jointly announced that a deal has been struck, which some already say is worse than Mrs May's. So, will it get parliamentary approval???]
- It's not only in Spain that one is in danger on the pavements. Yesterday a woman passed me on a bike doing at least 20kph. Given that I was switching a heavy bag of groceries from hand to hand as I walked, we can all imagine what would have happened if this had been happening just as she reached me on the relevant side.
- Here's what's said to be proof of Ffart's craziness. Do we really need it?
- Well, just in case, here's a bit more evidence.
- I saw this machine on the wall of the priest's house next to my daughter's church. I asked her if it was for dispensing indulgences in return for cash. She replied that it was a defibrillator, as it says on the tin . . .
A POEM
THE BLACK ROCK FORT AND LIGHTHOUSE, LIVERPOOL: Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Thank God, thank God—the beacon light
Is breaking beautiful through night;
Urge the boat through the surge, once more
We are beside our English shore.
Oh! weary nights and days to me
Have set and risen upon the sea;
I never wish to sail again
O'er the interminable main.
‘Tis wonderful to see the sky
Hang out her guiding stars on high,
And mirror'd in the ocean fair,
As if another heaven were there.
And glorious is it thus to go,
The white foam dashing from the prow,
As our ship through the waves hath gone,
Mistress of all she looked upon.
But weary is it for the eye
To only meet the sea and sky;
And weary is it for the ear
But only winds and waves to hear.
I pined for leaves, I pined for flowers,
For meadows green, with driving showers;
For all the sights and sounds of life,
Wherewith the air of earth is rife.
Farewell, wild waves, again I come
To England and my English home;
Thank God, thank God, the beacon light
Is breaking beautiful through night.
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