Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.   

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*

The Bloody Virus

• Is herd immunity working in Sweden? The reality of no lockdown. The  Sunday Times reports below on conflicting perspectives in the country everyone is watching closely.
• One of the businesses to benefit is that of printer ink. Volumes have soared and prices are reported to have doubled in the UK. It's an ill wind . . .

Life in Spain

• Hmm. In a blow to our tourism hopes, Denmark has warned its citizens not to come here this summer. If they do, they'll be quarantined when then get home. Germany is a better bet, says the Danish government. Well, at least if want to eat a currywurst every day. Don't know about the sun.
• Interesting to see that Spain's 'basic income' for poor individuals/families will be higher than the UK's 'universal benefit'. Even more astonishing, it might involve less bureaucracy!
• The Museo del Prado and other 'cultural institutions' will re-open on June 6th, it's reported.
• Tales of zealous Spanish cops. Is there any other sort here? (Warning: Make sure you know what you're supposed to have in your car. It's not a short list.)
• María's Come-back Chronicle, Day 20. Sad reflections on another place..

Spanish History

• Spain's 'unsung heroes' and a celebration that really should have taken place but didn't.
• HT to Lenox of Business Over Tapas for this item: "The Barbary pirates and Spain, from the 15th to the 18th centuries". ‘This article deals [in Spanish] with the relationship between the Barbary coast (between what is now Morocco and Libya) and the people of the Iberian Peninsula. It presents the situation on the Hispanic coast, its way of life, the reaction to the insecurity of the coasts and the response by the Monarchic authorities to this threat…’.

The UK

• Ever the critic, Richard North comments today that:We seem to be suffering the perfect storm of an incompetent government scrutinised by an incompetent media. Sometimes the poor chap seems close to suicide. so great is his frustration at the mismanagement which will see the UK overtake Spain in deaths per million today or tomorrow. It's interesting to reflect on whether a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn would have made a better or worse fist of the virus challenge.

The USA

• A people, it's said, gets the government it deserves. That of the US is presided over by an insane child. Just what you don't need when long-standing tensions explode into riots. What a woeful spectacle.
• Here is that infant talking about his supporters. "I'm the worst person on earth and the worst president ever and my dumb, stupid, trash, Mountain-Dew-for-brains still love me. But one day this nightmare will be over. Though very possibly not in my lifetime.

The Way of the world

• A Catholic priest has impregnated 2 nuns in Stockholm. He claimed this was the work of the holy spirit. Not the first nor the last to use this excuse. It's amazing how useful it can be.

Finally . . .

• My younger daughter writes here of the difference between the tantrums of a normal 2 years old and the meltdowns of a child with autism. If you ever want to properly sympathies with a the mother of one of the latter, this is a must-read.
• Religionists can be a great source of humour - I write this as a (very) lapsed Catholic - and I was amused to hear that 12th century Franciscan monks abhorred any degree of planning, as being an affront to God's celestial plan for each of us. So, they started each day by spinning round and then, when stopped, heading off in the direction 'pointed by' their face. As this is what God had in store for them.
• Talking of laughs provided by theists . . . A film which might be worth seeing.

THE ARTICLE

Is herd immunity working in Sweden? The reality of no lockdown: Louise Callaghan, TheSunday Times: Halmstad, Sweden

The blonde sales assistant at the make-up counter fumbled as she gift-wrapped a perfume set. Occasionally, she gave a harried glance at the queue of about 20 women in front of her that stretched almost out of the shop. The customers were standing a few feet apart — what would once have been considered a polite distance, but would now have been unthinkably close in the UK. It was Monday afternoon at a mall in Halmstad, Sweden, and the store was packed with shoppers, none of them wearing masks or gloves. “It’s been like this since the virus began,” said the sales assistant, apologising for the wait. “They’ve drawn down on staff, but the customers have kept coming.”

Nearby, bars and restaurants were preparing to open for the night ahead, albeit with a reduced capacity. Friends were gathering for dinner parties and after-work drinks. Children were doing their homework, ready to go to school the next day.

None of them were breaking any rules. As the world has shut down, Sweden has taken a different approach to Covid-19, attempting to allow the virus to spread through healthy populations while protecting vulnerable people. Gatherings of more than 50 people are banned, and colleges and universities are closed, but restaurants and shops are open with some restrictions.

Many people are working from home, while others carry on as normal — almost everyone taking some steps to socially distance. This approach, officials hope, will let immunity build in the population while limiting the economic and social damage caused by lockdown and isolation, and possibly avoiding a devastating second wave of infections.

It has not worked out quite that way. Almost 4,400 people have died from Covid-19 in Sweden, about half of them vulnerable elderly people living in a particular type of residential care home. Minority communities have been especially hard-hit. The per capita death rate dwarfs that of Norway, Denmark and Finland, which implemented lockdowns early on. During one week this month Sweden had the highest per capita number of deaths in Europe. Its mortality rates, however, are declining, and deaths per capita are still far lower in total than the UK or Italy over the course of the pandemic.

Hopes that the economy might be spared by avoiding lockdown, though, appear to have been overly optimistic. Forecasts predict that despite many Swedish businesses remaining open during the pandemic, the economic effects will still be devastating — albeit not as severe as similar estimates for the UK. Sweden’s central bank predicts that gross domestic product will fall by up to about 10% this year, while the European Commission believes the country’s economy could contract by 6.1%.

Anders Tegnell, the state epidemiologist, has been the public face of the official Covid-19 response. He has been bombarded with criticism from parts of the Swedish scientific community. Last month 22 scientists wrote an open letter denouncing the Swedish strategy, claiming that “officials without talent” had led the response.

Yet polls show that the majority of Swedes believe that the public health ministry is doing the right thing. One study by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency showed that 77% of respondents cited having quite high or very high trust in the public health agency’s handling of the coronavirus in Sweden.

In another poll last month, only 31% of Swedes said they were “very” or “somewhat” afraid of contracting Covid-19 — the lowest of all 26 countries surveyed. According to Tegnell, that is because Swedes believe the state is doing a good job — informing people of the risks and relying on them to make the right decisions. “In Sweden we know that trying to scare people is not a good way forward when you want something,” he said. “You need to inform people and give them a good background to make their own informed choices.”

Much of this comes down to the incredible trust that Swedish people put in their leaders — paying high taxes because they believe that the state will use the resources to improve services and quality of life. During the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a sense among the people I have talked to that, despite the deaths and the glaring headlines, the state has their best interests at heart. “People are not stupid,” said Tegnell. “They trust us because we give a good explanation of why we’re doing things.” That is a huge responsibility. Should Tegnell and his colleagues fail, they would not only be risking lives; they would also be shattering a key component of the Swedish national identity.

But how did Sweden end up taking this path? How did a country where most alcohol is sold in state depots with limited opening hours decide to reject a lockdown and encourage individual choice?

When the pandemic first began, many European countries — including the UK — had response strategies that looked very similar to Sweden’s. Yet while others changed path when the scale and risks of the virus became clear, Sweden stuck to its plan. Should other countries have done the same?

“There are parts of the Swedish model that could work in many countries. If you look at a lot of the exit strategies that have developed, now it looks like a lot of countries are pretty much closer to the Swedish models,” said Tegnell. “Because you need to have some kind of softer restrictions. You can’t go on having schools closed. That does terrible things to children. And you can’t go on having borders closed. That does terrible things to the economy. So then you try to find another way of keeping social distancing in place.”

It is a measure of how little really is known about this virus that the world’s leading scientists can disagree wildly on seemingly basic points. Take masks, for instance. While more than 50 countries have made masks compulsory — including on public transport and in shops in Austria and Germany — Sweden has refused to encourage the wearing of masks outside a clinical environment. In press conferences and interviews, Tegnell has repeatedly said that there is not enough evidence that they are effective in stopping the spread of infection. A much-cited study in Hong Kong that showed masks could reduce the spread of airborne droplets was, he said, too limited and did not provide strong enough evidence to warrant implementing a new nationwide policy.

I asked him why not, if there is a chance they could save lives. “We don’t think [that approach] could save lives. It actually could cause a loss of life if it’s not used in the right way,” he said. “We’re talking about risks that these masks will not be available for healthcare because they’ll disappear. Furthermore, in Sweden, we say if you’re ill, stay home, isolate yourself, don’t infect anybody else. If we’re telling people to use a mask, they would put one on and then they would go out and definitely infect more people than if they had stayed home and isolated themselves.” His message has clearly got through to the public. In two months living in Sweden while working on Covid-19 — which has involved travelling to Malmö, Halmstad, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Uppsala — I have not seen more than a handful of people wearing a mask in public. The idea of wearing one here is tinged — as it used to be in the UK — with the sense that it is a bit alarmist, or possibly embarrassing. In other countries, it is seen as a vital social responsibility.

As the debate rages, it is clear what works for Sweden might not work everywhere else. The country is clearly atypical: it has a well-funded health system, a dispersed population and a high baseline of public health. But lofty predictions of Swedish success have already started slipping. Last month I spoke to Tom Britton, a maths professor at Stockholm University and adviser to the public health ministry, who said that, according to his modelling, herd immunity could be reached by mid-May, when he predicted that about 60% of the Swedish population would have been infected. He later revised his estimate, saying that herd immunity could be reached at between 40% and 50% of the population, and it was likely that between 30% and 35% would have been infected by mid-May. “The advantage with herd immunity is that once you have it, the country is safe,” said Britton. “But the downside is that the country will get infected and if it happens too quickly the hospitals won’t manage. My point of view is that it is better to slow it down than to stop it.”

Random antibody sampling in released this month, however, has shown that only 7% of Stockholmers had been infected by the end of April. Britton told a Swedish newspaper that it was “surprising” that the forecasts had been so wrong. Tegnell, meanwhile, said that he did not believe that the results were representative, and that new figures would be available soon.

For now it is still unclear whether, when the pandemic has passed, the Swedish model will have fared any better or worse than any other approaches.  “At the end of this we might look at each other and realise, no, whatever we did didn’t make much of a difference,” said Tegnell. “And the Swedish model or the British model or the Dutch model, all of them in the end, they just took a shorter or longer time, and the effects on society and economy were different. But the health consequences might be very similar in the end.”

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.   

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*

The Bloody Virus

• Sweden continues to move up the rankings and is now very close to displacing France in 5th place in the Top Ten list - after Belgium, Spain, the UK and Italy.. Which means little for the eventual toll but does raise some interim questions about its de facto herd immunity strategy.
• And it won't be long before the UK moves up from the 7th place of 6 weeks ago to displace Spain in 2nd place. Underlining the incompetence of the British government.

Life in Spain in the Time of Something Like Cholera 

• An optimistic view of the near future?
• Meanwhile, it had to happen . . . The high-street chain store Mango is selling branded masks, with prices ranging from €8 to €10. Need I add that: To complete the 'look', Mango has also started retailing its own-brand perfumed hand-sanitiser in two different varieties.
• A propos . . . Chucking your used mask into the street could be a very expensive anti-social act.
• María's Come-back Chronicle, Day 19. Retail reverses.

Real Life in Spain 

• Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas gives us here an overview of the tribal politics of the moment.
• The government has finally introduced its minimum income provision for poor families. I'm guessing this is similar to the controversial (and badly managed?) 'universal credit' in the UK.
• Well, the high fence down one side of O Burgo bridge has finally been removed, leaving the new railings visible in all their dubious modernistic glory:-

But a temporary fence is still in place on the other side, for no obvious reason:-

But I expect it to be removed by October, the 12 month anniversary of its original completion date. The remaining question is - Will the railings be painted, or left as ugly gun-metal grey? I suspect the latter.

• Which reminds me . . . I bumped into 2 Belgian 'pilgrims' on the bridge the other day and helped them with their search for a shady place to eat their sandwiches. To my surprise, they were on their way South, to Portugal. As it's still forbidden to leave one's home province, I assume they were heading, not for the Catholic shrine in distant Fátima, but for Oporto airport, en route to their 'principal residence'. No other 'pilgrims' have been seen since early March, almost 2 months ago.
• There are, of course, 4 other exceptions to the restriction on leaving one's province and here they are.

Finally . . .

• Because I have 3 or 4 decent house plants, there's a view abroad that I have 'green fingers'. Which status is rather queried by the fact that I've somehow managed to kill 3 trees and 3 bushes in my garden over the last 2 years. Possibly by over-pruning. The latest death is of a large hydrangea(hortensia) at the front of my house. Though this pride of place might soon be taken by my lemon tree, as I've just stripped it of all the leaves suffering from what, I'm told, is a Galicia-wide plague which curls most of these. Thus:-

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.   

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*

The Bloody Virus

• A clean exit from Covid-19 is implausible and frothy markets are relying on thinning liquidity, claims Ambrose Evans Pritchard in the 1st article below. 

Life in Spain in the Time of Something Like Cholera 

• María's Day 18 of her Come-back Chronicle. I should add that that our temperatures of the last few days - around 34 degrees - are very far from normal for May.
• Talking of our weather . . . This year we really don't want the normal summer influx of Madrileños and Andalucians escaping their respective ovens/hell-holes. Hence the opening report in this video:-

• BTW . . . The word carallo/carajo in the chorus is Galician(Galego) for 'prick'. It features quite a lot in daily discourse here. Long time readers might recall a schedule of the many phrases it features in. If not, click here.

Real Life in Spain 

• Back to the tortuous Spanish legal system. News of a case that's finally been decided after 30 years. Where was a Spanish Dickens when he was needed?
• I've always thought I lived in the North West of Spain. And I know it takes me more than 4 hours to do the 460km drive to city of Valladolid. And yet Valladolid is described in this Guardian article - on the possible grave of an 8-toed rebel Irish lord - as being in the North West of the country. One of us must be wrong. Though it is about 200km north of Madrid, which might have confused a reporter based in the Deep South.

Portugal

• This lovely country will be open to tourists in a couple of days' time, a month earlier than Spain. And visitors won't be quarantined when they arrive, facing only ‘minimal health controls’. But the border with Spain will stay closed until June 15. 

The UK

• An 'old man in a chair' claims the populace is being brainwashed. Possibly, but why? To achieve what? One possible answer is to avoid, at any cost, the collapse of the health system and all the negative political fallout from that - against the background of decades of government mismanagement, in one form or another.
• As we ponder that, the Guardian is suggesting here that The Utter Shambles of the last 3 months is about to enter Chapter 3. For a more vitriolic commentary, see Richard North here.
• As someone else has put it: As a matter of strict economics, the notion that we must pick between fighting Covid-19 and reviving growth is irritatingly misframed. The British authorities have shown that if you are seriously incompetent, you get both the worst death toll in Europe and one of the worst economic hits as well.  So, well done Mr Johnson et al. Your'e lucky there's no Vox equivalent in the UK, to accuse you of genocide.

The EU

• It looks like Spain will do very well - if not best - from the latest EU handouts. Doubtless some of our politicians are rubbing their hands in anticipation of the cash flows.

The Way of the world

• A civil servant who was  mocked for complaining about the cold, wet weather and branded a racist for claiming it always rained in Wales has been awarded more than £240,000 in a race and age-discrimination case.
• When life’s difficult, cults are an easy answer: Conspiracy theories and new age nonsense like Universal Medicine offer some middle-class escapism from dark reality, says the writer of the 2nd article below.

The USA   

• Fart talks about male fraud.

Finally . . .

• Things are looking up. After ripping out - without notice - several of the vines which form our joint hedge. My new neighbours have advised me the rest will also be pulled out, so they can erect a BBQ. But this will happen 'next year', giving me a chance to plant replacements on my side of the link fence underneath the vines. Which is sort of considerate.
• My younger daughter has a new web page which might be of interest to some. I certainly found it enlightening, and I thought I knew about it all. Its self explanatory title is Raising a girl with autism. It will surely help anyone facing this very tough challenge.

THE ARTICLES

1. A clean exit from Covid-19 is implausible and frothy markets are relying on thinning liquidity: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, the Daily Telegraph

The V-shaped recovery in East Asia is sadly no template for the blundering West. The near euphoric rally on global equity markets is based on a fundamental fallacy.

Most of Europe and North America are not pursuing the policies that enabled China and the Pacific Rim states - with big variations - to suppress Covid-19 and to stabilise their economies rapidly. 

The OECD family has adopted the rhetoric of East Asian strategy - ‘test/track/isolate’ - but most countries in fact have hybrid containment regimes that fall far short. With a few exceptions they lack the surveillance and quarantine structures needed to carry out a clean exit. 

Dominic Cummings would not have been allowed to drive across China, Taiwan, or Korea to find a more congenial lockdown venue. He would have been stopped, arrested, and punished. In Wuhan his home would have been boarded up by Communist Party vigilantes before he had escaped.

There is a common theme in the bullish reports crossing my desk from the big global investment funds. They all start from the premise that the rebound in Chinese economic growth will somehow be replicated. 

Leaving aside the question of whether China’s economy is close to normal - given that a fifth of migrant workers have yet to return from their villages, and hidden unemployment is near 15pc - this ‘one-and-done’ hypothesis repeats the error made by these same funds in February before Wall Street crashed 35pc. 

They were not listening to the warnings of global virologists and epidemiologists. Financial analysts were modelling Covid-19 as if it were like SARS. But it was nothing like SARS. Even then we knew that it was as contagious as influenza but ten times more deadly, and with no cross-immunity or vaccines to check the wildfire spread.

The scientists are warning again. They think that Europe and the US are dialing down containment measures before the tracking and isolation apparatus is fully in place and before the stock of infections has been cut to manageable levels. 

A new paper by Imperial College, London, says the R rate is above 1.0 in 24 US states, including Texas, Florida, and Ohio. “Very few have conclusively controlled their epidemics”, it said. Most are opening up anyway.

The early promise of herd immunity from antibody surveys has come to little. The incoming data confirms the worst fears. There is no hidden reservoir of asymptomatic cases. The case fatality rate is as awful as virologists first thought. 

Imperial said the percentage of the US population exposed to the virus as of May 17 was 4.1pc, and just 1pc in California. The best evidence in Britain is that exposure is not much above 15pc in London and 5pc in the rest of the country. Sweden’s Anders Tegnell is having to row back from his swashbuckling forecasts of herd immunity by late Spring.

This creates a terrible dilemma for western governments. My presumption is that once easing has begun, a second lockdown becomes unenforceable. Discipline is visibly breaking down across Europe and America, Cummings or no Cummings. 

Yet my other presumption is that leaders cannot let the virus run its course and hope that a vaccine will come along. Donald Trump is angling to do exactly that and a great number of investors seem to be betting on it too. 

Jeff Currie, Goldman Sachs’ oil guru, says his ultra-bullish call on commodities works whether the post-lockdown strategy succeeds or fails. His premise is that if the virus roars back, the political classes will go for growth the second time around, and damn the consequences. 

I doubt that western democracies would allow their governments to act with such ruthlessness when push comes to shove, or that people would go about normal business in the midst of a full-blown Wave Two. The likely outcome is that the next few months will be a messy series of false dawns and fresh outbreaks, carving out a protracted Nike swoosh rather than the Chinese ‘V’ assumed by equity markets or commodity bulls.

The rush to reopen is understandable. I don’t wish to enter arguments about morality and freedom. But as a matter of strict economics, the notion that we must pick between fighting Covid-19 and reviving growth is irritatingly misframed. The British authorities have shown - without apology - that if you are seriously incompetent, you get both the worst death toll in Europe and one of the worst economic hits aswell. 

The danger ahead is that the economic deep-freeze - akin to an extended holiday in macroeconomic terms for a while - drags on and reaches metastasis. A study by the Bank of Spain says the damage goes non-linear after two months or so. At that point the buffers are used up and insolvencies start in earnest, with a feedback loop working its awful logic through the economy.

Spanish GDP would shrink 6.8pc this year under its benign eight-week scenario. Contraction would almost double to 12.4pc if the disruption lasts an extra four weeks and is then followed by fresh wavelets for months afterwards, with unemployment topping 21pc and the debt ratio spiraling up by 24pc of GDP. By analogy, Italy would be pushed over the brink. The Club Med bloc would be caught in a debt-deflation trap with no way out. 

The EU Recovery Fund unveiled in Brussels today will not make a dent if the malign scenario plays out. The €500bn of direct grants will be stretched into the 2020s and amount to just 1pc of GDP a year. The money will be spread thinly among countless sectors and regions. Italy will hardly notice the difference and may not ultimately be a net recipient in any case.

The European Central Bank is hamstrung. It must satisfy the German Constitutional Court by early August that its first QE programme complies with EU law prohibiting quasi-fiscal bail-outs - otherwise the Bundesbank will have to withdraw.

If the ECB presses ahead and announces another round of pandemic QE (the current batch will run out by October) it risks an even more dangerous showdown. Leaks this week suggest that the ECB seriously aims to go it alone without the Bundesbank if need be. Such a madcap scheme would have no credibility in global markets and would lead to a two-tier euro. That would be playing with fire.

The US Federal Reserve has no such constraints and is doing its best to backstop the international system, providing dollar swap lines to fellow central banks at near zero cost, and buying the debt of ‘fallen angels’ at home to prevent cascade sales of derated US companies.

But be careful. The Fed cannot stop insolvent companies going bust. All it can do is to create liquidity, and today the flow rate of fresh stimulus is diminishing fast. Hedge fund veteran Stanley Druckenmiller, a liquidity specialist, says the risk-reward for equity markets “maybe as bad as I’ve seen it in my career.” 

His reason is that the Fed front-loaded QE in late March. At one point it was buying $120bn of US Treasuries and agency bonds a day. The effect was $1 trillion of extra liquidity above the giant sums being soaked up by the Treasury. This had to go somewhere. It flooded risk assets.

The flows are sputtering out. The Fed’s purchases have been gliding downwards. Last week the total was just $102bn. The US Treasury is now issuing more debt than the Fed is buying. The excess liquidity is gradually evaporating. 

In the end, the Fed will do whatever it takes to rescue the debt markets and Wall Street. It will buy Treasury notes and equities if need be. But it is not injecting net stimulus right now and will not intervene to shore up Wall Street unless the S&P 500 index retests the March lows.

You cannot count on liquidity alone to keep pumping up stock prices in the face of a massive economic shock, tumbling earnings, and a tide of bankruptcies. It will take a perfect exit from Covid-19 as well. 

Mr Druckenmiller’s advice: put on your seat-belts.

2. When life’s difficult, cults are an easy answer: Conspiracy theories and new age nonsense like Universal Medicine offer some middle-class escapism from dark reality: David Aaronovitch, The Times

Just when you thought there was nothing new to say about the Cummings affair, along comes a conspiracy theory. On Monday the Labour MP and failed leadership candidate Clive Lewis tweeted “how interesting” about a quote from another tweeter, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray. It read: “On 12 April Dominic Cummings was seen in Barnard Castle. Two days later GlaxoSmithKline of Barnard Castle signed an agreement to develop and manufacture a Covid-19 vaccine with Sanofi of France. Of course that could be coincidence.”

GSK does indeed have a factory in Barnard Castle, although its headquarters is in London. But Mr Murray failed to spell out, in his tweet or his lengthy blogposts, what possible connection there could be between the now-notorious outing and a vaccine deal with France. I can’t think of one but obviously Mr Murray and Mr Lewis can. Within a day this nebulous nonsense was popping up in WhatsApp groups and Facebook posts all over the place.

Mr Murray is a serial “just saying” conspiracy theorist. When the Russians poisoned the Skripals in 2018, for example, Murray pointed a finger at the Israelis and suggested a British government cover-up. At the moment his big issue is the conspiracy he alleges to “fit up” the former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond on sexual assault charges (Mr Salmond was acquitted). In the past he has accused me and other Jewish writers of being “Zionist propagandists” for the sake of “available riches”. Perhaps if Clive Lewis had done his homework on Murray he’d have been more judicious, but the temptation of the extra, hidden explanation, that banishes the possibility of accident and error and replaces it with something far darker and cleverer, is always powerful.

The week before Mr Lewis’s tweet, I recorded a Stories of Our Times podcast with Rosie Kinchen of The Sunday Times. Rosie had been looking into the case of an Australian cult called Universal Medicine (UM), which has been running its British operation from a very swish guesthouse in Somerset. The story contained some of the classic features of cult encounters: divided families, court cases, bizarre rituals and so on.

This one was also slightly different. UM’s founder and guru is a fifty-something former Australian tennis coach called Serge Benhayon. We learn on UM’s website that in 1999 he “found himself under the impress of a series of unfoldments that led to a re-connection, or, ‘union of old’. As a result, he initiated these impresses via the expression of Esoteric Healing using the forum of his sessions to present the teachings that not long after became his vast collection and volume of service to many thousands.”

Not a few of these thousands have been suitably grateful and have made unfoldments of their own, by opening their wallets and bank accounts, by making bequests and donations, or by booking courses and buying various elements of UM’s “vast collections”. Not only does Mr Benhayon draw what seems to be a substantial income from UM’s activities, but so do his wife, his ex-wife and his children.

In 2018, after a long legal process, an Australian court decided that UM was a “socially harmful cult”. And recently in the British Court of Appeal Lord Justice Peter Jackson ordered a woman to make a “definitive break” with the group or else risk losing custody of her daughter.

What’s really fascinating is not the cult, but its adherents. Not least because a friend told me that he knew several of the leading lay members of UM. They were wealthy, privately educated, holding down professional or creative jobs, and often living in nice houses in the countryside. No robes, no strange tattoos. No secret signs. But on the other hand strict dietary restrictions based on the most improbable analysis of the body’s functioning (did you know that you were made up of 45,000 nadis, or energy centres, and that when bad energy runs across the top of your nadis you get ill?). And ways of dealing with this bad (or pranic) energy include turning things counterclockwise, and going to bed at 9pm and getting up at 3am.

Given that Benhayon’s own “philosophical” musings are the most ridiculous jumble of phrases, that he claims to channel Leonardo da Vinci among others, and that he apparently had his first epiphany sitting on the loo, you might have thought that any rational person’s sense of the absurd would have warned them off him, long before they got to other bits. Instead they go on to endorse the Ageless Wisdom, the esoteric chakra-puncture, the idea that all history is a conspiracy, and the ovarian reading.

When you start looking at the online testimony of adherents you begin to understand why. There’s the middle-class woman who had an abortion at 16 and has felt guilty about it ever since. There’s the wife of a successful film director who, having just given birth, has been taught to see that she and the child possessed all the wisdom they required, and that “I need not look outside for the answers but know that they are already within”. Or, “I am a young and attractive woman who has chronic hormone imbalance and hair loss,” but “the EBM session today has given me an opportunity to go even deeper, and with TRUE LOVE.” It’s where religion meets new age health fad, where the anti-vaxxer meets the Livingness. And what does that mean? “It means Taking Care of You. And, more deeply it means You Loving You.”

Like Serge loves them. Like all the Benhayons love them. They are all beautiful. None of them are disappointing. They are all the carriers of inner wisdom. Not only that but this inner wisdom is so easily achieved! The hugely complex, impossible, often arbitrary world doesn’t need your intellect to grapple painfully with it, because it’s a delusion. Leave off wheat, rise at 3am, get the prana massaged away from your nadis and all will be well.

People often believe what they do not because they choose to, but because they need to. A middle-class under-achiever whose focus is very much on themselves needs to be told that they’re actually very special. A failed Labour politician needs to think he may be necessary after all because he has the key to a great scandal. Very few people are so cynical that they espouse preposterous theories that they don’t believe. Though, looking across the Atlantic, it does sometimes happen.

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

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.   

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*

The Bloody Virus

• Hmm. A planned test of hydroxychloroquine on intensive care patients in Ireland is under review, after the WHO halted its trials because of concerns about efficacy and safety
• Hmm 2: The lockdowns saved no lives and may have cost them, says a Nobel prize winner. Not just any prize-winner but the chap who correctly predicted the initial trajectory of the pandemic. 
• Hmm 3: Along the same lines, a salutary read here.
• Hmm 4: Men with long ring fingers are less likely to die from the virus, says the NY Post here. Credible? Or tabloid nonsense?
• Spain is proposing EU-wide green flight corridors for the tourists the country desperately needs. Wont' be much help, though, if Brits have to self-isolate when they get home. Depending, I guess, on the post-Cummings-debacle-fidelity to this and, of course, the ability (and willingness) of the authorities to police this.

Life in Spain in the Time of Something Like Cholera 

• Mark Stücklin asks here what we'll be allowed to do in our communal pools this summer. It depends, he says, on who you talk too. And, again, on policing capability.
• Talking of confusion  . . . A new rule about exercising was announced yesterday. Despite reading the report several times, I'm still not clear about what I'm legally allowed to do by way of 1. walking, 2. exercising, and 3. going to a café or restaurant.
• But the strict legalities might not matter now. A friend told me last night that a local beach on Tuesday afternoon had been as crowded as ever, with no 2m distancing taking place, and the police making no attempt to enforce it.
• Another friend tells me of the farcical situation in a Poio bakery, where customers coming to the counter to buy things are obliged to wear a mask but those taking a coffee aren't. IGIMSTS.
• Sadly, food aid queues here are now growing apace, as poverty levels are already below those of the 2008 crisis.
• But there is positive news, for some at least . . . The massive political gathering permitted on 8 March was only 'marginal' to the spread of Covid-19 in Madrid, a formal investigation has concluded. I guess we'll be told next that the visit of 10,000 Atlético Madrid fans to Liverpool a few days later had no real impact either. Infected Scousers might disagree.
• Here's María's Come-back Chronicle, Day 17. Beach practices get a mention.

Real Life in Spain 

• I fear this won't come as a huge surprise to some of us.  . . . Spain joins Italy at the bottom of OECD rankings for basic literacy and numeracy skills among graduate. I have to confess I sometimes wonder if pupils here are taught to think for themselves. Or merely to just think.
• What certainly won't be a surprise to anyone here is that Andalucia has been a hotbed of massive corruption for many decades. And that a trial for those who diverted hundreds of millions in EU funds took over 10 years to come to completion and saw few convictions. Click here on this. Nice to see Mercedes Alaya getting credit for her tenacity. Actually, it's always nice to see this 'stunningly attractive' judge. Need I add that she was eventually removed from the case, for being too zealous in wanting to see justice done.
• With that case in mind, my second confession today is that I occasionally wonder if Spanish politicians don't still - as regards the EU - obey the old 'Third World' dictum that, if someone offers you the chance to cheat them, you're a fool if you don't take it.

The UK

• Says Richard North this morning: We have a brand new test and trace system to play with, which starts today. . . In the best tradition of English public service provision, we have an entirely new enterprise being run by someone who has absolutely no knowledge of the subject and has a track record of presiding over train wrecks. [At the internet provider TalkTalk.]  What could possibly go wrong?

Germany

• Read here the reasons why Germany has done so much better than the UK in dealing with Covid-19.

The USA  

• Russian interference in elections is apparently OK but not that of US social media companies, whose warnings about his lies Fart is attempting to prevent via a presidential executive order.  How sad that this great country has been reduced to this.

English

• A new word: Testiculate:  To wave your arms around - a la Boris Johnson - while talking bollocks.

Finally . . .

• I was lucky enough, as a young man in Iran, to learn that hosting is one of life's great pleasures. Or can be. For, 19 years of experience here has revealed a wide spectrum of gestures of gratitude for this. Which range from the over-generous to the, well, very under-generous. Happily, my current guest/refugee is at the former end of the scale. Así son las cosas. Such is life. Nowt as queer as folk, as we Northerners say. And as I regularly remind myself.

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

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.   

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*

The Bloody Virus

• In a long article, The Local asks here what we can learn from the Swedish experience. Not much yet, seems to be the short answer.
• Here in Spain, local outbreaks are expected this summer, as the government seeks to breathe life into the critical - nay, vital - tourism industry.

Life in Spain in the Time of Something Like Cholera 

• Despite that risk of outbreaks, sun-seeking foreigners will soon be welcome here again, as travel restrictions are removed. But will Brits still be incarcerated on their return to their sceptred isle?
• I guess this really was inevitable . . .
• María's Come-back Chronicle, Day 16.
• I wonder if and when Apple will come up with technology which allows my fingerprint to be recognised through a plastic/rubber glove.

Real Life in Spain 

• A worry for some on the horizon. Well, maybe only for a few.
• Spanish men have a reputation for being 'macho'. I do wonder about this every time I see one walking a dog smaller than the average cat. Or even a full-size poodle. And lots in-between.
• Talking of reputations . . . The NY Times says here that Spain is known as as a litigious place. I find this odd, as everyone I know thinks it's a waste of time and money to go to court here.
• Perhaps it's a left-over from the time - until quite recently - when there was no bar to 'frivolous' suits. This was - and maybe still is to some extent - the practice of making a denuncia against anyone who annoyed you. This is a word which is often translated as a 'report'. Meaning, I think, something formal written to the judicial authorities either by a private person via the police (a burglary report) or by the police themselves (a prosecution). These are the several definitions given for the verb Denunciar by the Royal Academy. Nos. 4 and 6 seem to be the most appropriate, and there's no single-word equivalent in English:-

1. To warn or give news of something.

2. To predict.

3. To promulgate, solemnly publish.

4. To participate in or officially declare the illegal, irregular or inconvenient status of something.

5. To betray.

6. To give the judicial or administrative authority part or all of a report of an illegal act or an irregular event.

7. To notify the other party of the termination of a contract, or of a treaty, etc.

8. To have discovered a mine, or to claim the benefit of it.

Portugal

• Astonishingly, this small and relatively poor country has a testing rate double that of every other. Very impressive.
• Maybe this helps to explain why Britain is in talks with Portugal over plans to create an “air bridge”[me neither] that would allow holidaymakers to travel to the country without quarantining on their return. 

The EU

• The corporate mega-bailout bonanza begins, says the estimable Nick Corbishley here. Circumstances change principles, as they say. About which not everyone is happy, of course.

The USA  

• Fart reviews a book by one of those close friends he's never met

The Way of the world

• Greed begat the banking crisis, which begat the financial crisis, which begat austerity, which begat cuts which increased wealth gaps and left states less able to deal with the virus than they should have been. So, what is being done about the root cause of all the unnecessary deaths - greed born of the corruption of capitalism? Please write your answer on only one side of the paper. 
• Meanwhile . . . We're in no rush to return to the work-hard consumerism of pre-lockdown life, says a Times headline. 

Finally . . .

• The recent hot weather here - on the coat-tails of lots of rain - has led to a massive surge in plant growth. Nowhere more so than on my bougainvillea, from which I had to cut more than 30 'suckers' yesterday. Which seem to grow faster than the banana plants in my garden in Jakarta. And then there's the bloody 'hedge bindweed' - Calystegia sepium - which is threatening to throttle my privet and ivy hedges. It's just one damned thing after another . . . 

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

Note: This is my second post of the day, and the real one. The previous one - posted c. 10 hours ago - was really Sunday's, which had got lost somehow. Scroll down for it.

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.   

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*

The Bloody Virus 

• UK cases and deaths per million are now higher than Italy's and 3rd behind Belgium and Spain. And UK tests per million - despite double counting - are still below those of Italy and well below those of Spain. Scandalous, really.

Life in Spain in the Time of Something Like Cholera 

• Archena, in Murcia, has warned of fines of up to €2,500 for people caught tossing away their used masks on the ground. Might work.
• Talking of potential fines . . . What if I don't wear a mask when I go out during Phase 1 or 2?
• María's Come-back Chronicle Day 15. Maria is not a happy camper at the moment.
• I've realised that there's one way to recognise women whose identity is obscured by face masks - check out their tattoos.
• I'm pleased to report that the percentage of mask-wearers on O Burgo bridge - still not completed - has shot up to close to 90%, even though it's possible to be 2m apart from anyone else on it.

Real Life in Spain 

• It's an egregious myth that all Spaniards enjoy La Corrida and support the bullfighting industry. Most, I suspect, wouldn't shed even a crocodile tear for the imminent death Covid-19 is said to threaten it with. El País, for example, claims today that 54,000 employees are at risk of losing their jobs.
• Meanwhile, news of another Spanish non-sport - fraud/corruption. In this case the widespread but illegal export of elvers to Asia.
• What Brits will need to retain their residence status after Brexit. The Spanish government is described as generous. Possibly self-interestedly so, given what the million of us residents contribute to the economy here. Only - as Lenox Napier regular reports - to be largely ignored in favour of British tourists, of one class or another.

The EU

• To be discussed tomorrow, the latest proposal from France and Germany for 'mutualised debt issuance' may mark a turning point in the history of the European integration project and be a game-changer. It says here.

Social Media

The USA

• Can this really be true? The last sentence surely is,

Finally . . .

• Quote of the week:  Thanks to the virus, future air travel will be as enjoyable as open-heart surgery.
• I might have been a tad harsh on the tech service company yesterday. They tell me the factory was closed until last Friday but a new mica plate is on its way. Though this isn't what they'd said they do - get the dimensions and cut a piece from a larger sheet of mica. I fear I will now have to pay the (double the cost of the plate) shipment charges that this was supposed to avoid. Hey ho. Only a flea bite.

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

NOTE: Somewhere along the way, Sunday's post got lost. So here it is. My real post for Tuesday will be posted later today . . . Monday's post is below this one, if you haven't seen it. Nice song in it.

Sunday, 24 May 2020

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.   

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*

The Bloody Virus  

• Sweden: The take of a foreign resident. 
• The UK: Now at the same level of deaths-per-million as Italy, and will be beyond it by the end of today. All down to delay and the resulting lag.

Life in Spain in the Time of Something Like Cholera 

• The return of 'Tourism'. Sort of. The implications for foreign property owners here.
• María's Come-back Chronicle, Day 13.

Real Life in Spain

• At least politics in Spain are still normal. Meaning tribal, of course.
• An idea that was ahead of its time?
• Missing your 'pilgrimage' on the camino de Santiago? Here's news of potential compensation.
• Missing your football? Here's some good news on that too.

 The UK  

• The Sunday Times: The public inquiry into the government’s handling of the coronavirus will come later, but, as our Insight report today shows clearly, the broad outlines are already taking shape. Britain was slow into lockdown, is slow to get out of it and is suffering the highest death toll from Covid-19 in Europe. This is the worst of all worlds, and it was preventable. the picture that emerges is of a prime minister with a tendency to put off until tomorrow what should be done today and a government unable to communicate messages with clarity and focus.
• As for the PM's popularity . . .  Johnson’s personal ratings have dropped 7 points in a month. On the belated lockdown, the paucity of testing, and on the lag in tracing, he is very vulnerable. Studies are beginning to show, as they have in the U.S., just how many deaths could have been avoided if the government had acted a week earlier in shutting the country down. As that settles in, the rally around the leader effect will surely dissipate.

Finland

• In the article below, crime writer Antti Tuomainen says that self-isolation is a way of life in Finland. And asks: Who else has a word for drinking alone in your (under)pants? [Finnish friends kindly sent me the book she cites and I included cartoons from it in this blog a while back.] 

The EU

• The positive take: In the twilight of her chancellorship, Angela Merkel has secured her place in the pantheon of European statesmanship by agreeing to common EU borrowing to help the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus rebuild their economies. In so doing, she has jumped over the shadow of tight-fisted German conservatism, faced down the high priests of fiscal and monetary orthodoxy and finally practiced the mantra she preached in the 2008-2015 financial crisis: that “if the euro fails, Europe fails.” 
• The negative take: The Franco-German plan for a €500 billion “recovery fund” has been welcomed with superlatives such as “Hamiltonian,” “stunning,” “a game changer” and the somewhat slightly less hagiographic “surprisingly ambitious.” In actual fact, it is just a damp squib.  . . . EU politics is becoming more, not less contentious. If we can’t set aside our petty, parochial politics amid a global pandemic to move toward a fiscal union now, we never will.

The USA  

•  Neal Ferguson in today's Times reminds us of his comment of Nov 2015: Trump has the face that fits the ugly mood in America. He has both the resources and the incentives to press on. In the current national mood of disaffection with professional politicians, he could seem an attractive alternative to Hillary Clinton . . . The point about Trump is that his appeal is overwhelmingly a matter of style over substance. It is not what he says that a great many white Americans like — it is the way that he says it.
• And in a terrific article Andrew Sullivan writes: I know we’re used to it, but there is no rational or coherent explanation for any of [Trump's behaviour]. There is no strategy, or political genius. There is just a delusional pathology in which he says whatever comes into his head at any moment, determined entirely by his mood, which is usually bad. His attention span is so tiny and his memory so occluded that he can say two contradictory things with equal conviction repeatedly, and have no idea there might be any inconsistency at all. . . . The key thing is that none of this seems to matter to the supporters of the president. For them, the pathology seems to be the point. It is precisely Trump’s refusal to acknowledge reality that they thrill to — because it offends and upsets the people they hate (i.e., city dwellers, the educated, and the media). The more Trump brazenly lies, the more Republicans support him. The more incoherent he is, the more insistent they are. Bit by bit, they have been co-opted by Trump into a series of cascading and contradicting lies, and they are not going to give up now — even when they are being treated for COVID-19 in hospital.

Finally . . .

• I wonder how many Americans abroad can now display pride in their country. I really do feel sorry for those who didn't vote for Fart. As for those who did, one hopes many will have changed their minds.

THE ARTICLE

How to do social distancing the Finnish way: Antti Tuomainen

Self-isolation is a way of life in Finland. And who else has a word for drinking alone in your pants?

One evening last week, after working alone all day, as I do every day, because I’m a writer and a Finn, I caught the No 17 bus home from my office, because it was raining and snowing at the same time. (Spring has arrived in Helsinki.) Apart from the driver, I rode the bus alone and passed a number of trams and buses with no passengers. On the way, I saw one fellow cycling alone and another jogging alone. This is Helsinki in lockdown. Yet it also looked like a pretty normal Monday.

I am, as I said, a Finn. I can probably guess what you’re thinking: “Oh, he wakes up in his ice hut and wrestles with bilingual bears before inventing world-leading sustainable technology while designing sleek buildings and stark vases.” Well, that’s part of it, sure. If you’ve ever met a Finn, you might also be thinking: “Not big ones for small talk, are they?”

Over the decades, Finland seems to have produced quite a formidable collection of world-class conductors, Formula One drivers, architects, fashion designers, ski jumpers, long-distance runners, film directors, composers and writers. And if you’re seeing a trend here, you might not be alone. Truth is, they are. Alone in their cockpits, on stage and podium, writing in their chairs and running in their shoes. Always alone — and fervently keeping their social distance long before it became the norm.

Covid-19 restrictions began in earnest here somewhere around mid-March. It seems to have happened overnight and gone so smoothly (we have had just 301 deaths) that it was almost as though it were the result of some practice. Come to think of it, maybe it was.

To return to our fabulous public transport system, there is a comic book here called 'Finnish Nightmares', which presents situations that would indeed be nightmarish for a Finnish person. One of these shows a Finn on a bus, sitting in a window seat. The nightmare? That someone sits in the aisle seat — and the first person has to speak to them in order to get past and get off the bus. Needless to say, our buses, trains and trams are, even in normal times, quite roomy.

As lockdown eases around Europe, I suppose the big question is: shouldn’t everybody be taking lessons from us? Because, really, doesn’t it seem we’ve been doing it right all along? To put it directly to you Brits: should you be more Finn? It probably isn’t for us to say. We are famously modest. But I wouldn’t be a Finn if I didn’t give you the no-nonsense, practical, how-to-do-it list of how you might go about it.

First, try to live where no one else would want to live. Simple. Choose the most uncomfortable spot on the map, say, between Sweden and Russia, make a home and don’t tell anyone where you are. Finland is roughly 50% larger than the UK; it is nearly the size of Germany. The UK has 66 million people. Finland has 5.5 million. In a country that is mostly dense forest and empty, well-maintained roads, it hasn’t been entirely impossible to accommodate these times.

Second, minimise social contact. Again, live where going outside is inadvisable anyway. And stop going to pubs and cafés and gatherings and dinners and . . . for heaven’s sake, stop talking. What good is it anyway? We never started talking and look what happened: we’re the happiest nation in the world, with — if we weren’t too modest to point out — the best healthcare, education and rye bread. Coincidence? We think not. If you absolutely insist on going outside, do it alone and in the woods.

Third, if you want to have a party, have it. Just do it by yourself. In Finland, we have a term for hard solitary partying: pantsdrunk. It’s where you sit on your couch alone, in your underwear, get drunk and pass out. A good time will be had by all.

Fourth — this advice will come too late for some: keep family sizes small. One person is ideal. If there are more, you may have to talk to them. We have small families.

Finally — and this is probably too late for all of you — speak a language no one understands. This is a great trick for lessening any need to travel. Why go anywhere when nobody understands you there? Similarly, no curious foreigner will bother you for long when you mumble incoherently and try to drag him into a sauna.

I was in a public sauna, one of my favourite places to be, when I heard the news that, because of this virus, they were going to close all public saunas. I exchanged six or seven low-voiced words with a fellow bather. We concluded there was no need to panic. In a country of 5.5 million people, we have more than a million saunas. So now we find our own private one and sweat it out alone. For some reason, I haven’t had a problem with that.

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

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.   

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*

The Bloody Virus  

• Back to the future?. Says the New York Times here: For some Italians, the future of work looks like the past. Italians are returning to the agricultural jobs of their grandparents. So, will we see the same in Spain's vast southern 'fields' of agricultural products, shown here?

Life in Spain in the Time of Something Like Cholera 

• Spain's first virus free 'region' is the non-colony of Melilla. Which is in Africa.

Real Life in Spain 

• More on our polar, tribal politics, which outshine(?) those of all other European states.
• María's Come-back Chronicle: Day 14. Spanish housing.

The UK  

• The Guardian's John Crace is the best critic of BJ on the block. Which doesn't necessarily mean he's always right, of course. Just 'forensic', in the word of the moment. And the funniest. Satire is now dead, says Crace. But, given that Trump has been in power for almost 4 years, we all knew that long ago.
• Talking of laughing . . . Here's the estimable Dilly Keane of the wonderful 'Fascinating Aida'. 

The EU

• A proposal by Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron for a €500bn fund to save European economies laid low by the coronavirus was rejected yesterday by a quartet of financially conservative EU members, who insisted the money be in the form of loans rather than grants. The move by Austria, Holland, Denmark and Sweden — the “frugal four” — sets the stage for a battle this week as the European Commission struggles to find a solution that will be acceptable to all 27 EU member states. 

The Way of the world/Social Media

• Will this development be entirely positive?: A world record internet speed has been set in Australia, allowing film buffs to download 1,000 HD movies in one second. The researchers achieved the record using a micro-comb, a single small optical chip replacing 80 separate infrared lasers, capable of carrying communication signals. The chip test was conducted through normal cable technology, raising hopes of the process being able to supercharge existing broadband networks. 
• Are you surprised? As conspiracy theories flood social media and despite warnings from watchdogs that there is no evidence they work, Amazon is peddling underwear, stickers and blankets that falsely claim to protect users from electromagnetic radiation and 5G mobile signals.
• Jeff Bezos is about to become the world's first trillionaire. It's an ill wind . . . 

The USA  

• A frightening/depressing read.  As someone has said, with his support among (sane)Christians reducing, Fart can be expected to go to the utmost lengths to please /retain his (insane)Evangelist base.

Finally . . . 

•  My visit to the local tech service place to get a new mica plate for my microwave has so far proved fruitless, in that they haven't contacted me - after 10 days - to say they've cut me something to size. So, I will now buy a larger plate and cut it myself. I'm not entirely surprised at this. Here in Spain, the devil often takes the hindmost. Busy chap.

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

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.   

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*

The Bloody Virus 

• More here and here on Swedish exceptionalism. Not looking great. 

Life in Spain in the Time of Something Like Cholera

• Phase 2 advice, here.
• Small town relaxations.
• María's Come-back Chronicle, Day 12.
• And (possibly excessive) optimism from the relevant Ministress.

Real Life in Spain

• As expected, I was refused the packet for my sister and this will now be returned to the UK in 2 weeks' time. But I did manage to blague my way to getting my own package, despite the clerk querying my ID card, on the basis it'd expired in 2011 . . .
• Most Spanish women have dark hair and brown eyes - morenas. So, it's often hard to determine who's coming towards you. When they're all wearing masks, this becomes totally impossible. Leading to unintentional 'cutting' of friends and neighbours. [In Spanish, I'm told: 1. Pasar de largo; or, most colloquially/best: Hacerse el sueco. Lit. 'To act like a Swede'. No idea why. Likewise, the alternative Hacerse el loco. 'To go mad'.] [BTW: How often do Swedes get mentioned twice in a British blog?]
• Mark Stücklin lays into Spanish property planners/regulators here. I doubt they're exceptional by Spanish bureaucratic standards.
• HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for the news that there are now a few dozen "ecoaldeas" - ecovillages - in Spain, most built from the ashes of former medieval towns. One of the first towns to be rediscovered was a tiny hamlet called Lakabe in the mountains of northern Navarra. On which this a nice video.

The UK

• Maybe the popularity of Boris Johnson I wondered about yesterday ain't going to last very much longer:-

1. Richard North: All this points to Johnson's luck running out. Already, there are signs that the political honeymoon is over. There will be no quick fixes and [by mid winter] Johnson's boyish charms will have long ceased to protect him from the political fallout. . .  In the political context of a recessionary winter, there will be little tolerance for the bluster and bravado which is the stock-in-trade of this government.

2. Boris Johnson faces an ethics inquiry over ‘intimacy’ with Jennifer Arcuri. Ethics is not his strong s suit, of course. At least a bit Trumpish.

• Dear god! . . . 20% of Brits believe the virus is a hoax.
• Not only in Spain, then. Workers forced into furlough fraud blow the whistle on their bosses- Employees say they are being bullied to continue to work even though their bosses are claiming taxpayers' cash for furloughing them.

Germany

• The fabulous Caitlin Moran: If there’s two things we think we “know” about the Teutonic personality, it’s that it’s a) very efficient, but b) generally sadly lacking in humour. This week has forced a full-scale re-evaluation of our European cousins as a café in northeast Germany sought to enforce social-distancing regulations with an efficient and humorous idea: the noodle hat. Café Rothe in Schwerin has reopened, but its owners wish to keep their customers safe. Consequently, they have invented the noodle hat — 2m-long, brightly coloured swimming noodles are stapled to a hat to help people keep their distance. I love that the latest weapon in the war against coronavirus is making Germans look like they are small helicopters drinking a latte, and I urge cafés in the UK to follow suit.

To wit:-

Italy

• Be careful of what you wish for; you might well get it, says a Chinese dictum: Emerging from their coronavirus lockdown this week, many Venetians discovered they had got what they always wanted: the disappearance of hulking cruise ships and the 50,000 daily tourists who clog up the city’s narrow alleys, drive up rents and drive out locals. But . . . A Venice free of tourists means that the locals are enduring a brutal downturn without the €3 billion the visitors pump into the economy every year.

The USA  

•  Dear god x 10!: US exceptionalism: Concerns are growing that too many Americans will shun a coronavirus vaccine after one in 5 said that they would refuse a jab. Senior medical advisers are concerned that President Trump’s name for the US effort to develop a vaccine, 'Operation Warp Speed', feeds into fears stoked by “antivaxers” that the medicine will be rushed out and therefore potentially dangerous.

Finally . . . 

• Anyone got any views on the difference between peanut oil and groundnut oil for use in making a fish curry? I ask because they're widely said on the net to be the same thing - peanuts being a type of groundnut - but I know that views differ on this. Among good cooks, that is.
• I can't get either here in Pontevedra, so have bought a lot of peanuts, with a view to making my own. Provided I don't eat them all first, as they're of the best quality. And very more-ish. 

 * 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'*

The Bloody Virus 

• It won't be long now before the UK overtakes Italy to become the country with the 3rd highest deaths-per-million rate, after Belgium and Spain. 

Life in Spain in the Time of Something Like Cholera

• Here's one way to ensure you get (rich?) clients into your Spanish hotel.
• María's Comeback Chronicle: Day 11

Real Life in Spain 

• A note in my mailbox advises me that a package sent to my sister 4 weeks ago finally arrived yesterday. But my sister returned to the UK last week and recent experience renders me certain I won't be allowed to collect it from Correos, as I can't meet their bureaucratic requirements in respect of her ID and authorisation. Instead, it will sit in the Post Office for 2 weeks and then sent back to her husband. Which will, at least, save me the trouble and expense of returning some of the contents to her.
• As long-time readers might recall, 3 or 4 years ago my 'individualistic' ex-neighbour destroyed our back-garden hedge, while I was in the UK. And now my - equally 'individualistic' - new neighbours have done the same to our front-garden hedge, as part of the transformation of their garden into something totally different. So, I couldn't help but be amused yesterday, when I saw that the chap rotivating their rear lawn had cut through 2 large black pipes. As he wasn't killed, I assume these were for water, not electricity. I probably wouldn't have laughed at a fatality. Well, not that of a gardener. Less sure about the house-owner.
• At a more elevated level . . . Here's The Guardian with its '10 of the best novels set in Spain'. I've only read 2 of them . . .

The UK  

• Astonishingly, despite the Covid-19 fact stated above - and much criticism in some quarters - Boris Johnson maintains high popularity ratings. Perhaps because he's conned the populace into believing he's saved the (ridiculously idolised) NHS from destruction. In part by shovelling old folk from hospitals into woefully under-equipped care homes.

The Way of the world

• Religious fundamentalists and Covid-19: Given the unpredictable nature of our world (as the emergence of Covid-19 has made all too clear), nothing, secularization included, is a one-way street. Religion is perfectly capable of experiencing revivals. Still, there is no surer way to tip the balance toward an Omar Khayyam–style skepticism than for prominent religious leaders to guide their faithful, and all those in contact with them, into a new wave of the pandemic. This is the  final para of this fine article centred on the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam, a work I've loved since I stumbled on it in the library of the Seychelles school I was teaching in, aged just 19. Eight years before - by pure coincidence - I went to work in Iran/Persia. I was delighted to read of the company I'm in as a huge admirer of Khayam's musings, as stunningly translated - albeit rather freely - by Edward FitzGerald back in the 1870s.**

The USA

• Assuming he really is taking it, is it too much to hope that Fart becomes one of hydroxychloroquine's fatal victims?

Finally . . .

• Here's a test of your sense of humour and, possibly, your IQ . . . Why is this funny?:-

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

** You can read EF's translation here. He actually made several goes at it and, in truth, I prefer this version of the opening quatrain:-

Awake! For morning, in the bowl of night,

Has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight.

And, lo, the hunter of the east has caught

the sultan's turret in a noose of light.