Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain: 22.12.20

 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

Having fallen behind the UK a month or so, the USA is again about to overtake it in the deaths per million table. Thanks to Thanksgiving. 

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

What have the Romans ever done for us? Spanish Xmas hamper facts.

As I've mentioned, my passport was due to be delivered today, possibly when I'm out getting 2 punctures fixed and then lunching with friends. So, I tried yesterday morning - via phone and email - to make sure it could be given to a neighbour, if so. Suffice to say I spent a fruitless hour on the phone and on the internet trying - and failing - to give appropriate instructions. After which - at 12.04 - I was told by SMS from DHL it was going to be delivered a day earlier and that it was obligatory for me to be at home to sign for it. Failing which it would go to their depot in Vigo. 

So, I stayed in all day yesterday. And, of course, it wasn't delivered. My guess is it'll arrive between 11.30 and 15.00 today, when I'm out of the house. Meaning, I guess, I'll have to get a certificate from the police allowing me to drive to Vigo to pick it up. 

I'm once again left with the impression that many Spanish companies don't really understand customer service but concentrate on reducing personnel costs and then using (cheap) technology to give the impression that they're familiar with the concept. Even going to the extent of sending irritating emails in both Spanish and English. The priceless one being that I'd written to DHL, whereas my package was coming via DHL Express, so had nothing to do with them. Vernon Warner writes about this corporate dissonance in the book I regularly cite. 

P. S. I've just seen this explanatory small print on one of the web pages I've scoured: Since January 2017, DHL in Spain operates with two different companies: DHL Express for air service and DHL Parcel for road transport. IGIMSTS.

P. P. S. I discovered first thing today I could write direct to the Director of Customer Service of DHL Express. So, I did. And got a prompt reply apologising and assuring me they'd get onto it immediately. Call me cynical, but I find it hard to believe the assistant to said director was in the office at 8am in Spain. Equivalent to 6am in the UK. Cheap technology in action again?

Yesterday was the winter solstice and, I believe, the official start of the Spanish winter. You could have fooled me. I think it's considered as being well into winter in other parts of the northern hemisphere.

And I think today is the day of the sing-song ceremony of The Fat One national lottery. I doubt I'll win, not having been dumb enough to ignore the odds against this and buy a ticket.

Here's María's Riding The Wave Day 38. Madrid madness?

The UK & The EU

From a  German friend . . .

France

Emmanuel Macron’s ban on lorries entering France wins the prize for the most pointless political gesture since the onset of this pandemic. The mutant strain B.1.1.7 is [as I suspected] already all over Europe. 

The Way of the World

The price of premium smartphones is ever-increasing with the latest folding Samsung device costing about £1,800.

Just when you thought the year could not get any worse, along comes a message of hope and uplift to give us a sense of our own boundless potential. It’s yet another book by Rhonda Byrne, 'The Greatest Secret'. It has been greeted with rapture by devotees of her mystical self-help philosophy, 'The Secret', who have piled on to the internet to share, yet again, their experience of visualising something really fabulous happening to them, and lo, the universe delivers. Well, certainly Rhonda Byrne — who starts every day by saying “thank” as she sets her right foot down out of bed, and “you”, as she sets down the left — has successfully visualised a great deal of money from saying the obvious or tendentious to the credulous. There is, indeed, a secret hidden in plain view, and it is that there’s one born every minute. 

I've been saying for years - decades? - that it's The Age of the Bureaucrats. If it wasn't before 2020, the combination of a pandemic and useless politicians has certainly made this true for this year. And, doubtless, next year too. With power having gone to the heads of folk in both groups. Oh, and also to the heads of at least some scientists.

Social Media

Don Quijones here cites an article on the 'stunning' legal actions against Google and Facebook in the USA. Entitled American Monopolies and Elite Lawlessness.

Finally . . .

This ad - from Volvo - is said to be immoral. Maybe so, but it's also funny. If you don't like that, maybe the Monty Python scene which follows it.  

 

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