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'*
A HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for one or two of today's items.
Covid
Spain has recorded the lowest number of weekend coronavirus cases since mid-August. The national incidence rate continues to fall and now stands at 215.1 infections per 100,000 inhabitants. More here.
The latest developments around entry into Spain.
The UK
Advice on how to stop you glasses steaming up.
As regards the future . . . The message is simple: let’s aim to manage pandemic risk in a way that doesn’t multiply other risks. That means shielding the vulnerable in a manner that doesn’t promote mental psychoses in our children, plunge the squeezed middle into poverty, and condemn the bottom 10% to homelessness, malnutrition and suicide.
Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain
Correction: My survey data yesterday missed out both Unpaid Work and Housework, and so overstated the Shopping numbers. The right version.-
Paid Work; UK 3h55m Spain 2h56m
Sleep: UK 8h28 Spain 8h36
Other unpaid work: UK 1h35 Spain 1h29
Housework & Shopping: UK 2h13 Spain 2h21
Corruption: Between 2005 one 2016, the husband of the woman who ran the national anti-fraud agency in the last PP Administration was responsible for laundering almost €2bn for Spanish companies and citizens, including politicians and drug traffickers. Maybe he didn't tell his wife where all their wealth was coming from. So, his arrest could have come as a nasty shock to an upright quango head. On the other hand . . .
Extravagant, grandiose projects are called obras faraonicas in Spanish. Think Pharoahs. Here's an article on several of these - some of which are now white elephants - initiated in recent years by the right-of-centre PP party. One of them is our Cidade da Cultura on the edge of Santiago de Compostela. I must go and see it one day. Before it becomes dangerously dilapidated and unvisitable.
I’m a big fan of wolves so it was good to read here of a doctoral student traversing Spain in pursuit of coexistence solutions which will destroy stereotypical thinking.
Here's Marìa's Riding the Wave: Day 25, on crowded terraces.
The UK & The EU
Richard north today*: Whatever the outcome [of current, last-minute negotiations], Brexit is assured of its place in history as an utter shambles, an egregious failure of policy and planning, led by an incompetent prime minister. Who, by the way, is his own shambolic mess. The sooner he's gone, the better. Whatever the future holds for the UK.
* A Brexiteer. . . .
The Way of the World
I think Christmas has been ruined. It should be about remembering the nativity of Jesus and trying to be better human beings. Instead, it now seems to be about too much eating, too much drinking, and falling out with each other: St Gregory Nazianzen, writing a while back in 384CE
Finally . . .
A Spanish joke: The royal grandchildren, who've been found to be using ‘black credit cards’, refer to their abuelo(grandfather) as el VISAbuelo(‘great grandfather’ but . . .)
My latest passport foto - the 11th - was accepted by the relevant human and a new passport is on its way to me. Todo bien que termina bien.
* A terrible book, by the way. Don't be tempted to buy it, unless you're a very religious Protestant.
1 comment:
I believe wolves are being culled in Spain every year. Not good. But still, there are more wolves in Spain than anywhere else in Europe. Around 3000? It would be interesting to know what the lady from Sweden thinks about the situation in Scandinavia where tolerance for wolves is apparently near zero. There was yesterday a very interesting article/video in The Guardian about a massacre of wolves in Norway. Apparently they only have 4 packs in the whole country (a very empty country btw). But even this was too much for many, and they went and killed half of them. The video is not for the faint hearted.
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