Dawn

Dawn

Thursday, April 02, 2020

Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain: 2.4.20

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.   
- Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain*
The C Word
  • Says the New York Times: China and South Korea have flattened their curves. Italy, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands have begun to flatten their curves. The United States still has not.
The Coronavirus: A Less Negative Take
Life in the Time of Something Like Cholera
  • Day 18 of María's Chronicle. Will she really one able to keep this up for 3-6 months?
  • And Day 18 of a frustrated mother's Diary. Ditto.
  • Here's advice on when and where you're allowed to drive to in Spain.
  • Is there really unrest stirring in Spain? I guess there will be, if the police go on hitting people with their batons. Which isn't exactly unusual here, albeit on a small scale.
  • Here and here are things to do on the net to while away the hours. I might already have cited one or both of these.
  • All sorts of wild animals - leopards, crocodiles, wild boars, dolphins, and goats, for example - are taking advantage of the absence of human activity to wander into residential areas. But the ones we're all terrified about are the hungry bloody seagulls. These can be vicious in normal times but I dread to think what would happen if I ventured now onto the terrace of my regular watering hole with a sandwich in my hands.
  • I went shopping in Mercadona yesterday and was surprised to see several shelves were sparsely stocked, even bare. Specifically, I noted that chickens are clearly among those who've been laid off as doing non-essential work. 
  • Does anyone know what is being done by the UK government to fly stranded Brits back home from Spain? This is not an academic question; my sister has been with me for a month now and I am used to living alone . . .
Other Spanish Issues Which Would be Big News in Other Times
  • HT to Lenox of Business Over Tapas for this: ElDiario.es looks at how the Spanish media solemnly ‘looked the other way’ for many years.' For decades, the king of Spain had been out of control. He was inviolable under the Constitution. The courts could not judge him, nor could he be held accountable to Congress. Following the 23F (the failed coup d’état of Tejero), out of fear of a military-led reversal, the Spanish media reached an unwritten pact: to protect the king is to protect democracy. Or at least that’s how they wanted to present it.’. The article follows up with some historic quotes from the media defending its silence.
The EU
  • Politico here hones in on the issue of what Germany can/will do - in the face of 'nasty' Dutch opposition - to help Italy and the other troubled Southern states. The leader of one of these - Portugal - has put it in this nutshell: Either the EU does what it has to do or it will end. Interesting times. If it's not to be debt mutualisation, what will be the drastic solution to this drastic situation?
The USA
  • Trump's mental illness is killing people.
  • The people behind the egregious Fox News channel are reported to be terrified they're going to be sued by relatives of people who've died as a result of its dishonest reporting on the virus. See here on this, with details of folk who believe Trump is doing an excellent job combatting the virus. I doubt anyone will be surprised at the numbers. The issue is raised: Does political polarisation inevitably breed stupidity on a vast scale?
  • A quote from the above NY Times article: The United States is badly behind. Both South Korea and the USA had their first confirmed case around the same day, in late January. South Korea has suffered only about 150 deaths, one-twentieth as many as the United States.
  • This is an amusing and accurate demolition of Fart's latest Hitlerian-level lies.
Spanish
  • Word of the day:- Sororicida: Sororicide. Not in dictionary of the Royal Academy but you can find info on it here. Interesting to see it covers the murder of nuns as well as biological sisters. But I don't actually have any nuns in mind . . .
English
  • Phrase of the Day: To memory hole (US): To claim you never said what the evidence clearly proves that you did say. A Fartian speciality, of course.
Finally . . .
  • My old friend cited yesterday insists that, though we went to school together on Merseyside, he is not a Scouser but a Mancunian. And these are very different things. They say.
  • Nice bit of lockdown wit: Does anyone know when this 3 month free sample of communism will end?
  • And some Russian humour on the subject of Brexit. (Remember that?):-
  • Yet another vlog from my currently hyperactive younger daughter . . . Which she admits is a self-isolation attempted motivation ramble.  

*A terrible book, by the way. Don't be tempted to buy it, unless you're a very religious Protestant.

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