Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain

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 Cognitive dissonance in the Covid narrative is simply ridiculous.See here for the article below this headline.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 

Will 2021 really be a  he'll of a lot better? After cancelling its Feria de Abril, Seville has now done likewise to its even more famous Holy Week processions  

This comment on Prussian society left me wondering what the British, American and Spanish lists of values would be: The Prussian half-century - in which unification shaded into empire - indelibly moulded modern Germany, for better and for worse. Slowly, a society emerged that shared values such as hard work, punctuality, honesty and precision that came to be seen as intrinsically German.

Whatever Spain's values might be, what can't be taken from them is the label of the happiest nation in Europe. Though not as happy as Indians and some others.

Which allows a sashay into 'Spanishness' - In what does it reside? Apparently not in the 'narrative" of Hilaria/Hillary Baldwin. Who is neither happy nor Spanish right now. Unless you've just dropped in from Mars, you'll know that she's the centre of that modern phenomenon, a Twitter shit-storm, leading to 'cancellation'. For falsely claiming Hispanic ethnicity/heritage. Here’s just one of hundreds of articles on this modern tale.

Here's María's Riding The Wave: Day 47

The USA

A mixed week for President Fart:-

1. An extraordinary rebuke from Congress in having his veto rejected for the first time.  A combative and erratic end to his presidency, 

2. Voted, in compensation, the Man Americans Admire Most. Or a small percentage of them at least, albeit with more votes than anyone else.

Funny country.

The Way of the World/Nutters Corner

Surveillance capital . . . So ,what's that when it's in town? See a (long) article on it here.

You don't have to subscribe to The Great Re-set Conspiracy to find this rather chilling but it surely helps. This mad conspiracy - originating in the USA, of course - alleges that "global financial elites" and world leaders planned the pandemic, deliberately letting loose the coronavirus to cause conditions allowing a restructuring of the world's governments. The main goals of the Great Reset are said to be to take global political and economic control by instating a Marxist totalitarian regime and by extension, the New World Order. It is claimed that such a regime would abolish personal ownership and property rights, send the military into cities, impose mandatory vaccination, and create isolation camps for people who resist.

Finally . . .

I now see another new road sign has been added, just before the road I’ve mentioned twice, cutting off access to the barrio of Alba, except for residents . . .

I suspect it was financed by the owners of the new house on the right, who don’t want people parking in front of their walls/gate.

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

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 Astra-Zeneca vaccine has been approved in the UK - paving the way for a mass rollout, beginning on January 4. I wonder if the government can achieve efficiency this time round. The experiences of 2020 render this rather doubtful but vamos a ver. Meanwhile, it's reported that: The UK has ordered 100m doses - enough to vaccinate 50 million people.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 

As part of what seems to be an EU-wide policy, the Spanish government will initiate a register of those who decline a vaccine jab. Presumably this will have, as yet undefined, consequences. I fear errors.

Here in Galicia, our latest Covid restrictions have been announced. Of our cities, Lugo has joined Ourense in having few of these, and Santiago and La Coruña remain in the Medium category, meaning restaurants can stay open until 23.00. But, for reasons I don't understand, Vigo and Pontevedra remain in the worst box, with maximum restrictions. The respective infection rates determine the rules, of course, but why are they so different? And are the measurements really so accurate? 

Here's a comment I happened on yesterday which confirms what I see several times a day - Learner drivers here are taught to go round the entire roundabout in the outside lane. As long as they signal to indicate that they're not intending to leave the roundabout, this is permitted. I'm not sure what the last bit means, as I never see learners signalling anything as they circumnavigate these hazards. Are they supposed to keep their left indicator on until they signal right to exit? Anyway, For those few interested in this perennial subject, there's a Special at the end of his post-

Another nice post from Mac75, on Spain's Epiphany Cake - El Roscón de Reyes 

And here's María's Riding The Wave: Day 46. A failure to learn.    

The Way of the World

There's a nice article below on the return of an old sin . . . Spiritual' pride has come back to haunt a new generation, only this time in yoga pants rather than veils and wimples. 

Finally . . .

On the Smithsonian channel last night, there was a review of the 19th century trial of an American woman called Lizzie Borden. Which immediately brought to mind this doggerel learned - for some reason - as a child in the UK:-

Lizzie Borden bought an axe 

and gave her mother 40 whacks.

When she saw what she had done

she gave her father forty-one

This was written during her trial and is, the say, inaccurate. She was acquitted, by the way. Though perhaps should not have been, it seems.

THE ARTICLE

Be mindful you don’t sound self-obsessed: A new study suggests the modern practices of mindfulness, meditation and yoga feed into some very old-fashioned sin: Libby Purves, The Times 

Long ago, Catholic schoolchildren like me were instructed in how to do a proper examination of conscience. I still have my French school missal with its terrifying lists beginning: “Have I . . . ?” followed by an enumeration of possible sins committed, duties omitted and bad thoughts indulged. Moreover, in the unlikely event of finding yourself clear of all self-accusation, you then had to dodge round the most heinous sin of all: that of “spiritual pride” and exalting in your own humble purity.

Some will tell you that this sort of religious upbringing was abusive, blighting their lives with guilt and “low self-esteem”. Certainly, if you were raised in the sort of school which demonised every childish slip, that could be the result. But in more normal and humane Christian settings that examination-of-conscience thing was actually rather therapeutic. There is no harm in reminding yourself that you are neither perfect nor unique. You’re just another schmuck of a sinner, who hopes to do better tomorrow but is more than likely to fall at one of its moral hurdles.

So it was with glee that I learnt that the more modern creeds of enlightenment — the inwardness of mindfulness, meditation, yoga and cherry-picking mysticism — have embarrassedly rediscovered that hoary old Christian concept: spiritual pride. A wide psychological survey found that people deepest in modern spiritual-training cults were the most likely to be narcissistic and arrogant. Far from banishing the demands of their ego in favour of a higher consciousness, they gave it free rein, albeit with a saintly smile.

The report comes from the Netherlands: Professor Roos Vonk of Radboud University, writing in the European Journal of Social Psychology. This feels fitting. I have sailed often with Dutch crews on the tall ship Europa and I recognise the national tendency to pragmatic, team-minded kindliness, fellowship and gentle scepticism. They were always refreshing people to be with after one had been dealing with some friend convinced that their “practice” made them spiritual winners in a sordid world.

Maybe, at this season of locked-down irritability, there are households at this very moment being annoyed at the way that certain people won’t disturb their sacred hour of mindfulness by helping with the washing up or making that duty call to Aunt Mabel who never stops talking. Even gospel Christians, after all, sometimes roll their eyes in irritation at the story of the spiritual Mary, who sat entranced at Jesus’s feet, getting praised above Martha who did all the damn housework.

Anyway, Professor Vonk first started wondering about this enlightened but unbearable phenomenon when a student boyfriend went to a spiritual training camp for a week. He returned, she says, “with an enlightened, elevated look in his eyes. He had been in touch with what really matters — things he couldn’t explain to me, with my trivial earthly concerns and my analytic scientific reasoning.” Later, she found that others who embraced everything from auras to yoga were similarly “hijacked” into arrogance. The ego is a powerful force, she warns: it watches you seeking enlightenment, then butts in with: “Hey, I’m doing very well, in fact I’m probably doing better than others.”

See? Spiritual pride comes back to haunt a new generation, only this time in yoga pants rather than veils and wimples. In Professor Vonk’s questionnaire the trained self-improvers tended to be keenly willing to describe their own awareness, empathy and spirituality, and had no trouble explaining they had more of these things than most others. Asked whether the world would be a better place if more people had their insight, they agreed.

In the age of Goop and Markle and Instagram yoga, the report squirts acid lemon-juice into the syllabub of performative self-sanctification. There are wonderfully deadly phrases about the human “tendency to distort reality in a self-flattering way” (ah, everyone has an inner Trump). It explains how “self-compassion tends to reduce defensive responses to self-threat”: in other words, being lovingly in touch with your own beautiful perceptions may blind you to the fact that you are being a selfish pig. Genuine reflective and logical meditation is proven to be calming and focusing, but also grounds the individual in reality and duty. But get too soulfully fond of yourself and “spiritual attainments allow room for wishful thinking, thus easily lending themselves to the grip of the self-enhancement motive”.

While the phenomenon of self-absorbed sanctimony has been recorded in anecdote, fiction and drama for centuries, the authors cheerfully point out that this is the first empirical study to confirm the “sovereignty and tenacity” of egotism in this area. We all need some reflection, and perhaps a touch of yoga and a tree to hug, but the report is an awful warning.

It even opens the door to another layer of the old sin of spiritual pride: “Being aware of the risk that my beautified soul might make me arrogant, I have carefully made sure to stay humble. Well done me!” For that, I suppose, the only answer is to rise briskly from your Sukhasana pose, willingly do everyone else’s washing up, make that phone call to infuriating Aunt Mabel and try not to notice how wonderful you are.

A ROUNDABOUT SPECIAL

Key points from this article cited above:-

- Unless otherwise indicated, the person on the right ALWAYS has priority.  

- You must drive anti-clockwise around a roundabout

- Traffic already on the roundabout has priority

- You must only leave the roundabout from the outside lane

- If you can't get into the outside lane [because of a learner coming from your right?], then you should go round the roundabout again. 

I've been told recently that insurance companies won't pay out if you disobey these rules but I don't know if this is true. It certainly sounds plausible. I recently cited the case of the foreigner who offered to pay €200 to cover damage to the bumper(fender) of a Spanish driver who'd hit him from the left. She declined and called the police. They told her she was in the wrong and fined her.

There are DGT diagrams here and here, showing how to drive round roundabouts correctly. Interestingly, although there are only 2 lanes in the approach road, there are 3 on the roundabout and I'm not convinced there are many of the latter in Spain. I don't find the diagrams totally clear but I think one important point is that, if the green car B when exiting at its second exit is hit by car A going all the way round in the outside lane, then B is at fault. Meaning, as indicated, possible insurance problems for driver B. 

My basic advice is, whenever you're leaving a roundabout in Spain look in your wing mirror and check your blindspot to see what's happening on your right.

Oh, and be prepared for a driver in the outside lane who's indicating right as if exiting to stay on the roundabout and cut across in front of you. As stressed, you'll be adjudged to be at fault, not the mis-signalling driver coming from your right. This is so even the when there are arrows on a 2-lane road indicating you can go straight on when in the inside lane. We have some of these in Pontevedra city and I approach them with the utmost care. I am rarely ‘disappointed’.

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

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'*  

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 

Another closure of the line between Vigo and Ourense - thanks to falling rocks - is a reminder that investment in Spain's pre-existing rail system has been neglected in favour of the AVE high speed train. Which, ironically, has been incredibly slow arriving in Galicia, being now 27 years late.

DHL continues to unimpress me. My old passport arrived yesterday, one day earlier than I'd been advised but without prior warning. As before, I wasn't asked to sign for it or even to give my ID number. Incidentally, there's a view around that the usual demand for a signature has fallen foul of Covid fears. Could well be true

I tried last night to get to my supermarket via the new road system, only to find the challenge had been intensified by the change of the one-way direction in each of the side roads off the main road through Lérez. When I finally got there - to find the ingress and egress lanes had also been swapped round - I noted there were few customers in the place. Perhaps there were dozens outside searching for the way to the car park entrance. My return home was through the road I mentioned yesterday. Need I say I met a car coming what is now the wrong way. Happily, he or she went into reverse as I approached. Which was good, as I was never going to drive backwards for 300 metres up a narrow road with granite walls on both sides of it.

Here's María's Riding The Wave: Day 45. Reminding us that yesterday was Spain's equivalent of April fools' Day.

Question for Maria: Before Brexit, could you really get into the UK from Spain without a passport, using only your Tarjeta de Residencia? I didn't think so. I certainly couldn't.

The UK

It's been noted that, while the (Leftish/Remainerish) BBC used to studiously highlight every negative forecast of Britain's post-Brexit economic future, it has equally studiously downplayed the revised forecast of the Centre for Economic and Business Research that sees UK growth outstripping that of EU countries, including Germany's. With the result that the UK economy will be 23% larger than France's by 2035, after it's grown by 4%pa 2021-2025 and by 1.8% after that. Of course, no one really knows how accurate these forecasts are but they certainly make for interesting reading.

The UK & The EU

Richard North on that FTA: We may have broken free of the "coffin lid" containment of EU law, but in our bid for "freedom", we are now bumping up against international agreements which keep us in lockstep with the EU. Ironically, though, this will hardly be noticed as the media is almost totally silent on this aspect of the treaty. As far as the popular press is concerned, we're "free", even if that amounts only to freedom to push at the second coffin lid.   

Spanish

I  can't recall if I've previously delighted readers with these 10 Spanish slang phrases you never learn at school:-

Me cago en la leche: I crap in the milk. Spaniards metaphorically crap on all kinds of things when they want to express anger or frustration; from God Almighty (Dios), to 'your' mother (tu madre) and the salty sea (la mar salada). Perhaps the most bizarre thing they choose to mentally defecate on is 'the milk'. All these expressions sound very vulgar in English but in Spanish they're so common most recipients would barely bat an eyelid.

Manda huevos!: Send eggs!. Unless you’re actually in the business of delivering groceries then this is bound to sound a little peculiar. But 'Manda huevos!', which means something like 'Give me a break!', is the perfect expression for when you're fed up or frustrated by something. 

Llevar los huevos de corbata: Wear ones balls as a tie. Another use of huevos but this time not talking about the shell variety but rather male genitalia. To wear your balls as a tie translates as being tense or nervous. In fact, Spaniards will often hold their throat and say 'this is where I have my balls'- con los huevos aquí- when they want to express nervousness or fear.

Que te la pique un pollo: I hope a chicken pecks at your dick. Pretty self explanatory this one. Best reserved for someone who has really wronged you. 

Vete a freir espárragos: Go and fry asparagus. This is a polite way of telling someone to fuck off in Spanish. 'Vete a freir espárragos' is a step down from ¡vete por ahí! (get lost) and three down from ¡que te folle un pez! ('May a fish make love to you').

Mojar el churro: To wet the churro. Yes, churros: those long, thick doughnut sticks we all love to dunk in chocolate and put in our mouths. Like most stick-shaped food, churros are euphemistically used to described a man's privates. 'Mojar el churro' means to have sex.

De puta madre: Of the whore's mother. Best translated in English as It’s the shit/ the best thing ever! There are somethings so great that you can only describe them as de puta madre.  “I can’t believe how good that tastes! De puta madre!”

Matar el gusanillo: To kill the worm. To kill the worm is to take the edge off your hunger. "A ver si con esta tapa matas el gusanillo." - Let's see if you take the edge off your hunger with this tapa.

Pollas en vinagre: Dicks in vinegar. Use this phrase to call out those who are telling porkies. It's the Spanish equivalent of saying “bullshit.”

No seas tan pendejo: Don’t be such a pube. Use this when telling someone not to be such an asshole. 

Finally . . .

Interesting to hear that 25th December was the feast day of Sol Invictus (Unconquered Sun) - the official sun god of the later Roman Empire and a patron of soldiers.

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

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'*  

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 

I'm more than half convinced there are folk employed in our town hall with a job description that reads: Your responsibility is to change traffic flows at random every 2 to 4 years, without taking anything at all into consideration.  . . . As I was driving to my parking spot yesterday on the Lérez side of O Burgo bridge, I noticed that the back road to my preferred supermarket had had its one-way flow changed to the opposite direction. Meaning that I'll now have to get to it via the main road, increasing the traffic there and adding at least 2km to my return journey. My first thought was it'd be 4km but then I recalled they'd kindly changed the direction of the main Street through Lérez last month,

I cited a job description in the last paragraph but I wouldn't want you to run away with the idea these are common in Spain, My elder daughter has a well-paid job in Madrid but has never had one. Even though she's employed by the subsidiary of an American company. Perhaps they've fallen out of fashion since my day.

Incidentally, the back road I use to the supermarket is the Portuguese camino out of Pontevedra. I fear that Pilgrims doing this for a second time and expecting cars to come southwards and towards them are now likely to be mown down by cars behind them going northwards. Vamos a ver.

Talking of roads . . . As elsewhere in Spain and other countries, reduced human activity has brought wild animals out of the forests here in Galicia. It's reported today that accidents involving wild boars here have tripled, albeit over 10 years. True, this could be from 1 to 3 or 3 to 9 but it's still a 200% increase. Wolves next?

Here's María's Riding The Wave: Day 44     

The USA

An interesting article below on What We Get Wrong About America’s Crisis of Democracy. Descent into authoritarianism always happens, claims the author. The interesting question, he adds, is not what causes autocracy but what has ever suspended it.

The Way of the World

I've been known to be amused by Pontevedra's men in luminescent lycra on expensive bikes. So, the 2nd article below was bound to leave me slack-jawed.

Finally . . .

Click here or here to see the Pantone blue shade of the new British passport.

Reader Eamon has asked me to place the new passport on a black background, to show that it really is blue. Make up your own mind:-

Here's the old 'blue' one:-

And here they are together:-

THE ARTICLES

1. What We Get Wrong About America’s Crisis of Democracy: The interesting question is not what causes authoritarianism but what has ever suspended it: Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker

Readers of “Through the Looking-Glass” may recall the plight of the Bread-and-Butterfly, which, as the Gnat explains to Alice, can live only on weak tea with cream in it. “Supposing it couldn’t find any?” Alice asks. “Then it would die, of course,” the Gnat answers. “That must happen very often,” Alice reflects. “It always happens,” the Gnat admits, dolefully.

How the Bread-and-Butterfly survives, given the impossible demands of its diet, is a nice question. Lewis Carroll was in part teasing Darwinian ideas, which depend on a struggle for existence in which, eventually, we all lose—nonexistence being the norm of living things, over time. But the plight of the Bread-and-Butterfly comes to mind, too, when we contemplate what is called, not without reason, America’s crisis of democracy. It always happens. We are told again and again that American democracy is in peril and may even be on its deathbed. Today, after all, a defeated yet deranged President bunkers in the White House contemplating crazy conspiracy theories and perhaps even martial law, with the uneasy consent of his party and the rabid support of his base. We are then told, with equal urgency, that what is wrong, ultimately, is deep, systemic, and Everybody’s Fault. Perhaps there is a crisis of meaning, or of spirit; perhaps it is a crisis caused by the condescension of self-important élites. (In truth, those élites tend to be at least as self-lacerating as they are condescending, as the latest rounds of self-laceration show.)

Lurking behind all of this is a faulty premise—that the descent into authoritarianism is what needs to be explained, when the reality is that . . . it always happens. The default condition of humankind is not to thrive in broadly egalitarian and stable democratic arrangements that get unsettled only when something happens to unsettle them. The default condition of humankind, traced across thousands of years of history, is some sort of autocracy.

America itself has never had a particularly settled commitment to democratic, rational government. At a high point of national prosperity, long before manufacturing fell away or economic anxiety gripped the Middle West—in an era when “silos” referred only to grain or missiles and information came from three sober networks, and when fewer flew over flyover country—a similar set of paranoid beliefs filled American minds and came perilously close to taking power. As this magazine’s political writer Richard Rovere documented in a beautifully sardonic 1965 collection, “The Goldwater Caper,” a sizable group of people believed things as fully fantastical as the Trumpite belief in voting machines rerouted by dead Venezuelan socialists. The intellectual forces behind Goldwater’s sudden rise thought that Eisenhower and J.F.K. were agents, wittingly or otherwise, of the Communist conspiracy, and that American democracy was in a death match with enemies within as much as without. (Goldwater was, political genealogists will note, a ferocious admirer and defender of Joe McCarthy, whose counsel in all things conspiratorial was Roy Cohn, Donald Trump’s mentor.)

Goldwater was a less personally malevolent figure than Trump, and, yes, he lost his 1964 Presidential bid. But, in sweeping the Deep South, he set a victorious neo-Confederate pattern for the next four decades of American politics, including the so-called Reagan revolution. Nor were his forces naïvely libertarian. At the time, Goldwater’s ghostwriter Brent Bozell spoke approvingly of Franco’s post-Fascist Spain as spiritually far superior to decadent America, much as the highbrow Trumpites talk of the Christian regimes of Putin and Orbán.

The interesting question is not what causes autocracy (not to mention the conspiratorial thinking that feeds it) but what has ever suspended it. We constantly create post-hoc explanations for the ascent of the irrational. The Weimar inflation caused the rise of Hitler, we say; the impoverishment of Tsarism caused the Bolshevik Revolution. In fact, the inflation was over in Germany long before Hitler rose, and Lenin came to power not in anything that resembled a revolution—which had happened already under the leadership of far more pluralistic politicians—but in a coup d’état by a militant minority. Force of personality, opportunity, sheer accident: these were much more decisive than some neat formula of suffering in, autocracy out.

Donald Trump came to power not because of an overwhelming wave of popular sentiment—he lost his two elections by a cumulative ten million votes—but because of an orphaned electoral system left on our doorstep by an exhausted Constitutional Convention. It’s true that our diagnoses, however dubious as explanations, still point to real maladies. Certainly there are all sorts of reasons for reducing economic inequality. But Trump’s power was not rooted in economic interests, and his approval rating among his followers was the same when things were going well as it is now, when they’re going badly. Then, too, some of the blandest occupants of the Oval Office were lofted there during previous peaks of inequality.

The way to shore up American democracy is to shore up American democracy—that is, to strengthen liberal institutions, in ways that are unglamorously specific and discouragingly minute. The task here is not so much to peer into our souls as to reduce the enormous democratic deficits under which the country labors, most notably an electoral landscape in which farmland tilts to power while city blocks are flattened. This means remedying manipulative redistricting while reforming the Electoral College and the Senate. Some of these things won’t be achievable, but all are worth pursuing—with the knowledge that, even if every box on our wonkish wish list were checked, no set-it-and-forget-it solution to democratic fragility would stand revealed. The only way to stave off another Trump is to recognize that it always happens. The temptation of anti-democratic cult politics is forever with us, and so is the work of fending it off.

The rule of law, the protection of rights, and the procedures of civil governance are not fixed foundations, shaken by events, but practices and habits, constantly threatened, frequently renewable. “A republic if you can keep it,” Benjamin Franklin said. Keeping a republic is a matter not of preserving it like pickles but of working it like dough—which sounds like something you’d serve alongside very weak tea. But it is the essential diet to feed our democracy if we are to make what always happens, for a little while longer, happily unhappen. 

2. The Rise of the Fashion Mamil: Meet the men who spend £8K+ on their cycling gear: Alan Tyers

They may have once been the butt of everyone’s jokes, but MAMILs (middle-aged man in lycra) are on now the front pedal – with ultra-niche designer gear, meticulous grooming routines  and bikes worth more than your car. And they are looking good on it. 

A weekday afternoon in a London photography studio, and four middle-aged blokes are happily discussing shaving their legs. There’s earnest debate about aerodynamics, aesthetics, and not getting gravel stuck in your pores if you fall off. But most of all, there is agreement that smooth, silky calves are a badge of honour for the serious amateur cyclist.

Middle-aged men in Lycra (aka MAMILs) have become an easy target, and not just for irate cabbies and lorry drivers. The stereotype was once a portly businessman proving he still had it, squeezed into ill-fitting sportswear, and waving it in your face when he got into the office.

But no more. The story of today’s middle-aged cyclist is about camaraderie, about feeling part of something while still expressing your own individuality, about doing something because you love it and because it’s good for you. It’s about male mental health, about pushing yourself. And for the 4 guys below, it’s about style, fashion, and getting things just right. They and a lot of others like them have money in their pockets, and are prepared to spend it on looking sharp while they ride. With the UK cycling market worth around £1.5 billion annually, and a bike sold every 10 seconds, brands want a piece of these men – and the bigger spenders do tend to be men. Labels like Rapha, Castelli and Café du Cycliste are as familiar to this audience as Paul Smith, Drake’s and Sunspel. In fact, they tend to experiment with, and spend money on, cycling style in a way they might be reluctant to when it comes to non-wheeled looks.

‘Cycling is about propelling a bike, but the aesthetic is of equal importance,’ says the television newsreader and presenter Matt Barbet. ‘Some people just look great on a bike: it’s about riding well, about looking like the bike was made for you, and it is also about the kit. The kit has to match. I love to hunt out limited-edition pieces by brands such as MAAP; I’ll get stuff they do for shops in Japan that people here are most likely not going to have. I don’t want to dress like everyone else. I might spend a couple of hundred on a jersey if it was something I really loved, but it would have to perform well too on a ride.’ Barbet, 43, who will present ITV coverage of the Tour of Britain, which starts today, says there is ‘a tribalism’ to road cycling in Britain, heightened because wider society is not always pro-cyclist. ‘So like any social group, cyclists like to show they know their tribe’s rules.’

And so to legs. ‘Shaving your legs shows that you take cycling seriously,’ says Barbet. ‘It is a non-permanent tattoo. And it looks better: who wants tight Lycra with hairy legs sprouting out? You show off your physique, the hard work that goes into the muscles, and why not? I am not embarrassed; it feels cleaner. And there are all sorts of debates: should you shave up to the shorts or not? The socks, they should start two fingers below the bottom of the calf muscle… Anybody who shaves their legs to ride a bike understands that it is not about physical performance or aerodynamics.’

Emeka Okaro, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, likes that cycling provides him with headspace, a way to be active, and an excuse to stockpile enough wearable textiles to make a Victorian mill owner blush. ‘I got an old bike out of the shed five years ago,’ says Okaro, 51. ‘I did 1.8 miles and I practically collapsed. But I kept with it, and four miles became five miles, and 10 became 20. Obviously there are the keep-fit benefits, less stress on the joints and all that, and I want to be active into my 60s, my 70s. ‘But also I like to look good and feel good about my riding. I have three bikes – my wife would say I have four, but I don’t count one of them because it is a hybrid. I have 25 or so shirts: I like the brand Café du Cycliste. When I first took it up, I didn’t really bother about what I wore, but I wouldn’t go out now without looking the part. I’ll select something depending on my mood and how I want to express myself. I’ve spent a small fortune over the years. ‘It’s about individuality, and also the camaraderie. I ride with my friends, up to about 12 of us, people I have known for years. I would say that we are competitive with each other, but positively. We see improvement as a group and we celebrate that. And my style is an important factor for me in that.’

Britain being Britain, bonding activities that don’t involve several pints of temporary happiness facilitator can be hard to find for many men. For Jamie Dormon, a fashion columnist who has bipolar disorder, cycling is a hobby, a means of expression, and a vital mental-health tool. ‘Cycling shuts my mind up,’ says Dormon, 43. ‘I used to shut it up with drink and whatever, but now I ride. This bike I have today, a fixed-gear, I completely stripped it down. You pedal. To brake, pedal back. I value the simplicity of it; you don’t overthink. It’s all black, apart from the gold chain – that adds a bit of individuality. And I’ll wear a lot of bright colours, pinks or oranges, always coordinated though. Black Sheep and Attaquer I like, and [the range for] Vélobici by a photographer called Scott Mitchell, who worked with Team Sky. ‘I definitely feel faster in Lycra. I love the detail of cycling kit, I think it appeals to the mathematical part of our brains. I am setting up a charity that I’m going to call Manic Bikes, teaching people with bipolar and other mental-health issues to repair bikes. Cycling is great for mental health, because of the quietening effect but also because in a group, if someone hasn’t come for a ride for a couple of weeks, you’d check in with them.’

Jon Evans, 45, who works in marketing, also started five years ago. ‘No underpants,’ he says. ‘That was the big shock. When I first went out, I was with a mate who was an experienced rider. He asked me if I was wearing pants, and then he was like, “Oooh. You are in for some chafing.” The shorts have a pad in, so you don’t want any other fabric. Learnt that quickly. ‘I agree that when I feel my best I ride my best; there’s a mixture of reality and placebo effect. I started off with a bike that cost about £1,000, but your first bike is not your last bike. A £1,000 bike becomes a £3,000 bike and then a £7,000 bike and, well… You see other people with a better one and you think they are at an unfair advantage.’ To Evans, it’s all about the bike. ‘As for the kit, the better I get, the more understated I get. I mostly wear Castelli, low-key. My ideal look would be ninja, really. You should never buy team kit: anyone you see going around dressed in Team Sky is a no-no. You can almost guarantee they cannot ride. And everything has to be tight. Skintight. No sagging, no bagging, because that slows you down. I would have miles more respect for a guy, even if he’s carrying a lot of timber, in tight Lycra, than someone flapping around.’ Like the others, Evans has no problem with spending on the style. ‘I’ve got an account with one online retailer, and they make you a “platinum” member if you spend £500 a year. Occasionally they send a statement, and it was about £1,500 last year on kit. Oh dear!’

All four agree that they dress for themselves, or to be part of a subculture to varying degrees. Barbet admits that there is an element of ‘peacocking’, but none of them feels that they are looking to impress women. Maybe cycling blokes are missing a trick. Lauren Stevenson, 38, who runs Aisle 8 communications consultancy, says, ‘I met my boyfriend when he cycled beside me going up a hill in Ibiza. Cycling is a great way to meet people: you’re outdoors in beautiful scenery, relaxed, you’ve got a shared interest. And it tends to be an affluent sport; guys who will spend five grand on a bike often have interesting jobs or lives. ‘Cycling guys do maybe tend to be a bit older. And I’ve noticed there’s a bit of a progression through the brands they wear: they get into it and get Rapha, and then Castelli, and then the really cool French ones like Chapeau!.’

Lisa Tubbs, 39, a photographer, agrees that cycling is an attractive pastime; she met her husband on a ride with Richmond Park Rouleurs and they are expecting a baby next month. ‘There is definitely something appealing about chasing boys up hills on a bike,’ she jokes. ‘I like that it’s an opportunity for guys to wear bright colours; lots of men seem to love pink on a bike. And while certain physiques might be more aesthetically appealing, I like that guys in all shapes and sizes go for it in the Lycra.’

We live in an era when acceptable and unacceptable expressions of masculinity are debated as never before. Where once the 40- or 50-year-old man might have blown off steam with golf and locker-room chat, or buying a preposterous gas-guzzling vehicle, the switched-on middle-aged man of today wants to spend his cash on an environmentally and socially conscious pursuit; one that is mental-health-positive, physically beneficial, and allows him to express himself. Surely it is time for a hunting ban on MAMILs.

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

 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

In case you missed it, see yesterday’s post for another good dose of information and common sense from Private Eye's MD

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 

Here’s something on the history of the bizarre Spanish custom of downing 12 grapes at midnight chimes on December 31.

It's possible Spain has found a winter version of its fineable offence of driving in flip-flops - driving in a puffer jacket. Or, indeed, any clothing the Guardia officer thinks either ‘restricts your movements’ or ‘interferes with the operation of the seat belt’.

Spain already boasts a very wide spectrum of driving offences. If you’re new here - or just ignorant - these examples should interest/worry you:—

- Filling up at the petrol station, if you’re smoking, using a mobile or have left the radio or lights on.

- Having a dirty number plate

- Washing your car in the street.

- Giving your offspring a private lesson.

- Not putting on a hi-vis jacket before getting out of the car. (If you’re the driver, your penalties will be more severe than those of a passenger)

- Not having a spare pair of glasses in the car.

Lenox Napier posts here this bit of satirical doggerel:-

I'm dreaming of a blue passport,

Just like the ones I used to know.

Where I need a Visa,

to visit Pisa,

And there is nowhere I can go.

I am dreaming of a blue passport,

now that we've got our country back.

May our future be dreary

...and shite,

and may all our citizens be white .

I'd just point out that the new passport I've now finally received ain't blue, like the first one I got at 18, nor burgundy red, like those of the last few decades, but . . . black. Which appears to have upset some idiots. The British government begs to differ on this: The Home Office say the colour is still blue - shade number 5395C, which according to the standardised colour classification chart, is 'Pantone'. You could have fooled me.

Here's María's Riding The Wave: Days 42 & 42. You'll possibly need this definition: Pantagruelian: enormous. As in ‘a Pantagruelian banquet’.  And maybe this.

The UK

Some potentially very good news: British scientists are trialling a new drug that could prevent someone who has been exposed to coronavirus from going on to develop the disease Covid-19, which experts say could save many lives. The antibody therapy would confer instant immunity against the disease and could be given as an emergency treatment to hospital inpatients and care home residents to help contain outbreaks. The drug has been developed by UCLH and AstraZeneca and the UK Regulatory Agency is expected to approve for use in Britain next week.

The UK & The EU

The good news is that: Britons will keep free healthcare access across Europe after Brexit through the European Health Insurance Card.  

BUT . . . I’m confused about things, ‘going forward’. It’s reported that, as of the new year, we EU residents will need the new UK Global Health Insurance Card [GHIC?] but the NHS doesn’t seem ready to hand these out yet. I recently had to extend my old EHIC, as it expired in early December and I’ve been sent a new one. This seems to expire after just a month but might, as reported, last for 5 years from issue. To ensure cover beyond 31 January, I applied this morning for the new GHIC but have been told I can’t have it, as I’m not allowed to have 2 cards. I’m now awaiting advice as to whether I need to make a new application on February 1. 

I wonder if the new card will be blue. Or Pantone black.

Finally . . .

A foto of some time ago, proving that Boris Johnson doesn’t need to look like a scarecrow, and once didn’t . . .

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

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'*  

Today is what the Brits call Boxing Day. No one's really sure why.

Anyway, here's a Covid Special - Another good dose of information and common sense from Private Eye's MD. . UK biased, of course, but surely of wider interest and relevance:- 

1. Celebrate science 

Whatever your view on the profits of the pharmaceutical industry, the extraordinary achievement in producing Covid vaccines within a year deserves praise. Not only could vaccines save lives and prevent transmission, they could also return life to a semblance of normal. Even countries with far better control of the virus than us will embrace vaccination, though they have bought more time to ponder which of the vaccines they want to use. 

The UK is not in that position. Having failed to act quickly at the start of the pandemic, and with widespread community transmission only partly curtailed by harmful restrictions, we are acting most quickly with vaccinations. If they work, and enough people choose to be vaccinated, it's the UK's best chance of ending the lockdowns, protecting the NHS and care homes, reopening society and boosting employment and the economy. 

Indirectly, vaccination could make it easier for non-Covid conditions to be diagnosed and treated, improve mental and sexual health, end isolation, and allow people to die and grieve with support and dignity. But mass vaccination won't happen overnight. And it isn't harmless. 

2. First do the least harm. Then do some good 

"First do no harm" is my least favourite aphorism. It is widely quoted as a cornerstone of the Hippocratic Oath, notably by people who oppose vaccination. It comes from Latin ("primum non nocere") and is wrongly attributed to Hippocrates, who was Greek. In truth, every health intervention can do harm as well as good. Merely labelling someone with high blood pressure or high Covid risk can have profound psychological consequences. 

This pandemic has taught us that "do no harm" is for the birds. Every public health intervention made in the name of containing Covid (isolation at the end of life; banning funerals; banning social gatherings; closing schools, businesses and sports, hospitality and cultural venues; protecting the NHS at the cost of care homes; national lockdown, regional lockdown; failures of testing, tracing and PPE; etc) has had significant costs and harms. 

Because we were late to act at the outset and let the virus nm free, we have spent a staggering £280bn trying to slow it down. But we can never be sure how many lives have been saved by locking down or how many we would have saved by spending the money on other things, or more effectively. We may never know if we've done more good than harm, but we do know the harm we have inflicted on ourselves is so big you can see it from space. In such a festival of self-harm, not having a vaccine because no one can guarantee it is "I 00 percent safe" or "completely free from harm" seems odd, particularly when you consider the potential good it could do. 

3. There is no 'zero risk' 

Nothing in a pandemic has a better benefit:risk ratio than vaccines. When rare but serious side effects occur, such as severe allergy and anaphylaxis, they happen at the time of administration, which is why vaccines are given where there are resuscitation facilities. Of the thousands of Pfizer BioNTech vaccines given in the UK so far, two people have had severe allergic reactions and recovered with treatment. Both had a history of severe allergy to triggers other than vaccines, and anyone with such a history should not have the Pfizer vaccine. 

When vaccines are given to billions of people, as they will be for Covid, thousands of adverse reactions will be reported. Most will be unrelated to the vaccines, but some will be. Which is why vaccination should be voluntary and all vaccines should be protected by the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme. 

4. Keep vaccines voluntary 

In MD's view, forcing people to have vaccines against their will does more harm than good, and may increase side effects (if you think something is going to harm or help you, often it does). Some people may refuse inoculation because of the warnings of a TikTok celebrity who will happily snort cocaine imported in a mule's rectum but tells his millions of followers a rigorously tested vaccine is dangerously impure. 

In the dark days of medical paternalism, patients were told their tests, jabs, treatment or screening were a 'Jolly good idea" by a doctor or nurse they had no choice but to trust. There was little nuanced discussion about pros and cons. Many patients are still happy to do whatever the doctor/nurse/NHS/Queen recommends, particularly in a crisis. But others want proper informed consent. The government and NHS need to give it to them. 

5. Brains need BRAUNS 

Informed choice for any medical intervention requires BRAUNS. You need to know and understand the Benefits, Risks, Alternatives, Unknowns, what if I did Nothing?, and Safety net if something goes wrong. 

The NHS does not have a glorious history in giving fully informed consent for mass screening, mass vaccination or indeed any new products (eg the vaginal mesh), and regulators don't always protect people when shit happens (read First Do No Harm, the coruscating Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review chaired by Baroness Cumberlege). 

The Pfizer Covid vaccine uses a new technology and the trial safety data and efficacy (available at www.gov.uk) are excellent. However, you never know how a new vaccine (or any therapy) will perform and how long protection will last until you try it in the real world. No severe allergic reactions were reported in the trials, but they happen in real life. 

The chances of having short or long-term serious side effects for existing vaccines is roughly one in 25,000. The chances of having life-threatening side effects is roughly one in 1,000,000. This compares to one in 250 and one in I 0,000 for a course of antibiotics, making vaccines roughly I 00 times safer to take than, say, penicillin. And much less harmful than lockdown.

6. Scepticism can be healthy and harmful 

Those who do not wish to have a vaccine should have that choice respected. However, they should also be made aware of the potential dangers of not vaccinating, to others as much as themselves. 

We have a long-established, safe and highly effective MMR vaccine. Unfortunately, too many parents still doubt it decades after the Andrew Wakefield autism scare, and the UK has now lost its measles-free status. The Eye got MMR wrong and was corrected by MD (see Eyes passim). 

It is very hard to prove a drug or vaccine is safe and effective (trials have to be large and meticulously conducted). It is also very hard to disprove an allegation of harm, however implausible. Vaccines have done far more good than harm over centuries, but some - or some batches - have been harmful and needed to be called out. We shouldn't put a halo around any intervention, but neither should we smear it with bullshit. Transparency over data and safety reporting is key. The pharma industry has been too slow to put all data for all trials in the public domain, but Covid vaccines are likely to be the most scrutinised in history. 

Herd immunity will require a majority of eligible Brits to be vaccinated. It will also need huge levels of public trust (undermined by the misinformation of the Brexit debate) and a strong sense of the importance of the collective over the individual (not a traditional selling point of the hard Tory right). It may take the Queen and David Attenborough to get it over the line. 

MD's 202 I prediction is that as soon as all the over-50s and high-risk people have been offered a vaccine, and those who want it have had it, the government will cease all restrictions. And there will be benefits and harms. 

7. Promote health for all 

Vaccines save millions of lives, but not as many as giving everyone a decent standard of living. The most reliable indicator of health is wealth. Money buys freedom, space, nutritious food, care and escape from adversity, which translates in the UK to ten years more life expectancy and 20 more years of disease-free living compared to the poorest. 

The pandemic, and our response to it, has magnified existing health inequalities. During the first wave it doubled your risk of death, and during the current wave it's adding 20 percent. So the more at risk you are by dint of age, disease, disability or deprivation, the more likely you are to die during the pandemic (and not necessarily of Covid). 

Countries with the highest death tolls were not only poorly prepared and slow to react, but also had very high levels of health inequality, poverty, mental illness, obesity and chronic disease. For example, the "Northern Powerhouse" area has suffered 12 more Covid-related deaths per 100,000 than the rest of England and will also be hardest hit by lockdowns, recession and Brexit. Time to level up. 

8. Health workers are human not heroes 

Most NHS staff enjoyed the Thursday clapping and rainbows, but many (including MD) were uncomfortable with the "heroes" label. To do a very stressful job competently, in the most difficult circumstances, we need adequate training, supervision, sleep, nutritious food, regular breaks and freedom from fear and bullying. We also need adequate PPE to protect us. The idea that we have heroic stamina and invincibility is dangerous nonsense. 

Hospital-acquired Covid infections are now at an all-time high (on 6 December they accounted for 24 percent of the total), and 36 trusts saw Covid admissions increase by more than 20 percent, with 19 days still to go before Christmas. True, winter is always tough in the NHS (four years ago the Red Cross described trolley queues in our emergency departments as a "humanitarian crisis") but 25 percent of the junior doctors in many hospitals (including my own) are currently off sick or isolating as Covid contacts. Some staff over 50 are very unwell with Covid, 650 health and care staff died from Covid this year and 2020 has also been a terrible year for mental health. More GP and consultant colleagues have been lost to suicide. Many doctors are innately self-critical workaholics who hate not being able to deliver a decent standard of care for all their patients. Please think of that when you're complaining how hard it is to see a consultant or GP. We have no heroic power to fix an overloaded system. 

There is light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel is longer than you think and Christmas will be particularly treacherous. Think carefully before embracing the multi-household bubble-fest. My mum (84) has chosen to have the vaccine but not to have Christmas with her grandchildren. 

9. How we die matters 

The moment sperm meets egg, we join the queue for death. Humans are the one species who know our fate well in advance. Our mortality rate will always be 100 percent; it's how we die that matters. Some people were taken well before their time by Covid, but the median age of Covid death is 82.4 years. 

The greatest trauma is that many people died quickly and unexpectedly, often on their own and with no chance to say goodbye. Funerals have been strictly spaced and limited, leading to even more isolation and grief. Most people would choose a quick death over weeks of wasting away, but for those left behind the loss is more profound if words are left unsaid. 

Of the many cultural shifts of the pandemic (face-masks, elbow bumps, Jonathan Yan-Tam action dolls), the least understood is the extraordinary increase (more than 25,000) in people dying at home. Few had Covid tests, and postmortems have been limited, so we may never know why. Some may have lived if they'd sought help for, say, a heart attack or cancer. Many may have been fearful of catching Covid in hospital without realising they'd already caught it. Some may have wanted to "protect the NHS" when they most needed to use it. There may even be a link between "working from home" and "dying at home". 

Hopefully, some people had decent deaths at home, surrounded by the love of their family, rather than saying goodbye in a mask and visor at two metres or via iPad. Vaccines could end this insanity too. I'll be having mine.  

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

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'*  

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 

The Spanish have their big Xmas meal on the 24th, not the 25th, as elsewhere. So it was that I was taking a drink with (the permitted number of) friends at 5pm and then moving next door to enjoy seafood pâté at 10, crab pâté at 10.30, grilled scallops at 10.45 and glazed roast lamb with roasted spuds after 11. Before retiring to bed around 1, and waking at 7 - after possibly not the best sleep of my life.

So I'm confining myself to the comments that:-

- It's good to see the the current king did make a swipe at his very corrupt dad in his Xmas address of yesterday. 

- And it's absolutely wonderful to know we'll never hear the word Brexit ever again . . .

Oh, and here's a nice hatchet job on Boris Johnson from an ex Conservative MP, in The Times.

Boris Johnson’s zing has well and truly zung Like sheep without a shepherd, voters who trusted the PM have grown confused and resentful at his lack of leadership:  Matthew Parris

‘Like a rotten mackerel by moonlight,” said the 19th-century American congressman John Randolph of another politician, “he shines and stinks.” With Boris Johnson the shine has gone.

Yet it was for the shine that we elevated him. I remember the 2019 general election campaign, and that sense of slightly unfocused excitement. It wasn’t about what Boris would actually do (except not be Jeremy Corbyn and “get Brexit done”): it was all about zing, about whizz-bang, sparkle, fizz, gusto, passion — and fun. Well zing is as zing does and Johnson’s zing has well and truly zung. The fun has gone and with it the shine. We are left with the stink.

Like their politicians, electorates need ladders to climb down; and this prime minister is ultimately our fault. So we excuse our mistake by saying he’s lost that punchy effervescence for which we chose him. But effervescence is a highfalutin word for gas. And gaiters. And talk and trousers will only get you so far. Now comes the void, a void into which nobody stares more mournfully than he.

Face it: there was never any reason for confidence in Boris Johnson’s diligence, his honesty, his directness, his mastery of debate, his people-skills with colleagues, his executive ability or his policy grip. We’d seen no early demonstration of any of these qualities but we just blanked that out. We looked hopefully into the crystal ball when we should have read the book.

Fish rot from the head down, so let me run you quickly through the huge stumbles that can only finally point back up to the boss.

First, Covid. Though I do think our government panicked at the start, I accept that a reasonably cogent case can be made for its first response. Why, then, are we in such a mess now when other countries are facing similar problems with (for instance) testing? There’s no ducking the answer. We’ve lacked any feeling of overall direction or leadership and so, like sheep without a shepherd, we’ve grown confused, divided, frightened, irritable and resentful.

Then there’s the repeated over-promising, “moonshots” and all that. Over-promising invites the law of diminishing returns and slides finally into public contempt. You can over-promise to one woman, then over-promise to another, but in this case there’s only one lady involved, and that’s us. Boris can’t move on to a new electorate.

It would help if our PM, who admitted yesterday that we are in a second wave, would tell us where we’re trying to get to in this pandemic. “Conquering” the virus? Suppressing it until a vaccine comes along? Or learning to live with it? The health secretary and perhaps his medical advisers seem to imply the first, sometimes the second. Some medical/scientific opinion (see the recent discussion by Peter Doshi in the latest edition of The BMJ) seems at least to contemplate the third.

Which, then? The public need to know before we can trust. If all we’re aiming for is to slow down transmission then the case for patchy and sometimes random and even inconsistent prohibitions can be understood, but if we’re trying to “beat” a virus then the measures look ragged, scattergun, and capricious. What and which, then, is Johnson’s overall aim? He’s in charge. As Queen Victoria’s first prime minister, Viscount Melbourne, remarked to his cabinet: “Is it to lower the price of corn or isn’t it? It is not much matter which we say, but mind, we must all say the same.”

Criticisms of leadership all risk stumbling at the final fence, in this case “if not Boris, who?” Could David Cameron, Tony Blair or John Major have proved better at taking the public with them on Covid-19? Better at explaining, at showing humility where there is uncertainty or error, at admitting failures? At persuading?

You have only to imagine any of these three in the chair at press conferences or in the Commons chamber to know the answer: an emphatic, unqualified yes.

Be it PPE, Ofqual, or (now) test-and-trace, with Johnson and his team it’s always somebody else’s fault — in the latest instance, ours, the public’s, whose anxiety to know if we’re infected is entirely natural given the government’s scare campaign. The problem with Johnson is that he so often doesn’t appear to know his own mind and struggles to take a position and stick to it. This is a mind (and I borrow the phrase) “not so much open as vulnerable to a succession of opposing certainties”.

As someone who, like me, has watched him for years and seen him at close quarters put it yesterday: “I don’t think Johnson has any clear view as to what is intended. I think he often speaks without having any really serious intent as to outcome.” Any tribe finds this unsettling in the chief.

And who, anyway, is the chief? Johnson has allowed the impression to arise that Dominic Cummings is his Svengali. Cummings has a usefully sharp intelligence but people hate the whole idea of Svengalis. Cummings’s Barnard Castle episode, with Johnson apparently in thrall to his adviser, was a political catastrophe.

If it were just over Covid, where uncertainty is the norm, some would sympathise with our PM: some still do. But take this summer’s row about A-levels and Ofqual. It’s fashionable to sneer at Gavin Williamson and mock his accent, but if the education secretary should have seen this coming, so should the prime minister. What steer, what support, did Johnson give? My guess is that he will have whistled and looked the other way. And how could a PM who knew or cared about the quality of his cabinet have shrugged shoulders at the rank inadequacy of his home secretary, Priti Patel? People do get the message. Like many weak bosses, Johnson is frightened of competition or discord.

Finally, the Internal Market Bill. Posturing is common enough in politics but to attempt a David-and-Goliath confrontation with Brussels and then sling-shoot yourself in the foot is a fiasco. The whole shaming episode was entirely predictable, as is its conclusion. The bill will sink.

And so we end up with this rancid shambles of a government. The confusion is inseparable from the character of its leader. Is it, then, too late for Johnson? Could he yet wind back and start again? I end as I began, with the words of John Randolph, reflecting on his own career, and how “. . . time misspent and faculties mis-employed, and senses jaded by labour, or impaired by excess, cannot be recalled any more than that freshness of the heart, before it has become aware of the deceits of others, and of its own.”

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

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'*  

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

Xmas gatherings: 17 different regions and 2 'enclaves' (not colonies!) in Africa. So, 1p sets of rules. See here on this.

A got a message from DHL Express - not the same as DHL - re what I think is my old passport, coming back next week. In this they say they aim to answer emails within 5 days. Not 5 hours but 5 DAYS . . . Does this really count as prompt service in Spain? The UK Passport Office - a busy place - offers 3 days.

Here's María's Riding The Wave: Day 40 

The UK

The reaction to the UK being the first country to identify - not have - the new Covid strain reminds me of the 1917/8 'flu being labelled Spanish 'flu, simply because there was no embargo in the media here on talking about it. Unlike in all the countries embroiled in a war, with morale to worry about. 

The UK & The EU

So, it looks like one of the 'final, final deadlines' for a deal turns out to be genuine. Who'd have thought it?

The EU

But not everything is coming up roses. See below for some Xmas gloom below for Brussels, from our old friend, Casandra, aka Ambrose Evans Pritchard.

The USA/Nutters Corner

Some atheists choose not to tell their kids that Santa Claus exist because it’s technically telling them a lie. 'Vision America' founder and pastor Rick Scarborough feels the same way, but his fear is that the same logic kids use to show Santa doesn’t exist will eventually be used against God. And also, SANTA and SATAN contain the same letters.

The Way of the World

Perhaps one of the silver linings of 2020 is the revelation that it is not the people who are going mad, but the world itself. Society is sick, suspended between the eras of the life-loving baby boomers and a perverse new desire to abolish death. Next year, the challenge will be to muster the strength to try and restore some sanity to the planet, at the same time as heal ourselves.

Finally . . .

This might just work . . .

THE ARTICLE

Europe’s vaccination fiasco threatens to become the EU's biggest failure.

The politicisation by Brussels of Covid vaccines is turning into an economic and political black swan event - with a huge price to pay: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard The Telegraph

The EU’s politicisation of Covid vaccines is turning into an economic and political black swan event. There will be a price to pay as the consequences of this profound failure unfold in 2021, and an even higher price as people start to understand why it happened.

Europe’s double-dip recession will be stretched out for another quarter. Recovery will be delayed until the second half of the year. 

Thousands more companies will be pushed over the brink, threatening a cascade of defaults and raising the risk of systemic solvency across the banking nexus. Labour scarring will run deeper. Public debt ratios across the Club Med bloc will move closer to the point of no return.

It is by now widely known that the European Medicines Agency wasted two critical weeks after the UK, Canada and even America’s notoriously cautious FDA had approved the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine. The agency would have wasted another week had there not been furious complaints from Berlin. 

The Commission’s insistence that all EU states should then launch the vaccine at the same time after Christmas has lost yet more critical days. Germans have been subjected to the surreal spectacle of trial drills by their well-organised vaccination machine when they could have been doing the real thing. They cannot yet receive a jab made by their own start-up group BioNTech. 

“Germany has bet on Europe, and lost heavily (krachend verloren),” was the headline across Die Zeit, with a pointed picture of a woman in Cardiff being vaccinated while along with a caption declaring that Germans must wait such deliverance.

The Netherlands has compounded the error by so mishandling its software preparations that it will not start vaccinating until Jan 8. If you think Boris Johnson has had a bad pandemic, take a look at Dutch wunderkind Mark Rutte. Listen to the volcanic exchanges in the Tweede Kamer.

But these delays pale compared to what is coming next year. The European vaccine alliance has failed in its one overriding purpose: it neglected the job of acquiring vaccines. Germany has just 400,000 doses of the BioNTech jab and may not receive more than 3m or 4m by late January, rising to a total of 11m to 13m by the end of March. Berlin has taken matters into its own hands and belatedly ordered more for the future but the damage is done.

A devastating report by investigative journalists at Der Spiegel entitled “The Planning Disaster” pulls away the curtain on the ineptitude of the European Commission, which drifted through the summer with much self-gratulation but little action. 

Other countries ordered early, and ordered wide. Brussels picked a mix of vaccines that mostly will not be ready until the second half of 2021 at the earliest. It failed to lock in a firm order for the BioNTech jab until mid-November, long after it was already clear that this messenger RNA vaccine was a front-runner. 

Even then it declined the full offer of 500m doses for the EU27. The Commission ordered just 200m, with an option for 100m more. It also turned down most of the offer from Moderna, the other mRNA front-runner. 

According to Der Spiegel there had to be parity with Sanofi’s "French vaccine", which has since gone badly awry and is unlikely to come on stream before the end of 2021. "Buying more from a German company wasn't in the cards,” said one source.

You can interpret this as a case of European ideology and political correctness running amok, but there is an even worse construction: the Commission seems to have intervened in the interests of one commercial company, spending public funds corruptly in violation of its own competition law.

“Dramatic consequences are brewing for the German government,” said Der Spiegel. “Without being able to vaccinate on a broad scale, the country won’t be able to stop the virus. Which means that the fall and winter of 2021 could be similar to this year, with high infection rates, contact restrictions and lockdowns.”

Analysts at Eurointelligence go even further: “The combination of a delay of vaccine approval and a procurement policy under suspicion of prioritising producer interest would be a shock from which the EU would struggle to recover. From now onwards, Covid deaths may be EU deaths.”

In my view we are heading into a year where German popular support for the European Project will be stress-tested like never before. Two grave matters will intersect. It will become clear to all that the fundamental health security of the country has been endangered by EU politics. At the same time, monetary union will go through another spasm of tension.

Europe’s leaders have oversold the €750bn recovery fund as a springboard for Keynesian reflation. It is spread too thinly over five years to move the macroeconomic needle. Almost half of the money is in the form of loans that may never be used - except in extremis - because of the Troika-like conditions attached. 

Budget plans in southern Europe suggest that much of the grant component displaces money that would have been spent anyway and therefore adds no net fiscal stimulus. Yet a third wave of Covid and further rolling lockdowns, now unavoidable, means that the overall fiscal package will have to be greater.

There is already talk sotto voce that the recovery fund will need to be much larger to avert lasting economic damage. If so, it means telling German and northern European taxpayers that they will have to dig deeper into their pockets to fund even greater transfers to the South.

The European Central Bank can shut down the price signals in the sovereign debt markets for a while longer by soaking up the bond issuance of Italy, Spain, Portugal, and indeed France, but the longer it does so, the clearer it is that the ECB is conducting fiscal policy and propping up insolvent sovereign states in breach of EU treaty law.

While the latest programme of pandemic QE lasts in principle until March 2022, the problems will surface before then. German public opinion and part of the economics professoriate will react once there are first flickers of inflation, which will occur around Easter for mechanical "base-effect" reasons and because of commodity supply constraints. You can dress up QE as an emergency tool for fighting deflation. How do you explain it if prices are rising briskly?

For now attention is on Britain’s particular travails but this is unlikely to last. Scientists working in the UK discovered and tracked the B.1.1.7 mutation because this country has done almost as much genome sequencing of Covid-19 as the rest of the world combined. As Nervtag said in its report, this mutation was particularly hard to sequence.

Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK) makes these sequences available to international science, a big contribution to the global fight against the pandemic that is little appreciated in lay circles. You certainly would not know this from some of the abuse being hurled at Britain. 

Italy’s health adviser Walter Ricciardi descended to inexcusable depths in suggesting that the UK knew about the virus in September (it did not not: the sample was collected in September, one of thousands of mutations) and has since engaged in a Wuhanesque cover-up. 

It is possible that the mutation came from Italy in the first place for all we know. It might have come from the treatment of an immuno-compromised patient in the UK treated with neutralising antibodies, but we can’t be sure. It is too early to reach any conclusion.

The larger point is that the UK acts as Europe’s viral antennae. There has been more Covid sequencing from Wales than from the whole of France. Once EU states carry out full surveillance of the mutant strain they may discover that it has long been circulating on the Continent, explaining the parabolic surges that have caught so many governments off guard over recent weeks.

The great irony is that only the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will be available soon enough and at a larger enough scale to prevent a disaster for Europe over the next six months. The mutation makes it even more urgent. “Right now, whether Germany fares well or not hinges on the AstraZeneca vaccine,” says Karl Lauterbach, health chief for the German Social Democrats. 

The vaccine will almost certainly be approved in the UK the week after Christmas. The European Medicines Agency will have to decide whether to swallow its pride and accept an accursed product of this apostate island. My guess is that it will drag feet for faux procedural reasons until public opinion and the German Chancellor force the issue.

Whatever happens, it is going to be a very difficult time for Europe. People will notice as the UK conducts several million vaccinations a week all through January in a massive operation that draws on the best of the NHS and the British armed forces. There will be the same images in America, Canada, and elsewhere. 

They will ask why the doses are being dribbled out so desperately slowly across the Continent, and when that happens Brussels will struggle to offer a credible answer. If EU elites don’t yet realise that this is going to mushroom into one of the biggest failures in the history of the European Project, they will find out soon enough. 

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

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'*  

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

Well, at least this year Galicia got a bit of the big money from the vast Xmas lottery: The number 72897 won the 'Gordo', the €4m top prize. It was sold in many different parts of the country, including - in Pontevedra province - O Grove, Vigo, and O Porriño. But not in Pontevedra city . . .

Blogger Mac75 bring you 50 things you might not know about Spain, here. Number 47 should read 'would worry about' or 'object to having', not 'would care to have'.

My bloody passport: My morning saw a flurry of messages from various DHL employees, all saying how sorry they were for inconveniencing me and assuring me the package would be delivered after 3.30. And, indeed, it was. But was I, in fact, asked to sign for it, as had been stressed in every communication? I think you know the answer to that. I wasn't even asked for my ID number. IGIMSTS.

Which reminds me . . . When a company has a premium phone number for its customer service department - the norm here - and then makes you wait several minutes before you talk to someone, it's actually profiting from its suboptimal resources and inefficiency. The very opposite of customer orientation. But because they all do it - unless legally obliged not to* - they don't suffer any competitive disadvantage. Just like the banks with their several undisclosed charges. Spain still has some way to go in this area.

* The utility companies and the companies listed here. 

Here's María's Riding The Wave: Day 39  That lottery. 

The USA

Here's Trump, on rejecting a Congress-approved Covid relief package: Maybe the next administration will be me. Not 'mine. Says a lot. Though perhaps not as much as his Fin de Siècle pardoning policy  - the latest evidence that, in the 'liberal democracy' of the  USA, a president has more rights and power than an autocratic king ruling by 'divine right'! 

At least the USA will never again have the excuse of bringing a superior system to another country, when devastating it with the latest weapons. I fancy Putin must be a tad smug right now. Perhaps he's financing it all.

Historical note: Mr Trump will be far from the first president to face criticism over pardons. Article II of the US Constitution enshrines a president's "power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States" except in cases of impeachment. The provision itself came under fire when it was written. The first controversial presidential pardon issued was by George Washington to organisers of the Whiskey Rebellion at the end of the 18th Century. Others have included Gerald Ford's pre-emptive and unconditional pardon of his predecessor Richard Nixon after Watergate. And on his last day in office Bill Clinton issued 140 pardons, including highly controversial ones to a fugitive Democrat donor charged with fraud, and his own half brother over past drug convictions.

I'm not aware that Queen Elizabeth II has pardoned anyone. Nor the British government, unless after a judicial review.

The Way of the World

Rather a lot of good news . . .

But WTF . . .

Finally . . .

A Spanish friend asked me yesterday when would it be convenient to pop in for a drink. I said 5 to 7, as I plan to go out at 8. He turned up at 8.45. And, of course, never mentioned his lateness. As it didn’t exist for him . . .

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

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 again, 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 to allow 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 the 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 mixture 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.

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

Two retrospectives:-

The question is whether lockdowns worked to control the virus in a way that is scientifically verifiable. Based on the following studies, the answer is no and for a variety of reasons: bad data, no correlations, no causal demonstration, anomalous exceptions, and so on. There is no relationship between lockdowns (or whatever else people want to call them to mask their true nature) and virus control. Full article here.

The question that will baffle future historians is: Why did western nations largely follow one another when there were vastly better role models? Taiwan has endured few deaths from Covid, and its economy has barely been affected, growing this year by more than 2.5%. By controlling the virus with precision techniques such as tech-enabled contract tracing, it didn’t need to resort to crude lockdowns or cancel national celebrations. And it didn’t have to turn cancer and other patients away from hospitals, because there was always spare capacity to deal with them. If nothing else, doesn’t this example show that the “trade-offs” that have dominated debate in the West are largely imaginary? With competent governance, there is no trade-off between lives and livelihoods any more than there is between Covid and non-Covid deaths. By controlling transmission, it is possible to keep the economy open, hospitals open and hospitality open, too. The economy and public health are not in conflict; they are synergistic. See more below.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

A nice cat story to lift the Xmas gloom - Having been on the cusp of extinction, the Iberian lynx is poised to spring to a four-figure population milestone thanks to a successful and sophisticated rescue effort mounted by a coalition of conservation groups. A key member says the stock of Iberian lynx is set to reach 1,000 in 2021, which represents a remarkable turnaround after numbering less than 100 two decades ago.

Here's María's Riding The Wave: Days 36&37. 

The UK

The British police say it's impossible for them to enforce the Xmas travel restrictions just imposed because of the new virus variant. Perhaps not as ruthless as the Spanish police, then . . .

Germany

More criticism but, this time, homegrown. But everything's relative, it's said.

The USA

 Can you believe it? Of course you can:- President Trump considered martial law to try to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. The possibility of using the military to enforce a 2nd term is said to have been emphatically rebuffed by many of his closest advisers. But the fact that it was raised marks a new, severe turn in his attempts to defy his defeat.  Perhaps he should be shot, 'trying to escape' . . .

The Way of the World

Finally . . .

Prospect Magazine has sent me an Xmas letter, starting 'Dear D'. This is presumably because they have me in their records as 'D {for David] Colin Davies'

Topical joke: A man goes to the doctor. He says: “Doc, I’m really worried about this Covid thing. How lethal is it? Do I need to wear a mask? When will we get a vaccine? And how long will the vaccine last?” And the doctor shakes his head and says: “How would I know? I’m not on Facebook.”

Updated topical cartoon:-

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

 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

Spanish vaccinations are to begin on 27 December, it’s reported.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

Yesterday, I happened to see the colourful bullfight scene in Around the World in 80 Days, set in the pretty Plaza Mayor of Chinchón, south east of Madrid. This involves Passepartout contending with the smallest, thinnest, youngest bull imaginable. It must’ve had Spanish cinema audiences rolling in the aisles when it was shown here. You can enjoy it here on Youtube. No blood, of course. IMDB adds these interesting notes: 1. The bullfighting sequence was added because Cantinflas (Passepartout) had bullfighting experience. He was actually in the ring with the bull, eschewing the use of a stunt double. 2. Cantinflas was Mexican and, at the time, the richest film star in the world(!), getting top billing in Latin countries, and 3. The bullfighting scene wasn't in the book the film was based on. If it had been, I'm sure the bull would have been a lot more impressive. And dangerous. 

Decades ago, the (Spanish) owner of a restaurant offered me a Spanish white wine in place of the Chablis he didn't have, assuring me it was just as good. And, indeed, it was. As it was from the bodega of Marqués de Murrieta, I wasn't surprised to read of this Spanish achievement. And now I've just read that Castillo Ygay White 1986 was the first Spanish white wine to achieve the highest possible Parker Score of 100. That was around the year of my enjoyment of it.

More here on Spanish delights.

Having not seen for well over a year the male prostitute I mentioned yesterday, I passed him again at 10 last night, as I walked to my car on the edge of the city-centre. Swinging a pink umbrella, to go with his carrot-coloured hair and his multi-coloured coat. Again, him, not me. A form of advertising, I guess.

I forgot to post this diagram of the narco-sub first thing yesterday. So here it is, for those who missed its:-

And here's a detailed description of it from reader Perry.

The UK & The EU

Just in case you're desperate to know . . .

Ever the cynic, Richard North today: There are a multitude of practical issues to resolve, and there are endless tales of woe about businesses and government systems not being ready. Perhaps this "new variant" coronavirus has come at just the right time for Johnson, keeping traffic off the roads and suppressing economic activity. Cancelling Christmas may, in these circumstances, be worth the risk if it serves to obscure the effects of his botched Brexit, and keeps minds focused on Covid rather than the disaster he has waiting for us in the wings.

The Way of the World

Not just in Scotland, I’m sure.

Spanish

Trasnochador: ‘A late-nighter'*: Appropriate to have learned it ahead of the 5 late (and long) family meals of my neighbours over the next 2 weeks . . .

* Basically, almost everyone Spanish.

English/Spanish

I saw the word ‘Cainite’ in a translation of a Spanish article. I guessed it referred to a sort of fraternal struggle, perhaps to the death. Here's what the Royal Academy has for it:-

1. Perteneciente o relativo a Caín.

2. Dicho de un sentimiento o de una actitud de rechazo: Que se dirige contra familiares o amigos.

3. Dicho de una persona: Que se deja llevar por el odio o la enemistad contra familiares y amigos.

English dictionaries seem to have only these 2 meanings:-

1. A descendant of Cain, one of the sons of Adam

2. A member of a gnostic sect that regarded the Old Testament as an account of the work of a demiurge and a distortion of the true nature of such men as Cain.

Finally . . .

Reader Spain followed up my reference to Cocks Lane in Piers Ploughman with this Wiki gem.

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

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'*  

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

I've commented that Pontevedra city has a disproportionate number of jewellery stores. Yesterday I noted that, in the centre, there are 2 adjacent and a 3rd less than 50m away. My suspicion is they're an excellent option for the laundering of the vast sums arising from our main local industry - drug smuggling. But I could be wrong.

I swear I wrote that paragraph before I read the article below on this subject, entitled: Europe’s first narco-submarine capture reveals changing tactics of drug cartels.

Another nail in the coffin of Franco's Catholic Spain. Which won't please the pseudo-fascists of Vox, nor the real fascists of the parties to the right of it.

Pontevedra has a male prostitute who's getting more and more flamboyant with the passing years. Yesterday he passed me resplendent in orange hair and coat of many colours that would have given Joseph a good run for his money. Him not me. It was all I could do to resist taking a foto to post here. At least from behind him, as he passed.

Here's María's Riding The Wave Day 35.  

The UK

In Piers Plowman - of c. 1370  - there's the first written reference to the folk hero, Robin Hood. Yesterday, I also learned that London's 14th century prostitutes used to congregate in Cocks Lane. Possibly just one of those odd coincidences. The lane still exists, by the way, near St Bart's hospital. But is now singular. As it was - sort of - back then, I guess.

Germany

I cited criticism of the EU powerhouse yesterday. This article - on the deluded worship of the country and its leader - is even more pungent.

English

Reader Perry advises - on the issue of Southern (and Northern posh) English pronunciation that The Binscombe Tales of John Whitbourn call the English southern provinces Sutangli. Where I'm sure they never used the long 'a' sound.

Finally . . .

Still no new passport. BUT . . . The courier company DHL messaged me last evening to say they'd picked it up from the government office yesterday and would deliver it on the 22nd. Respectively, 9 and 13 days after I was told it was 'on its way' to me. 

By pure coincidence, I picked up a DHL package for a friend in a local shop last night. But DHL tell me that, if I'm not in when they come next Tuesday, I'll have to pick up my passport not in Pontevedra but 27km away in Vigo. Where, incidentally, I'm not allowed to go. And their web page doesn't allow me to nominate anywhere else. IGIMSTS.

I'm guessing that, to the British government, 'on its way' means something akin to what my friend Ester means when she says 'Am arriving' when she's thinking of leaving her house some time in the next hour.

THE ARTICLE

Europe’s first narco-submarine capture reveals changing tactics of drug cartels: Isambard Wilkinson, The Times

A year after seizing a craft carrying three tonnes of cocaine from the Amazon to Galicia, Spain’s Guardia Civil gives The Times unprecedented access to the agents involved, revealing the cat-and-mouse game playing out on their shores

Trudging in darkness before dawn along the wintry shore, the two Guardia Civil agents stopped in their tracks as they spotted a solitary car parked behind a beach with its headlights flashing out to sea. The force had received intelligence that a smuggling vessel was heading towards Spain’s rugged northwest Galician coast, a region renowned as a conduit for cocaine arriving in Europe from Latin America. After days of storms had prevented any sighting, the Guardia Civil had picked up the radar trace of a craft heading suspiciously slowly towards the coast the previous evening. Its expected landing point was Ria de Aldan, one of the region’s deep fjord-like inlets.

Agents Miguel Z and Jose B were part of a network of personnel deployed around the likely disembarkation area. When they quizzed the driver of the parked car and searched inside, they found three sets of dry clothes, blankets and energy bars. Their discovery in the early hours of November 25 last year was critical to the first, and so far only, capture of a “narco-submarine” on Europe’s coast.

The force’s investigation has now been completed, the vessel’s crew are behind bars and awaiting trial, and the submarine’s 3,050kg cargo of cocaine — worth €100 million — has been destroyed. But what do we know about the smugglers’ 4,300-mile odyssey from Brazil across the Atlantic and the events that led to the seizure? What has the investigation revealed about the trade? And has the operation had any lasting effect?

Colonel Simón Venzal, the head of the capture operation, is commander of the Guardia Civil in Pontevedra, a province that is home to fishing villages and farms as close-knit and inscrutable as their cramped wind-blown cemeteries. In the 1940s its clans smuggled basic items such as sugar and soap from Portugal. The trade moved to American tobacco in the 1960s, when they perfected the art of transferring contraband from container ships to fishing trawlers far out to sea. They evolved to smuggling hashish from Morocco and from there to Colombian cocaine. In the 1990s the clans became notorious for their drug lords, who built exuberant villas and drove ostentatious cars.

But the commander said that times are changing once more. Although Galicia’s drug clans are still in business, their methods are different. “The narco-sub drug run appears to be typical of the new operations, which are not all controlled by one big clan or gang but are increasingly diffuse and atomised,” he said. “So you see small freelance operatives for hire, working with everyone from Serbians and Albanians to Colombians.” He pointed to the criminal career of Agustín Álvarez, the narco-submarine’s skipper, as indicative of the shifting patterns of Galicia’s drug-smuggling business. Entrepreneurial freelancers like him are tapping the region’s longstanding status as Europe’s gateway for cocaine as traffickers use new methods to transport their cargo. The 29-year-old from Vigo city, a former boxer who won Spain’s amateur championship, had been “increasingly drawn in to the drugs trade, lured by making quick money on a freelance basis”, said the colonel. Already known to the Guardia Civil before he took a flight from Madrid to Brazil in October last year to join the smuggling craft, he had prepared for his role by taking sailing courses. Álvarez landed in the Brazilian city of Manaus on October 25 and travelled eastwards to a clandestine base in the jungle near the Amazon river where he met his two crewmen, Luis Tomás Benítez, 42, and Pedro Roberto Delgado, 44, cousins from a fishing village in Ecuador. Guardia Civil officials say there are indications that Álvarez may have sailed on the route before and that the Ecuadorians had plied the Colombia to Mexico route.

With the 22m-long fibreglass vessel launched into the river and 152 bales of cocaine from Colombia’s Vaupes region stowed aboard, on October 28 the crew of three embarked on what they had imagined would be a ten-day voyage to the Azores before heading north to Galicia. They had a basic compass and a satellite phone. It took only about 12 hours to reach the mouth of the Amazon. Then the problems began. “It was a highly risky mission to cross the Atlantic in a homemade type of boat on a major shipping route,” said Col Venzal. The craft, a makeshift semi-submersible that travelled with only its tiny slit-windowed 30cm-tall conning tower above the surface, was soon caught in days of storms and nearly crushed by a passing ship. 

The crew, living off tins of food — heated on a small stove when the weather allowed — took turns at the wheel in the tiny bridge and slept on top of compartments beside it. “Living in a vessel that was badly ventilated, polluted with diesel fumes, suffocatingly hot and cramped and exposed to the danger of storms and collisions, there were moments when the crew thought they were going to die,” said the commander.

On November 13, 16 days after their departure, they arrived off the Azores where British intelligence picked up their scent and tipped off the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre in Lisbon, an international agency set up to co-ordinate anti-drug trafficking action by several EU states. Portuguese naval vessels and a helicopter were deployed to search for the semi-submersible but bad weather made it impossible. The crew now knew from the activity around them that they had been detected. British intelligence learnt that the craft attempted a rendezvous to offload its cargo about 150 miles from the Portuguese coast. But one of the two smugglers’ speedboats that had set out from the Algarve to meet it encountered engine problems and the attempt ended in failure. “For 72 hours the craft, hit by another storm, maintained its position before failing to make a second meeting that was called off due to the presence of Portuguese patrols,” said Captain Francisco Torres, an agent in the Guardia Civil’s Madrid-based anti-narcotics unit. “Their only option was to sail north to the coast of Galicia.”

Rumours that cartels were using submarines on the route from Colombia to Mexic  began in the 1990s, and in 2006 the authorities intercepted one off Costa Rica with 3.5 tonnes of cocaine on board. Speculation that submarines were being used to deliver cocaine to Galicia had been circulating in recent years, but police had never been able to confirm their existence.

As greater amounts of drugs flowed into the region, they hoped to finally capture an elusive prize. On November 21 the craft entered Spanish waters off the Rias Baixas. Three days later, agents spotted a rudder-trace on radar of a vessel passing the island of Ons and heading towards the Ria de Aldan. [Where I nearly bought a house in 2000] “It was moving unusually slowly and we could only see it intermittently, which made us believe it could be our target,” said Agent Monica B. “It was tense and exciting and we began to think we had a chance of a historic seizure.”

On a sunny day, in conditions quite different from those prevailing on the morning of the operation, Colonel Venzal, along with agents Miguel Z and Jose B, accompanied The Times to O Foxo beach to explain how the hunt had come to a head. The thin, sparsely populated peninsula dotted with woods, small holiday homes and shacks was where the agents discovered the parked car and sets of dry clothes. Agent Miguel Z described how afterwards, as they approached the beach with their torches, they saw three figures clambering over rocks. “We shouted ‘halt’ and they started to run across the beach and back into the sea. I went straight down onto the beach and Jose cut round the back to head them off.” The agents managed to capture Benítez, one of the Ecuadorians. “He was wearing a wetsuit, carrying a waterproof bag of dry clothes and was shattered with tiredness,” said Miguel. “The first excuse he gave was that he was a stowaway who had been put ashore.” Within half an hour, other agents had arrested his cousin a few hundred metres away. Having been at sea for 28 days, they were starving and at their physical limits. Álvarez had escaped. After the first arrest a Guardia Civil vessel patrolling near the ria’s mouth powered towards the scene. On board the patrol boat used that night, Sergeant Eugenio C pointed to the area 50 metres off O Foxo beach where the action took place. “We scanned the water with infra-red binoculars and torches,” he said. “We realised that what we had at first thought was a triangular rock protruding from the water was the last part of the stern of a sinking boat.” Álvarez had scuttled the boat by opening valves designed for the purpose, with the intention that its cargo be salvaged later. Agents secured a line to the sinking craft before it was dragged out to sea. A diving team quickly retrieved a bale of cocaine floating inside the flooded hull. After nearly three days of hauling the craft in rough conditions it reached the port of Aldan. Finally, before dawn on November 28, two giant cranes lifted it, dripping and gleaming under spotlights, on to the quayside, its cargo of 152 bales of cocaine oily but intact.

The next day Álvarez was found hiding in one of the summer huts a few hundred metres from O Foxo beach. Over the next weeks four others, connected to the skipper, including the driver who had been found with the sets of dry clothes, were arrested and charged with drug trafficking and belonging to a criminal organisation. It was a rare victory against a tenacious and increasingly inventive global network of traffickers, leading to an investigation that is prying deeper into the old clans and their links to international smuggling.

But the game of cat and mouse remains as intense as ever and Guardia Civil officials concede that cocaine trafficking is still booming. The spectre of the clans remains in the background, although investigators have not made explicit their links to the narco-sub and its freelance crew. “The integration of the Guardia Civil resources, from investigation to patrolling units, as well as hard work and luck on the spot were crucial to the success of the operation,” said Col Venzal. “This kind of vessel is very difficult to detect. It may not happen again.”

Cocaine-smuggling in a pandemic

The capture of the “narco-submarine” and restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic have not stemmed a rising tide of cocaine being smuggled into Europe through Galicia’s coast. The trend reflects shipments to elsewhere in Europe. In the first three months of this year the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime confiscated 17.5 tonnes of cocaine bound for Europe in South American ports, mostly Brazilian, nearly a 20 per cent rise compared with the same period in 2019. During the pandemic, kingpins have packed huge loads of cocaine into the fewer container ships sailing and commercial aircraft flying, the unit’s officials say. In Spain, which intercepts the second highest amount of cocaine in Europe after Belgium, Guardia Civil agents seized 11.5 tonnes in the first half of 2019. In the first five months of this year they seized 12.5 tonnes. Agents said that no estimates exist for the amount of cocaine arriving in Spain, but that lower prices indicate booming trade. At the end of March, only four months after the capture of the semi-submersible, the Guardia Civil seized 3.2 tonnes of cocaine on two high-speed boats in the heart of the Rias Baixas. At the time the country was under Europe’s strictest lockdown. The operation discovered that the smugglers had collected the drug from a yacht 100 miles off the Spanish coast after it had crossed the ocean with the merchandise from Latin America. Eleven people were arrested, including two Peruvians. The following day the force detected that the yacht was scuttled by the smugglers in international waters. Guardia Civil officers have also detected an African route, with cargo ships arriving from Brazil anchored off countries such as Equatorial Guinea, where they offload on to smaller boats. The force has intercepted sailing boats that transit from there to the Canary Islands, the Azores and Galicia.

Last month the Guardia Civil tightened the noose around one of Galicia’s notorious gangs when it arrested a leader of the Pastelero clan with more than 500kg of cocaine, along with two Serbians and three fellow gallegos from Pontevedra’s smuggling badland of O Salnés.

“In less than a year we have seen signs on the ground that the cocaine business continues, in spite of the pandemic, at full throttle,” said Colonel Venzal.

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

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 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 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. 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 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 in 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.

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

A HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas [https://www.facebook.com/businessovertapas/] for some of today's items. 

Covid

Here's what you need to do to 'keep Covid at bay' over Xmas, says ThinkSpain. Right at the top of the list is avoiding all unnecessary contact with other people in the days leading up to Christmas, and always using a mask when in the company of others.

And here's the Huff Post on the Government's Xmas Plan. Though your region might have fiercer restrictions.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

Should you want to know where the Western Sahara is and what's been happening to it over the years - and especially the last week or so - scroll down to Lenox Napier's account, taken from this week's Business Over Tapas. Basically, Anglo perfidy for the benefit of Israel. And Morocco, of course. 

Do you want to:-

. Be a good expat? Click here. 

- Work here at something other than teacher or translator? Click here. 

- Stop those pesky cold phone calls? Click here.

The UK and the EU

It's official . . . Brexit is a chapuza*. Richard North: Courtesy of Boris's Botched Brexit, we can look forward to endless fun and games.

Spanish

*Just a reminder . .  Chapuza: Botched/bodged job.

Alegados - An important word this Xmas, though Lenox says it's a rare bird in Spanish. Possibly 'close friends and family’, though I can find nothing in Spanish dictionaries to endorse this meaning. New for the Covid era?

Finally . . .

The UK government sent me my new passport on 9 December, by 'secure delivery'. Mail usually takes 2-3 days but, after 7, it's yet to arrive. Maybe it's securely glued to the back of a snail. Or it's the fault of the UK Post Office and/or Correos here in Spain. And, of course, 'Covid'. Not to mention 'Christmas' 

More amusingly, a religious cartoon:-

THE ARTICLE

What’s the deal with the Western Sahara?  Lenox Napier

It was one of Spain’s possessions in northern Africa, and, following the peculiar Green March of November 1975, as Franco agonised on his death bed – when 350,000 Moroccans advanced several kilometres into the territory – the region was finally ceded, not to its inhabitants, but to two of the neighbouring countries: Morocco and Mauretania (which dropped its claims in 1989). 

Morocco occupied most of the territory, claiming it as a Moroccan province, but was faced with both the indigenous Sahrawi population, who wanted independence; neighbouring Algeria, who supported the armed Sahrawi Polisario movement; and certain international agencies that supported the indigenous peoples, culminating in the proposal of an UN-backed referendum (rumours had the Moroccans filling up the region with somewhat unwilling settlers to help along the eventual vote), which so far, has never been held.

While Morocco claims various bits of its territory held by the Spanish and known in Spain as plazas de soberanía – off-lying islets like Perejil, the Chafarinas islands and the isthmus of La Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera (1.9 hectares in size, with a small military presence), and more importantly, Melilla and Ceuta and even the Canary Islands for future discord, the larger and easier prize of the rich-in-resources Western Sahara (it’s about half the size of Morocco) has kept that country distracted. 

The Spanish have quietly ignored the plight of the Sahrawi people, beyond inviting many of their children to stay in private homes in Spain during the summer, as the Americans were in support of the status quo. There are sound business reasons for doing so. 

But . . . Suddenly, last week, Donald Trump gave his nation’s official recognition of Morocco’s claim to the region (in exchange for Rabat recognizing Israel as a nation). Minutes later, the proposed meeting for December 17th between President Sánchez and King Mohammed VI to discuss illegal immigration was dropped.  

The Americans had been involved with the Western Sahara issue from the beginning, and it’s known that Henry Kissinger influenced Juan Carlos I to drop Spain’s claim on the region as ‘the Green March began and Franco slipped into a coma’. With Trump’s ‘surprise’ recognition of the Moroccan claim, the Spanish media went into a frenzy.  elDiario.es says that the USA has favoured Morocco for the past 45 years, while Ejercito warns of the ‘imminent regional military supremacy’ of the Moroccans as ‘a grave problem for Spain’. The Moroccan air force, for example, is equipped with ‘better fighters’. 

The British quickly backed the American view (‘to isolate Spain on the Sahara question’ says El Español), while Russia (and Sweden) just as quickly rejected the policy.  

De Verdad Digital explains here that the American master-plan is to ease tension between Israel and the Arab nations while trampling on the rights of the powerless (‘…the Sahrawis and the Palestinians are twinned in ignominy…’). 

In Morocco, ‘Jewish history and culture has returned to the school-books’ says Israel Hayom and the ‘great plan’ of Mohammed VI to bring fertile growth back to the dry desert with Israeli technology is the subject of an article in El Español here.

The American ambassador to Rabat gave a framed map of the expanded Morocco to the Moroccan king last Saturday (here) and we end with an article from the Spanish-language Sahrawi newspaper EcSaharaui titled ‘Noam Chomsky: Trump makes the criminal occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco, official’. 

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

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

So, might is not right, after all. Germany has rowed back on its vaccination plans and will wait until after EU official regulatory approval on 29 December.

BUT: Stop-press: The European Union is to bring forward its meeting to approve the vaccine to next week amid public anger in Germany over the delay. The European Medicines Agency announced the move on Tuesday as Angela Merkel’s government faced a growing backlash over its insistence on waiting for EU approval. A leading German economist warned the delay could cost thousands of lives, and the country’s highest-selling newspaper asked “Why the hell don’t we start vaccinating and saving lives?”

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

Now that the ex king has 'exposed' his wrongdoing to the Hacienda and paid his fines and interest, they're going to treat him like what he is, just another citizen. They are going to take him to the cleaners.

I wrote yesterday of hash-dealing in the centre of Pontevedra the day before. A little later I wrote of the trail of 22 people for drug dealing in one of the gypsy settlements in my barrio of Poio. The 4 leaders, it's reported, are all women. Progress, then. But possibly only because their partners are already in the clink.

I've written of Galicia's feismo, or ugliness. I was reminded of it when looking out of the window in a café above our seafood market and seeing this scene:-

The blue building is the back of a pazo, or mansion, the magnificent facade of which opens onto a small and quiet square. The rear used to look over the medieval walls and then the river. But not now.

Here's María's Riding The Wave Days 31&32   

The UK and` the EU

Oh, great: Brexit wrangling to go on for another 12 months, warns Theresa May's former adviser. The UK and EU, he says, will only feel like they are in a "completely different relationship" in 2022. 

The USA

So Barr has gone, his earlier arse-licking not being enough in the final analysis. Wonder what his book will be called.

The Way of the World

After Google’s hour-long' outage' on Monday . . . Could this be one of those small indications of huge vulnerabilities that, looking back one day, we may see as so much more significant than (say) bickering about Brexit, but that we hardly noticed at the time? For “Google” read “any global IT network on which we’ve unwittingly come to depend”. Imagine if this happened to GPS. Planes might not literally drop from the skies but the disruption would be incalculable. Digital technology has stolen into the very heart of our lives, barely noticed. Monday’s outage was but a tremor of the potential shock. 

Finally . . .

A very old English folk riddle. What is this?

Flour of England, fruit of Spain

Met together in a shower of rain.

Put in a bag, tied round with string,

If you'll tell me this riddle,

I'll give you a ring.

The answer: A plum pudding. But some think it's a reference to the (unpopular) marriage of Mary Tudor to Philip of Spain. They first met during torrential rain and Mary very publically sent Philip a ring, as a love(?) token. Take your pick. But watch out for the coin or ring in the Xmas pudding.

Talking of which . . . I was surprised to hear the words 'figgy pudding' in an episode of Family Guy last night. A medieval forerunner of plum pudding. But, then, Americans do often surprise me . . 

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

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's first consignment of vaccines should begin to arrive in the country within the next 3 weeks. The government plans to start vaccinating in January, after EU approval on 29 December. But for weeks now there's been talk of Germany doing this from this month, ahead of regulatory approval, possibly in the next few days. I wonder how they can - like the Brits - jump the EU gun.

Meanwhile, it's reported that 28% people invited to participate in a mass-screening program here in Galicia failed to show up. And that the Xunta knows from mobile phone data that folk are widely ignoring restrictions on leaving their locality. As was to be expected.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

Since even I know - from simple observation in the main square - who the city's main hash seller is, I wonder why nothing is done about it. Perhaps the police no longer treat it as a crime. At least not if it's a question of the drunks, beggars and vagabonds who gather there every day. As with their non-compliance with Covid regulations. Crime pays then, at least on a small scale.

Talking of the city  . . . Here's a lovely site from an admirable young man called Oscar.

A HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for this item on some intrepid mariners. Who are believed by many Galicians to have originally come from here - like much of the world's Northern population, it seems: The Vikings made it as far south as Spain, where they raided coastal settlements in a number of attacks from around 844 to 859. At least 62 ships attacked the Galician coast and some of them later entered the Mediterranean, attacking Murcia's coastal settlements en route. A second wave between 951 and 971 concentrated on Galicia. El Español has the story and a map here.  

The UK and` the EU

Richard North: [In the absence of hard information,] the best that hacks have to offer is that the "architecture" of a deal is in place. Let's hope the architect isn't Corbusier. Made me smile, anyway. Though RN rarely plays it for laughs, being firmly situated in the slough of despond over the ERG/Johnson form of Brexit.   

I can hardly be blamed for citing this fine article on the plight of Brits in Europe  . . .

The USA

Possibly a tad contentious . . .The USA has confirmed its inclusion in the select club of banana republics. The catastrophe following on from the elections, with Donald Trump refusing to admit defeat and practically the entire Republican Party supporting him, has confirmed the US is almost a developing country, but without malaria. Full article here.

Social Media

The fightback begins in earnest, at least in the UK: Under a new 'duty of care', social media companies will face multibillion-pound fines if they fail to protect children and adults who use their services.

Finally . . .

My updated list of Dutch words learned by listening to a Nederlands radio station:- 

Black Friday 

Deals

Relax

Slash

Credit card 

Peak period 

On line

Download

Super

News (probably Neuws)

Non-stop

Cyber Monday to Tuesday

News brief

Design

Direct

Podcast

Discover

Save  

Carwash  

Ticket  

Magazine  

Song album

Show

Bodyline

Stop

Lockdown

Label

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

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

National death rates, though still very small in percentage terms, are rising rapidly. Nowhere more so than in the post-Thanksgiving USA. It doesn't bode well for January and February. Since October, Italy has suffered the worst move in the rankings, returning to 3rd, after achieving 11th then. France and the UK have also moved significantly in the wrong direction. In contrast, Sweden has gone from 5th in July to 15th now.

The USA(910/m) is now 6th but, at the current rate of 3k deaths a day, will shortly pass both the UK(933) and maybe even Spain(1018).                                                                                                                                  

Articles here and here on Italy and Germany, respectively. After initial success, the German deterioration is a bit of a surprise.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

We three kings via Orient air . . . 

HT to Lenox Napier of  Business Over Tapas for this item: "Spain is a country of waiters? Not any more, now Spain is a country of civil servants. The coronavirus crisis has broken a trend in the Spanish labour market that was consolidating in recent years. The public sector and the tourism sector were both registering growth in employment in recent years, the pair of them reaching figures of around 2.6 million workers apiece in 2019  From VozPópuli. Spain is now a country of funcionarios."

Here's Marìa's Riding the Wave: Days 29&30. Which is sad. And which reminded me I'd just taken delivery of this print:

Albrecht Dürer's Melancholia. Don't ask why.   

The USA

And we thought  we had it bad . . . The estimable John Carlin on The Shyster in Chief, the first article below.

The Way of the World 

Richard North today: We have it seems, entered a new Dark Age, where amid an unprecedented flow of information, ignorance stalks the land and shapes our most important policies. If no one is calling this particular phenomenon the "information paradox" – where ignorance prevails despite plentiful information – perhaps it's time they did.

The leader of the Taliban had life insurance and built up a large property portfolio before he was killed in a US raid. Presumably permitted by the Koran. Can't recall.

Social Media

No huge surprise . .  We millennials are living proof that social media is toxic. . . We need to be honest with ourselves that social media is largely unhelpful when you’re young and have mental health problems. . .  Social media is a fairground hall of mirrors and when you’re too full of emotion to see it’s a distorted version of reality, you’ll go mad if you stay.  See the full (2nd) article below.

Finally . . .

Amusing aphorisms No. 14. I hate when a couple argues in public, and I missed the beginning and don't know whose side I'm on. 

THE ARTICLES

1. Make email great again, Donald: stop spamming me

John Carlin is trapped on the president’s fundraising list, and the daily entreaties to buy ‘iconic’ calendars and Trump-brand Christmas baubles are wearing thin

Every morning, I awake to a batch of emails from a man I have never met, who addresses me as if we were old friends while desperately pleading for cash. His name is Donald J Trump. His approach has all the sophistication of a door-to-door salesman striving to convince me to buy a keg of bleach as a remedy for the coronavirus.

The first email arrived two days after the election, and it included far more bold type, italics and underlinings than is worth reproducing here. “John, I need you,” it began. “The Left will try to STEAL this Election! I’m calling on YOU to step up & FIGHT BACK. Your support is critical right now, John. We must protect the integrity of this Election. Can I count on you? Please contribute $5 IMMEDIATELY to the Official Election Defense Fund.” The message went on to say that I could contribute $10, or $15 or $20 or much more if I so wished. It ended: “Thank you, Donald J Trump, President of the United States.”

The reason I received the email, I assumed, was that prior to attending a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, I had filled in a Trump campaign form on the web, thinking I would need to do so in order to be allowed in. I was mistaken. Everyone was welcome at Trump’s aerosol-rich, 15,000-strong Covid death orgy. As one of three people wearing a mask, I survived to tell the tale, and to receive the emails.

Since that first one on November 5, I have received another 130 from the president himself and another 50 or so from his son Eric, from his daughter-in-law Lara or from his lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Once, I received a touching and immensely flattering personal message from Trump’s wife, Melania.

The words change, but the tone is always the same. One day it is my “patriotic duty” to stand by the president. Another it is “for the good of the country”. Another it is “to defend the constitution”. Always, I am enjoined to part with my money.

The day after Thanksgiving, November 27 — Black Friday in online marketing-speak — I got this: “John, You’ve always been one of my TOP supporters, and now I have an EXCLUSIVE offer just for YOU. For TODAY ONLY, I’m giving YOU a FREE TRUMP GIFT to show you just how much you mean to me. This offer is meant for YOU, John, and is not intended to be shared. You have 1 HOUR to claim your FREE TRUMP BLACK FRIDAY GIFT before I release it to the next Patriot in line. Don’t wait.”

At last, true friendship, I thought. It’s not all take, take, take. Donald gives too. Or so I imagined, until I read the next line, in bright red: “Please contribute at least $35 IMMEDIATELY to claim your FREE TRUMP BLACK FRIDAY GIFT.”

Seriously, who is taken in by this stuff? What kind of a sucker do you have to be? Surely people are not falling for it. They are. Millions have paid up, and millions have been received. The New York Times reported on December 1 that Trump had raised $170m (£129m) in donations since the election. In less than a week the figure had gone up to $207m.

The salesman president has not failed to seize on the opportunities the festive season provides. Here’s an email I received on Monday morning. “John, I have something special for you. You’ve always been a TOP supporter of our movement, so when I saw our beautiful new 2020 Trump Christmas Ornaments, I knew that YOU needed to have one IMMEDIATELY.

“We only have a limited supply left, so I’m saving one for YOU for the NEXT HOUR. After we run out, you’ll NEVER have another chance to get one of our ICONIC Trump Christmas Ornaments, so don’t wait. Please contribute $5 immediately to claim your 2020 Trump ornament.”

And then there’s the calendar, which is where Melania comes in. “John, our incredible First Lady, Melania Trump, handpicked the beautiful photos for our BRAND NEW 2021 Trump Calendar. She said to me, ‘Darling, I want John to have PRIORITY-ACCESS to get the calendar FIRST.’ That’s right — YOU are one of my strongest allies, so I’m saving one of our ICONIC calendars for you. All you have to do is contribute $30 RIGHT NOW to claim yours.”

Where is the money going? To the “Official Election Defense Fund”, presumably, to help pay Giuliani’s $20,000-a-day fees and to finance more than 50 lawsuits that have been filed to challenge the election results — reportedly all but one of which Trump has lost.

The speculation in the US press is that much of the money will end up in Trump’s pocket, a suspicion reinforced by a ruling almost a year ago by the attorney-general of New York, Letitia James. It read: “Not only has the Trump Foundation been shut down for its misconduct, but the president has been forced to pay $2 million for misusing charitable funds for his own political gain.”

Still the president keeps plugging away. This one was on Wednesday: “John, I have URGENT news! According to the LIES reported by the Fake News Media, [Joe] Biden received 15 MILLION more votes than [Barack] Obama did in the 2012 Election. Does anyone actually believe that? ... I want you to know that this is far from over, John. In fact, I have decided to EXTEND our critical fundraising deadline to ensure our team has the resources we need to continue FIGHTING for the FUTURE of our Country. Please contribute $5 IMMEDIATELY ...”

The latest email — freshly pinged into my phone as I write — is titled “Make Christmas Great Again”. I am offered the chance to send a Christmas message to Donald and Melania, which — if accompanied by $5, or $10, or $15 — will “guarantee” me a place “AT THE VERY TOP” of the list. I will see my name in lights.

Trump knows his market, and the chances are that he will extend the fundraising deadline right through to a re-election bid in 2024. I could unsubscribe from the mailing list, but I shan’t, partly out of journalistic duty, partly because of the dumb fascination he exerts over me — like a rabbit caught in headlights. For me and the rest of the rabbits, our Groundhog Day could last four more years.

2. We millennials are living proof that social media is toxic: Pravina Rudra, The Times

Last week, two related news items appeared on the same day. First, that young people who are unhappy with their appearance are most likely to develop depression, and second, that 60 per cent of eight-year-olds use messaging apps that are meant for teenagers.

Neither came as a surprise to me. From the time I entered my all-girls secondary school, I’ve seen countless friends succumb to severe mental health challenges: from depression to bulimia. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that we came of age as social media boomed, lying about our age as we signed up to Facebook and spending our teenage years desperately updating our profile photo in an attempt to garner strokes of that hallowed “Like” button.

Worryingly, the habit has persisted into our twenties. When I speak to friends who have mental health difficulties, they often scroll through Instagram as they chat about those same difficulties, comparing themselves to a filtered, one-sided version of someone else’s life (or a size-zero influencer who gets paid more the less she eats). I know these things are harmful now but I didn’t as a teenager: why would you know at an age when you think you’ll die alone unless you have a boyfriend?

We need to be honest with ourselves that social media is largely unhelpful when you’re young and have mental health problems. It’s fashionable to spout creative rationales of how social media allows for connection and inspiration, citing uplifting quotes on Instagram and body-positive feeds (which, instead of featuring normal-sized women, are often just full of skinny girls pictured eating huge burgers).

Deanne Jade, head of the National Centre for Eating Disorders, says that the first thing she asks patients to do is to switch off their phones and computers so that they can reset the way they think. Why is this so hard for some children and their parents to understand? The first thing I do when I’m feeling low is log out of Instagram or, if I’m stressed, close my LinkedIn tab. Social media is a fairground hall of mirrors and when you’re too full of emotion to see it’s a distorted version of reality, you’ll go mad if you stay.

As we exit the pandemic this spring, and children can interact once more in normal social settings, we have to stop making excuses for staying on social media when it’s unhelpful. The harsh truth is that parents whose children are suffering from poor mental health need to find a way to get them offline.

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

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

Lockdowns are widely - and rightly - seen as an admission of earlier failures. Come 2022 - or even 2021 - will they also be widely seen as misguided and pointless, given that infection and death rates don't seem to differ much between those countries which have applied them and those which haven't? Maybe the ultimate conclusion will be that, once you've failed to act as quickly and as efficiently/effectively as Taiwan, you'll be chasing your tail for the next 12-24 months, until herd immunity is achieved either naturally or via the several vaccines - amidst panic magnified by incompetence. And causing confusion and almost immeasurable economic and healthcare damage outside the prism of Covid. At least in the UK but very possibly elsewhere as well. 

Meanwhile, claims continue to emerge that the virus was in Europe before the Wuhan outbreak.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

A nice Xmassy post from Mark Stücklin of Spanish Property Insight

Such is the rate of tax-avoidance in Spain, the Tax Office (La Hacienda) naturally loves picking and squeezing low-hanging fruit. So it is that all non-resident property owners here must pay tax on imputed rental income, even if they don't rent out their property at all. As Mark has said, this is a form of wealth tax. And now it's being applied to owners of Airbnb properties that couldn't be rented out because of Covid this year.

The Hacienda can be as unscrupulous as any other organisation in Spain. Or 'thieves', as one asesoria told me a few years ago. Here's Mark on one of their 'cynically used devious wheezes' which might explain why I've have so many motoring ones here, after none in several countries ever earlier decades: They love relatively small fines and penalties that the bureaucratic Spanish system makes time-consuming and costly to contest, safe in the knowledge that only a tiny percentage of people will bother to do so, however unjustified the penalty. Parking and traffic fines are a classic example. I’ve just been hit with a traffic fine of €330. I have no idea what it related to, but my lawyer advised me it would cost more than the fine to contest it, so I just had to suck it up.

Here's Marìa's Riding the Wave: Day 28   

The UK 

Writing from Madrid,  Giles Tremleet says here that Since Brexit has been wrapped and sold in grand terms, the minutiae of real, everyday disruption – the part that impacts ordinary lives – has been ignored. 

The USA 

I cited yesterday the allegation that Trump is a delusional liar. A propos  . . The Supreme Court decision will be a bitter blow to Mr Trump, who has given every indication of harbouring a genuine belief that his baseless claims of mass fraud would be vindicated in court. Three hours before the ruling was announced, Mr Trump tweeted: “If the Supreme Court shows great Wisdom and Courage, the American People will win perhaps the most important case in history, and our Electoral Process will be respected again!”   

Der Spiegel has named Trump Loser of the Year. Surely the century. At least.

I so wish I could read the history books of 50 years from now. With luck, I might be able to read this of 20 - or even 30 - years hence,

The Way of the World

Qanon has grown from one single cryptic posting about Trump saving the world from paedophiles to the world’s biggest conspiracy theory that plays on all the fears and anxieties of the age, and the deep distrust of government, institutions, the media and big tech, against which Trump is seen to be the bulwark.  while the paranoia may be timeless, social media has provided a platform for Q’s theories to flourish, spreading them far beyond those predisposed to believe.  . . . In its capacity to capture the minds of its adherents, as much as it is a conspiracy theory or a movement, one might almost describe QAnon as a global cult – even, a faith. ‘And it’s not faith in Q, it is faith in this idea that there’s this epic battle between good and evil, but there is a saviour, and the saviour is Trump.’  For more on this, see the (long) article below.

Spanish

We say ‘sweating like a pig’, Spaniards say sweating like a chicken. As it happens, neither pigs nor chickens have sweat glands. So, the Spanish idiom, it’s said, refers to birds on a spit roast.

Finally . . .

I’ve taken to listening to a low-ad Dutch radio station. These are all the Dutch words I0ve learned in the last 2-3 weeks:-

Black Friday 

Deals

Relax

Slash

Credit card 

Peak period 

On line

Download

Super

News (maybe Neuws . . .)

Non-stop

Cyber Monday to Tuesday

News brief

Design

Direct

Podcast

Discover

THE ARTICLE

QAnon: Outlandish conspiracy theory or dangerous global cult? It has grown from one single cryptic posting about Trump saving the world from paedophiles to the world’s biggest conspiracy theory. Mick Brown  

On 3 November, the morning of the US election, a posting appeared on an internet message board about Donald Trump’s secret plan to take down a cabal of ‘deep state’ politicians, bureaucrats and elite liberals engaged in a global satanic paedophile ring. The post, showing a picture of a large Stars and Stripes flag, was from ‘Q’, the mysterious figure whose posts for the past three years have been seeding the conspiracy theory known as QAnon. Since its inception, QAnon has grown from a single cryptic posting on an obscure message board to lay claim to being the world’s biggest conspiracy theory. But this was its moment of reckoning. In the days before the election, Q’s postings had demonstrated a rising expectation of resounding triumph. ‘Are you ready to finish what we started?’; ‘“Nothing can stop what is coming” is not just a catchphrase’; and ‘Are you ready to hold the political elite… accountable?’ But as Trump’s defeat became clear, Q fell silent. Among some followers there was shock and disbelief. This is not how ‘the Plan’ – Trump’s supposed scheme to destroy the liberal elites in the coming ‘Storm’ – was supposed to pan out. Could everything Q had been saying have been a hoax? ‘HOW CAN I SPEAK TO Q????’, one poster wrote in panicked caps. ‘MY FAITH IS SHAKEN. I FOLLOWED TH  PLAN. T RUMP LOST!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT NOW?????? WHERE IS THE PLAN???' On 13 November, as Trump stepped up his insistence that the election had been rigged, Q finally broke his (or her) silence: ‘It had to be this way. Sometimes you must walk through the darkness before you see the light.’ And, portentously, ‘Nothing can stop what is coming. Nothing!’

The QAnon movement, which has spread around the world, bringing hundreds of thousands – some researchers say millions – into its fold, is centred around Q, who is purported to be an anonymous government official posting classified information to aid and abet efforts by Trump to fight the ‘deep state’ conspiracy. (It is a reference to ‘Q clearance’ – the US Department of Energy’s security clearance required to access top secret data.) Postings on QAnon message boards can often seem like a curious hybrid of political paranoia, messianic prophecy and a Tom Clancy novel, stamping the Q ‘brand’ on other conspiracy theories, many of increasing outlandishness: satanic cabals, Covid, UFOs, ‘interdimensional demons’, celebrity vampires harvesting adrenochrome from children in order to stay healthy and young.

Q has become the big tent under which all manner of new and pre-existing conspiracies may gather. One of the most bizarre, promoted by Q, and which circulated last year, was that John Kennedy Jnr, who died in 1999 in a plane crash, was actually alive and in hiding and would emerge as Trump’s running mate for the election. Ridiculous as these ideas seem, in America the theory has moved from the deepest recesses of the internet to the very heart of the Republican Party. Two women elected to Congress in November – Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert – have on occasion espoused QAnon beliefs. Donald Trump himself has spread Q-related tweets. And in Britain, at anti-lockdown and ‘save our children’ protests around the country, protestors have brandished placards with QAnon slogans. With the aid of ‘digital warriors’ and a ‘patriot army’, the theory goes, there will come a ‘Great Awakening’ when Trump will vanquish the depraved liberal elites. In short, it is a theory that plays on all the fears and anxieties of the age, and the deep distrust of government, institutions, the media and big tech, against which Trump is seen to be the bulwark.

The first posting by Q appeared on 28 October 2017 on a message board on the fringe, ‘no rules’ platform 4chan. Even before Q, 4chan had hosted numerous ‘Anon’ sites perpetuating conspiracy theories. The most significant was ‘Pizzagate’, in 2016, when it was claimed that emails hacked from the account of Hillary Clinton’s election campaign manager, John Podesta (former White House chief of staff under President Clinton), contained coded references to a paedophile ring involving Democratic party officials, which was supposedly run from the basement of a family pizzeria in Washington, DC. The hysteria culminated in a man bursting into the restaurant with a pistol and a rifle, bent on revenge. It turned out that there was no basement. Couched in cod military jargon, the first Q posting picked up on Pizzagate – predicting Clinton’s imminent arrest. Clinton, of course, was not arrested. And it is likely the posting would have gone unnoticed had it not been picked up and amplified by a minor right-wing YouTube personality named Tracy Diaz. Six days after the first Q posting, Diaz introduced the conspiracy theory to her audience in a video that went on to be viewed nearly 250,000 times.

Other channels, such as Patriots’ Soapbox, also began to pick up on Q’s ‘drops’, spreading the theory to the more easily accessible Reddit forums and then to Facebook, through the use of cryptic hashtags associated with the group – #trusttheplan, #WeAreQ and #WWG1WGA [an acronym for ‘Where We Go One, We Go All’] which allowed sympathisers to find each other, and to stamp the Q ‘brand’ on message boards. Benjamin Decker, the founder of the digital investigation consultancy Memetica, who has been researching QAnon since its inception, says that in its early days the spread was driven as much by profit as ideology. ‘The people who began propagating the conspiracy in 2017, and as it grew in 2018 and 2019, were also financially invested in its growth. These were people with YouTube channels, Patreon accounts and online merchandising. There’s an entire e-commerce industry around this thing. So there was always an intention to grow it.’

While purporting to come from a deep intelligence source, it is notable that nothing that Q has posted is revelatory. Rather it is largely reactive, gleaning bits of ‘intel’ from news stories and published reports, many aggregated from right-wing media sites, and often posted in the form of cryptic ‘crumbs’ as they are called (think Hansel and Gretel), encouraging followers to ‘do your own research’. ‘The reason QAnon works,’ says Joseph Uscinski, associate professor of political science at the University of Miami and co-author of the book American Conspiracy Theories, ‘is that it has largely piggybacked on to existing conspiracy tropes, and espouses ideas a lot of people have already bought into. ‘The idea of elites eating babies has been around for millennia; the idea of a deep state working against the president is the plot of Oliver Stone’s JFK, which came out 30 years ago. About 50 per cent of Americans buy into the deep state idea; about a third think that there is elite sex-trafficking going on. All of these ideas predate QAnon.’  The difference is that while the paranoia may be timeless, social media has provided a platform for Q’s theories to flourish, spreading them far beyond those predisposed to believe. Research published by the BBC in October found that QAnon had generated more than 100 million comments, shares and likes on social media sites this year. The biggest QAnon groups on Facebook had generated 44 million comments, shares and likes – that’s about two thirds the number of reactions generated by Black Lives Matter groups.

In May 2019, the FBI released a memo listing QAnon as a potential domestic terrorism threat, linking the conspiracy to multiple violent incidents and threats of violence, including a man accused of murdering his brother with a sword, a man who reportedly threatened to kill YouTube employees, and an armed man who blocked the Hoover Dam with an armoured vehicle. By then, people had begun showing up at Trump rallies wearing T-shirts and brandishing placards bearing QAnon slogans, and Trump himself had begun to apparently court the conspiracy, alive to the support it was gaining among his voting base.

A survey by Media Matters, a left-of-centre not-for-profit organisation that monitors right-wing media, and which has tracked QAnon postings since the beginning, revealed that as of 30 October 2020 Trump had retweeted postings promoting Q-related conspiracy theories at least 265 times. Additionally, members of Trump’s family, campaign staffers, and current and former Trump administration officials have also repeatedly amplified QAnon supporters and their content. In August, responding to a question about QAnon and its supporters, Trump replied that he ‘appreciate[d]’ that ‘they like me very much’, adding that ‘these are people that love our country’. When a reporter noted that the conspiracy theory’s premise is that Trump is ‘secretly saving the world from this satanic cult of paedophiles and cannibals,’ Trump replied, ‘But is that supposed to be a bad thing or good thing? If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it. I’m willing to put myself out there.’ To its followers, Trump’s reluctance to distance himself from the movement has been taken as endorsement. ‘#Qanon’s intel drops are approved by President Trump and the proofs provided here will debunk any claims otherwise,’ reads one posting on the Qproofs site – ‘A collection of QAnon evidence provided by Anonymous Patriots’. There has even been speculation in some quarters of the movement that Trump himself is Q.

Media Matters counted no fewer than 97 candidates running in the Congressional primaries who had either endorsed or given credence to QAnon ideas, 26 of whom ended up on the ballot. The most prominent is Marjorie Taylor Greene, who won a House seat in Georgia, and who had posted numerous videos promoting QAnon theories, including one calling ‘Q’ a ‘patriot’ and ‘worth listening to’. According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Greene also posted a series of tweets defending QAnon, including one – subsequently deleted – encouraging her followers to message her with questions so she could ‘walk you through the whole thing’. However in August 2020, in an interview on Fox TV, as her campaign for Congress gathered pace, Greene refuted suggestions that she was running as a ‘QAnon candidate’, saying that after discovering ‘misinformation’ on the site she had chosen ‘another path’. Greene did not respond to requests from the Telegraph for an interview. She will be joined in Congress by another Republican, Lauren Boebert, the owner of a restaurant named Shooters Grill in the town of Rifle in Colorado, who has stopped short of describing herself as a QAnon follower but said in one interview, ‘Everything that I’ve heard of Q, I hope that this is real because it only means that America is getting stronger and better, and people are returning to conservative values.’ ‘So many people are hard-wired to ignore what they consider to be the fringe, that it’s hard to reconcile that with the fact that oftentimes now power is being organised on the fringe,’ says Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters.

A study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a global think tank that looks at extremist movements and ideas, shows how particular events have provoked a sharp rise in Q activity on social media – such as the first appearance of Q followers at Trump rallies in the summer of 2018, and the death of Jeffrey Epstein in August 2019. But inevitably Covid has proved a particularly strong catalyst. In March, at the onset of the pandemic, according to ISD, membership of QAnon groups on Facebook increased by 120 per cent. Unsurprisingly, the US is the largest QAnon ‘content producing’ country, followed by the UK, Canada and Australia. But there are Q groups in Hungary, Spain and Finland. In Germany, researchers have noted how QAnon theories about ‘the deep state’ have begun to penetrate far-right Reichsbürgerbewegung groups. It is the ease with which QAnon has attached itself to legitimate concerns that alarms observers, infiltrating parenting and child-protection groups on Facebook through the use of hashtags such as #saveourchildren and #savethechildren, while also promoting anti-vaccine theories. (In October, Facebook banned all accounts linked to QAnon from its platforms, labelling it a ‘militarized social movement’. But the movement continues to flourish on other platforms such as Telegram, Parler and Gab.) ‘There has been an attempt to rebrand [QAnon] to get the yoga moms and essential-oil healers interested – all of the pseudo-science influencers who are closer to anti-vaccine stuff than they are to satanic deep state conspiracies,’ Benjamin Decker says. ‘It’s really easy to rebrand Q to something everybody hates to attract a following.’ QAnon has even reached the discussion groups on Mumsnet.

In August there were a series of rallies held in towns and cities around the UK protesting about child trafficking and organised by a group called Freedom for the Children UK, where protesters brandished placards bearing Q hashtags and slogans. The same placards were evident at a large anti-lockdown rally held in London, also in August, where Piers Corbyn and the veteran conspiracy-monger David Icke were among the speakers. QAnon, says Carusone, is ‘David Icke’s dream come true’. I n all of this, one central question remains unanswered. Who exactly is Q? It was long believed that the man behind QAnon was Jim Watkins – the owner of the site where where Q posts. Watkins is a former US Army helicopter mechanic and self-described ‘serial entrepreneur’, whose first internet start-up was a porn website, Asian Bikini Bar. Leaving the services, Watkins decamped to the Philippines and ran a pig farm outside Manila. In 2014 he took control of the 8chan platform, an unregulated haven for a bizarre assortment of fringe and dark interests, including conspiracy and extremist groups, where Q was then posting. In September 2019, following the shooting of 22 people in El Paso, Texas, and where the suspect was reported to have posted a manifesto on 8chan, 8chan’s cyber-security provider cut ties to the site, forcing it offline. But in November 2019 Watkins reappeared with a new platform, 8kun, with his son, Ron, acting as the site’s moderator. The Q postings followed him. In an interview in September with a far right news outlet American Broadcasting CommUnity (‘Time To Wake Up!’) Watkins denied that he was Q, or knowing who Q is, saying ‘Q, as far as I know, is just a user on our website,’ but added, ‘I’m thinking it’s real. I think that Q is more than one person posting, I’m guessing, but I don’t know. They seem to be very few people, and they seem to have a lot of back information.’ In September 2019, following the El Paso killings, Watkins was ordered to testify before the House Committee on Homeland Security about 8chan’s efforts to address ‘the proliferation of extremist content, including “white supremacist content” on the platform’. Watkins was photographed leaving the hearing wearing a Q pin on his lapel.

Most Q watchers agree that Q is more likely to be the cover for a group rather than one individual. Angelo Carusone agrees that it’s surprising that after three years, in which the conspiracy has been avidly followed and researched, no one has yet been able to establish who Q is – or are. But he points to the fact that those who stand to profit from perpetuating the conspiracy would be the last to blow the whistle. ‘If I’m running a Q show that’s dedicated to the conspiracy, do I really want to uncover who Q is, and let people know it may not be somebody with Q level clearance – may not be a real person at all? ‘But at the end of the day, who Q is doesn’t matter as much as the idea does. Nor does it matter whether or not Q ever posts again. It’s so much bigger than that now. And that’s why it’s basically here to stay.’ Carusone has his own reasons for lamenting the rise of QAnon – and the baleful influence it may have. A relative of his cut off ties to the family after ‘getting lost’ in the rabbit hole of Q conspiracies, particularly angered by Carusone’s work at Media Matters. ‘He had been in this Q stuff for a while, but in the summer his posture just changed. He came to see me as not just someone who was supposedly defending, but actually participating in, massive child-sex trafficking. It got to the point where I said, you have to put this in check. I am not a vampire. The last thing he said to me was, “Donald Trump is going to end up putting your head on a pike, and I can’t wait for that day.” And he really meant it.’

Carusone is not alone in his concerns. There is a Reddit forum, QAnonCasualties, with more than 50,000 members, offering support and advice to people who have become estranged from friends and loved ones who are following QAnon. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ reads one post. ‘I’m 16, my mum is going down the Qanon rabbit hole… She says I have done my “research” but she sits on facebook staring at the same two live streams and it breaks me.’ And this: ‘My husband refuses to believe that Trump lost the election. He bet a sizable amount of money that Trump would win. Now he’s saying that he can’t pay his half of the mortgage. He’s been caught up with Q since the get go and he’s fully delusional. All conversations turn to Trump/Q. I’ve lost all hope that he will normalize and we are divorcing. It’s almost like dealing with an addict; at some point you just have to walk away.’ In its capacity to capture the minds of its adherents, as much as it is a conspiracy theory or a movement, one might almost describe QAnon as a global cult – even, as Carusone puts it, a faith. ‘And it’s not faith in Q, it is faith in this idea that there’s this epic battle between good and evil, but there is a saviour, and the saviour is Trump.’

For Benjamin Decker the biggest concern around QAnon is its potential to inflame more violence. ‘For the last couple of years there have been a number of violent incidents stemming from people’s support and interpretation of QAnon. These things happened because people believe in QAnon and that they are participating in something that gives their life more meaning. ‘But instead of talking about it like we’re pointing at the crazy uncle in the corner and laughing at him for being nuts, what we need to be doing is having that conciliatory conversation: “Why do you believe this and how can we move forward?”’ In the meantime, as Carusone says, QAnon ‘is not going away. Trump is only leaving office. He will still exist, and he’ll still be tweeting.’ In coming months, he adds, there will be the roll-out of mass vaccinations. ‘And the Q people are going to go crazy over that…

Some of the Q's most outlandish theories:-

He (or she) encouraged followers to look into whether supporters of Hillary Clinton employ occult symbols to signify their involvement in a deep-state paedophile ring and child trafficking. November 2017

Q theorised that there are links between the death of John F Kennedy Jnr in a plane crash in 1999 and the election of Hillary Clinton to the US Senate the following year. A later theory also claimed that Kennedy was alive, in hiding and about to be revealed as Trump’s running mate in the 2020 election. April 2018

Q posted a timeline suggesting that the Covid-19 pandemic is a plot by China to unseat President Trump. September 2020

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

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

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'*  

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

More on the overdue eviction of the Franco’s from their Galician mansion. Or one of them at least.

A nice blog post on winter weather in the south of Spain.

And another on traditional Spanish Xmas sweets. I’d hazard a guess several of these originated in Arabia or Persia. Certainly the peanut nougat, hard and soft.

Driving in Spain: These are the 2 signs at the ends if the bridge I recently wrote about.

Being confused by them, I went on line and found that the first one means you have the right of way and the second means you don't. So, I was right that the police officer forced the wrong driver to back up last week. Who'd have thought it?

Here's Marìa's Riding the Wave: Day 27      

The UK 

In the Independent newspaper, a columnist compares Trump and Johnson. Trump, he says, is a liar but also a fantasist - an unknowing liar who's long stopped being able to tell the difference between the truth and his own version of it. But Johnson is no such thing. 'All his lies, and they are many, are full-throated and real', avers the columnist. Quite possibly true. But in a quest for what? Popularity? Love? Don't laugh, this has been suggested as his primary motivation, stemming from life under a crap father.

The UK & The EU

Dear dog . . . In the event of a no-deal Brexit, the Royal Navy Police will be given the power to arrest French and other EU fishermen who illegally enter Britain’s waters. What could possibly go wrong?

The Way of the World

I talked to my daughter yesterday on WhatsApp - owned by Facebook - about buying a guitar for her son. Shortly thereafter, Youtube - owned by Google - was offering me videos from guitar makers. 

John Wesley - the founder of Methodism - wrote, when single, a book which extolled marriage as the perfect state. After he'd married and been 'dragged round the parlour by his hair' he changed his mind somewhat and wrote a second book, highlighting the virtues of the single life. Pretty understandable. But he retained his belief in a deity who'd put Charles II the throne after the end of the Cromwell experiment. Which must have pleased his god.

Spanish

This melody is called ‘Forbidden Games’ in French but ‘Spanish Romance’ in English. Wonder why.

Finally . . .

Amusing aphorisms No. 13. I run like the winded. 

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

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'*  

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

Good to read that a junior officers’ association has described recent open letters from ex-militarists as malicious personal opinions of some retirees who were soldiers one or several decades ago. 

On the other hand, answering the question of whether Spain’s armed forces have a far-right bias, analysts of all political stripes say the answer is No. They claim the chuntering of the former servicemen is symptomatic of broader political tension across Spanish society. According to a Spanish member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, What the letters show is how very polarised Spain is. I guess time will solve this problem. As to how much of it'll be required, your guess is as good as mine. Meanwhile, at least we don't have US-style armed militia groups. So, maybe the prospect of another civil war is lower here than there.

A mansion forcefully and fraudulently 'gifted' to Franco by 'a grateful' Galicia has finally been handed over to the state, on the orders of the Supreme Court. But not without the appalling Franco family trying to strip it of numerous artistic treasures that had somehow found their way into it. Ironically, the family brought this onto their own heads by trying to sell the place for €8m in 2018

This last week, I've had 2 cars pass right in front of me when 3/4 of the way across a zebra crossing. And the other day I read in my diary of 2001 that my dog hadn't yet learned drivers here don’t always stop for crossings. So, you'll realise I wasn't exactly astonished to read yesterday that a woman had been killed on one of these in Ourense the night before. Or that another woman had been killed there in 2019. Dangerous places for the unwary. Especially up in Ourense.

Here's Marìa's Riding the Wave: Day 26.  More on the mansion.    

The UK The EU

Suddenly, Boris Johnson is talking - after ditching the 'Norway' and 'Canada' labels - of an 'Australian terms' trade deal. This is the British government's euphemism for a No Deal Brexit. And trading on WTO terms, with all the negative connotations of that.

Click here for an entertaining review of the latest biography of the dishevelled charlatan in charge of British affairs, entitled - Who's to blame for [the 'multi-flawed'] Boris Johnson?. A man who surely won't be prime minister when the 2024 general election takes place. 

The USA/Nutters Corner

Just when you thought she couldn't get any dumber . . . Former Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann, last seen praying to God to give Donald Trump a second term, is now insisting that her vote for Trump was stolen from her  . . . by Satan*. A hell go a guy, that Satan.

The Way of the Woke World

Those awful British Xmas crackers . . .

- Old and now unacceptable joke: What noise does a cow make at the North Pole? An Eski-moo!

- Possibly acceptable new joke: When is an igloo closed? When nobody can get In-u-it.

- And one to ponder: What did the dyslexic Devil-worshipper do? Sold his soul to Santa*.  

English

* 'Satan': As I've previously noted, from the Persian Sheytan, شیطان Or, if you prefer, the Arabic alsheytan, الشيطان

Finally . . .

Amusing aphorisms No. 12: I finally got 8 hours of sleep. It took me 3 days, but whatever.

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

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 records 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 your 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 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 have been found to be using ‘black credit cards’, refer to their abuelo(grandfather) as el VISAbuelo(‘great grandfather’ but . . .)

My latest passport foto 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.

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

Excellent news: The Oxford-Astra Zeneca vaccine may stop asymptomatic infection, in a crucial sign that it could provide herd immunity. The team behind the drug today became the first to provide preliminary evidence that theirs did more than just stop illness.

Spain.  Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

Passing 2 popular tapas bars in a narrow old quarter street at midday yesterday, I gained the impression not all places are obeying the current regulations re both (external) table occupancy of 50% and of distancing. With impunity, it seems. Odd. And it doesn’t bode well for January.

A HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for these 2 items. 

Forbes says the 25 most influential people in Spain of 2020 are all women. See here and here. I actually recognise some of them.

VozPópuli says that : A six million euro radar-system to detect boats off the Canary Islands has been languishing in a warehouse for 5 years. Ongoing bureaucratic problems in the purchase of a plot of land so far have prohibited the activation of surveillance from the north of Lanzarote, the area closest to the coast of Morocco, a crossing which is used by the mafias to reach other islands in the archipelago.

Here’s some of the results from research among 15-64 year olds in 23 OECD countries, averages of course:-

Paid Work; UK 3h55m  Spain 2h56m

Sleep: UK 8h28  Spain 8h36   

Housework UK 1h35  Spain 1h29   [Hmm. Spaniards think British houses are dirty . .]

Shopping:  Uk 2h13  Spain 2h21

Personal care: UK 58m  Spain 51m

Eating & Drinking: UK: 1h19  Spain 2h06

TV & radio: UK 2h13  Spain 2h09

Seeing friends: UK 47m  Spain 51m

Other leisure UK 2h05  Spain 2h16

Total Leisure: UK 3h25  Spain 3h36

Paid work: Most: China 3h35  Least: Italy 2h29 (just below France and Spain)

You can see the article and all the data here. Just 2 paras here: 

- The first thing that jumps out from this chart is that there are many similarities across countries.

- Cultural differences are likely to play a role. The French seem to spend much more time eating than the British – and in this respect the data actually goes in line with stereotypes about food culture. People in France, Greece, Italy and Spain report spending more time eating than people in most other European countries. The country where people spend the least time eating and drinking is the USA (63 minutes

The USA 

A real estate agency is appealing to the president's fans to buy Donald Trump's childhood home in New York for $3 million and offer it to Mr Trump as a gift. Who'd be surprised if they did? Quite normal for a cult. Along with the best private jets. Prosperity theology.  

The Way of the World

A senator has presented a bill to Argentina’s National Congress to put the face of Diego Maradona on the country’s $1000 peso banknote. The other side would feature the 2nd goal Diego Maradona scored against England in the 1986 World Cup, dubbed the ‘goal of the century.’ And why not, if it makes the Argentineans - a not-very-lucky group of people - feel good about themselves.

Finally . . .

My latest passport foto - the 10th - was unacceptable to the computer, as having insufficient kilobytes. This turned out to be because is it was sent to me from my friend's camera via WhatsApp, which automatically reduces them. The original foto - my 11th - has now been submitted and I await the verdict on it of a human.

Amusing aphorisms No 10: If you're sitting in public and a stranger takes the seat next to you, just stare straight ahead and say, "Did you bring the money?"

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

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 in Spain

A song for anti-vaxxers 

Spain. Here's an irony . . . The first Spaniards to be vaccinated will be those who cross into Gibraltar for work. I guess Vox will be making a big fuss about that, perhaps demanding they continue to be unprotected, to protect its image of Spain.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

Talking about Vox, I noted a week or 2 ago that someone had written that there are actually parties to the right of these egregious folk. The article in Spanish is here and a tarted-up Google version is below.

And this is about Vox supporters in action. 

It's heartwarming to read of a Spanish couple who, after suffering 14 miscarriages, finally had a child via IVF treatment they'd won in a competition. Some folk, though - especially pious Catholics - won't be so impressed by this 'playing at God'. I imagine there are quite a few of these in the ranks of Vox voters. And Opus Dei, of course. 

The ex king is regularising his tax affairs. Post facto, of course. By all accounts(!), he's lucky enough to have sufficient loose cash to fund the overdue payments and the fines. Unlike the poor chap fined €490,000 in 2014 under the infamous Modelo 720 law of 2012 for having €300,000 in Switzerland that he hadn't previously declared  

Life in Spain: Cooks, architects, janitors, mailmen, clerks, policemen, pediatricians, firefighters, librarians, music teachers, archaeologists ... What do you want to be when you grow up? 'A civil servant', all those who seek a stable job in the next decade should respond, whether they are unemployed, are ESO students who have not reached the age of majority or have been integrated in an increasingly unstable and stingy labor market for years. According to the Voz de Galicia, the next decade will be 'prodigious' as regards public employment. In other words, for jobs paid by taxpayers. Some of whom will have much less job security, income and benefits. Perhaps the percentage of Spaniards who aspire to be a funcionario will rise now to above 90%.

Here's Marìa's Riding the Wave: Days 23&24   

The UK & The EU

The show has been kept on the road even if the end destination is still highly uncertain. But deadlines loom for a deal by the end of the year. So, the pound continues to fall against the euro. Will it soar next week, or even late this week? No one knows. But we will shortly. 

Finally . . .

I'm advised that the passport foto acceptable to the computer had been rejected by a human. Because:-

1. Low contrast: Try taking a new photo where there is more contrast between you and the background.

2. Unnatural colours: The colours in your photo don’t look right.  

I've no idea what all this means but will have to persevere, perhaps by standing against a white wall. As for the camera's 'unnatural' colours, I wonder WTF I can do about that. The advice of the UK Passport Office is that I get someone to take my photo using a digital camera, smartphone or tablet. Which is exactly what I did. Hey ho, one of modern life's nitpicks.

One a lighter note  . . . Crackers are a tradition for British Christmas dinner. They invariably contain a small gift (usually plastic) and something akin to a joke. These are the 'best' of these for 2020, around a Covid theme, of course. Warning: You're unlikely to find these funny - or understandable - if you're not British.     

1. What is Dominic Cummings’ favourite Christmas song? Driving Home for Christmas.
2. Did you hear that production was down at Santa’s workshop? Many of his workers have had to Elf isolate!
3. Why didn’t Mary and Joseph make it to Bethlehem? All Virgin flights were cancelled.
4. Why are Santa’s reindeer allowed to travel on Christmas Eve? They have herd immunity.
5. Why did the pirates have to go into lockdown? Because the “Arrrr!” rate had risen.
6. Why is it best to think of 2020 like a panto? Because eventually, it’s behind you.
7. Why couldn’t Mary and Joseph join their work conference call? Because there was no Zoom at the inn.
8. Why can’t Boris Johnson make his Christmas cake until the last minute? He doesn’t know how many tiers it should have.
9. What do the Trumps do for Christmas dinner? They put on a super spread.
10. Which Christmas film was 30 years ahead of its time? Home Alone. 

THE ARTICLE

Neo-fascist social movements: the extreme right beyond Vox: La Maréa

This article is part of the report of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation on the extreme right in Spain that will be published in early 2021. A work coordinated by the author of this article and that has several collaborations that identify and analyze all organizations and all strategies of the current Spanish extreme right.

"The importance of these groups lies in their ability to bring together a large part of the youth with political concerns and dissatisfied with conventional politics, little seduced by the posh image of Vox and disenchanted with the Cainite struggles and sectarianism on the part of the left "writes the author.

The emergence of Vox in recent years has shaken the Spanish political landscape and has placed it at the same level as other neighboring countries, which have already been living with their own ultras in the institutions for decades. But its institutional absence until now did not mean its nonexistence.

There has always been an extreme right in Spain after Franco's death, but until relatively recently, most were well-off in the PP. The one that didn't, was trying to occupy that orphan space. With little success and always immersed in struggles for leadership. Only the Plataforma per Catalunya (PxC) of Josep Anglada and very sporadically Spain2000, first in the Valencian Country and later in the Henares corridor, achieved several councillors.

Vox arises from the right wing of the PP and from the neocon revolt that began in Spain against the Zapatero government. A right that little by little was becoming independent from the catch all party that had been the PP until then, which knew how to unite the center right and the extreme right for almost 40 years. They accused the PP of being too lukewarm, of what Vox today calls a 'cowardly right', and the creation of a new party began to be forged that, without renouncing the neoliberal program, would put the focus on the cultural battle and demand of an uncomplexed right, something that, to a great extent, other ultra-rightist formations had already been doing without practically any success.

The struggles to lead the Spanish extreme right have prevented in recent years that there was a single formation capable of snatching the right sector from the PP. Small, very caudillo formations, whose leaders continue to lead more than 20 years later, have seen helpless how a neoliberal formation like Vox snatched their hopes of becoming the Spanish Le Pen.

To date, only Spain2000 maintains several councilors in the Henares corridor, while its traditional fiefdom in Valencia is gradually extinguished. The other formations that dispute this niche, mainly National Democracy and the National Alliance, have never managed to get out of the neo-Nazi environments in which they were born.

However, there is another extreme right to which very little attention is being paid and which could play an important role in the political and social reconfiguration that Spain is experiencing in recent years. They are the neo-fascist social movements that already existed before Vox, which have not just been directly linked to any specific party, but which have managed to weave an increasingly coordinated and more active network.

The cultural battle: the field sown by Vox

An essential part of the cultural battle that the extreme right has posed for decades is the competition with the left in social causes. Something old already if we pay attention to the workerist patina that both Nazism and Fascism took advantage of to destroy the left with the support of the corresponding oligarchies.

Today, after having studied the left a lot and very well, a part of the extreme right has known how to make the most of the strategies of its enemies to snatch the banner of social causes from a part of the left. The Italian neo-fascists of Casa Pound were pioneers, occupying abandoned buildings to shelter Italian families without resources. This model, which was the inspiration for Hogar Social Madrid, managed in a few years to have a presence in practically all of Italy, offering a space of confluence for all neo-fascist militants and sympathizers who were offered a large number of recreational activities and political training.

The Casa Pound model arrived in Spain before Hogar Social, with organizations such as Proyecto Impulso in Castelló, or Casal Tramuntana in Barcelona, ​​both of which have been extinct for years. However, it was Hogar Social that captured all the media attention and served as an inspiration and a unifier for much of the neo-fascist youth activism, which was often in tow of internal disputes between organizations, ultra soccer factions and leaders they disputed the leadership of the sector.

In the heat of Hogar Social Madrid, other similar social movements emerged that went more unnoticed since they were not in the capital. Projects such as Iberia Cruor in Jaén, Málaga 1487 or Acción Social, in Asturias and Cádiz, have been working for several years in their respective cities collecting food for Spanish families without resources, carrying out campaigns on social issues and capturing much of the youth activism that, in many times, it does not find its place in the absence or inability of left-wing organizations.

All these organizations have been building a common platform for some time that could soon present itself as an alternative to the neoliberal ultra-right that Vox represents. The constant media attention that Abascal's party receives and the insertion of its themes and its frameworks constantly in political debates, have managed to normalize a series of speeches that until recently were not common.

This success of the cultural battle of the extreme right benefits both Vox and the neo-fascist movements, although they deny the former as another piece of the system at the service of the elites. Also for his explicit support for Israel, which Vox shares with the majority and the most successful global extreme right, from Trump and Bolsonaro to the German AfD, something that neo-Nazis still resist.

The union of neo-fascist social movements

Making a Nation is the common project of all these neo-fascist social movements that little by little is beginning to make itself known in various cities in Spain and that has already announced its intention to become a political party. It was presented in July 2020, at its Summer University, in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), in which approximately 50 people participated. Under the slogan "community, sovereignty, future" they staged the union of different neo-fascist organizations from different parts of the State, such as Iberia Cruor, Acción Social Cádiz, El Galeón, Málaga 1478. Former members of other existing parties such as Vox or Spain2000 also participated.

In its orbit or participating in one of its acts *, we find Mario Martos, from Iberia Cruor; Cristian Ruiz, from El Galeón de Elda; Florentino Acebal, from Acción Social Asturias; María Gámez, former spokesperson for Respect in Jaén; the economist Guillermo Rocafort, who at the end of July participated in a talk organized by Haga Nación in the, as reported by this organization on her Twitter account, Rocafort “once again informed us about the danger of vulture funds, SICAVs and other forms of. capitalist plunder ”. After the publication of this article, Rocafort wrote to this medium to clarify that it does not belong to Haga Nación and demand a formal rectification **.

Davy Rodríguez, a resident of France and a member of the French National Front until 2018, when he was expelled after being convicted of a verbal assault of a racist nature also stands out. *** 

Rodríguez had previously participated in events of other far-right groups in the Spanish state, such as in a talk by España2000 in Alcalá de Henares in 2019 in which he was a speaker. Or Rafael Ripoll, member of Spain2000, former president of the formation and councilor for this party in Alcalá de Henares.

Precisely the involvement of Ripoll and part of Spain2000 of the Corredor del Henares in this project, aroused criticism from the members of this party in Valencia, who publicly reproached in their social networks for not having been invited to participate in the creation of Haga Nación. Even the historic leader and founder of Spain2000, José Luis Roberto, would step forward at the end of August 2020 by announcing that he would run again for the presidency of the party, which he managed to ratify last October at his last congress.

Mario Martos, president of Iberia Cruor since 2008 and secretary of Haga Nación Jaén, in an interview on September 19 for the digital medium Adaraga, would explain the reasons for the creation of Haga Nación: “Social-patriotic organizations have reached the ceiling. We have peaked and we have been unable to influence society in a significant way, except for some honorable exception, and in the same way, we have also failed to reap the fruits of the normalization of part of our discourse. So this has led us to reflection and from that debate, Haga Nación is born ”.

Martos defines Haga Nación as “a political movement that is born from the fusion of different groups and associations and that have a common interest in building a union arm, a student arm, a social arm and an electoral arm, in a modern, different and adapted way. in our time. For this reason, our priority objective is to build a serious organization and structure at the national level that is capable of penetrating society in all its areas in a real way ”.

The NGO Españoles En Acción, which a few years ago created España2000 in the Corredor del Henares to collect and distribute food, has spread to the rest of the cities where Haga Nación has a presence. All the groups that make up Haga Nación have left their own brand in the background to claim the name of the common project.

Another organization so far outside of Haga Nación is Frontal Bastion. This youth organization in Madrid has taken the lead from Hogar Social, and has captured the attention of some media after the incidents that took place in the Madrid neighborhood of San Blas weeks ago. After spreading the hoax of the involvement of a migrant minor in an alleged rape, dozens of neo-Nazis managed to make the news in various media presented as "neighbors" protesting against the insecurity in the neighborhood. A few days later, La Marea denied the hoax that led to the protest, which was also motivated by the brawl between two of its members with several young migrants the night before and which ended with a neo-Nazi in the hospital.

In other cities, similar social movements continue to proliferate, some collaborating with each other, such as Valentia Forum in València, the Empel Cultural Association in Catalonia, or the veteran Social and National Center of Salamanca, with more than 10 years of activity. All these organizations, as well as those that make up Haga Nación, have a location in their respective cities that serves as a meeting point for supporters and where they carry out numerous activities.

The importance of these groups, beyond their low social impact, is their ability to bring together a large part of the youth with political concerns dissatisfied with conventional politics and little seduced by the posh image of Vox. Also disenchanted with left-wing organizations, many times mired in Cainite struggles and sectarian attitudes that drive them away, they end up finding a fit in this far-right beyond Vox. In recent weeks, they are becoming known in several cities for their activism in support of local commerce and their presence in protests against the Government and its restrictions due to the state of alarm.

The success of this type of social movements outside of Vox and the traditional far-right parties can be compared with the strength of similar organizations in Europe and the US, such as the aforementioned Casa Pound in Italy, the French Identity Generation or the media. American Proud Boys, whom Trump considered good boys and asked them to stand aside and wait when they faced anti-racist protesters this summer in various cities.

The work of these organizations is centered at the municipal level, with social campaigns that alternate with others of a nationalist, xenophobic or Islamophobic nature, supported by the framework that Vox has managed to normalize in institutions and in the media. We are facing an old far-right spectrum that can make the success of Vox profitable very well if it knows how to play its cards, even if it seems that there is competition. But the one who should be most concerned is the left, because if it gives its full attention to Abascal's party, gets confused by measuring its leftism with the rest of the organizations and neglects the street, it will give a good chunk to neofascism.

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

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 in Spain

Good news re quick, cheap (antibody) tests in Spain.

But this is decidedly not good news. How long will they wait and what will satisfy them? Most importantly, what will be the consequences suffered before they're happy to have one of the several vaccines coming down the pike? 2022? If they're still alive.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

You don't get military personnel sending open letters to the government of many Western democracies but you certainly do here in Spain. The 3rd of such letters has just been published, to coincide with tomorrow's Day of the Constitution, which would normally see an (anachronistic?) military parade. The signatories to this letter insist that, as retired officers, they have the right to free speech. Which is true, of course. If hardly the point at issue.

This is a nice article on pretty topiary stuff around Spain, in which Galicia's largest urban concentration, Vigo, gets a mention. But, with a population of almost 300,000, it's described as a 'small city'. Which struck me as odd. But, when compared with Madrid at 3.3m, I guess it is. For the record, Vigo compares with the UK cities of Bradford 299k, Newport 307k and Swansea 300k. Not to mention my birthplace ofBirkenhead, at 325k. Which I've never even considered a city. 

At 80,000, Pontevedra must rank as a 'very small city'. It compares with the UK cities of Carlisle 78k, Scunthorpe 80k, Chester 80k, Tamworth 82k, and Weston-super-Mare 83k. All of which, as with Birkenhead, I'd regard as towns, rather than cities. (The old - and possibly obsolete - British qualification as a 'city' demanded a cathedral. Which Birkenhead certainly doesn't have. Unlike, Liverpool just across the Mersey, which has two. And a population of 498k, 864k or 2.2m, depending on whom you include. The modern definition of 'city' seems to be merely 'large town)

The UK 

The smallest place to qualify as a city - because it has a cathedral - is St David's, in Wales. Its population is less than 2,000. So, really a village and not even a town. Anyway, Wikipedia lists all the UK's small 'cities' here. 

The EU

Thousands of British expats will lose their UK bank accounts when some EU nations stop UK brands from operating after this year. Unless the account holders quickly make new arrangements, they'll be left without vital banking services. Nationwide has told 5,000 expats in the Netherlands and Italy their accounts will close from Dec 31. It's the latest of several providers to announce such measures. Barclays will close accounts in Italy, Belgium, Slovakia and Estonia.  Lloyds, which owns Halifax and the Bank of Scotland, is closing accounts in Italy, Ireland, Portugal, Germany, Holland and Slovakia. And the Co-op Bank will do likewise in The Netherlands, after the Dutch central bank said British banks would be banned from serving residents from 2021. No news yet from the larger HSBC and its subsidiary First Direct.

The other good news - for me at least - is that, so far, Spain hasn't featured in the lists. Perhaps because of the 300,000 to 1 million Brits who live here. At least during part of the year. Shortly to be limited to 3 months for non-residents, I believe.

The USA 

One can but smile. Laugh, even . . .  President Trump’s efforts to discredit the integrity of the election and overturn Joe Biden’s victory are harming Republicans’ chances of retaining control of the Senate, senior figures in the party have warned. 

The Way of the World

As a lover of ginger, I was disappointed   d to read this morning of a shortfall of supply against (growing) demand. China, of course, is the lead supplier of ginger and harvests there were 'surprisingly poor' both last year and this year. So, fingers crossed for 2021. And for the emergence of alternative suppliers in Asia and elsewhere. Meanwhile, prices are naturally rising.  

Spanish

Un cribado: A screening, e.g. of kids in school, for Covid.

Finally . . .

Amusing aphorisms No.9: Remember, if you lose a sock in the washing machine or dryer, it comes back as a Tupperware lid that doesn't fit any of your containers. [I am the owner of 15 'orphan' socks]

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

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

In case you live in a cave . . . The chaos, confusion and cover-ups that characterised China’s initial response to the coronavirus were laid bare last week. Unprecedented leaks and interviews with whistleblowers from the Chinese health system exposed how officials downplayed the severity of the pandemic in the crucial early stages. China reported 2,478 confirmed new cases nationwide on February 10, even as provincial health authorities circulated a document that cited 5,918 newly detected cases, more than twice the official tally.

Oh, dear: Don't talk while eating in restaurants, a study has warned, as it claims people can be infected by Covid-19 more than 6m away. According to researchers in Korea: Diners should refrain from having "conversation during meals" as well as avoid "loud talking or shouting". Their study claims that people who are 6.5m apart can still infect each other, and the window of transmission can be as little as 5 minutes. Restaurants should consider installing dividing walls between tables to prevent this happening, they say..

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

More here on the possibility of a 4 day week.

Another relevant line from Piers Plowman of c.1380:- As for pilgrimages to St James' shrine - If people do go to Galicia, let them go there once and for all, and never come back! Translator's note: The poet deprecates repeated visits and implies a preference for 'spiritual' pilgrimages. That is, works of virtue like visiting the sick as prescribed in the epistle of St James.

María’s Riding the Wave: Days 21&22    

The EU

Solidarity and consensus above all else - even lives? See the article below. Which isn't about the pluses of Brexit . . .

Ambrose Evans Pritchard has, of course, already warned to the economic consequences of this approach.

The Way of the World

How on earth have we reached a point where scientists can develop a vaccine for a virus that was unknown a year ago, only to find that 15% or 20% of the population won’t take it because of something a pissed-up pop star said on Twitter? Seriously. You have educated people saying they won’t take an “untested Frankenstein drug, developed by Big Pharma”, before rushing off to a dimly lit car park and scoring a gram of coke from a man called Barry the Bugle. . . . Nutterness has seeped into every single corner of our lives. Two and two is four. “You say that, Grandad, but is it?” . . . We have “influencers” whose facts are never checked and who can, and will, reach more people today than any professionally put-together newspaper. Every day, Kim Kardashian can and does out-Beeb the BBC. We all saw, last week, that astonishing 3D map of the Milky Way. Well, that’s what news has become: a big, cloudy muddle. It’s sad — and it’s bloody dangerous.

Every divisive question these days turns into a culture war. Two tribes, reading two sets of media, developing two unrelated narratives, subject to two opposed purity spirals, are so far apart that they might as well inhabit different dimensions. . . . People might initially pick their side contingently and with reservations. But, once they've done so, centrifugal forces haul them away from the middle ground.

English

A site for those readers as interested as paideleo in etymology. Not to be confused with entomology.

Finally . . .

Amusing aphorisms No.8. I had my patience tested. I'm negative.

THE ARTICLE

Coronavirus has exposed the deadly cost of the EU’s cult of ‘solidarity’: The EU's sluggishness in paproving the vaccine suggests the member states put unity over saving lives:  Janet Daley 

In roughly 3 decades as a political journalist I have never known a day of such stunning, unalloyed, unimpeachable good news as last Wednesday. It was breathtaking. Watching the news channels was, for the first time in living memory, a succession of joyous moments with experts tripping over their own superlatives to express delight and pride in the achievements of their specialisms, not to mention that of science in general.

Now, not only had effective vaccines been discovered but the first of their kind had been officially approved and was about to be delivered to the population. When Jonathan Van-Tam said that he had become “emotional” on hearing the pronouncement of the regulators, it rang completely true. It is safe to say that not many government statements – perhaps not even the announcement of an end to a war – could have such a profound impact on the life of a nation.

At the Downing Street press conference, they did their best to contain the excitement, clearly terrified that the country’s resolve might evaporate: the present danger remains, restrictions must be maintained for the immediate future, blah-blah. But they must have wanted to break into song. Because this was clearly the turning point. From here on, in a succession of careful steps, things would get better and better – and we would have our lives back.

In crass political terms, there was something more. The previous day’s Commons vote in which Boris Johnson had suffered such a humiliating rebellion by his own party, was now wiped from the headlines – and possibly from the consciousness of the country – to be replaced with a world-beating triumph. We were the first country whose regulators had issued the permit for which the entire population of the planet had been waiting.

It became clear, listening to the lucid and persuasive accounts of why it had been possible, that this was entirely due to the continuous monitoring procedures adopted by the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. This high degree of sophisticated methodology and assiduous competence for which the MHRA was renowned – so much so that the European Union, in the days when we were still friends, had based its medicines regulation in the UK – had beaten everybody to make the first call. So, it seemed that there was even a Brexit dimension to this. Matt Hancock jumped in with both feet: the fact that we were now out of the EU, and free at last – thank God almighty, free at last – to make our own independent decisions on these matters, had been the miraculous key.

But it wasn’t. It became clear quite quickly – Brexit triumphalism being a target for close media scrutiny – that any member state of the EU could have done precisely the same thing if it had so chosen. The emergency use provision under which the MHRA had licensed the Pfizer vaccine was available to any individual EU country – or all of them at once. That we chose to do it was indeed an individual decision but it was not the case that it would have been legally impossible to have acted in the same way if we had remained members.

So the question before us is, why did none of the member states do the same or indeed, why didn’t the European Medicines Agency which oversees these matters for the whole of the EU, move as quickly as the UK when that was perfectly possible? What followed was a lesson in a larger truth than Brexit, or EU medicines practice. The spluttering indignation from EU sources, not to mention some quite shameful attempts to discredit the validity of the MHRA’s decision, was a sight to behold. The UK had been too hasty, too self-interested in a nasty nationalist way, too careless in its investigations. There was a clear hint that undue haste had led to sloppiness and a lack of caution.

This was unforgivable, given the acknowledged worry that a dangerously high proportion of the population might be anxious about accepting the vaccine – because it was, by the EU’s own admission, baseless. The very same people who were muttering about our hasty judgment were, in the next breath, insisting that Europe would be ready with its own approval by the end of the month. There was absolutely no question that the vaccine would soon be accepted as safe and ready for use in the member states. The delay was not the result of material doubts about Pfizer’s product which had been discovered in Germany and was being manufactured in Belgium, but about the need for all the member states to act in concert – as one unified body – which meant following the procedural rules for communal consent, and that would take a few more weeks.

Have you got that? It is, apparently, more important for all the EU member states to be seen to act together than it is to make the speediest possible decision on a vaccine that could save lives. At the present mortality rate in Europe, a delay of a further month might mean an extra death toll of hundreds of thousands – and still more delay to the economic recovery that can only follow once restrictions have ended, with all the further damage to the quality of life that will involve. So European unity is worth more than anything – even life itself?

It is difficult to understand how such a view could be uttered without any embarrassment. To comprehend the set of beliefs from which it springs, you need to recall the origins of this whole idea: European unity was the post-war antidote to the mass murder of one another’s people that had been such a feature of the last century. But it was also the milder form of that other monumental twentieth century phenomenon: the communist principle (note the small “c”) that social benefits must always be collective and equally distributed. Everybody has to have precisely the same advantages as everybody else at the same time. This is what Brussels calls “solidarity”.

No individual person or state government must take precedence over any other – even if that means postponing a stupendous accomplishment of human intelligence which could make the difference between life and death. Perhaps they think it’s worth it.

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

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'*  

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

Two worrying reports this week on the issue of attitude to risk/safety:-

1. The day after a large chunk of our Cathedrals Beach fell onto the sand, the Voz de Galicia found no safety measures in place below the cliff face.

2. The same paper reported a driver of a school bus had had all the points taken off her licence and so was banned from driving. To be fair to her, she wasn't over the alcohol limit when stopped by the police when taking the kids to school.

Talking of whom . . . The police, I mean. An officer this week booked a motorcyclist under the rather wide rubric of 'distracting' himself. The chap protested he was merely looking in his rear-view mirror. But was still fined. And then reimbursed by crowd-funding

Here's a very amusing tale from Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas. With a comment from me at the end of it . . .

Big/super moons.  It's hard to take good foto but here's a nice view from Pontevedra's Plaza de Leña. Buildings that used to be our museum. And will one day ‘soon’ be private flats. Like the old San Francisco convent, which ceased to be the Tax Office about 6 years ago and still sits empty.

Walking to my my car yesterday, I noticed a pretty brass plate in Pontevedra which read (in Spanish):-

Activiza - by Saraiva

Social Innovation Consultancy

Active Ageing

Attention centred on the person   

Intrigued as to what on earth this meant, I then wasted far more time than I should have in trying to find out what sort of services were on offer. Saraiva is a company providing local day-care centres and Activiza is an offshoot which will accompany you on the path of Person-Centered Care(ACP) through training experiences that adapt to your organization, your team, the current moment and, of course, you. Via Person-Centered Care Training and our didactic methodology which supports the personal and organizational transformation necessary to make ACP something real and possible. I’m not sure I'm much wiser. And I suspect you didn't feel the need to be . . .

The UK and the EU

A definitive statement from Richard north today on the negotiations on the post-transition relationship. Nothing of what we're hearing seems to make complete sense. I suspect he thinks the EU will do their famous stopping-the-clock act, which means everyone pretends deadline dates haven't passed. This is what happens when you're governed by a mix of unelected bureaucrats and presidents that do answer to an electorate. And pretty soon in the case of Macron, who's playing the traditional French role of la mouche dans la pommade.

English

Finally . . .

Amusing aphorisms No. 7. I remember being able to get up without making sound effects.

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

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

It’s a mad, mad world. At least out East. Airlines are now offering the experience of flying out of Hong Kong and then returning to it an hour or two later. Not to be outdone, Royal Caribbean is offering Cruises to Nowhere, starting and ending in Singapore.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

In this article on the impact of the virus on Spain’s Xmas traditions it’s said that the holiday season lasts roughly a month - a marathon of family and friend gatherings - ending on Jan. 6, with the Feast of the Three Kings(The Epiphany). I can certainly vouch for the fact the family I share a wall with have 5 meals in just over a week, all seeming to start at 9 or 10 and going on well into the night.

I suspect this number - always high - is now bigger than ever: The proportion of young Spanish adults -18 to 34 - living with their parents is 64.5%. 

Interesting. Spain mulls a move to four-day week and shorter working hours, in a bid to create jobs and cut the 16% unemployment rate. I can’t see it happening, myself. Though Unilever iare said to be trying it out in New Zealand.

Here's María's Riding the Wave - Day 19  

And here's María's latest post (no. 20), on this astonishing state of affairs/affairs of state: Spain’s defence minister has asked prosecutors to open a criminal investigation into a whatsapp group of retired senior military officers who talked of inciting a coup, threatening to “annihilate 26 million” and “purge the Reds”. The group of 40 exchanged the messages such as “Ready for combat! Go for the Reds! Raise your spirits and fight!” “There is no choice but to start shooting 26 million sons of bitches” Some of them signed a letter to King Felipe VI, assuring him of their loyalty while warning that a “social-communist” government was driving the country towards disintegration. Perhaps they're right to think a firing squad should be brought back, at least temporarily . . .

A propos . . . .HT to Lenox of Business Over Tapas for the citation there of the letter which appears as Appendix 1 below.  

The UK

ScotchEggGate: See the bit by the estimable Caitlin Moran below, possibly only of interest - and meaning - to Brits.

Finally . . .

Amusing aphorisms No. 6: When I say, ‘The other day,’ I could be referring to any time between yesterday and 15 years ago.

THE APPENDICES

1. An open letter from a Spanish grandmother to the female voters of [the right of centre parties] C’s, PP. and VOX

In olden days, under Franco, millions of women went out without their husbands - neither to parties, nor to drinks, nor to travel, nor to the beach, nor to concerts, nor to the movies, nor for a walk, nor to gyms, nor beauticians, nor to football, nor to go camping.

They wore very long skirts, with stockings all year round, not showing legs, not showing arms, not showing cleavage or back. No tattoos, no piercings, no tinted hair, no make-up, no waxing.

The woman was used (by the man) for sex and as a good maid for the house. If she protested to her husband, he slapped her to "straighten her out". She could not smoke, nor buy an apartment, nor drive, nor get divorced, nor shower every day, nor dress too much, or protest or decide who to vote for or when and how to make love - only give birth and give birth even if it cost her her life.

She dressed in black when a relative died and only in white (married) if a man "wanted" her for the rest of her life.

She would be insulted if she talked to male friends (as a puta) and if she didn't, why then she was ugly and a spinster.

A girl's toys were the dolls, the mop, the sewing box ... and her obligation was to learn to cook, clean, raise children, pray with the rosary and please her husband.

No ball, no video games, no bicycles, no scooters. These were for boys (pink for you and blue for him).

Every Sunday to Mass, the holidays to Mass, Holy Week at Mass, Christmas to Mass and also upon death – at Mass. Finally she received her very own coffin and burial (forget incineration) because to be a good Catholic woman, you had to be "devoured" by worms.

In winter, a blanket or brazier (no heating) and in summer, the fan (no air conditioning).

Those women ate a lot of rice, a lot of potatoes, a lot of grease, a lot of lunchmeat, and a lot of bread with oil, garlic and salt, because pizzas, serrano ham, salmon, veal, prawns, or eating out of the home, was something for the rich. 

I could go on like this for hours but why bother.

It is very easy to forget these things when you have the latest model mobile phone, with a car at the door, with a 30-inch television, with a closet full of clothes, with a full fridge and a warm house, with a visa-card in your wallet and you are plugged into the internet.

With being able to decide who loves you, how to dress, who your friends are and shouting 'No means no' when you want; to go to the fiestas, to the beach, to the bar and look at the time and see that it is after 10 at night and they have not yet forced you to return home.

It is very easy to talk and celebrate the past, out of ignorance, hypocrisy or lies with which some want to "whitewash" the past to sell it to the young.

Because that happy world never existed.

Thanks for reading.

Isabel Gómez Espinosa.

2.  Scotch eggs: Caitlin Moran

William Blake had it that the true visionary can see the whole world in just one grain of sand. This week, I suggest, a similar visionary could see the whole of Britain in 2020 in just one Scotch egg.  Scotch eggs are the thing; Scotch eggs are what we’re all talking about. 

For reasons that still haven’t been adequately explained, the new tier system will allow pubs to open and sell drinks — but only if accompanied by “a substantial main meal”. When pub owners tried to get clarity on this and asked if this would include, for instance, Scotch eggs, the government, essentially, collapsed — as if an egg covered with sausage and breadcrumbs were an intellectual grenade. 

On Tuesday morning George Eustice told LBC radio that a Scotch egg was a main meal — only to be countered by Michael Gove, hours later, insisting: “A couple of Scotch eggs is a starter, as far as I’m concerned.” By the afternoon, Gove had changed his tune, egg-wise, saying, “A Scotch egg is a substantial meal. I do recognise that,” while Matt Hancock did his usual thing of saying things that his face didn’t seem to understand: “A Scotch egg that is served as a substantial meal — that is a substantial meal.” As a catchphrase, it reminded me a bit of Sting’s cameo in David Lynch’s film Dune, where he has to say, “The spice is the worm, the worm is the spice,” over and over, very dramatically, while clearly thinking the whole film is bollocks.  

So, what is a Scotch egg? Well, what isn’t it, now? 

First and foremost, it’s a class issue. If you have to buy one to go to the pub, it has essentially become a tax — possibly our maddest since window tax. 

Second, it’s an intriguing glimpse into government ministers’ eating habits because a Scotch egg is essentially: 

1) an egg covered in 2) a sausage, and 3) a load of bread.  I would totally call that a main meal. Given that I, and millions of others, are perfectly happy with just a slice of toast for lunch, we seem to be in a position where a Conservative government is firmly telling obesity-hit Britain that it’s “under-lunching itself”, which seems an astonishing bit of micro-management, given, you know, everything else.  

Third, a Scotch egg — and/or any of its snack-siblings — is now the currency with which a beleaguered hospitality industry can wind up a flailing government. The Caxton Arms pub in Brighton is now offering a beer called “A Substantial Meal”, from the “Made-Up Brewery”; while the G-A-Y club-turned-bar at Heaven in Soho — which doesn’t usually serve food — has teamed up with McDonald’s and now includes a Happy Meal in the ticket price, so that customers can return, while remaining within the rules. 

While I’m all for businesses finding amusing, Hanna-Barbera-like loopholes to a piece of random government illogic, there is a serious point behind all this. “It’s outrageous you can have a pint in a theatre, concert hall, cinema or sports ground without a substantial meal, but not the pub,” says the CEO of the British Beer and Pub Association. Whether or not a Scotch egg counts as a meal will be a matter of financial life or death to many, already desperate, pubs. 

So far, Boris Johnson has offered pubs that can’t offer meals “a Christmas grant” of £1,000 to cover their losses over the festive period. Since £1,000 is the average price of a pint in London, this isn’t going to go very far.

I do have one useful idea, though. To save non-catering pubs having to suddenly churn out Scotch eggs to stay open, customers could choose to go “BYOE” (“Bring Your Own Egg”) by providing their own Scotch egg from home and being charged . . . “porkage”.

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

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'*  

 Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

On my way into town yesterday, there was a bit of an argument on the one-way bridge over a river. Fortunately, there was a police car in front of mine. Otherwise, I suspect I'd still be there now, watching the stand-off between 2 drivers in the middle of the bridge. The police eventually got one of them to reverse - in my understanding of the signs re right of way, the wrong one. But no matter, it solved the problem. I then followed the police car to my parking place, along a road with a 30kph speed limit. I couldn't help noticing it was doing 47.

Earlier in the morning, I'd been behind a learner driver which turned left at 2 roundabouts without signalling and after making a huge curve in the outside lane. Why on earth are they still being taught - at least here in Galicia - something that contravenes El Tráfico's advice/instructions? Of course, one gets used to this but I suspect foreign drivers making their first sortie onto Spain's(Galicia's) roads must have quite a few scares from cars crossing them unexpectedly from the right.

Here's María's Riding the Wave - Day 18  

The UK

It’s easy to see why the government was so determined to present the authorisation by UK regulators of the Biontech vaccine as a great post-Brexit British success story. The vaccine may have been developed by a German company founded by two Turkish immigrants in partnership with an American pharmaceuticals giant and authorised under an existing exemption under the European Union rules — but this is a government in desperate need of good news to distract public attention not only from its dismal handling of the pandemic but also the bleak economic outlook.

The Americanisation of 'raindrop' Prince Harry is complete. From his words to his wardrobe, the Prince is succumbing to what shall henceforth be known as 'the reverse Madonna' See the article below, from a different columnist.

The EU

Europe will pay a high price for vaccine bureaucracy while nimble Britain breaks free. Bureaucracy and legalistic inertia will give the virus one last chance to cause maximum devastation on the Continent. And this slippage of several weeks will have serious consequences for a clutch of eurozone economies already in trouble, suggests Ambrose Evans Pritchard. Adding that: While Europe’s [rollout] calendar is not yet clear, the EU regulator has pencilled in a decision at the end of December. That is a wasted month. The roll-out will then be painfully slow across Southern Europe. . . . In short, Europe's one-month vaccine delay at this stage of the pandemic locks in another quarter of wreckage and pushes a string of EMU states a step closer to depressionary metastasis. It may bring into play the ECB’s other nagging worry: a €1.4 trillion deluge of bad debts in the banking system. Doesn't sound nice.

The Way of the World

The tide turns: It took under a minute for the Mermaids CEO, Susie Green, to declare on Newsnight that the High Court judgment on puberty blockers will cause a wave of child suicide. When Emily Maitlis replied that the Tavistock GIDS’ (gender identity development service) own website says that, thankfully, suicide is extremely rare and such talk is dangerous, Green replied: “I don’t think so, not when this is anecdotal.” “Anecdotal” is all that Mermaids have left, along with fearmongering and quasi-religious belief. The judicial review was headed by the president of the Queen’s Bench Division, one of the country’s top judges, it considered thousands of pages of expert testimony, legal precedent and scientific data, before deciding that children lack capacity to consent to treatments which will remove their fertility and future sexual fulfilment. No matter. Green put her own child on puberty blockers at 13, before genital surgery in Thailand at 16. To disavow this treatment now would be to admit a grave mistake. So she ploughs on, insisting other people’s children too need their bodies “correcting” before their minds are fully formed. Like 1950s lobotomies, paediatric transition is increasingly exposed as a grotesque medical fad. The temple is crumbling, but the high priestess retains her zeal.

Spanish

Just a few slang terms here, not necessarily in use all around the Hispanic world. 

Finally . . .

Amusing aphorisms No. 4: It's the start of a brand new day, and I'm off like a herd of turtles.

On Dutch radio just now, de to a technical glitch, 2 people were speaking at the same time. Making it impossible to understand either. So . . . Double Dutch! 

THE ARTICLE

Help! Prince Harry is now speaking in Californian. In a video launching the Water Bear streaming platform Harry showed his grasp of New Age lingo. 

Here’s how you, too, can be both ‘energised’ and meaningless: Stuart Heritage

America has done strange things to Prince Harry. Once he was simply a hard-drinking, Nazi-dressing, naked pool-playing minor royal. But now, thanks to the bizarre new video he made to mark the launch of Water Bear — a service called somewhat redundantly “The Netflix for documentaries” — it’s clear that he has now gone full California, cramming his vocabulary with an endless barrage of empty faux-profound psychobabble. “What if every single one of us was a raindrop?” he asked at one point. If you want to talk like Prince Harry, and you definitely do, here are some tips.

Be slightly meaningless

Apart from the raindrop line, the best thing that Harry said in his speech was this: “Being in nature is the most healing part of life, I truly believe that’s one reason why it’s there.” Because while it may sound good in the moment, on closer inspection it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. A good exercise is to use this blueprint to describe other things around you. Try saying: “Drizzle is the most empowering form of precipitation, I truly believe that’s one reason why we have a sky.” Or: “Bananas are the most holistic food in the shop, I truly believe that’s one of the reasons why we have shops.”

Be inspirational

Don’t be interesting. To be interesting is to possess a distinct personality and a compelling worldview. Being inspirational, on the other hand, is a far easier proposition. The quickest way to be inspirational is to simply describe everything around you as inspirational. Activism is inspirational. Nature is inspirational. Your shoes, in the right conditions, have the potential to be inspirational. What do these things actually inspire you to do? Nobody knows, and that’s the beauty of it.

Be energised

Again, please don’t confuse being energised with being enthusiastic. For example, try to imagine Gwyneth Paltrow being enthusiastic about anything. It’s impossible, isn’t it? Nevertheless, she is perpetually energised. Sunrise yoga makes her energised. Smoothies make her energised. Wellness makes her energised. Next time you feel enthusiastic, try to be a bit more bland and wan, and you’ll be well on your way.

Talk about raindrops

We really do have to address this. “What if every single one of us was a raindrop, and if every single one of us cared?” may be the most perfect line ever uttered by a human being. It works as an inspirational quote you could put on Instagram. It works as something you would embroider on a cushion. It works as the first line of a genuinely terrible folk song. What does it mean? Nobody knows, and that’s what makes it so perfectly Californian.

Ruin common phrases

Have you heard the phrase “actions speak louder than words”? Of course you have. But that isn’t Californian enough for Prince Harry, who during his speech chose to rephrase it as: “For me it’s about putting the do’s behind the say’s.” Again, this hopeless New Age word salad is easy enough to replicate. Instead of saying, “Honesty is the best policy”, try “For me, it’s about putting the trues behind the falses.” Instead of “Attack is the best form of defence”, try “For me, it’s about putting the goes behind the stops.” Instead of saying, “Silence is golden”, say, “For me, it’s about putting the nothings behind the somethings”.

Have almost no real responsibilities whatsoever 

This is the big one. If you really want to live in an uplifted cloud of energised Californian inspiration, it seems the best way is to have lots of free time, a fat pillow of disposable income and no proper job to speak of. In this regard, Prince Harry was born to be Californian.

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

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 UK: Very good to know the Pfizer vaccine will roll out there from next Monday. There is, of course, controversy over the priority groups. 

But unedifying to see the Secretary of Health unable to say this morning whether it's legal or illegal for someone to (legally) buy a takeaway meal and then take it to a (legally open) 'wet pub'. Or whether a Scotch egg is a 'substantial meal'. Farcical but critically important to the hospitality industry:-

 Spain: The health authorities are testing everybody in the small town of Cuevas Del Becerro (near Malaga) after a random screening suggested over 70% of people there are infected. Won’t this help to answer questions re herd immunity?

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

This won't go down well with Vox and a a  minority - and I stress a minority - of Spaniards, much the same people, I suspecct: UNESCO  has rejected an application for bullfighting to be classified as a “cultural heritage in urgent need of protection”.

I mentioned Galicia’s curse of Feismo yesterday. My first ever mention of this was in my diary of 2001: We then moved to a discussion of architecture, more specifically the reasons why houses in Galicia are (rightly) considered to be the ugliest in Spain. I can’t recall these but one of them was surely the tendency to leave the ground floor ‘unfinished’, as if it were still the traditional place for animals.

María wrote yesterday of the challenge of getting Spanish citizenship. Which reminded me I'd written of this back in February, contrasting the Spanish and Irish processes. Twelve months after applying, I'm still waiting for Irish nationality, the process having been hit by Covid, of course. It used to take only 6 months.

Here's María's Riding the Wave - Day 18  

The Way of the World

Britain’s only NHS gender clinic for children has suspended referrals for hormone therapy after a ruling on the experimental use of puberty blockers. Judges at the High Court found it was “highly unlikely” that 13-year-olds, and “doubtful” that anyone aged 14 or 15, would understand the full implications of the hormone treatments, and therefore could not give informed consent. 

The Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny has been unveiled as the most-streamed global artist of 2020 on Spotify. I'm guessing that, like me, few readers of this blog will ever have heard of him. Or her.

Spanish

Treta: Ruse; Trick; Ploy

Finally . . .

Amusing aphorisms number 3: Age 60 might be the new 40, but 9:00 pm is the new midnight.

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

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.  

Covid

Below, as the first article, is Private Eye's MD's overview on the UK situation.

Although folk of my age aren't due to get the jab here until March or later, it's been pointed out that, with so many folk being unwilling to have it, the dates might well come forward.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

I can think of fewer programs than I'd less like to watch than Junior Eurovision. But it has to be said that Spain has always done well in it, and came a commendable 3rd this week.France won but was accused of voting skulduggery. Those perfidious Frogs . .   

Feismo - or Ugliness - is a criticism long directed at Galician housing. Not the beautiful single-storey granite and wood examples but things like this:-

Every now and then, the regional government (the Xunta) says it's going to do something about it, and yesterdays' headline was that 2021 will see their 'ultimate' campaign. I'm guessing this means 'latest', not 'final'. This show will surely run and run.

I'd thought that Chaucer had made the first reference in English literature to our Camino de Santiago. But, no. Here it is in Piers Ploughman/Plowman, a few years earlier, in the late 14th century.

Pilgrims and palmers 

pledged them together 

To seek Saint James

and saints in Rome. 

They went forth on their way

with many wise tales, 

And had leave to lie

all their life after.

I saw some that said 

they had sought saints: 

Yet in each tale that they told

their tongue turned to lies 

They say that, if you lift a paving stone in Pontevedra, you'll find Roman remains. Elsewhere in Spain it's Muslim graves.

Here's María's Riding the Wave - Day 17  

The UK

The 2nd article below - by a well-known Scot - is really only for Brits. If you live outside the UK, you might be able to read it here.

The Way of the World

Apparently, if you put a full stop/period after Congratulations, you're being mean and nasty to a young person. You need to put at least an exclamation mark. And, preferably, an emoji or 5.

Finally . . .

Amusing aphorisms: 2. To me, "drink responsibly" means don't spill it.

THE ARTICLES

1. COVID IN THE UK

Vaccine to the rescue? 

THE world would be less populated and less travelled without the vaccines that prevent cholera, diphtheria, hepatitis, Japanese encephalitis, measles, meningitis, mumps, pertussis, pneumonia, polio, rabies, rotavirus, rubella, tetanus, tuberculosis, typhoid, varicella, yellow fever, ano-genital cancer and warts. The fact that only one infectious disease has been eliminated (smallpox) shows how hard it is to defeat microbes, but vaccines have prolonged the lives of hundreds of millions. As UK Covid deaths exceed 50,000, news that safe and effective vaccines for Sars-CoV-2 may soon be with us is cause for cautious celebration. It might even save prime minister Boris Johnson's career. 

Mandatory v. voluntary 

IN SOME countries, vaccination may be mandatory, and it may be compulsory for those wishing to travel there. In the UK, vaccination should remain voluntary. Forcing any treatment on a competent adult against their will would set a dangerous precedent. 

Informed consent is key. Individuals who opt in may have individual protection for as long as the vaccine lasts, but more lasting population protection will require a majority of citizens to consent to it. However, 36 percent of people in the UK and 51 percent in the US report being either uncertain or unlikely to agree to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to a report by the British Academy and. the Royal Society. Given such widespread hesitancy, accuracy of information and trust in those giving it will be crucial. 

Statistical approval 

THE UK government has repeatedly burnt its trust boats, allowing bias, lies and bluster to triumph over balanced argument. Its handling of Covid has been dangerously incompetent. Recently it was criticised by the UK Statistics Authority for making overblown claims about testing capacity, not being transparent in its data and getting slides wrong. As the government lurches from fear to hope, it needs to get a grip on its infom1ation giving. Statistics and slides should be independently pre-approved by the Office for National Statistics. Drug companies, too, must be exemplary in the way they release data about vaccines. 

Great expectations... and profits 

THE headline of"90 percent effective" for the Pfizer BioNTech Vaccine (BNTI 62b2) is good news, but this should have waited until all the data had been independently verified in a peer double-blind trial, with half receiving two doses of the vaccine 21 days apart, half receiving two doses 

It was "a great day for science and humanity" said Albert Bourla, Pfizer's chairman and chief executive. It was certainly a great day for Bourla, who had scheduled the sale of 130,000 of his Pfizer shares that day and made £5.6m as the price rocketed. Chief corporate affairs officer Sally Susman also cashed in shares. All legal, but appearance is everything and this was more grist to the anti-vaxxers' mill. 

If a company produces a vaccine that controls the pandemic, it-deserves its profits. But for the boss to cash in before it has been tried in the real world suggests it might not stand up to the competition. Russia then trumped the US, saying its Sputnik-V vaccine has a "92% success rate", also based on unpublished data. Modema and the not-for-profit AstraZeneca Oxford collaboration will soon release their trial results. Hopefully, with full data sets and independent verification. 

Warp speed 

THE previous record for producing a vaccine is four years, so IO months is extraordinary. Pfizer partnered with Germany's BioNTech in 2018 to develop mRNA vaccines against influenza, so they hit the ground running when China released the virus genome in January, and started on a vaccine containing just part of the genetic code for the Sars-Co V-2 spike protein. 

The aim was to deliver this mRNA instruction to the body's cells, so the viral spike protein is expressed on the surface and an immune response generated. By not using any live or inactivated virus, the hope was that side effects would be minimal (though there is always a chance of an immune over-reaction to the spike proteins once expressed). 

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave the vaccine fast-track designation on 13 July, and by 12 September it had expanded enrolment for its Phase 3 trial up to 44,000 participants in more than 120 clinical sites in the US, Brazil, South Africa and Argentina. 

Interim analysis 

43,538 participants were recruited into a double-blind trial, with half receiving two doses of the vaccine 21 days apart, half receiving two doses of placebo, but neither researcher nor volunteer knowing which they got. Researchers walled until 94 participants had caught Covid (naturally). By then, 38,955 participants had received both doses of either placebo or vaccine. An independent committee then "unblinded" the study and found that about 90 percent of Covid cases were in the placebo group. Equally importantly, no severe side effects were recorded in the vaccine group. The raw numbers, ages, ethnicity and severity of illness weren't released. The trial will go on until there have been 164 confirmed infections, but the glowing press release may make it harder to justify giving remaining participants a second  dose of placebo. All participants must be followed up for two years. 

What it means 

THE preliminary results suggest the vaccine is effective at preventing the disease of Covid, but we don't yet know if it prevents infection and transmission of the Sars-CoV-7 virus, or just the progression of infection to disease. We don 't know if it prevents serious disease or death. We will only know that when it is rolled out to more people, who will accept this is a work in progress. 

Vaccines often work better in trials real world, when they are given to older people with weaker immune responses. With Iimited supplies, the vaccine needs to be given not just to those at risk but those in whom it works and those most likely to spread. We also don’t know yet if it is safe to give the vaccine to those who have already been infected. 

Should I have the vaccine? 

MD will have a vaccine if it's approved Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). This is partly because I’ve had all my recommended MHRA approved vaccines over a lifetime, and never had serious side effects or a disease I was protected against. But I'm also prepared to take an unknowable, risk on the long-term safety of a new vaccine for my own, and the common good. I want protection from Covid and protection from passing infection on. 

The trial, and the progress that results fromit, would not have been possible without volunteers willing to take unknown risks on a new technology for the common good. To lesser extent, this will be the case when the vaccine is rolled out. Think of it as a larger trial in progress, after very encouraging early results. It should be your choice to be vaccinated, without coercion. Whether or not you have the vaccine, eating well, staying physically fit and taking a Vitamin D supplement may also reduce your risks of Covid harm. The MHRA must also investigate reported adverse events and any serious harm must be compensated. 

Logistics 

THE potential benefits of the vaccine are huge if the "90 percent Covid prevention" figure stands up in real life. It's also good "proof of concept’ news for other vaccines for Covid and many other diseases using similar technology. It could usher in more breakthroughs. The logistics are hugely complex, and if any government could screw them up, ours can. We've pre-ordered 40m doses of the Pfizer vaccine from Germany and Belgium. Its transportation is time and temperature critical. So let's hope there are no hold-ups at our borders after 31 December. 

Forty million doses will vaccinate 20m people (currently the over 50s). The army may be asked to help. GP practices and staff will apparently offer vaccination seven days a week, with hospital staff called in to assist, inevitably reducing other services. The vaccine has to be transported at - 70°C and lasts for a week in a GP's fridge. So all 975 doses in a minimum sized delivery would have to be given in a week to avoid wastage. The opportunity cost is also considerable. Research by the Health Foundation found there were 4. 7m fewer people referred for routine hospital care in England between January and August 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. GPs diverted into the vaccine programme will be even less likely to lessen this backlog, and access for routine care may become harder. How to avoid further non-Covid harms requires serious thought. 

Money well spent? 

THE government will be hoping the AstraZeneca Oxford vaccine isn't far behind Pfizer. Not only is it logistically easier (kept at fridge temperature), but-cheaper too. Pfizer will charge nearly £30 for its two doses, plus high storage costs, whereas EU countries have been offered the Oxford vaccine for just £2.23 and the UK may get a discount as the government helped to fund the research. We have pre-ordered I00m doses. 

We have already trashed the economy twice, thrown £12bn (more than we spend on general practice in a year) at a test and trace system which the government's advisory group SAGE said has "marginal benefit", and we're spending £43bn on unproven mass testing. Many contracts, consultancies and leadership jobs have been awarded without tender or interview to Tory loyalists, many of whom have no expertise in the field. And our performance on nearly every measure has been one of the worst in the EU. Now wonder we are banking on a vaccine. 

Precautionary principle 

COMPARE our predicament to countries who urgently protected their borders and controlled the virus so well that life is nearly back to normal without a vaccine, where Covid and non-Covid harms have been minimised, economies are growing and testing costs are reduced because there is less virus to test for. 

Taiwan's test spend per capita is a fraction of the UK's. A Cochrane Rapid Review of evidence looked at 12 studies on Covid-19. It found that restricting cross-border travel at an outbreak's start may reduce new cases by 26 to 90 percent, but you have to act quickly, before community transmission takes over. 

Alas, we didn't act quickly to stop border entry, we stopped testing, were forced into lockdown, screwed up testing, screwed up border control again and are now in another lockdown. Meanwhile, South Korea is not planning a vaccine programme for a year, because the virus is under control and it wants to see which vaccine works best, Australia may only do ring vaccination (of those around an infected individual), rather than mass population vaccination, but is more likely to make it mandatory. Australia and New Zealand are playing rugby in crowded stadiums with no need for masks. As one New Zealand doctor told M.D.. "Your pandemic response is like your rugby. Slow, confusing, clumsy, panicky and backwards." 

Vested interests 

ANTI-VAXXERS cite many ridiculous conspiracies (no vaccine is needed because Covid is a hoax; Bill Gates uses vaccination programmes to implant digital microchips; the virus is caused by 5G mobile phone towers ... ) But there are two accusations that need addressing. 

The first is that governments, health services, health professionals and drug companies have a history of covering up medical scandals and may do so again. This is evidently true, which is why support for whistleblowers, full disclosure of data and release of trial results only after they are independently verified is vital. 

The second is that "Covid-19 vaccinations are a plot by big pharma and scientists to make money". Bourla's share bonanza rather makes that point. Drug development is an incestuous world. Sir Patrick Vallance, England's chief scientific adviser, previously worked for the drug company GSK and holds shares. He could profit from any GSK vaccine success, but the government view is that this is not a conflict of interest since he is not involved in commercial decisions regarding vaccines. 

Many of those on the SAGE committees will have been in paid or unpaid advisory roles in drug or vaccine development, or received research funds from drug companies, charities with drug company links or government to develop vaccines. Potential conflicts of interest are everywhere in healthcare. They need to be openly declared. 

What the vaccine won't fix 

VACCINES aren't the only answer. An effective test, trace, isolate and support system is vital to break chains of transmission, but we still don't have this more than nine months after the first known UK infection. 

2. A British state of mind. Neil Oliver

I was born British and as a British citizen I will live out my days. My nationality is a state of mind and I have no intention of changing either. I know who I am and what I love – and what I love is Britain, the whole place, every nook and cranny. This is my island. No pronouncement by any politician – here today and gone tomorrow – and no referendum on this or that issue of the day will have any effect on my understanding of myself and where I belong. It makes me feel better just to put those words down on the page.

The Canadian anthropologist Wade Davis said, 'The world into which you are born does not exist, not in any absolute sense, rather it is a model of reality.' I listen to those words and realise that Britain does not exist either. Neither does England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales or any other country, not really. There are physical landscapes on the face of the Earth – made of dry land set apart from the sea. But the lines drawn and countries named are figments of collective imagination and made all the more meaningful as a result. They are what we say they are. The existence of our homelands is nothing more nor less than an act of will, and also of love. Just as creatures that once walked, swam or flew are long gone now, so there is a long list of countries that once were here but are here no longer … Sumer … Chimor ... Kush … the list goes on and on. You might say that a country is a dream shared by its inhabitants. As long as enough of the inhabitants believe in the existence of Britain, or Scotland, or wherever, then the dream remains alive and the country in question is made real. If too many people stop believing, or choose to believe in someplace else, then the dream is over and the country ceases to exist as completely as a candle flame blown out by the wind. I will always believe in Britain, come what may. That will never be taken from me.

This Britain of ours has been and remains a bright light in a dark and darkening world

The most familiar line of the Declaration of Arbroath, a letter to a 14th century Pope, concerned the necessity of 100 Scots remaining alive if Scotland were to prevail. My dream of Britain requires just me myself alone – it will last as long as me – but as many as want to are welcome to join me.

The question of whether or not Britain should continue to exist has been haunting our lives for years now. In 2014 a referendum asked the population of Scotland whether or not it was deemed a good idea to remain part of Britain, to maintain its existence. A majority said they did wish the union to prevail – 55 per cent of voters in fact. The 55-45 split is well known. Less familiar to most is the fact that of the 32 council areas in Scotland, 28 said they preferred to maintain the three-centuries-old union. Many of those councils were small, with small populations dwarfed by those of conurbations elsewhere. But we are all told, are we not, that small voices must be listened to as well as large, and that small, determined, self-confident places might know their own minds?

In spite of that decision, that clean and clear 'once in a generation' decision – that decision that both Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond swore, in writing, they would accept and uphold – the question has never gone away.

On the last page of his popular classic, Culloden, about the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, John Prebble elegantly expressed the nature of dreams, or at least their power over us even when all seems lost.

He wrote: 'A lost cause will always win a last victory in men’s imaginations.'

The Nationalist cause in Scotland is stubborn. I will admit to understanding stubbornness, being sympathetic to the trait and also admiring of it. This is because I am stubborn too, as stubborn as any nationalist could ever hope to be. My dream of Britain will always live in me. There is undoubtedly a requirement for relentless stubbornness and determination when it comes to the question of whether Britain – the dream of Britain, that is – should continue or be blown out. As far as I am concerned it is necessary most of all to see that it is that dream that matters most. In the end it might be all that matters.

Like everyone else involved in deciding the future of Britain I have read and listened to countless thousands of words on the subject. When it comes to predicting the prospects of a Scotland alone I have driven myself half demented trying to decide who and what to believe. The nature of the border; the ownership of the oil; the currency; the sharing of the national debt; the Barnett Formula; relations with the European Union; the armed forces; the fishing grounds; on and on goes the litany of concerns, opinions, promises, accusations, threats and denials. Both sides have at times declared victory – outright victory – in the economic debate. At the same time there have always been those on the separatist side evidently of the mind that the risk is worth it – come hell or high water, it will be alright on the night. While others (with brains wired for the task, unlike my own) continue to fight that good fight, I have moved in a different direction.

I know what I have come to believe about all of the above, but I will leave that much aside. Why? Because long ago I realised that the economic argument was not what mattered to me. Dreamers of dreams and those who pursue causes, lost or otherwise, care not a jot for economics. In my heart I respect this. A dream as grand as a country to believe in, to belong to, to stand up for, to speak for, to fight and to die for is a prize beyond gold or any other treasure. The economics matter – of course they do, and for many people such is the be all and end all of the necessary discussion. I understand that and respect that. But I am well beyond making the so-called 'economic argument' myself. Just as I would not ask a mother to put a price on her child’s heart, so I will not seek to challenge, to tarnish and sully a dream, with talk of money. What is truly at stake here, at least for me, is the business of the heart.

History has been invoked – again and again and again until everyone is blue in the face (well, one side certainly). Both sides – unionist and separatist – reach backwards in time in pursuit of origin myths and superior claims of ownership of place and people, hearts and minds. This is among the oldest tricks in the book and has been tried more times than anyone might count. While trying to hammer the Scots into submission, King Edward I wrote to the Pope to assert the ancient nature of England’s claim on the whole island. Quoting historian Geoffrey of Monmouth, he said his countrymen were descended from a Roman named Brutus and that Brutus was the root of the very name Britain. Since the English were in Britain first, went Edward’s logic, then the whole place must be his by right. The Scots replied by sending a party of churchmen led by one Baldred Bisset to talk to the Pope in person. There in the Holy Father’s summer home in the hill town of Anagni, Bisset declared that the Scots were descended from Noah, that his descendants had fled Israel, all the way to Scythia on the Black Sea. One of them had married a princess called Scota who led them on an odyssey to the land subsequently named after her, bringing with her as an heirloom the Stone of Destiny upon which Scots kings were crowned ever after.

(Britain is certainly an old name – much older than England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales. It seems likely that when the Romans first encountered these islands, splashing ashore somewhere on the south coast, they asked the locals what they called the place. The reply would have been something like Prytain and the Romans’ attempt at pronouncing the word – called an ethnonym – became Britannia.)

But I ask you … Brutus, Scota – who really cares about the truth or otherwise of those ghosts now? Just as the economic argument is too shallow, so fairytales told to a Pope seven centuries ago are inadequate. Neither ghosts nor fairy tales make foundations deep enough for persuading people of the best path to take now, into the future.

The union is more than 300 years old. The coming together of Scotland and England, on May Day 1707, was hardly a happy one and no one denies it. The bride was poor and the groom knew he was being married only for his money. Unhappy or not it was to prove the best thing that ever happened to either of them. The Scotland and England that came together then no longer exists, however. This, as much as anything else, is worth remembering. Our parents, happy or not, are gone now and never coming back. It is we, the children of that union who must decide what is to be done with our shared inheritance.

More recently Scots, some Scots, have sought to distance themselves from the long years of Empire and Commonwealth. What was once cause for common pride has been recast as national shame and some of those Scots have sought to pretend, to themselves most fervently of all, that imperial Britain was none of their doing. Apparently a big boy – England – did it and ran away. This stance is so wide of the mark, the claim so utterly false, as to be nothing short of a bare faced lie. We Scots were talented and enthusiastic builders and administrators of empire – as wedded to the enterprise as anyone else and grown rich and fat on the profits in the process. If there is shame to be apportioned then it is ours as much as anyone’s. While there might be little to be gained now from knowing whether Brutus or Scota made the earliest footprints on the homelands, it is surely vital we remember the truth of all our behaviours during the last three centuries of our coupling at least – the bad as well as the good.

So much for economics and history – both matter but not enough, either together or alone. What matters is who we are now, who we think we are and who we could or should be in the future. In seeking to portray Britain and British-ness in a bad light – a corrupt and sinful enterprise best dismantled and discarded – the champions of Scottish separatism have somehow claimed the moral high ground in its entirety. Not only were the sins of Empire committed behind our backs, without our knowing (don’t you know) apparently it is the Scots, the Scots alone, that are the egalitarian, caring defenders of freedom. South of the border, therefore, lies the embodiment of all that is corrupt, selfish and heartless – the Mordor that is Westminster. It is worth noting that since it has long been unfashionable for the SNP and its supporters to openly voice hatred for England and things English, 'Westminster' has become the handy proxy. Something similar lurks furtively behind every disdainful reference to the 'London parties' by which the SNP mean Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and anyone else that might speak up in favour of a United Kingdom.

If not economics or history, then what? How to make the claim that we, the inhabitants of these islands, are one family? In the end I can only speak for myself and from my own heart. That much is all I truly know. More by luck than good judgment, and mostly by means of the magic carpet provided by making television. I have seen a great deal of these islands. I have circumnavigated the coastline multiple times. I have criss-crossed the interior. I have seen the landscape from the sky, from the cockpit of fighter jets, vintage biplanes and microlights. I have been on its encircling waters in kayaks, battleships and just about anything in between that floats, and under its waters in scuba gear and a nuclear submarine. I have had a thorough look around. Long before the end I realised it was all one place; that the national borders drawn across it had no meaning for me and were invisible anyway. I have seen for myself how fisherfolk in Cornwall have more in common with others of their kind in Fife than either has with any inhabitants of the interior. You might say the same common ground is there with fishermen in France or Spain, but there is no denying the added strength of bonds made by shared language, shared culture, shared history, shared centuries.

I have also found it unavoidable to see the connections between the character of folk in Liverpool, Belfast and Glasgow: on account of shared shipbuilding heritage. My English father-in-law learned his trade as an engineer in the coalmines of Kent, before coming north to make the family that is part of my own. His Scottish father had worked as a miner in the pits of both the Central Belt of Scotland and in England’s south east. Both talk and talked with nothing but love for that lost trade. It was a love born of camaraderie and shared experience in an often dangerous world. Underground it hardly mattered where you had been born, as long as you could do the job and cared to look out for the wellbeing of the other men on the shift. Miners were miners.

I have noticed that differences in accent and dialect, style and demeanour, the countless idiosyncrasies providing the dizzying multicolour of the tapestry of Britain happen mile by mile, between one valley and the next, and are not all about national boundaries. Most of all, and best of all, I can say with hand on heart that I have been received with nothing but affection in every town and city, nook and cranny. Year after year, as a Scot abroad, I have been made to feel at home all over. When I toured Britain with one of my books last year and the year before, going from theatre to theatre, I stepped out onstage one memorable night in Liverpool into a welcome of cheers that took me aback so much I almost burst into tears. I have no connection to that city on the Mersey and yet I was nearly knocked to the back wall of the stage by the wave. I know that might sound self indulgent but I have to write about what I have experienced as a citizen of Britain, to make clear why it all matters to me the way it does. All of this is personal in the end, perhaps for all of us. How could I not love this place – this whole place – and so hope with all my heart that it remains one place. If so much is cut away from me I will feel the itch of missing limbs until my dying day.

I have been around enough of the wider world to know that most places are not like Britain, not at all. Every time I hear the place being run down for some or other alleged failing I want to ask, 'Compared to where?'. That anyone at all would imagine it were possible to break this wonder into pieces and yet somehow retain its fragile, precious gifts in each of the tattered remnants is beyond me. A torn fragment of a work of art is not enough. Once its gone, it is forever and we will all be diminished by its passing.

This Britain of ours has been and remains a bright light in a dark and darkening world; a magnet for humanity moving in hopes of somewhere better. When the EU was conjured into being, it copied our union in hopes of having a fraction of its success. Whatever the intention, those builders fell short of the mark. There is no EU welfare state, and German taxes do not pay for healthcare in Greece or pensions in Spain. Most of the wider world would rather it were more like us – that it might have what we have had. When it comes to western liberal democracy, ours is the original marque.

What I said in 2014 I will say again: the idea that we Scots might look on at a whole Britain in need of repair, in need of realignment and updating to cope with the future, and choose to cut and run just makes me blush to my fingertips with shame. I am a British Scot and the Britons are my family, all of them. I don’t give a fig for politicians and I certainly don’t allow my feelings about the present bunch to blind me to what Britain actually is – no more than I would let this year’s crop of midges blind me to the beauty of the Highlands. I set aside my feelings concerning the latest incumbents of various parliaments on the grounds that they – and all of us besides – are temporary tenants. These islands of ours are rented accommodation, whether we like it or not, and sooner or later we will vacate the place for new occupants. You don’t burn down the house just because you don’t care for those living in it now. Keep the house together. This house of ours is the work of 300 years (and the rest). If there are repairs to be done, then so be it. Let’s treat it like the grand home it is, and make it wind and watertight for the whole family again. The whole family. Let’s not break it into flats like a dodgy conversion job by cowboy builders.

I don’t base my decision on politics or economics or even history. I make my choices based on the responsibility I feel for people – alive now and yet to be born. I love Britain more than anywhere else in the world. With all my heart I declare that those of us born here, or who have made a home here by choice, are the luckiest, most blessed of all people. I am British. I will always be British.

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