Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain: 5.2.21

 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

Spain: Three regions here are relaxing their measures - Cataluña, Extremadura  and Aragón. Details here.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain.

Well, I think Cordoba is a beautiful city and that the Grand Mosque should be top of everyone’s bucket-list, but I’d still go for Salamanca in this competition.

El País in English looks at some of the side-effects of the virus crisis in Spain. The pandemic is having a deep impact on all areas of life, with fear of contagion changing work and social interactions, and even sexual relations. Click here.

Thinking of moving from the UK to Spain? This is for you.

Brexit does present new challenges to the Anglo-Spain relationship, but it also creates new opportunities for both countries to work even closer together. It says here. Time will tell.

As with Modelo 720 and its huge fines, Spain continues to cavalierly ignore EU rules around differential tax treatment. This time of EU landlords not resident in Spain. 

María's Tsunami: Day 4 

The UK and the EU

Lucky Boris? Richard North today: There is a sense that Johnson will be relying on the "bounce" from the success of the vaccination programme. Buoyed by the "feelgood" and renewed political support, expected to come from a drop in Covid figures and a partial return to normal life, he might be better prepared to take on the vexed questions left by his botched implementation of Brexit. One of these is the current (and predictable) inability of British providers of fish and shellfish to export their produce to the EU - because of (non-tariff) regulatory requirements consequential on the UK becoming a 'third country'. Thanks to the ignorance of the media, says North, Johnson is currently able to get away with blaming the EU for this alleged 'ban’, not the shambles for which he's responsible.

France

Oh, dear . . . M Macron is rather less lucky than Mr Johnson . . .France is furious as Britain snatches a Covid vaccine Valneva deal from under its nose: A French vaccine financed by Britain is at the centre of a row over the Macron government’s failure to ensure supplies for its people. The French government refused to fully fund research by Valneva, a Franco-Austrian startup that has developed its vaccine near Nantes. Instead, the British backed the development, securing an agreement to supply 60 million doses from a plant in Livingston, West Lothian, starting in October. France will get the vaccine only next year. Critics in France say the failure by Paris to back Valneva was symbolic of the government’s poor management of the vaccine race, in which Britain has stolen a march.  

The EU

It is not skilled negotiation that has led the EU to this [low] point but hubris, which has left its population so seriously short-changed on vaccinations. For here is the greatest irony of the EU project. For all its rhetoric of creating a political project to withstand the ages that is built on 4 fundamental principles that transcend all, the EU is run by some seriously short-sighted politicians. Does this mean Merkel and Macron? Or the technocrats who aren't really politicians at all? In that they're not answerable to any body politic.

The Way of the World

Wokism at work:-

1. Olivia Newton John says criticisms of Grease as sexist, mysogonist and racist are just plain 'silly'.

2. The Rev Robinson-Brown 29: The cult of Captain Tom is a cult of White British Nationalism.

Someone's suggestion: There should be a Woke TV channel for the righteous and easily offended. It'll give them a choice not to be offended.

Nutters Corner

Time for another sight of Kooky Kat Kerr, Christian prophetess and consummate nutcase. Or just a fraud.

English

Disinterested and uninterested are different words with different meanings:-

Disinterested: Not influenced by considerations of personal advantage.

Uninterested: Not interested in or concerned about something or someone.

But, as on Sky News this morning, disinterested is often used when uninterested would be correct. As with fewer and less, the distinction is gradually being lost. And English speakers are fortunate enough not to have a (Royal) Academy to (fruitlessly) tell them they're wrong. The people rule. 

Spanish/Galician

A Galician friend sent me this foto of an exhortation on a window down in Pontevedra, suggesting it was done by a 'Spaniard' passing through on a camino. 

I replied it was more likely to be a local, as Galician(Gallego/Galego) doesn't have the letter Y . . .

Finally . . .

Thanks to my VPN, Spotify thinks I’m in London. Hence the request every 3 or 4 minutes that, if I’ve had Covid, I give some antibody-rich blood. 

Bloody irritating.