Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain: 16.11.20

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

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

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*  

Covid  

This is a hard-hitting and thought-provoking editorial from the British Medical Journal, entitled: When good science is suppressed by the medical-political complex, people die. The opening paras:-

- Politicians and governments are suppressing science. They do so in the public interest, they say, to accelerate availability of diagnostics and treatments. They do so to support innovation, to bring products to market at unprecedented speed. Both of these reasons are partly plausible; the greatest deceptions are founded in a grain of truth. But the underlying behaviour is troubling.

- Science is being suppressed for political and financial gain. Covid-19 has unleashed state corruption on a grand scale, and it is harmful to public health. Politicians and industry are responsible for this opportunistic embezzlement. So too are scientists and health experts. The pandemic has revealed how the medical-political complex can be manipulated in an emergency—a time when it is even more important to safeguard science.

I, for one, am troubled by the speed with which the Pfizer vaccine approval process has been progressed. And now there’s a suggestion it might only be 50% -not ‘more than 90%’ -effective.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

Denmark has culled it many millions of mink. Which is troubling for Galicia, as the region has 84% of Spain’s breeding farms for these. The situation has been described as as una bomba de reloxería, or a time-bomb. So, what’s the plan?

Here's 9 minutes on Spanish bureaucracy. Is it  really as bad as some say it is?  

And here's a brilliant Spanish commentary on the challenge of dealing with these folk. Not much of an exaggeration. Though I have to say, I’ve been pretty lucky. Perhaps because there’s fewer immigrants up here in Galicia and demand is lower. But I still always carry a variety of reading matter.

 

María - as was to be expected - has renamed her blog, which is now called Riding the Wave. And here’s the first episode.

  

Finally . . .

The Spanish for mink is visón. Not be confused with hurón, which is a ferret. But don’t be tempted go into a ferretería if you’re looking to buy one.

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