Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain: 5.3.21

 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'

Cosas de España 

We're heading, it seems, for a Semana Santa in which no inter-regional travel will be allowed. Assuming the intransigent Madrid region plays ball.

Behind my house, work’s been going on for months on the restoration of a path up from the road to behind the houses built illegally between 2004 and 2008. And which are still mostly unoccupied. As seems to happen so often in Spain, the work is episodic and no one seems to know - or even think about - when it'll be finished. Of course, here in Galicia winter provides the handy excuse of rain but, in fact, the problem really seems to arise from the practice of working on several projects at the same time. What I've called displeasing all the people all the time. The best attitude to strike in these circumstances is resignation at the fact things take longer than they theoretically could. Or should. In other words, lowering your expectations. And disbelieving every estimate you're given.

The always-informative and entertaining Lenox Napier cites - in Business Over Tapas today - this report on police developments aimed at the worst kind of Brit down on the Costa del Crime. And also writes here on Spanish versions of 'whatsisname'. Good to learn of yet another word in Spanish for 'whore'. I do wonder if any other language has more.

Cousas de Galiza

The Voz de Galicia today focuses on our infamous feismo - ugliness - and talks of (yet another) plan to do something about it. I wonder if this will benefit the street in Pontevedra's old quarter I wrote about 2 days ago.

Maria's Tsunami: Day 32. Cue queue confusion . . .

The UK 

Boris Johnson: He used to joke that he saw the job of the journalist to throw pebbles at a window and scarper before seeing where they landed. He seems to have adopted that as a political philosophy and surrounded himself with like-minded individuals. Good to know he and they are running the government in a time of crisis.

Meanwhile, the BBC's ex-star interviewer, Jeremy Paxman - talking about some of the organisation's highest-paid employees - has likened the job of news-reading to mere 'reading aloud', and as both ‘pointless’ and ‘something any fool could do’. Which is surely right, albeit rather controversial.

Germany

Hans Globke, it says here, was a Hitler ‘henchman’ and became the true architect of modern Germany. It seems not a lot of Germans know this. Never mind foreigners.

The Way of the World 

Something I'll have to research . . . Men's grooming in 2021 requires make-up, beard maintenance and 'tweakments'. Or cosmetic surgery, as we used to call it. While 'make-up' includes Boy de Chanel Foundation, at 55 quid for - naturally - a rather titchy bottle.

Finally 

Back at the start of the 20th century, Britain had a Minister of War. I imagine all the other Great Powers - France, Germany, Russia, Austro-Hungary and Japan - also had an equivalent. A form or nominative determinism?