Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain: 18.12.20

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

The EU: Europe is on course for an Xmas vaccine approval. The BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine could be approved by the EU next week, paving the way for vaccinations to begin this year.

Spain: El País: Covid will be the leading cause of death in Spain in 2020, exceeding the usual mortality from tumours and circulatory and respiratory diseases.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

Our regional president says we won't have the AVE high-speed service to Madrid by the end of 2021. This is a huge shock to me, as I wasn't expecting this 'news’ until late next year. When we’d be told it'd certainly be operating by 31 December 2022. 

Be warned that, while the - always officious - police (probably) won't fine you for having one, you might be convicted of a Data Protection offence by pointing a dash camera at another driver. As has happened to a poor chap in Toledo. 

Something to look forward to . . . I'm drawing up a list of late 2000 prices - don't ask - to compare with today's. To be published next week. 

Here's María's Riding The Wave: Days 33&34  

Quote 1: I recently saw a comment from a Spaniard living in Germany, that there, the police don't have to tell people what they can and can't do. People do the correct thing without being told. Different societies, different reactions.  

Quote 2: The United States is not the only country with its radicalized fringe lunatics that find easy pickings among those who find thinking difficult.    

The UK and the EU

Richard North is increasingly finding it difficult put across how stupid he thinks Boris Johnson is. This morning's attempt: At several levels Johnson continues to confirm that he's an idiot, not least in his persistent references to 'Australian-style terms'. This just goes to show how terminally inflexible his thinking is, after it has long been pointed out the term is meaningless.  . . . As we've seen so often, Johnson doesn't have time for nuance or subtlety. This is not a man who is temperamentally or intellectually equipped to lead a complex negotiation with the EU and, at this eleventh hour, he is showing up his own inadequacies. I believe ‘on Australian terms is a recently-invented euphemism for 'on WTO' rules. Or No Deal Brexit. So, pure spin.

The EU

An interesting article from Politico.eu. A nice (and accurate) quote: Often lost in Brussels’ high-brow deliberations about European values and the importance of safeguarding the rule of law across the EU is the behind-the-scenes role of German business.

The USA

It's reported that 53% of the populace doesn't want to have the vaccine. Or not straightaway, at least. I’m guessing that not all of these are Republicans/Trumptists.

 

English

Confession: Until I was 17, I thought there were 2 verbs meaning the same thing:-

Missled - miss-led, and

Misled - mizzled

I learned there really weren't when reading from a play in front of my classmates, some of whom giggled at my faux pas. And again when I (innocently) re-read the passage the same way. So, I was pleased to see a prominent columnist admit this week that she'd been about 20 before I stopped reading “misled” as “mizzled”. 

 

Finally . . .

The most mis-pronounced words in the UK this year are said to have included:-

Nevada (NevADDah not Nevaarda), and

Wuhan (not WOOhaarn). 

This reminds me of the British habit of pronouncing mañana as maarnyaarna. Or worse, maarnyaarnaar. The 'a' sound is never long in Spanish, the way English Southerners say baarth for ‘bath’. Inter alia.

Still no new passport, said to have been despatched on 9 December,  

 

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

Protestant.