Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain: 29.3.20

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.   

  - Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain*

Note: This post is later than usual because, when one doesn't have deadlines - e. g. getting to a café in town for coffee and churros by 11 or 11.30 - time just eats itself and you find, for example, that by 12 new time/11 old time, you haven't even read a newspaper yet. Or even Lenox's Business Over Tapas of last Thursday morning! This makes for a shorter post, of course.

The Coronavirus: A Less Negative Take

• A Good Cop routine.
• Spain's virus outbreak is quite definitely close to peaking. Possibly.
• It's snowing in both Madrid and Manchester. Here in Galicia, it's our 7th day of sun. Not quite the norm for us in March.

Life in the Time of Something Like Cholera

• The screw is turned further: Spain is taking ‘extraordinarily tough’ measures to battle coronavirus by ordering the entire nation’s workers to stay at home – except for those in ‘essential’ services. See here on this.
• A nice tale of a grandfather.
• Geek heaven or a harsh reality? Or both, says Giles Brown here.
• María's Chronicle Day 14. 

The USA  

• Trump’s fantasy world is literally killing people.
• Those crazy but powerful science-denying evangelicals.
• Dreadful American exceptionalism again
• Summing up for the Prosecution: The Trump administration has proven itself to be inept, criminally so, by causing hundreds (and soon, thousands) of American citizens to die as a result of its bungled response. A combination of the president’s delusion, complicity by members of his cabinet and government, and blind, unrelenting loyalty by his supporters are causing a human catastrophe. Even now, weeks after it has become clear what this virus is and what is at stake, the Trump administration continues to lie, obfuscate and delay, swirling in a cauldron of denial and incapacity to act responsibly, swiftly and effectively.

Spanish

• Phrase of the day:- El paraiso de los frikis: Geek heaven. 

Finally . . .  

• Just too good not to include:-

• My younger daughter posted a 2nd vlog yesterday . . . Drying my laundry in a small place. Might interest some. I confirm her previous method was a bloody nuisance for anyone trying to get in or out of the back door.
• I've just realised that wine o'clock in now arriving an hour earlier, as it's suddenly close to 13.00 . . .