Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spanish Politics - The talking continues.
- I confess to finding this hard to believe.
- If you're a resident Brit worried about the impact of Brexit, this should be of interest. Assuming you live down South. We're rather ignored up here in the North.
- I'm dealing with my insurance company around a policy I've told them I'm considering cancelling. In the UK this would mean a simple letter, a phone call or an email. But not here. They've told me that: 1. I have to give a month's notice, and 2. I have to visit one of their offices to do this, which will, of course, give one of the autonomos 'employed' there the chance to try to dissuade me. Annoying.
- Another irritation of life here is that I have to go to the central post office in Pontevedra to collect anything undeliverable which arrives when I'm out. Yesterday, it was a book which the postman (wrongly) said he couldn't get into my mailbox. There are, I think, 2 sub-post offices in the city but there's nothing in my (large) barrio across the river.
- The good news is that I didn't have to prove my identity or sign anything to get the book. As far as I can recall, this was a first. And I admit to being shocked, as well as pleased.
- Not only presidents and mayors read this blog; the folk in my elevenses café clearly do as well. I only got 4 churros yesterday. No cake. It must have been the boss who read the post.
- After the storm here in the early hours of Monday, we'll be getting a second one this afternoon. And another one at the weekend. Three in a week, impressive. They all have names, of course, but this is really an irrelevance when it comes to their impact. Whether we're still in autumn or winter, it's not normal. AGW?
- Here's more on that narco-sub, of interest to at least Perry. It was built in built in Suriname or Guyana, sailed down the Amazon and across the Atlantic to Spain with its £150m cargo and was monitored by international drug enforcement agencies before it arrived. A journey of nearly 6,000 miles, made possible by the 20-metre semi-submersible boat’s 20,000L fuel capacity.
- With Xmas almost on us - always a surprise to me - we have a range of new beggars in the city. Yesterday saw the appearance of a novel team - a woman in her 30s seeking money for the teenager act her side.
- Possibly as part of the reaction against the Catalan independistas, Galicia's bodegas will see sales of 100,000L of sparkling wine this Xmas, against just 5,000 5 years ago. Displacing sales of Cava, of course.
- A view from the Right?: The people really to be congratulated are the voters. With a few exceptions, particularly on the Labour front-bench, last Thursday’s election saw nearly all of those MPs who turned the last parliament into a chaotic sixth-form debating society of self-indulgent grandstanding and undemocratic manoeuvring removed from office. For all the talk of the country’s constitution being broken, at least one part of it has worked exactly as it needed to.
The USA
- A shrink talks to evangelicals, almost certainly in vain.
- The Spectator Index has published a ranking of 22 countries whose citizens believe they live in the best place in the world. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the United States comes first at 37%. More of a surprise, Saudi Arabia comes a close second. India, Thailand, Australia, China follow. Towards the bottom of the class are the UK at 10%, France at 6% and Germany(!!) at 5%. Perhaps we Europeans are harder to please. Or less delusional.
- Apparently a long-standing definition: A 'gaffe' is something a politician makes when he or she speaks the truth.
- Words of the Day:
- Cedeerres; Comités de la Defensa de La República. A Catalan thing. The R used to stand for Referendum.
Finally . . .
- Yesterday I suddenly found my search engine was no longer Google's but Microsoft's Bing. I have no idea how my default changed itself. Spooky.
- It didn't rain yesterday. And the sun shone from time to time. The calm before the next storm.
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