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'*  

Note: This is a normal post. I’ve also posted today Richard Ford’s (lengthy and colourful) description of a bullfight. Which can be seen here . . .

Covid

The UK: Britain must learn from Sweden on how to live with coronavirus until the “cavalry” of a vaccine or mass-testing arrives, says the professor of epidemiology at Edinburgh University. Not a universal view, of course.

Spain: An interesting consequence. 

Living La Vida Loca in Spain/Galicia  

I can't say I can follow this Madrid v Cataluña saga. Or perhaps I just lack interest. 

The folk at the Lerez end of (now famous?) O Burgo bridge are worried about a wild boar that's taken to wandering around their streets. I can attest to its presence, as it ran in front of my car there the other night.

The British pianist, James Rhodes, has been at it again - ingratiating himself with us provincials . . . At a recent Education Forum in Vigo, he recalled how 3 years ago he moved from London to Barcelona and how he got to know Galicia thanks to his best friend, a Galician actor. Such is his romance with this region and its gastronomy, one of his desires is to have an apartment next to the beach here. "I feel more at home here than in Catalonia, as if in a previous life I was Galician," he said. His other desires are to learn to speak Spanish with greater perfection; that the works of the Madrid-Galicia AVE are finished; that he obtains Spanish nationality; that he marries his girlfriend; and that he continues playing and travelling. Well, at least we share a dream about a high speed train service to Madrid. As always, now scheduled for 'next year'. As it has been since I arrived here exactly 19 years ago.

María's Falling Back chronicle Days 14, 15 and 16    

The UK 

Fines for failing to observing quarantine on returning from abroad . . . As of the middle of September, there had been a grand total of 34.

The USA

The clearest loser from the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was America. In fact, last night was not a debate in any meaningful sense. It was an ill-tempered and at times incomprehensible squabble between two angry septuagenarians who palpably loathe each other. Chris Wallace, the experienced and respected moderator, was utterly overwhelmed in his forlorn attempts to bring order to the exchanges and to stop the candidates, especially Mr Trump, speaking out of turn. So, no surprises there. Which is why I didn't even think about watching it.

The Way of the World

Transgenderism: See the 1st article below. Having had a tomboy daughter who went through 'a phase' I can easily agree with the writer's strictures on current developments

Smartphones: See the 2nd article below for UK fears.

Finally . . .  

TV ads seem more nauseating than ever:

- Hellmans' (for vegetarian mayo): We're on the side of food.

- Kellogs: We are breakfast.

ARTICLES

It’s madness to tell tomboys they’re living in the wrong body. The Department for Education's new guidance marks a rare victory for common sense in the ongoing war on gender: Melanie McDonagh 

There is one thing – just the one, alas – I have in common with Angelina Jolie and that is we both have a daughter who used to dress like a boy. No pink, no frills, no sparkles, no unicorns, no princesses. I was delighted; if there’s one thing that brings out my inner Herod, it’s a Disney princess. Apparently Angelina was cool with it too.

Not just that, my daughter for most of her time in primary school gave girls a miss. She hung out with boys and I recall a couple of birthday parties where she invited no girls whatever. In my daughter’s case – I don’t know about Angelina’s – it passed, sort of. She’s at a girl’s school, has a crush on Timothee Chalamet and gets on well with her own sex. She still doesn’t do fluffy pencil cases and would rather be dead than pink but she’s found that there are others out there just like her. She was, and is, a tomboy. It’s just as well, really, that we didn’t bring her to the Tavistock clinic before puberty set in so she could think about what gender she should be identifying with.And thank God, the Government seems to be taking the same position.

The Department for Education issued guidance to schools on Friday to say that “you should not not reinforce harmful stereotypes, for instance by suggesting that children might be a different gender based on their personality and interests, or the clothes they prefer to wear … Materials which suggest that non-conformity to gender stereotypes should be seen as synonymous with having a different gender identity should not be used…” This is stark, raving common sense – which comes as a gratifying surprise. Last year the Department said ominously that “Gender identity should be explored at a timely point”. Why? My own view is that if the question weren’t raised at all there would be far fewer children seeking gender reassignment at places like the NHS Gender Identity Development Service in Hampstead, which is seeing lots more children looking to change sex.

It may be that some individuals looking at changing gender are attracted to their own sex. Or maybe they’re just non-conformists. Our obsession with categories – trans, non-binary, asexual – is insanely, dangerously reductionist. A tomboy is a girl who rejects girly habits. It doesn’t mean she’s trapped in a female body. I’d say it makes her more fun than someone who dots her i’s with little hearts and has unicorn birthday cakes.

The patron saint of the tomboy is obviously George from the Famous Five – I remain baffled why Enid Blyton isn’t on that account the pinup of the diversity brigade. She introduced herself thus: “I shall only answer if you call me George. I hate being a girl. I won’t be. I don’t like doing the things that girls do. I like doing the things that boys do … You’re to call me George. Then I’ll speak to you.”

And the embodiment of the corresponding tendency for boys who like to be in touch with their sensitive side is Basil Fotherington-Thomas from the immortal Molesworth books, he who danced round saying “Hello Clouds, Hello Sky” and who Molesworth calls a “gurl”. He was terrifically at ease with himself though.

Nowadays we’d be rushing Basil and George to the Gender Reassignment Clinic before they could say Little Lord Fauntleroy. How about just letting them do their own thing in their own way?

2. Our smartphones have turned into ID cards by stealth: Ross Bryan 

Your right to remain a Luddite is quietly being eroded. We are, as Elon Musk has said, already at a cyborg-like stage of technological advancement. It’s just that our smartphones have not yet been embedded in our bodies.

Most of us look to phones to tell us where to go and how to do just about everything. And now, thanks to coronavirus, society is beginning to operate on the basis that we are all carrying these devices every minute of the day.

Since the lockdown began, landlords and restaurateurs have been told that apps which let customers book a table and order food and drink are the future. For technology companies, the apps conveniently double as proxy tracking services, given that they record the owner’s contact details. Your information may be shared with “affiliated” or “trusted” partners when all you wanted was a drink.

We are assured that the information we hand over is secure. However, large-scale data hacks are now perennial and a handful of companies hold information on swathes of the population. Furthermore, the coronavirus crisis has increased the likelihood of privacy rules being ignored altogether. In July the government itself admitted to breaking data laws in the development of its test and trace programme.

Our attitude towards personal data has shifted substantially. Fifteen years ago the prospect of national ID cards prompted accusations of Orwellian state surveillance. We didn’t want to be a country where people were told to produce their papers. Look how far we have come.

* 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'*  

This is a (long) 'special'.

I'd planned to write a normal post and to cite a paragraph or 2 from Richard Ford's The Spaniards and Their Country', based on something I'd started to read three-quarters of the way through it. But I decided it'd be wrong to truncate the dissertation below.

It's classic Ford. At times negative, at times positive. Both critical and laudatory. Even adulatory. Arrogant and patronising. But sympathetic. And always informed by his own experiences. And learned because of his education. Sometimes funny and sometimes even witty, via indirectas. Overall, quite fascinating.

Of course, a very great deal has changed in Spain since 1845 but, having been writing about it for 19 years, I can certainly see echoes of Ford's comments - both the positive and the negative - in modern Spain. As you'll see in every book on the country written since then. I'll leave you to decide what these are. Or to wait for the book I've started to write . . .

By the way, it's still true that, no matter how positive you are to create balance, any negative comments are likely to be met with the response: "Well, if you don''t like it, why don't you piss off back to your own shit country." Especially if you're a Dutchman called Vincent Werner . . .

Richard Ford - Going off on one . . .
Let no author imagine that the fairest observations that he can take and make of Spain as she is, setting down naught in malice, can ever please a Spaniard; his pride and self-esteem are as great as the self-conceit and low consequence of the American: both are morbidly sensitive and touchy; both are afflicted with the notion that all the world, who are never troubling their heads about them, are thinking of nothing else, and linked in one common conspiracy, based in envy, jealousy, or ignorance; "you don't understand us, I guess." Truth, except in the shape of a compliment, is the greatest of libels, and is howled against as a lie and forgery from the Straits to the Bidasoa.

The Spaniard, who is hardly accustomed to a free, or rather a licentious press, and the scavenger propensity with which, in England and America, it rakes into the sewers of private life and the gangrenes of public, is disgusted with details which he resents as a breach of hospitality in strangers. He considers, and justly, that it is no proof either of goodness of breeding, heart, or intellect, to be searching for blemishes rather than beauties, for toadstools rather than violets; he despises those curmudgeons who see motes rather than beams in the brightest eyes of Andalucia. The productions of strangers, and especially of those who ride and write the quickest, must savour of the pace and sources from whence they originate. 

Foreigners who are unacquainted with the language and good society of Spain are of necessity brought the most into contact with the lowest scenes and the worst class of people, thus road-scrapings and postillion information too often constitute the raw-head-and-bloody-bones material of their composition. All this may be very amusing to those who like these subjects, but they afford a poor criterion for descanting on whatever does the most honour to a country, or gives sound data for judging its real condition. 

How would we ourselves like that Spaniards should form their opinions of England and Englishmen from the Newgate calendars, the reports of cads, and the annals of beer-shops? Various as are the objects worth observing in Spain, many of which are to be seen there only, it may be as well to mention what is not to be seen, for there is no such loss of time as finding this out oneself, after weary chase and wasted hour. 

Those who expect to meet with well-garnished arsenals, libraries, restaurants, charitable or literary institutions, canals, railroads, tunnels, suspension-bridges, steam-engines, omnibuses, manufactories, polytechnic galleries, pale-ale breweries, and similar appliances and appurtenances of a high state of political, social, and commercial civilization, had better stay at home.

In Spain there are no turnpike-trust meetings, no quarter-sessions, no courts of justice, according to the real meaning of that word, no treadmills no boards of guardians, no chairmen, directors, masters extraordinary of the court of chancery, no assistant poor-law commissioners. There are no anti-tobacco-teetotal-temperance-meetings, no auxiliary-missionary-propagating societies, nothing in the blanket and lying-in asylum line, nothing, in short, worth a revising-barrister of 3 years' standing's notice, unless he be partial to the study of the laws of bankruptcy. Spain is no country for the political economist, beyond affording an example of the decline of the wealth of nations, and offering a wide topic on errors to be avoided, as well as for experimental theories, plans of reform and amelioration. 

In Spain, Nature reigns; she has there lavished her utmost prodigality of soil and climate, which Spaniards have for the last four centuries been endeavouring to counteract by a culpable neglect of agricultural speeches and dinners, and a non-distribution of prizes for the biggest boars, asses, and labourers with largest families. 

The landed proprietor of the Peninsula is little better than a weed of the soil; he has never observed, nor scarcely permitted others to observe, the vast capabilities which might and ought to be called into action. He seems to have put Spain into Chancery[debt], such is the general dilapidation. The country is little better than a terra incognita, to naturalists, geologists, and all other branches of ists and ologists. Everywhere there, the material is as superabundant as native laboreurs and operatives are deficient. All these interesting branches of inquiry, healthful and agreeable, as being out-of-door pursuits, and bringing the amateur in close contact with nature, offer to embryo authors who are ambitious to book something new, a more worthy subject than the old story of dangers of bull-fights, bandits, and black eyes. 

Those who aspire to the romantic, the poetical, the sentimental, the artistical, the antiquarian, the classical, in short, to any of the sublime and beautiful lines, will find both in the past and present state of Spain, subjects enough in wandering with lead pencil and notebook through this singular country, which hovers between Europe and Africa, between civilization and barbarism: this land of the green valley and barren mountain, of the boundless plain and the broken sierra; those Elysian gardens of the vine, the olive, the orange, and the aloe; those trackless, vast, silent, uncultivated wastes, the heritage of the wild bee;—in flying from the dull uniformity, the polished monotony of Europe, to the racy freshness of that original, unchanged country, where antiquity treads on the heels of to-day, where Paganism disputes the very altar with Christianity, where indulgence and luxury contend with privation and poverty, where a want of all that is generous or merciful is blended with the most devoted heroic virtues, where the most cold-blooded cruelty is linked with the fiery passions of Africa, where ignorance and erudition stand in violent and striking contrast.

"There" says the Handbook, in a style which qualifies the author for the best bound and fairest edited album, "let the antiquarian pore over the stirring memorials of many thousand years, the vestiges of Phoenician enterprise, of Roman magnificence, of Moorish elegance, in that storehouse of ancient customs, that repository of all elsewhere long forgotten and passed by; there let him gaze upon those classical monuments, unequalled almost in Greece or Italy, and on those fairy Aladdin palaces, the creatures of Oriental gorgeousness and imagination, with which Spain alone can enchant the dull European; there let the man of feeling dwell on the poetry of her envy-disarming decay, fallen from her high estate, the dignity of a dethroned monarch, borne with unrepining self-respect, the last consolation of the innately noble, which no adversity can take away; let the lover of art feed his eyes with the mighty masterpieces of ideal Italian art, when Raphael and Titian strove to decorate the palaces of Charles, the great emperor of the age of Leo X. Let him gaze on the living nature of Velazquez and Murillo, whose paintings are truly to be seen in Spain alone; let the artist sketch frowning forms of the castle, the pomp and splendour of the cathedral, where God is worshipped in a manner as nearly befitting his glory as the arts and wealth of finite man can reach. Let him dwell on the Gothic gloom of the cloister, the feudal turret, the vasty Escorial, the rock-built alcazar of imperial Toledo, the sunny towers of stately Seville, the eternal snows and lovely vega of Granada ; let the geologist clamber over mountains of marble, and metal-pregnant sierras; let the botanist cull from the wild hothouse of nature plants unknown, unnumbered, matchless in colour, and breathing the aroma of the the sweet south; let all, learned and unlearned listen to the song, the guitar, the castanet; or join in the light fandango and spirit-stirring bull-fight; let all mingle with the gay, good-humoured, temperate peasantry, free, manly, and independent, yet courteous and respectful; let all live with the noble, dignified, high-bred, self-respecting Spaniard; let all share in their easy, courteous society; let all admire their dark-eyed women, so frank and natural, to whom the voice of all ages and nations has conceded the palm of attraction, to whom Venus has bequeathed her magic girdle of grace and fascination; let all - but enough on starting on this expedition, "where," as Don Quixote said, "here are opportunities, brother Sancho, of putting our hands into what are called adventures up to our elbows." 

Nor was the La Manchan hidalgo wrong in assigning a somewhat adventurous character to the searchers in Spain for useful and entertaining knowledge, since the natives are fond, and with much reason, of comparing themselves and their country to tesoros escondidos, to hidden treasures, to talents buried in napkins; but they are equally fond of turning round, and falling foul of any pains-taking foreigner who digs them up, as Le Sage did the soul of Pedro Garcias.

Nothing throughout the length and breadth of the land creates greater suspicion or jealousy than a stranger's making drawings, or writing down notes in a book: whoever is observed sacando planes, "taking plans," mapeando el pais, "mapping the country" - for such are the expressions of the simplest pencil sketch—is thought to be an engineer, a spy, and, at all events, to be about no good. The lower classes, like the Orientals, attach a vague mysterious notion to these, to them unintelligible, proceedings; whoever is seen at work is immediately reported to the civil and military authorities, and, in fact, in out-of-the-way places, whenever an unknown person arrives, from the rarity of the occurrence, he is the observed of all observers. 

Much the same occurs in the East, where Europeans are suspected of being emissaries of their governments, as neither they nor Spaniards can at all understand why any man should incur trouble and expense, which no native ever does, for the mere purpose of acquiring knowledge of foreign countries, or for his own private improvement or amusement. 

Again, whatever particular investigations or questions are made by foreigners, about things that to the native appear unworthy of observation, are magnified and misrepresented by the many, who, in every place, wish to curry favour with whoever is the governor or chief person, whether civil or military. The natives themselves attach little or no importance to views, ruins, geology, inscriptions, and so forth, which they see every day, and which they therefore conclude cannot be of any more, or ought not to be of more, interest to the stranger. They judge of him by themselves; few men ever draw in Spain, and those who do are considered to be professional, and employed by others. One of the many fatal legacies left to Spain by the French, was an increased suspicion of men with the pencil and note-book. Previously to their invasion spies and agents were sent, who, under the guise of travellers, reconnoitred the land; and then, casting off the clothing of sheep, guided in the wolves to plunder and destruction. The aged prior of the Merced, at Seville, observed to us, when pointing out the empty frames and cases from whence the Messrs. Soult and Co. had "removed" the Murillos and sacred plate,—" Lo creira usted  - Will your Grace believe it, I beheld among the ladrones a person who grinned at me when I recognized him, to whom, some time before the invaders' arrival, I had pointed out these very treasures. Tonto de mi!  Oh, simpleton that I was, to take a thief for an honest man!" Yet this worthy individual was decorated with the legion of honour of Buonaparte, whose " first note in his pocket-book"of" agenda, after the conquest of England, was to "carry off the Warwick vase".

We English, whose shops, "bursting with opulence into the streets," have not yet been visited, although the temptation is held out by royal pamphleteers, can scarcely enter into the feelings of those whose homes are still reeking with blood, and blighted by poverty. The Castilian cat, who has been scalded, flies even from cold water. Some excuse, therefore, may be alleged in favour of Spanish authorities, especially in rarely visited districts, when they behold a strange barbarian eye peeping and peering about. Their first impression, as in the East, is that he may be a Frank: hence the shaking, quaking, and ague which comes over them. At Seville, Granada, and places where foreign artists are somewhat more plentiful, the processes of drawing, may be passed over with pity and contempt, but in lonely localities the star-gazing observer is himself the object of argus-eyed, official observation. He is, indeed, as unconscious of the portentous emotions and ill-omened fears which he is exciting, as was the innocent crow of the meanings attached to his movements by the Roman augurs, and few augurs of old ever rivalled the Spanish alcaldes of to-day in quick suspicion and perception of evil, especially where none is intended. 

Witness what actually occurred to 3 excellent friends of ours. The readers of Borrow's inimitable 'Bible in Spain' will remember his hair-breadth escape from being shot for Don Carlos by the miraculous intervention of the alcalde of Corcubión, who, if still alive, must be a phoenix, and clearly worth observation, as he was a reader of the " grand Baintham," or our illustrious Jeremy Bentham, to whom the Spanish reformers sent for a paper constitution, not having a very clear meaning of the word or thing, whether it was made of cotton or parchment. 

Another of the very best investigators and writers on Spain, Lord Carnarvon, was nearly put to death in the same districts for Don Miguel: Captain Widdrington, also one of the kindest and most honourable of men, was once arrested on suspicion of being an agent of Espartero  and we, our humble selves, have had the felicity of being marched to a guard-house for sketching a Roman ruin, and the honour of being taken, either for Curius Dentatus, an alligator, or Julius Caesar, - as there is no absurdity, no inconceivable ignorance, too great for the local Spanish "Dogberries," who rarely deviate into sense  when their fears or suspicions are roused, they are as deaf alike to the dictates of common reason or humanity as adders or Berbers; and here, as in the East, even the best intentioned may be taken up for spies, and have their beards, at least, cut off, as was done to King David's envoys. 

All classes, in regard to strangers, generally get some hostile notions into their heads, and then, instead of fairly and reasonably endeavouring to arrive at the truth, pervert every innocent word, and twist every action, to suit their own preconceived nonsense, until trifles become to their jealous minds proofs as strong as Holy Writ. In justice, however, it must be said, that when these authorities are once satisfied that the stranger is an Englishman, and that no harm is intended, no people can be more civil in offering assistance of every kind, especially the lower classes, who gaze at the magical performance of drawing with wonder; the higher classes seldom take any notice, partly from courtesy, and much from the nil admirari principle of Orientals, which conceals both inferiority and ignorance, and shows good breeding. The drawing any garrison-town or fortified place in Spain is now most strictly forbidden. The prevailing ignorance of everything connected with the arts of design is so great, that no distinction is made between the most regular plan and the merest artistical sketch: a drawing is with them a drawing, and punishable as such. A Spanish barrack, garrison, or citadel is therefore to be observed but little, and still less to be sketched. 

A gentleman, nay, a lady also, is liable, under any circumstances, when drawing to be interrupted, and often is exposed to arrest and incivility. Indeed, whether an artist or not, it is as well not to exhibit any curiosity in regard to matters connected with military buildings; nor will the loss be great, as they are seldom worth looking at. The troops in our time were in a most admired disorder. If they wore shoes they had no stockings; if they had muskets, flints were not plentiful; if powder was supplied, balls were scarce; nothing, in short, was ever according to regulation. Nay, the buttons even on the officers' coats were never dressed in file: some had the numbers up, some down, some awry; but uniformity is a thing of Europe and not of the East. At this moment, when the church is starved, when widows' pensions are unpaid, when governmental bankruptcy walks the land, whose bones, marrow, and all are wasted to support the army, whose swords uphold the hated men in office, the bands of the Royal Guard, the Praetorian bands, do not keep tune, nor do the rank and file march in time. However painful these things to pipe-clay martinets, the artist loses much, by not being able to sketch such tumble-down forts and ragged garrisons, each Bisono of which is more precious to painter eye than the officer in command at Windsor; while his short petticoated querida is more Murillo-like than a score of patronesses of Al-mack's. 

The safest plan for those who want to observe, and to book what they observe, is to obtain a Spanish passport, with the object of their curiosity and inquiries clearly specified in it. There is seldom any difficulty at Madrid, if application be made through the English minister, in obtaining such a document; indeed, when the applicant is well known, it is readily given by any of the provincial Captains-General. As it is couched in the Spanish language, it is understood by all, high and low; an advantage which is denied in Spain to those issued by our ambassadors, and even by the Foreign Office, who, to the credit of themselves and nation, give passes to Englishmen in the French language, whereby among Spaniards a suspicion arises that the bearer may be a Frenchman, which is not always pleasant. 

We preserve among rare Peninsular relics a passport granted by our kind patron the redoubtable Conde de España, and backed by the no less formidable Quesada and Sarsfield, in which it was enjoined, in choice, intelligible Castilian, to all and every minor rulers and governors, whether with the pen or sword, to aid and assist the bearer in his examination of the fine arts and antiquities of the Peninsula. These autocrats were more implicitly obeyed in their respective Lord Lieutenancies than Ferdinand himself; in fact, the pashas of the East are their exact types, each in their district being the heads of both civil and military tribunals; and as they not only administer, but suit the law according to the length of their own feet, they in fact make it and trample upon it, and all in any authority below them imitate their superiors as nearly as they dare. These things of Spain are managed with a gravity truly Oriental, both in the rulers and in the resignation of those ruled by them; these great men's passport and signature were obeyed by all minor authorities as implicitly as an Oriental firman; the very fact of a stranger having a Captain-General's passport, is soon known by everybody, and, to use an Oriental phrase, "makes his face to be whitened"; it acts as a letter of introduction, and is in truth the best one of all, since it is addressed to people in power in each village or town, who, true sheikhs, are looked up to by all below them with the same deference, as they themselves look up to all above them. The worth of a person recommended, is estimated by that of the person who recommends; tal recomendacion tal recomendado. To complete this thing of Oriental Spain, these 3 omnipotent despots, who defied laws human and divine, who made dice of their enemies bones, and goblets of their skulls, have all since been assassinated, and sent to their account with all their sins on their heads. 

In limited monarchies ministers who go too far, lose their places, in Spain and Turkey their heads: the former, doubtless, are the most severely punished. Those who wish to observe Spanish man, which, next to Spanish woman, forms the proper study of mankind, will find that one key to decipher this singular people is scarcely European, for this Berberia Cristiana is a neutral ground placed between the hat and the turban; many indeed of themselves contend that Africa begins at the Pyrenees. Be that as it may, Spain first civilized by the Phoenicians, and long possessed by the Moors, has indelibly retained the original impressions. Test her, therefore, and her males and females, by an Oriental standard, how analogous does much appear that is strange and repugnant, if compared with European usages. Take care, however, not to let either the ladies or gentlemen know the hidden processes of your mind, for nothing gives greater offence. The fair sex is willing, to prevent such a mistake, to lay aside even their becoming mantillas, as their hidalgos doff their stately Roman cloaks. These old clothes they offer up as sacrifices on the altar of civilization, and to the mania of looking exactly like the rest of the world, in Hyde Park and the Elysian Fields.

Another remarkable Oriental trait is the general want of love for the beautiful in art, and the abundance of that Aydoxaha with which the ancients reproached the genuine Iberians; this is exhibited in the general neglect and indifference shown towards Moorish works, which instead of destroying they ought rather to have protected under glasses, since such attractions are peculiar to the Peninsula. The Alhambra, the pearl and magnet of Granada, is in their estimation little better than a casa de ratones, or a rat's hole, which in truth they have endeavoured to make it by centuries of neglect; few natives even go there, or understand the all-absorbing interest, the concentrated devotion, which it excites in the stranger; so the Bedouin regards the ruins of Palmyra, insensible to present beauty, as to past poetry and romance. Sad is this non-appreciation of the Alhambra by the Spaniards, but such are Asiatics, with whom sufficient for the day is their to-day; who care neither for the past nor for the future, who think only for the present and themselves, and like them the masses of Spaniards, although not wearing turbans, lack the organs of veneration and admiration for anything beyond matters connected with the first person and the present tense. 

Again, the leaven of hatred against the Moor and his relics is not extinct; they resent as almost heretical the preference shown by foreigners to the works of infidels rather than to those of good Catholics; such preference again at once implies their inferiority, and convicts them of bad taste in their non-appreciation, and of Vandalism in labouring to mutilate, what the Moor laboured to adorn. The charming writings of Washington Irving, and the admiration of European pilgrims, have latterly shamed the authorities into a somewhat more conservative feeling towards the Alhambra; but even their benefits are questionable; they "repair and beautify" on the churchwarden principle, and there is no less danger in such "restorations" than in those fatal scourings of Murillo and Titian in the Madrid gallery, which are effacing the lines where beauty lingers. Even their tardy appreciation is somewhat interested: thus Mellado, in his late Guide, laments that there should be no account of the Alhambra, of which he speaks coldly, and suggests, as so many " English" visit it, that a descriptive work would be a segura especulación! a safe speculation! Thus the poetry of the Moorish Alharnbra is coined into the Spanish prose of profitable shillings and sixpences. Travellers however should not forget, that much which to them has the ravishing, enticing charms of novelty, is viewed by the dull sated eye of the native, with familiarity which breeds contempt ; they are weary, oh fatal lassitude! even of the beautiful: "Alas!" exclaimed the hermit on Monserrat, to the stranger who was ravished by exquisite views, then and there beheld by him for the first and last time, "All this has no attraction for me; twenty and nine are the years that I have seen this unchanged scene, every sunrise, every noon, every sunset."

But sordent domestica, observes Pliny, nor are all things or persons honoured in their own homes as they ought to be, since the days that Mahomet the true prophet failed to persuade his wife and valet that his powers were supernatural. Can it be wondered that ruins and "old rubbish" should be held cheap among the Moro-Spaniards? Or that their so-called " guides" should mislead and misdirect the stranger? It cannot well be avoided, since few of the writers ever travel in their own country, and fewer travel out of it; thus from their limited means of comparison, they cannot appreciate differences, nor tell what are the wants and wishes of a foreigner: accordingly, scenes, costumes, ruins, usages, ceremonies, etc., which they have known from childhood, are passed over without notice, although, from their passing newness to the stranger, they are exactly what he most desires to have pointed out and explained. Nay, the natives frequently despise or are ashamed of those very things, which most interest and charm the foreigner, for whose observation they select the modern rather than the old, offering especially their poor pale copies of Europe, in preference to their own rich, racy, and natural originals, doing this in nothing more than in the costume and dwellings of the lower classes, who happily are not yet afflicted with the disease of French polish: they indeed, when they dig up ancient coins, will rub off the precious rust of twice ten hundred years, in order to render them, as they imagine, more saleably attractive; but they fortunately spare themselves, insomuch that Charles III, on failing in one of his laudable attempts to improve and modernize them, compared his loving subjects to naughty children, who quarrel with their good nurse when she wants to wash them.

Again, no country in the world can vie with Spain, where the dry climate at least is conservative, with memorials of auld lang syne, with tower and turret, Prout-like houses and toppling balconies, so old that they seem only not to fall into the torrents and ravines over which they hang. Here is every form and colour of picturesque poverty; vines clamber up the irregularities, while below maids dabble, washing their red and yellow garments in the all-gilding glorious sunbeams. What a picture it is to all but the native, who sees none of the wonders of lights and shadows, reflections, colours, and outlines; who, blind to all the beauties, is keenly awake only to the degradation, the rags and decay; he half suspects that your sketch and admiration of a smuggler or a bullfighter is an insult, and that you are taking it, in order to show in England what M. Guizot will never be forgiven for calling the "brutal" things of Spain; accordingly, while you are sincerely and with reason delighted with sashes and Zamarras, he begs you to observe his ridiculous Boulevard-cut coat: or when you sit down opposite to a half-ruined Roman wall, some crumbling Moorish arch, or mediaeval Gothic shrine, he implores you to come away and draw the last spick and span Royal Academical abortion, coldly correct and classically dull, in order to carry home a sample which may do credit to Spain, as approximating to the way things are managed at Charing Cross. 

Without implicitly following the advice of these Spaniards of better intention than taste, no man of research will undervalue any assistance by which his objects are promoted, even should he be armed with a captain-general's passport, and a red Murray guide. Meagre is the oral information which is to be obtained from Spaniards on the spot; these incurious semi-Orientals look with jealousy on the foreigner, and either fence with him in their answers, raise difficulties, or, being highly imaginative, magnify or diminish everything as best suits their own views and suspicions. The national expressions, "Quien sabe? No se sabe." - "Who knows? I do not know"' will often be the prelude to "No se puede." -  "It can't be done." 

These impediments and impossibilities are infinitely increased when the stranger has to do with men in office, be it ever so humble; the first feeling of these Dogberries is to suspect mischief and give refusals. "No" may be assumed to be their natural answer; nor even if you have a special order of permission, is admission by any means certain. The keeper, who here as elsewhere, considers the objects committed to his care as his own private property and source of perquisite, must be conciliated: often when you have toiled through the heat and dust to some distant church, museum, library, or what not, after much ringing and waiting, you will be dryly informed that it is shut, can't be seen, that it is the wrong day, that you must call again to-morrow; and if it be the right day, then you will be told that the hour is wrong, that you are come too early, too late; very likely the keeper's wife will inform you that he is out, gone to mass, or market, or at his dinner, or at his siesta, or if he is at home and awake, he will swear that his wife has mislaid the key, " which she is always doing." If all these and other excuses won't do, and you persevere, you will be assured that there is nothing worth seeing, or you will be asked why you want to see it. 

As a general rule, no one should be deterred from visiting anything, because a Spaniard of the upper classes gives his opinion that the object is be-neath notice; he will try to convince you that Toledo, Cuenca, and other places which cannot be matched in Christendom, are ugly, odious, old cities; he is ashamed of them because the tortuous, narrow lanes do not run in rows as straight as Pall Mall and the Rue de Rivoli. In fact his only notion of a civilised town is a common-place assemblage of rectangular wide streets, all built and coloured uniformly, like a line of foot-soldiers, paved with broad flags, and lighted with gas, on which Spaniards can walk about dressed as Englishmen, and Spanish women like those of France; all of which said wonders a foreigner may behold far better nearer home; nor is it much less a waste of time to go and see what the said Spaniard considers to be  a real lion, since the object generally turns out to be some poor imitation, without form, angle, history, nationality, colour, or expression, beyond that of utilitarian comfort and common-place convenience - great advantages no doubt both to contractors and political economists, but death and destruction to men of the pencil and note-book. 

The sound principles in Spanish sight-seeing are few and simple, but, if observed, they will generally prove successful ; first, persevere; never be put back, never take an answer if it be in the negative; never lose temper or courteous manners; and, lastly, let the tinkle of metal be heard at once; if the chief or great man be inexorable, find out privately who is the wretched sub who keeps the key, or the crone who sweeps the room; and then send a discreet messenger to say that you will pay to be admitted, without mentioning "nothing to nobody." Thus you will always obtain your view, even when an official order fails. 

On our first arrival at Madrid, when but young in these things of Spain, we were desirous of having daily permission to examine a royal gallery, which was only open to the public on certain days in the week. In our grave dilemma we consulted a sage and experienced diplomatist, and this was the oracular reply: "Certainly, if you wish it, I will make a request to Senor Salmon (the then Home Secretary), and beg him to give you the proper order, as a personal favour to myself. By the way, how much longer shall you remain here?" - " From three to four weeks."—" Well, then, after you have been gone a good month, I shall get a courteous and verbose epistle from his Excellency, in which he will deeply regret that, on searching the archives of his office, there was no instance of such a request having ever been granted, and that he is compelled most reluctantly to return a refusal, from the fear of a precedent being created. My advice to you is to give the porter a dollar, to be repeated whenever the door-hinges seem to be getting rusty and require oiling." The hint was taken, as was the bribe, and the prohibited portals expanded so regularly, that at last they knew the sound of our footsteps. Gold is the Spanish sesame. Thus Soult got into Badajoz, thus Louis Philippe put Espartero out, and Montpensier in. Gold, bright red gold, is the sovereign remedy which in Spain smoothes all difficulties, nay some in which even force has failed, as here the obstinate heads may be guided by a straw of bullion, but not driven by a bar of iron. The magic influence of a bribe pervades a land, where everything is venal, even to the scales of justice. Here men who have objects to gain begin to work from the bottom, not from the top, as we do in England. In order to ensure success, no step in the official ladder must be left unanointed. A wise and prudent suitor bribes from the porter to the premier, taking care not to forget the under-secretary, the over-secretary, the private secretary, all in their order, and to regulate the douceur according to each man's rank and influence. If you omit the porter, he will not deliver your card, or will say Señor Mon is out, or will tell you to call again mañana, the eternal tomorrow. If you forget the chief clerk, he will mislay your petition, or poison his master's ear. In matters of great and political importance, the sovereign, him or herself, must have a share; and thus it was that Calomarde continued so long to manage the beloved Ferdinand and his counsels. He was the minister who laid the greatest bribe at the royal feet. "Sire, by strict attention and honesty, I have just been enabled to economize £50,000, on the sums allotted to my department, which I have now the honour and felicity to place at your Majesty's disposal." - " Well done, my faithful and good minister, here is a segar for you." This Calomarde, who began life as a foot-boy, smuggled through the Christinist swindle, by which Isabel now wears the crown of Don Carlos. The rogue was rewarded by being made Conde de Sa. Isabel, a title which since has been conferred on Mons. Bresson's baby - a delicate compliment to his sire's labours in the transfer of the said crown to Louis Philippe - but Spaniards are full of dry humour. In the East, the example and practice of the Sultan and Vizier is followed by every pasha, down to the lowest animal who wields the most petty authority; the disorder of the itching palm is endemic and epidemic, all, whether high and low, want, and must have money; all wish to get it without the disgrace of begging, and without the danger of highway robbery. Public poverty is the curse of the land, and all empleados or persons in office excuse themselves on dire necessity, the old plea of a certain gentleman, which has no law. 

Some allowance, therefore, may be made for the rapacity which, with very few exceptions, prevails; the regular salaries, always inadequate, are generally in arrear, and the public servants, poor devils, swear that they are forced to pay themselves by conniving at defrauding the government; this, few scruple to do, as all know it to be an unjust one, and that it can afford it; indeed, as all are offenders alike, the guilt of the offence is scarcely admitted. Where robbing and jobbing are the universal order of the day, one rascal keeps another in countenance, as one goitre does another in Switzerland. A man who does not feather his nest when in place, is not thought honest, but a fool; es precise, que cada uno coma de su oficio. It is necessary, nay, a duty, as in the East, that all should live by their office; and as office is short and insecure, no time or means is neglected in making up a purse; thus poverty and their will alike and readily consent. 

Take a case in point. We remember calling on a Spaniard who held the highest office in a chief city of Andalucia. As we came into his cabinet a cloaked personage was going out; the great man's table was covered with gold ounces, which he was shovelling complacently into a drawer, gloating on the glorious haul. "Many ounces, Excellency," said we. "Yes, my friend," was his reply - "No quiero comer mas patatas, —I do not intend to dine any more on potatoes." This gentleman, during the Sistema, or Riego constitution, had, with other loyalists, been turned out of office; and, having been put to the greatest hardships, was losing no time in taking prudent and laudable precautions to avert any similar calamity  the future. His practices were perfectly well known in the town, where people simply observed, " Está tesorando, he is laying up treasures," - as every one of them would most certainly have done, had they been in his fortunate position. 

Rich and honest Britons, therefore, should not judge too hardly of the sad shifts, the strange bed-fellows, with which want makes the less provided Spaniards acquainted. Donde no hay abundancia, no hay observancia. The empty sack cannot stand upright, nor was ever a sack made in Spain into which gain and honour could be stowed away together; honra y provecho, no caben en un saco o techo; here virtue itself succumbs to poverty, induced by more than half a century of misgovernment, let alone the ruin caused by Buonaparte's invasion, to which domestic troubles and civil wars have been added. 

To return, however, to sight-seeing in Spain. Lucky was the traveller prepared even to bribe and pay, who ever in our time chanced to fall in with a librarian who knew what books he had, or with a priest who could tell what pictures were in his chapel; ask him for the painting by Murillo - a shoulder-shrug was his reply, or a curt "No hay" "There is none:" had you inquired for the "blessed St. Thomas," then he might have pointed it out; the subject, not the artist, being all that was required for the service of the church. An incurious bliss of ignorance is no less grateful to the Spanish mind, than the dolce far niente or sweet indolent doing nothing is to the body. All that gives trouble, or "fashes[?]," destroys the supreme height of felicity, which consists in avoiding exertion. A chapter might be filled with instances, which, had they not occurred to our humble selves, would seem caricature inventions. The not to be able to answer the commonest question, or to give any information as to matters of the most ordinary daily occurrence, is so prevalent, that we at first thought it must proceed from some fear of committal, some remnant of inquisitorial engendered reserve, rather than from bona fide careless and contented ignorance. The result, however of much intercourse and experience arrived at, was, that few people are more communicative than the lower classes of Spaniards, especially to an Englishman, to whom they reveal private and family secrets: their want of knowledge applies rather to things than to persons. If you called on a Spanish gentleman, and, finding him out, wished afterwards to write him a note, and inquired of his man or maid servant the number of the house; - "I do not know, my lord," was the invariable answer, "I never was asked it before, I have never looked for it: let us go, out and see. Ah! It is number 36." Wishing once to send a parcel by the wagon from Merida to Madrid, "On what day, my lord," said I to the pot-bellied, black-whiskered ventero, "does your galera start for the Court?" "Every Wednesday," answered he; "And let not your grace be anxious" - " Disparate —Nonsense," exclaimed his copper-skinned, bright-eyed wife, " why do you tell the English knight such lies? The wagon, my lord, sets out on Fridays." 

During the logomachy, or the few words which ensued between the well-matched pair, our good luck willed, that the mayoral or driver of the vehicle should come in, who forthwith informed us that the days of departure were Thursdays; and he was right. This occurred in the provinces; take, therefore, a parallel passage in the capital, the heart and brain of the Castiles. "Señor, tenga listed la bondad - My Lord," said I to a portly, pompous bureaucrat, who booked places in the dilly to Toledo, - "have the goodness, your grace, to secure me one for Monday, the 7th." - " I fear," replied he, politely, for the negocio had been prudently opened by my offering him a real Havannah, "that your lordship has made a mistake in the date. Monday is the 8th of the current month" - which it was not. Thinking to settle the matter, we handed to him, with a bow, the almanack of the year, which chanced to be in our pocket-book. "Señor, " said he, gravely, when he had duly examined it, "I knew that I was right; this one was printed at Seville," -which it was - "and we are here at Madrid, which is otra cosa, that is, altogether another affair." In this solar difference and pre-eminence of the Court, it must be remembered, that the sun, at its creation, first shone over the neighbouring city, to which the dilly ran; and that even in the last century, it was held to be heresy at Salamanca, to say that it did not move round Spain. In sad truth, it has there stood still longer than in astronomical lectures or metaphors. Spain is no paradise for calculators; here, what ought to happen, and what would happen elsewhere according to Cocker and the doctrine probabilities, is exactly the event which is the least likely to come to pass. 

One arithmetical fact only can be reckoned upon with tolerable certainty: let given events be represented by numbers; then 2 and 2 may at one time make 3, or possibly 5 at another; but the odds are 4 to 1 against 2 and 2 ever making 4; another safe rule in Spanish official numbers; e. g. " 5 thousand men killed and wounded" - "5 thousand dollars will be given" and so forth, is to deduct 2 noughts, and sometimes even 3, and read 50 or 5 instead. Well might even the keen-sighted, practical Duke say it is difficult to understand the Spaniards exactly; there, neither men nor women, suns nor clocks go together; there, as in a Dutch concert, all choose their own tune and time, each performer in the orchestra endeavouring to play the first fiddle. All this is so much a matter of course, that the natives, like the Irish, make a joke of petty mistakes, blunders, unpunctualities, inconsequences, and procurantisms, at which accurate Germans and British men of business are driven frantic. Made up of contradictions, and dwelling in the pays de imprevu, where exception is the rule, where accident and the impulse of the moment are the moving powers, the happy-go-lucky natives, especially in their collective capacity, act like women and children. A spark, a trifle, sets the impressionable masses in action, and none can foresee the commonest event; nor does any Spaniard ever attempt to guess beyond la situación actual - the actual present, or to foretell what the morrow will bring; that he leaves to the foreigner, who does not understand him. Paciencia y larajar[barajar - shuffling?] is his motto; and he waits patiently to see what next will turn up after another shuffle. 

There is one thing, however, which all know exactly, one question which all can answer; and providentially this refers to the grand object of every foreigner's observation - "When will the bull-fight be and begin?" and this holds good, notwithstanding that there is a proviso inserted in the notices, that it will come off on such a day and hour, "if the weather permits." Thus, although these spectacles take place in summer, when for months and months rain and clouds are matters of history, the cautious authorities doubt the blessed sun himself, and mistrust the certainty of his proceedings, as much as if they were irregulated by a Castilian clockmaker. 

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 Spain/Galicia  

This is an article on a trend which Covid might well be reversing.  

Below is a nice short article on the sherry industry (Jerez) .

I'm now into the 11th month of waiting for my Irish nationality, having expected 9-12 months. I'm guessing this isn't an alternative for me, unless I can fake being a descendant of the Scouse hero of this excellent Ken Loach film.       

María's Falling Back chronicle Day 13. Our winter weather.  

A few more choice quotes and refrains from Richard Ford, based on this travels around Spain in the 1840s:-

Swearing: The Spaniards have also added most of the gloomy northern Gothic oaths, which are imprecatory, to the Oriental, which are grossly sensual.  

Rights: [A jarring sentence right out of the 18th century] Every Spaniard has the right in law and equity to kick and beat his own ass to his own liking, as a philanthropic Yankee has to wallop his own niggar. No one ever thinks of interposing on these occasions, any more than they would in a quarrel between a man and his wife. .

Procrastination: The traveller will blot out from his dictionary the fatal Spanish phrase of procrastination - ‘Por la calle de después, se va a la casa de nunca’: 'By-and-by'- a street which leads to the house of never’.

The weather: Fine weather is the joy of the wayfarer's soul, and nothing can be more different than the aspect of Spanish villages in good or in bad weather; as in the East, during wintry rains they are the acmes of mud and misery, but let the sun shine out, and all is gilded. It is the smile which lights up the habitually sad expression of a Spanish woman's face. The blessed beam cheers poverty itself, and by its stimulating, exhilarating action on the system of man, enables him to buffet against the moral evils to which countries the most favoured by climate seem, as if it were from compensation, to be more exposed than those where the skies are dull, and the winds bleak and cold.

Travelling

Quien al diablo ha de engañar, muy temprano se ha de levantar: All who wish to cheat the devil must get up very early.  

Misa y cebada no estorban la jornada:  No time is ever lost on a journey by feeding horses and men and hearing masses.

Libros y amigos pocos y buenos; The travelling library, like companions, should be select and good.

Bureaucracy: The passport -  that indescribable nuisance and curse of continental travel, to which a free-born Briton never can get reconciled, and is apt to neglect, whereby he puts himself in the  power of the worst and most troublesome people on earth. Passports in Spain now in some degree supply the Inquisition, and have been embittered by vexatious forms borrowed from bureaucratic France.

Spanish/Gallego

Tabardillo:  From the RAE dictionary:- 1. insolación (malestar por exposición excesiva al sol). 2. coloq. Persona alocada, bulliciosa y molesta. 3. Med. p. us. tifus (enfermedad infecciosa).

Insolación: Heatstroke

English 

‘Insolation’: 1. Exposure to the sun's rays. 2. The amount of solar radiation reaching a given area.

Finally . . .  

Portuguese coffee seems to me to be superior to Spain’s. If so, why?

THE ARTICLE  

The Sherry Triangle, a corner of Spain that is for ever England

Five hundred years ago English and Scottish traders settled near Cadiz and created an industry that is still prosperous today.  Isambard Wilkinson, Jerez de la Frontera

In a country-house garden outside Jerez de la Frontera shaded by palm trees and encircled by vineyards, Doña Luisa González-Gordon, head of Spain’s foremost sherry dynasty, recalled her strict Irish nanny. “She was a darling woman,” she said. “She would say things like ‘pull yourself together’ and ‘don’t butter your toast in the air’.” Doña Luisa, 95, speaks immaculate English with an accent as crisp as fino. “I am a Gordon,” she said. “I learnt to speak English before Spanish.” The descendant of Spanish noblemen and Scottish lairds who emigrated in the 18th century, Doña Luisa is among the last of the Anglo-Spanish sherry families keeping alive the trade’s links with Britain, which go back at least 500 years. Most of the British and Irish sherry companies have disappeared since the tipple’s decline from its heyday in the 1970s, and with them their anglicised owners.

English wine merchants were living in the port city of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, which, along with Jerez and El Puerto de Santa María, forms the Sherry Triangle, as early as 1517, when a duke gave them land to build a church. The trade survived the Reformation and Elizabeth I’s reign, when Drake raided nearby Cadiz and left with 2,900 casks of sherry.

The Spanish Inquisition made life difficult for English traders in Sanlúcar, but although exports slowed they did not dry up. Mauricio González-Gordon, Doña Luisa’s nephew and chairman of González Byass, who wears a blazer even in 42C heat, said that the Anglo-Spanish trade took off after 1778 when foreign merchants won a court case allowing them to own their cellars.

By the late Victorian era a plethora of companies run by families with names such as Duff, Terry, Garvey, Harvey, Gordon, Byass and Osborne had set up offices in the sherry region.

“The trade has left a deep legacy on all sides,” said Ignacio Peyró, director of the London branch of the Instituto Cervantes, which promotes Spanish culture. “For example, the fortune Ruskin’s father made as a wine merchant enabled his son to dedicate his life to study.”

The sherry moguls’ love of nature and sport is another inheritance. “Our family brought polo, pigeon shooting and lawn tennis from Britain to Spain,” said Mr González-Gordon.

Englishness was consciously instilled in the sherry dynasties. Santiago de Mora-Figueroa y Williams, Marqués of Tamarón, 79, a former ambassador to Britain and scion of a sherry family, recalled being made to memorise Falstaff’s sherry speech as a child. “A good sherris-sack hath twofold operation in it . . .” he quoted.

His cousin, Beltrán Domecq Williams, 74, schooled at Downside in Somerset, said that he keeps alive the old spirit through his love of gardening and drinking sherry. “I think we are commemorating the links all the time, with tasting and communicating how sherry is done,” he added. He pointed to curious hybrids that the ties have produced, ranging from an Anglo-Spanish terrier bred to kill rats in cellars, to candié, a drink given to children that is made of sherry wine, egg yolk and sugar.

Much of the legacy is based on past glory, as the trade is in decline, but the old families are fighting to revive its fortunes.

In the countryside, Doña Luisa proposed a toast: “Viva España y Inglaterra!”

* 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 Spain/Galicia  

In convents around Spain one can still see - low down in an external wall - what looks like a large letter-box. Which it sort of is, in fact. For it's where unwanted babies were deposited for the nuns to take care of, often with a personal item such as a brooch, with which - in theory - the child could be identified at some time in the future. But very rarely was. As I've said, Richard Ford gives a harrowing description of one such 'nursery' in Madrid, were few children survived their care. In customary style, Ford adds that: The number [of inmates] was very great, and increased with increasing poverty, while the funds destined to support the charges decreased from the same cause. There is a certain and great influx 9 months after the Holy week and Christmas, when the whole city, male and female, pass the night in kneeling to relics and images, etc.. Accordingly 9 months afterwards, in January and November, the daily numbers often exceed the usual average by fifteen to twenty.

As I'm travelling with friends - currently in Braga - I'm short of time for blog writing, so am resorting to the expedient of offering you some more gems(?) from Richard Ford:-

The general comprehensive term ‘Spain’, which is convenient for geographers and politicians, is calculated to mislead the traveller, for it would be far from easy to predicate any single thing of Spain or Spaniards which will be equally applicable to all its heterogeneous component parts.

It has been found advisable to adopt such an arrangement from feeling the utter impossibility of treating Spain (where union is not unity) as a whole. There is no king of Spain, among the infinity of kingdoms.

Nature, by thus dislocating the country, seems to have suggested, nay almost to have forced, localism and isolation to the inhabitants, who each in their valleys and districts are shut off from their neighbours, whom to love, they are enjoined in vain.

In the divisions of the Peninsula which are effected by mountains, rivers, and climate, a leading principle is to be traced, throughout, for it is laid down by the unerring hand of nature. The artificial, political, and conventional arrangement into kingdoms and provinces is entirely the work of accident and absence of design.

The habitual suspicion against prying foreigners, which is an Oriental and Iberian instinct, converts a curious traveller into a spy or partisan. Spanish authorities, who seldom do these things except on compulsion, cannot understand the gratuitous braving of hardship and danger for its own sake—the botanising and geologising, etc., of the nature and adventure-loving English.  

In this land of miracles, anomalies, and contradictions, the roads to and from Compostela are now detestable. In other provinces of Spain, the star-paved milky way in heaven is called El Camino de Santiago, The Road of St. James. But the Galicians, who know that their roads really are the worst on earth, call the milky-way El Camino de Jerusalem, The Road to Jerusalem',  which it assuredly is not.  

The whole of this garrisoned Noah's ark [ a carriage] is placed under the command of the Mayoral or conductor, who like all Spanish men in authority is a despot, and yet, like them, is open to the conciliatory influences of a bribe. He regulates the hours of toil and sleep. [Here Ford quotes Sancho Panza's description of sleep as 'a blessing'. By coincidence, the first words in Spanish that I learned - aged 17 - were from a book of quotations, which included this one from 'Don Quijote': Bien haya el que inventó el sueño, capa que cubre todos los humanos pensamientos. Not knowing that this was, in part, 16th century Spanish, I regularly caused consternation when citing this to Spanish friends, who said it made no sense to them. Though it might have been my accent . . .] 

His costume is peculiar, and is based on that of Andalucia, which sets the fashion all over the Peninsula, in all matters regarding bull-fighting, horse-dealing, robbing, smuggling, and so forth. 

Among the many commandments that are always broken in Spain, that of "Swear not at all" is not the least. Few nations can surpass the Spaniards in the language of vituperation. It is limited only by the extent of their anatomical, geographical, astronomical, and religious knowledge

Plus this ‘Way of the World’ article:-

People are losing patience with radical theory's takeover of public discourse: Juliet Samuel 

“We are living in anti-intellectual times,” writes the American feminist thinker Judith Butler in an email interview with the New Statesman magazine published this week. That is certainly one perspective on the Trump phenomenon.

Another, from outside the Ivory Tower, is that we are actually trapped in a culture war spawned on university campuses, where words like “decolonise” have long been applied to hearts and minds, rather than territories, and where the issue of gendered lavatory signage is of paramount importance. In that sense, we are living in profoundly “intellectual” times – and my God it’s toxic. Is it any wonder so many of us can’t bear it?

If people are losing patience with all this radical theory taking over public discourse, the intellectual response would be to ask why. One reason may be that so many segments of the intelligentsia insist upon discussing ideas in language that deliberately excludes normal people. Then they try to police everyone else’s language using moral outrage.

This is the sort of thing I mean. It’s an extract from an essay by Dr Butler and it won first prize in the journal Philosophy and Literature’s 1998 “bad writing” contest: “The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory…” It goes on.

It is obviously hard to engage with someone who has chosen to be so utterly incomprehensible, but I’ll try. From what I can make out, Dr Butler tends to make two claims about sex and gender. She argues, firstly, that sex is an entirely made-up category imposed upon people by society rather than by biology. She argues, secondly, that a person can make a legitimate claim, based purely on their own feeling about “who” they are, to be of one gender or another, rather than having to “perform” a gender according to their sex. But these two propositions contradict one another.

If a human’s sex is not an authentic category and gender is simply a “performance”, why lay claim to be of one gender or another and demand that everyone recognise this claim? Why affirm these supposedly oppressive categories by demanding such a label?

Her answer, I think, might be that society’s emphasis on gender forces people to value these bogus categories and so we must respect people’s choices about belonging to one or another. But you can’t have it both ways. If our notions of sex and gender are really social constructs, there is no existential need for physical gender reassignment.

Dr Butler is of course welcome to clear up this inconsistency, but she may want to hire a translator to do so on her behalf.

* 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 Spain/Galicia  

HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for this El Huff Post article on the 23 things that young people don’t know about Franco. In Spanish. 

And also for this fascinating article - in English - on Lisbon's dreadful earthquake of 1755.

Back in 2000, Tom Burns Marañon - the half-British journalist son of an illustrious Spanish father - published a book entitled Hispanomania - about famous Anglos who've professed a deep love for Spain. In any future edition, he'll surely have to include the chap I mentioned yesterday - British concert pianist James Rhodes. Because of articles like this one - in English - in El País. I have absolutely no problem with people being very positive about Spain. After all, I chose to come here to live 19 years ago and regularly  assert it's the best of the 6 cultures I've lived in. But an assessment of a country needs to be net one - weighing positives against negatives - and it certainly isn't true to say, as Rhodes does, that everything here is better than in the UK. He does admit there are a few (macro) problems  here - poor sexual harassment laws, widespread corruption, drug and people trafficking, and homelessness - but essentially Rhodes pictures life here as Nirvana. Which it ain't for an awful lot of people. And there's no hint of why, for example, Spain's trains - and roads - are better than Britain's - an awful lot of OPM. Other peoples' money. After it became an EU member in 1985, Spain - for more than 25 years - was the biggest beneficiary of Northern European taxpayers' largesse; and it's legitimate to ask where Spain would be without that. And without the huge tourism industry stemming from Nature's bounty of a great deal of sun and a long coastline. As Vincent Werner does here, reaching very different conclusions. Incidentally, I wonder how the 2 of them would get on over a delicious tapas meal in Madrid . . .    

Richard Ford, of course, did have a more balanced approach to assessing Spain's positives and negatives, even though many of his criticisms no longer apply. And maybe Rhodes would do so, if he wrote a long book, as opposed to giving unctuous interviews which give the - almost certainly incorrect - impression of him wanting to ingratiate himself with the Spanish public. His future audiences.

Anyway, here's the Guardian on one of the seamier sides of Spanish life.  spains-plastic-sea

And here's María's Fallback Diary: Day 12  

The UK 

Thanks to Covid, British bars must now close at 10pm. This is how the brilliant Caitlin Moran reacted to this news: Presumably the reasoning behind the curfew is that the later it gets, the more pissed people are, and therefore more likely to forget distancing rules or hand-washing. But, knowing the British public as I do, if they are told to stop drinking and go home at 10pm, they will simply meet an hour earlier, and be 11pm drunk by 10pm. We’re an efficient people. We can do simple booze-maths. We’re the nation that invented the sherry trifle so that grandmas could get pissed on food. Do you remember gripe water? That was baby booze. Telling us all to go home at 10pm isn’t going to stop shit.

English/Spanish

There more less-common refranes:-

- He that chastens one chastens twenty: De un castigo, cien escarmentados/Quien a uno castiga a ciento hostiga.

- He that eats until he is sick must fast until he is well: Comer hasta enfermar y ayunar hasta sanar.

- He that is born to he hanged shall never be drowned: El que nace para mulo del cielo le cae el harnés.

Finally . . . 

As you might have noticed, Richard Ford was fond of bald assertions about the Spain of the 1840s. Here's a couple which aren't true these days. Well, not totally:-

- Spaniards seldom trust each other.

- Spanish justice, if once it gets a man into its fangs, never lets him go until drained of his last farthing.

But one appalling feature of that era - the foundling 'hospitals' - certainly no longer exists. More on these tomorrow. Though I’ll spare you the grisly details so amply supplied by Ford . . .

* 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 19    

An extract from this UK article: Covid-19 can cast a “long shadow”.  Its aftermath effects include “fatigue, a racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, achy joints, foggy thinking, a persistent loss of sense of smell, and damage to the heart, lungs, kidneys, and brain”. One study suggests that the proportion of those who first catch the virus and then develop such persistent symptoms is about 15 per cent.  But there’s still much we don’t know about it and evidence is hard to come by.  Nonetheless, it is clearly wrong to claim that the Coronavirus is no worse than flu. The long shadow effect is also a reminder that one doesn’t either get Covid-19 and end up in hospital, or else not get it at all.  However, the UK, like other countries, would not be responding to the virus with a mix of shutdowns, new laws, voluntary action and testing were the Coronavirus not a killer. We believe that a choice between more mass lockdowns and a Swedish option would be the wrong one: the best policy to counter Covid-19 is mass testing.  But successful testing will inevitably go hand in hand with social distancing and other preventative action.  . . The scale, duration and sweep of anti-virus measures will ultimately be shaped not by the long shadow, but by death numbers. Mass lockdowns v a Swedish option is a flawed choice. But if Ministers can’t make mass testing work, it’s the one we’ll have.    

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia  

Well, the visit to the Tráfico yesterday went smoothly. But I didn't get a new sticker on my car registration document; instead I got a typed number. Which I rather felt I could have written in myself. But it would've been less 'official', of course, and so open to a fine. One of many things one can do in and around your car here which bring this risk.

As I expected, María came through on the word puella/poella for light rain. Here's the article she supplied on more than 70 words for 'rain' in Galician . . . P. S. I don't know what to make of James Rhodes, who seems to be even more enamoured of Spain (and Galicia) than any Hispanophile I'm aware of.             

Who'd be a weather forecaster on the eastern Atlantic coast? Last week, I had to cancel hotel bookings of a weekend Camino along our coast, because storms were forecast and no one wanted to risk lightening. In the event, the storms arrived 2 days early and the weekend was totally dry. As for this week, rain was forecast for every day but only arrived on Thursday. And, as I write, sun is pouring through my salón window.

Which reminds me . . . Yesterday lunchtime was the first time for months I had to go indoors to avoid the cold wind gusting down the narrow street I was sitting in. And a jacket was necessary in the evening, leaving me a tad despondent about the several winter months ahead.

Having been swerved past by someone on an e-scooter doing at least 20kph yesterday, I found this article of great interest. Both Santiago de Compostela and Pontevedra feature in it. 

Richard Ford had little time for 2 classes of people: 1. Brits who'd travelled through Spain and who - to sell their books - had created the myth of murderous robbers behind every tree or bush; and 2. Spanish doctors. As regards the latter, he naturally had an appropriate refrain or two: El médico llleva la plata pero el Dios es que sana. 'God cures but the doctor bags the money'. And: While thieves demand "Your money or your life," in most cases the doctor takes both. But he does show some sympathy for the medics as they have low status in Spain, and because: The Spanish medical man is shunned, not only from ancient prejudices and because he is dangerous like a rattlesnake, but from jealousies that churchmen entertain against a rival profession, which, if well-received, might come in for some share of the legacies and power-conferring secrets, which are easily obtained at deathbeds, when mind and body are deprived of strength. I guess things have changed.

María's Fallback Diary: Day 11  

English/Spanish

On Santa Rita, Rita, Rita, o que se da non se quita, María has suggested: ‘What you give, you can't take back’. My own thought had been: ‘Don't be an Indian-giver’ - A person who gives something and then demands it back.  

English 

A kermit: A permit allowing a truck driver to enter Kent, en route to France. A consequence of Brexit.

Finally . . . 

HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for the news that there are 2,000 doctors and 3,000 nurses unemployed here in Spain. In total contrast with the UK.  

* 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 Spain and Galicia  

Researching something else, I came up with this comment in a blog post of 2008, which amused me at least: Well, a local friend last weekend braved the scorn of her colleagues by taking a trip on Pontevedra's tourist train. Possibly she was the only passenger to know the recorded commentary was describing the Plaza de la Leña when, in fact, they'd stopped in Plaza de la Verdura. And so on throughout the trip.

Richard Ford was undoubtedly a brilliant travel writer of  his day. With a lot of money at his disposal and a classical 19th century education behind him - and with the British empire in its heyday - it's inevitable that, like George Borrow, he could display a level of arrogance that's insufferable these days. Even for fellow Brits. And possibly wasn't all that sufferable back in 1845. This has probably come through from the bits I've already cited. Though this one is perhaps more insulting than merely arrogant. That said, it's possibly what the 'hardworking' Catalans and Basques still think of the Andalucians . . . The Spanish postilions generally, and especially if well paid, drive at a tremendous pace, often amounting to a gallop. Nor are they easily stopped, even if the traveller desires it—they seem only to be intent on arriving at their stages' end, in order to indulge in the great national joy of then doing nothing.

María's Fallback Diary: Day 10 

Spanish

Pualla: My neighbour, Amparo, came up with this word last night, for rain which is even thinner than drizzle (llovizna). However, we could trace no evidence of this word in either Spanish or Galician dictionaries and she admitted it could well be a word invented by her family. Anyway, we saw evidence of it later in the evening, when the pavements became wet, even though there was no sign of rain. 

English/Spanish

Three more less-common refranes:-

- Friendless in life, friendless in death: Vida sin amigos, muerte sin testigos.

- Give a thing, take a thing, to wear the Devil's gold ring: Santa Rita, Santa Rita, lo que se da ya no se quita. [??]

- He that blames would buy: Lo que pienses en comprar, no lo has de alabar.

Finally . . . 

I was thinking of producing a schedule over 7 days of all the wrong signalling I see as I drive to the river and back twice a day, before walking or biking into town. Split into categories. But on day 2, you'll be relieved to hear, I abandoned this notion, in favour of a bald statement that I see 5-10 examples a day. Which would be more if I actually drove into and around town. But I will add that virtually everybody does, at least, signal that they're turning left, across the oncoming traffic. Which is a relief.

* 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 19    

Evidence is mounting that Sweden has beaten the coronavirus epidemic with herd immunity rather than lockdowns. Its infection rate has remained low and stable at a time when other European countries are facing a strong resurgence.  

Sweden, which didn't implement stringent lockdown measures this spring, has a rate of just 28 for every 100,000. In Britain there are 69 cases(x 2.5) per 100,000. In France, the rate is almost 7 times higher than Sweden's. In Spain, it's 10 times. Both of these countries implemented strict lockdowns. 

A Swedish expert in the spread of the virus, has concluded that Sweden might be beating the pandemic. Note the 'might': No one wants to be definitive just yet . . .  Others warn that it is too early to declare a Swedish victory over the virus. I don’t think it can already be ruled out that Sweden will also have a flare-up, said a professor of virology at Aarhus University.

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia  

Here's Richard Ford on something I've cited several times over the years - Localism: From the earliest period down to the present all observers have been struck with this as a salient feature in the character of the Iberians, who never would amalgamate; never would, as Strabo said, put their shields together; never would sacrifice their own local private interest for the general good.

Right on cue . . . After months of mutual recriminations between the left.of-centre central government and the right-of-centre PP regional government, the prime minister and Madrid’s leader have agreed to co-operate over the capital’s spiralling crisis. Better late than never? It reminds me of this damning comment on 19th century Spain from Ford: It has required the utmost ingenuity and bad government of man to neutralise the prodigality of advantages which Providence has lavished on this highly-favoured land, and which, while under the dominion of the Romans and Moors, resembled an Eden.

BTW . . . After more reading, I have to revise yesterday's comment. It's at least 2 refrains a page from Ford. Here’s just one from last night, which I think - unlike most of them - is still in use: Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda. A monkey dressed in silk is still a monkey.

As Spain faces a very uncertain future, here's a problem which might be considered nice to have.    

Pontevedra has a new-ish food hall above the wonderful fish and seafood stalls of our market. I get the impression it's not yet terribly successful. So I wasn't surprised to read that its now does deliveries and that you can order on the net. Of course, Covid has been - and remains - a factor.

María's Fallback Diary: Day 9   

The UK

At the height of the pandemic, fear-mongering ruled the waves. Now it’s bewilderment [at government inconsistency, illogicality and rampant incompetence], which unfortunately is only leading to dwindling trust in the rules. This will inevitably be followed by flouting, whether intentional or not, and then nobody is a winner. Hence the new fines of €11,000 for those infected who don't isolate themselves.

The USA

Dear God. . . The NFAC (Not Fucking Around Coalition) is a (legal) armed black militia group. Is it any wonder some pessimists are predicting a second US Civil War, however preposterous this seems right now? 

Meanwhile . . . How twisted can theists get? . .  Pastor Robert Henderson, who said in 2019 that Donald Trump‘s re-election was already secured in “the courts of heaven” says his prayers were responsible for killing Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Cue the perspicacious Jonathan Swift. 

Social Media  

This is almost incredible. Almost.  

English/Spanish 

Three more less-common refranes:-

- Each of us must face our own responsibilities: Que cada palo aguante su vela.

- Each person knows where problems lie: Cada uno sabe donde le aprieta el zapato.

- Each to his own and God watching over everyone: Cada uno en su casa, y Dios en las de todos.

Finally . . . 

I hope early-ish readers realised that yesterday it should have been my trousers tucked into my socks not trousers tucked into my trousers.

* 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 19    

Was lockdown needed? Effie Deans here calls for a sense of proportion and more common sense. 

Some British 'experts' agree with her (and, I guess with the Swedish approach) and some don't . . .

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia  

Corruption. HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for the (Google translated) article below from El Huff Post: Why is ‘Operacíon Kitchen’ so serious for democracy? 

To move to trivia . .  My bike - a 1984 Raleigh Medale - seems to attract quite a lot of attention. Maybe it’s the 'Sparkling Champagne with brown highlights' trim:-

Or maybe it's me because I'm one of the very few folk on a bike who isn’t garbed as if I'm taking part in the Tour de France. Like these 2 yesterday:-

Or maybe because, having mislaid my clips, I've got my trousers tucked into my socks . . .

Hmm. The plumber who installed my new shower and insisted the subsequent boiler problem hadn’t been caused by him, changed his mind, after I’d sent him the article I found on the net, and is coming today to bleed the water system.

The web page of the Tráfico Department seems to  have been designed by the company responsible for the Renfe page . . .  Error de la aplicación; la operación solicitada no está disponible en estos momentos. Vuelva a intentarlo y si persiste el error póngase en contacto con el Centro de atención de usuarios de DGT, teléfono: 060. Disculpe las molestias.

While Richard Ford might have complained about a great deal in the Spain of 1845, he much regretted its modernisation, seeing it perhaps as the loss of the ‘Old Spain’s soul. Here he is on the essence of Spain: Spain is not to be enjoyed by the over-fastidious in the fleshly comforts; those who over-analyse, who peep too much behind the culinary or domestic curtains, must not expect to pass a tranquil existence.  . . . The traveller in his comparisons must never forget that Spain is not England, which too few ever can get out of their heads. Spain is Spain, a truism which cannot be too often repeated; and in its being Spain consists its originality, its raciness, its novelty, its idiosyncrasy, its best charm and interest, although the natives do not know it, and are every day, by a foolish aping of European civilisation, paring away attractions, and getting commonplace, unlike themselves, and still more unlike their Gotho-Moro and most picturesque fathers and mothers. Monks, are gone, mantillas are going, the shadow of cotton versus corn has already darkened the sunny city of Figaro, and the end of all Spanish things is coming.   

And here he is on just one aspect of the change he abhorred.  . . . After a long dissertation on the many (dis)comforts of the various types of accommodation available in Spain, Ford goes so far - with a degree of humour and British irony - to bemoan the coming of decent hotels:- In the seaports and large towns on the Madrid roads, the twilight of cafe and cuisine civilisation is breaking from La belle France. Monastic darkness is dispelled, and the age of convents is giving way to that of kitchens, while the large spaces and ample accommodations of the suppressed monasteries suggest an easy transition into "first-rate establishments," in which the occupants will probably pay more and pray less. News, indeed, has just arrived from Malaga, that certain ultra-civilised hotels are actually rising, to be defrayed by companies and engineered by English, who seem to be as essential in regulating these novelties on the Continent as in the matters of railroads and steamboats. Rooms are to be papered, brick floors to be exchanged for boards, carpets to be laid down, fireplaces to be made, and bells are to be hung, incredible as it may appear to all who remember Spain as it was. They will ring the knell of nationality; and we shall be much mistaken if the grim old Cid, when the first bell is pulled at Burgos, does not answer it himself by knocking the innovator down. Nay, more, for wonders never cease; vague rumours are abroad that secret and solitary closets [presumably toilets] are contemplated, in which, by some magical mechanism, sudden waters are to gush forth; but this report requires confirmation. Assuredly, the spirit of the Holy Inquisition, which still hovers over orthodox Spain, will long ward off these English heresies, which are rejected as too bad even by free-thinking France.

As for today’s living in Spain, here’s María's Fallback Diary: Day 8.   

Spanish

Ford was very fond of quoting refrains, both in English and Spanish. At least one a page. This is one which might well still be in use today: Venderlo a uno gato por liebre: Literally, 'To sell someone a cat for a hare.' Or, as Ford puts it:  ‘To do take someone in’.

English 

You’ve all been wanting to know that Gyoza (plural Gyozas or Gyoza) is A Japanese crescent-shaped dumpling filled with a minced stuffing and steamed, boiled or fried rice.

Finally . . . 

Having mentioned my bike, this is an obvious inclusion in this post:- Hope and the humble bicycle: The bicycle has long been linked to historical moments of social change. Will the pandemic boom in cycling prove revolutionary? 

THE ARTICLE

Why is Operation Kitchen so serious for democracy’

The jurists analyze the creation of this parapolice network orchestrated by the PP to obstruct judicial investigations: "This is a directly criminal action in the heart of the State."

Can you imagine a country in which the Government allegedly orchestrated an operation for the Police to use reserved public funds and spy on the key piece of a corrupt network to steal documents and torpedo a judicial investigation in which senior leaders of the ruling party would be implicated ?

No, it is not a dystopia or a story of banana latitudes. That is now being investigated in Spain. The so-called Kitchen operation launched a para-police network, which received orders from the Interior leadership during the Mariano Rajoy administration, to spy on the Bárcenas family and steal documents that splashed PP leaders for receiving and laundering money from the Gürtel case.

Now the judge of the National Court Manuel García Castellón instructs this case, in which the former Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martínez is already implicated, who threatens to pull the blanket and tell everything. They are surrounded by María Dolores de Cospedal and Jorge Fernández Díaz, for whom Anti-Corruption asks for accusations. And in the eye of the hurricane is also Mariano Rajoy, who could have been aware of everything and be called in the future by Justice.

An operation that exceeds all the limits of the law, according to jurists consulted by HuffPost, and that represents a severe blow to the democratic system itself in the eyes of the citizens. Without any respect for the separation of powers and using the Police, which is for the safety of citizens, not to commit crimes.

"Of extraordinary gravity"

“It is extremely serious. It is a clear and paradigmatic case of confusion between the party and the State. The party considers that the State is its own and that it has to act to protect it and to prevent the Judiciary from intervening in a matter as Gürtel supposed ”, reflects Javier Pérez Royo, professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Seville. And he adds: “Until now it had never happened. Things had been done, but a global operation through the Interior Ministry using the Police had never been seen. The State had to do whatever it took so that the party would not end up being declared responsible ”.

For Pérez Royo, it would be a clear case of application of article 22 of the Constitution, which in its second section says: "Associations that pursue ends or use means classified as crimes are illegal." He goes on: "It is a very clear case, the media are being used criminally and are pursuing a criminal purpose." It is a "case of perversion," he continues, as the police are also used. Rivet: “This is more corruption than Gürtel. The other was Bárcenas with a few businessmen, but it is already using the State apparatus at its highest level to cover up that operation.

This is more corruption than Gürtel: Javier Pérez Royo

“Also, spending public funds. Taking the chauffeur and turning him into a policeman ... It is an eyesore of such magnitude that you don't have to be a jurist to see it ", declares Pérez Royo,  adding: "That the Minister of the Interior order the Secretary of State for Security to start a operation to recover compromising information for the party and that the Police are used and the Judiciary is not informed, which is already investigating the matter ... This is the denial of the constitutional state, the transformation of the constitutional state into an instrument of a criminal gang".

Pérez Royo concludes: "This is a directly criminal act in the heart of the State."

“It is extremely serious”, summarizes Javier Tajadura, professor of Constitutional Law at the University of the Basque Country, who reflects: “For a constitutional democracy to work there must be a series of neutral and independent powers. If there is no judicial independence, there is no rule of law. But the officials also have to be neutral and, specifically, the Police. It is essential that it does not have political colour ”. That the leadership of the Police is appointed by the Government, indicates Tajadura, does not mean "that it has to do anything and obey illegal orders." "Here a greater thing has been revealed, not only that the governments appoint the leaders, but that supposedly the Interior gave illegal orders to act not respecting the fundamental rights of people, even if it was Bárcenas," he adds. “They cannot be investigated in parallel outside the established procedures, and even more so if the ultimate objective is to hinder judicial investigations. Things are getting worse, ” says this teacher. "All this paid for with reserved funds, whose purpose is not, remember, to protect a party."

Justice is slow, but sure: Javier Tajadura

Does it erode the citizens' perception of democracy? "Sure," responds Tajadura, who believes that this lowers people's trust in institutions. But he makes another reading: “Fortunately this kind of thing ends up being known. You can keep the secret between three, four or five, but in this operation there are many names ”. "Justice is slow, but sure," he says.

Ignacio González Vega, magistrate and expert in international judicial cooperation, thinks: “Obviously he not only attacks the democratic system, but also the functioning of the Judicial Power. In other words, it is to put obstacles to avoid reaching the end of the judicial investigations.

"This may constitute a crime: obstruction of Justice", warns González de Vega, who emphasizes that the information that is coming out due to the use of the State apparatus is "very serious and worrying." "It is very serious - he reiterates - to use the police services to stop the investigations of the judges to see whether or not there was illegal financing by a political party and the Government."

It is very serious to use the police services to stop the investigations of the judges: Ignacio González Vega

The also magistrate Joaquim Bosch affirms, regarding this alleged plot, that the “investigating judge considers that there are indications that a para-police operation was created from the main positions of the Ministry of the Interior in order to obtain data on Bárcenas and prevent these documents from arriving to the ongoing judicial investigation. Therefore, if it is confirmed, it is tremendously worrying because we would find that from the State organ that is mainly empowered to protect society and prevent crimes from occurring, all its machinery is used from the highest point to torpedo the actions of Justice and prevent the approval of relevant evidence for the investigation of one of the main corruption issues that have affected our democracy, ”Bosch dissects.

It would be serious if it was confirmed that with the money from all the taxes of the society the Police are used to cover crimes: Joaquim Bosch

“It would be serious if it were confirmed that with the money from all the taxes of the society the Police are used to cover up crimes and prevent the Judicial Power from carrying out its functions. It is a contradiction in the most extreme sense of how a rule of law should work ”, adds the magistrate.

In the order, the judge said that supposedly this operation was directed by "superior organs of the State." Maria Eugènia Gay, dean of the Barcelona Bar Association, comments: “It is one more example of how political corruption seriously detracts from the activity of the public administrations of our country and of which the public, as a mere spectator, turns out to be the first injured. “For this reason, civil society as a whole must demand from the political formations with parliamentary representation that they act with rigour, transparency and seriousness and dedicate whatever efforts are necessary to redirect this intolerable deviation of power with the urgent purpose of recovering meaning and prestige of the Institutions ”, he maintains.

It's inadmissible: Maria Eugènia Gay

This alleged use of the Interior for the Police to obstruct judicial work "is inadmissible," she explains, since "it reflects the extent to which corruption - through the execrable and illicit actions of certain people - has the ability to penetrate the institutions of a Rule of Law, separating them from the legitimate purposes for which they were established. For this reason, when we speak of providing Justice with sufficient means, we are referring to its most strategic sense for the good governance of the country, since it is the best way to reinforce the mechanisms and guarantees that in a democracy must be established to combat events like this one and prevent them from being reproduced in the future ”, he argues.

"Without a doubt" this affects democracy, says Gay, who states: "As Montesquieu said with great success 'So that power cannot be abused, power must stop power', being the separation of powers -and the guarantees that are established for its effectiveness - an inseparable element of democracy ”. In this sense, he adds: “For this reason, the control of the actions of the administrations for their strict purposes is fundamental, being essential a Judicial Power endowed with adequate means to reinforce the sovereignty of the States to ensure that the Executive Power complies with the current legality ”. And she adds: “In that sense, judicial independence becomes crucial as an inseparable element of an authentic Rule of Law; the judges having the exclusive constitutional function of the jurisdictional power, under strict submission to the rule of law and guaranteeing the separation of powers ”.

* 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 19    

Just as the UK and Spain - and maybe other states - gear  up for another total lockdown, the author of the first article below questions their efficacy and says we must learn to live with the virus.

But . . . A question occurred to me yesterday: What measures would we take if the next revelation is that kids might well be asymptomatic now - so no cough or fever - but the virus damages one or more organs for a lifetime? 

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia  

Spain’s far-left deputy prime minister said on Saturday that the financial scandal which has rocked the royal family had presented an “historic moment” to push for a republic. Maybe in 20 years. Or, more likely, 50. Depending on future scandals, I guess. And the performance of the princesses in due course. They’re said to doing a grand job at the moment. Possibly by those biased in favour of the monarchy.

More here on the Vaqueiros de Alzada. Some folk - click here - see them as descendants of Vikings. Where it’s pointed out that they extend as far westwards as Galicia. And where there’s this interesting statement: España está llena de etnias malditas, pueblos residuales que siempre fueron mal aceptados y han logrado sobrevivir endogámicamente al secular aislamiento social. Including the gypsies and the Maragotos, of course.         

I cited Richard North’s comment along the lines that a smile and a ‘bribe’ always go down well in Spain. In one of my regular coffee-cafés, the bribe is, I guess, my 10% tip. And I always smile and chat. The end result is that what they give me by way of accompanying cakes and churros has steadily risen. And yesterday I was also offered some tortilla on top of these. From a weight point of view, I’m not convinced this is a good thing. But it’s nice and, I think, typically Spanish. Shame it doesn’t happen so often as regards wine poured into my copa.

In this sub-tropical climate, it’s both a joy and a curse to  have a garden. At least it ensures you’re never short of something to do. This year seems to have seen growth at an even greater pace than ever. Especially as regards the suckers in my large bougainvillea and in the foliage of my (as yet) bloom-less wisteria. As regards the latter, I  had to laugh at the comment that, while the lack of flowers might be due to over-pruning, it’s very difficult to over-prune a wisteria. As for the bougainvillea, it seems confused by the weather, as it’s both shedding dead leaves and flowers and growing new ones. The sucker problem is as bad as ever and yesterday I had to prune at least 30 of the bastards, including one of exactly 183cm(6 feet), plus 5 almost as long.

María's Fallback Diary: Days 6&7 omnibus on our Coast of Death.    

The USA

Below as the 2nd article is a fascinating - albeit long - piece by the admirable P J O'Rourke. It would justify anyone giving up on understanding the country and it egregious politics. 

Social Media

One shouldn't laugh but . . . A Woman fell out the car window while filming a Snapchat video on the M25.  Fortunately, it was in the early hours and no one was seriously injured or killed. And no driver was left traumatised by hitting and killing her.

English/Spanish 

Three more less well-known refranes:-

- Better to ask the way than go astray: Quien tenga lengua llega a Roma.

- Birth is much but breeding is better: Díme no con quien naces, sino con quien paces.

- Cowards die many times: Quien teme la muerte no goza de la vida. [??] [BTW, my spellcheck changed goza into gyoza, whatever that is.]

Finally . . . 

Another couple of 1840s gems from Richard Ford, on still-topical themes:-

- The usual foreign drags also exist, which render their bureaucratic absurdities so hateful to free Britons.

- Localism:  From the earliest period down to the present, all observers have been struck with this as a salient feature in the character of the Iberians, who never would amalgamate.  Never would, as Strabo said, put their shields together. Never would sacrifice their own local private interest for the general good.

I can visualise Vincent Werner nodding at these sentiments . . . Among others.

THE ARTICLE

Trump v Biden: PJ O’Rourke on why this US election is the craziest yet 

Americans have had their fun electing a clown flapping around in huge shoes he can’t fill, honking incessantly on his Twitter horn, the little car of his administration spilling forth far too many buffoons, zanies and felony indictments. His greasepaint now looks nothing but greasy, his fright wig is too frightful. His antics cause the tightrope walkers of foreign policy to totter, the trapeze artists of domestic policy to lose their grip, and he’s scaring the children in the ringside seats, particularly the millennial voters. (Alarming their suburban moms as well.) He’s chasing the elephants out of the big top. Two notable Republican pachyderms — General Colin Powell and John Kasich, the former Ohio governor and erstwhile Trump primary opponent — wandered over to perform at the Democratic National Convention.

The rubes are getting wise to the ballyhoo. They’ve guessed the sideshow games of chance are fixed, like the one where you take off your face-mask and hope to win Covid immunity. The crowd is turning ugly. The Maga calliope* is out of tune with the times. The circus had better leave town.   [*An American keyboard instrument resembling an organ but with the notes produced by steam whistles]

So why does Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential race feel somehow one prefix short of inevitable?

This may be simply a case of nerves. Ever since 1999, when Trump announced he was forming a “presidential exploratory committee” to take baby steps into the unmapped wilderness of politics, every pollster, pundit, analyst, expert, practised insider and savvy outside observer has been completely wrong about the future of Trump. No amount of research, reason, deep thinking, far seeing, checking the public pulse and taking the electoral temperature made them anything other than wrong. Anybody who wasn’t wrong about Trump wasn’t paying attention.

Biden is a normal politician. He personifies a return to normal politics. But is there a normal left to go back to?

And Biden is a mediocrity. He is a first-rate mediocrity of the venerable, time-honoured kind. He spent 36 years in the US Senate, a testament to his political skills (or to the inertia of the American Congress). To be president is his heart’s desire, by fits and starts. He tried to gain the Democratic nomination for the 1988 presidential election and again 20 years later. Both times he got the award for participation that in American political parlance is called “early frontrunner”.

He was vice-president in the Obama administration, which in Biden’s presidential campaign has become the “Obama-Biden administration”. (Ignore what America’s first vice-president, John Adams, had to say: “My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived.” Also ignore the assessment of the vice-presidency by Franklin Roosevelt’s VP John Nance Garner: “It isn’t worth a bucket of warm piss.”)

As a senator Biden voted against — and later for — abortion, gay marriage and bussing students (the practice of transporting pupils to schools in different neighbourhoods to try to address racial segregation). In the early 1980s Biden was instrumental in passing the draconian Comprehensive Crime Control Act. In the late 1980s Biden was instrumental in easing the provisions of the Crime Control Act that most resembled Draco the Athenian lawgiver’s 7th century BC punitive notions.

In the Senate and the White House Biden was the sort of trustworthy, steadfast good scout whose reward was to be assigned the no-hope issues — international arms control, domestic gun violence, the Balkans, drug interdiction, the federal debt ceiling, corruption in post-Soviet states, infrastructure deterioration, Iraqi politics. He both voted to go to war with Iraq and voted not to. (Albeit getting it the wrong way around, with a nay for the useful liberation of Kuwait from Iraq and a yea for the bootless invasion of Iraq itself.)

In his presidential campaign Biden has, or says he has, come around to most of the political positions standard to the American left. (The British equivalent of “American left” being someone who can’t quite decide whether they are a Lib Dem or a wet Tory.) But his record is sufficiently all over the place to give the less lefty a wiggle room of hope.

Biden was the safe-hands pick for the Democratic Party. Not that there was much else on offer. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were his closest contenders. Both were more generous in their offers to bribe the impecunious, who are part of the Democratic base, and amplify the virtue-signalling of the overeducated, who are the other part.

But Warren could not escape the impression of a teacher who gives pop quizzes after lunch on Friday and assigns The Mill on the Floss book report, due Monday morning.

Sanders excited the children for whom the New Left is a desirable and charming antique. However, Sanders was a grim memento for anyone old enough to have experienced the over-the-top Sixties or hangover Seventies. This is the age group that actually votes in US general elections. Sanders made us recall how self-serious, solemnly silly, earnestly futile and full of blatherskite bores like Sanders that era was — when we weren’t stoned.

Biden is a sympathetic man, in giving and receipt. He’s more concerned than is usual in American politics with the feelings and worries of his colleagues and constituents. (Constituents that include about a million businesses — more than half of the publicly traded companies in America — which are incorporated in Delaware due to the state’s friendly legal system, advantageous tax policies and lax rules of corporate governance.) And Biden has suffered more grief than an American politician usually does.

Several weeks after Biden’s 1972 election to the Senate, his wife and his one-year-old daughter were killed in a traffic accident. His three-year-old son, Beau, and two-year-old son, Hunter, were severely injured.

Biden was a single father for five years, commuting by train to Washington from Wilmington, Delaware, 90 minutes each way. He married again, had another child and continued to commute for the rest of his Senate career, hosting an annual barbecue for the train crew at his home.

Beau Biden joined the army after finishing law school and working in Kosovo as a legal adviser. He served in Iraq, where he earned a Bronze Star, then became attorney-general of Delaware and was tipped to be the state’s next governor. But he died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46.

Joe Biden has been patient and loyal with his younger son, Hunter, who seems to be a troubled child. Although in this case “troubled child” is not a matter of joyriding and petty theft, but of Hunter’s wholly inappropriate and richly remunerated seat on the board of directors of a shady Ukrainian natural gas company while his father was vice-president.

There seems to have been no sin of commission on the father’s part. Though Biden should have told Hillary Clinton over at the State Department to give the boy what for. Spare the Rodham and spoil the child.

Biden bears all kinds of sorrow and disappointment with grace, though. He’s the grown-up in the room that everyone has been looking for since Trump’s inauguration. Or is he grown-up to the point of going to seed? Biden’s age is a putative issue. (Not too much of one, perhaps, Trump being only three years younger and with a physique looking like a co-morbidity waiting to happen.)

Biden is too old to be president. As is anyone who’s not a six-year-old with ADHD on a sugar high, given the schedule an American president is supposed to keep. Also political power is a preservative. Somewhere in the sewers of power there is a drainpipe from the fountain of youth. Robert Mugabe, ruler of Zimbabwe for nearly four decades, had to be removed by military coup when he was 93.

Biden’s mind is sharp — in first-rate shape for second-rate thinking, as it’s always been. He does have a tendency to let what runs into his brain pour out of his mouth, giving him a reputation for “gaffes”. But, again, this is to speak in American political parlance, which has no word or phrase that translates as “telling the truth”. His most famous gaffe came when he was running against Barack Obama for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Biden, in the very announcement of his candidacy, conceded his opponent’s advantages: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy — I mean, that’s storybook, man.”

Articulate, bright, clean, nice-looking Obama apparently forgave Biden. (Though he waited to endorse Biden’s attempt to win the 2020 nomination until Biden had won it.)

Biden’s scandals are minor, such as not keeping son Hunter fenced in the yard. During his first attempt at getting the Democratic presidential nomination he plagiarised, of all people, Neil Kinnock, who was notably not prime minister from 1983 to 1992. And Biden may have social-distancing issues of a pre-pandemic, post-#MeToo sort. In 2019 a former member of the Nevada state legislature said that during a 2014 campaign rally Biden walked up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, smelt her hair and kissed the back of her head. Oh my.

I don’t know if Biden is so cosy with his vice-presidential choice, Kamala Harris. Pointing out Biden’s erstwhile opposition to bussing, she drubbed him in their only debate. “There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bussed to school every day. That little girl was me.” That little girl is fierce, at least in a political sense. Between 2003 and 2017 she went from a minor position as a lawyer checking code violations to district attorney of San Francisco to California attorney-general to US senator.

Her early presidential primary campaign didn’t come to much. But early presidential primary campaigns are incomprehensible even (or maybe especially) to American presidential primary voters. They make about as much sense as a rugby scrum before the ball has been put into play. Harris contends (as does Biden) with the contradictions inherent in claiming good government and goody-goody government are consubstantial. She favours a large tax hike on “the 1%”, although according to The Washington Post she and her lawyer husband had a 2018 income of $1.9 million. But you can’t accuse her of shooting herself in the foot, because Democrats favour strict gun control law. While she was San Francisco’s district attorney the drug-dealer conviction rate rose from 56 per cent to 74 per cent. But you can’t accuse her of losing out by jailing her own voters, because Democrats favour voting rights for convicted criminals. Speaking of which, she’s so devoted to education that as attorney-general she proposed a law against “habitual and chronic truancy” that would have made parents liable to arrest if their youngsters skip school. My mother would still be in prison.

Harris is a woman. Harris is a minority. But not too minoritarian. Her cancer researcher mother from India and her economics professor father from Jamaica, both of whom have PhDs, make Kamala a minority of one. She is articulate and bright and clean and nice-looking. More safe hands.

If Biden has a problem, it may be just that. He is summed up a little too well — or sums himself up to voters a little too well — in the lines from Philip Larkin’s poem Sympathy in White Major.

A decent chap, a real good sort,

Straight as a die, one of the best,

A brick, a trump, a proper sport,

Head and shoulders above the rest ...

Here’s to the whitest man I know —

Though white is not my favourite colour.

(NB it was published in 1967, far too long ago to contain a pun in the third line.)

And there is nothing about Biden, in his campaign or his person, that addresses why Donald Trump was elected in the first place.

Americans were expressing a general frustration with government. Biden seems to be mixed up about the difference between “distaste for” and “shortage of”. His campaign platform is a numbing 564 pages long. The promises range from the impossibly delusional — “ensure that no child’s future is determined by their zip code, parents’ income, race or disability” — to the all-too-likely inane — “create a ‘Safer for Shoppers’ program that gives compliant businesses a sign for their window”.

Biden is oblivious to the paradox of modern governance. The amount of things we want from government entails an amount of government we don’t want. The contradiction prevails in all modern social welfare democracies. (America is a social welfare democracy. But please don’t mention it. We haven’t told the kids.)

Social welfare democracies are experiencing a yellow-vested, Brexiting, Five Star Movemental, Make America Less Not Great exhaustion with being governed.

In the US this is exacerbated by our not having any political parties in the commonly accepted sense of the term. There is no Republican or Democratic card to carry, you can’t be expelled, and if you donate so much as a nickel to either it’s impossible to escape “joining”.

We can’t oppose each other in a customary and traditional partisan way. We have to get personal and angry. This is complicated because instead of political parties we have two broad political concepts: government should fix the problem/the problem is the government. These ideas can be held by the same person at the same time about the same subject without cognitive dissonance. Neither the Republican National Committee nor the Democratic National Committee has any power. Both are beholden to the party committees of the 50 states (plus the District of Columbia and various territories). The state committees are, in turn, beholden to the county committees. There are 3,141 counties in the United States. The only people who involve themselves in county-level party politics can be described, kindly, as needing “to get a life”. The chairman of the Republican county committee is typically a retired aluminium-siding salesman in polyester plaid pants and clashing tartan shirt who neglected to take up golf. The chairman of the Democratic county committee is a bitter divorcée with 20 cats. That’s how politics is run in the US.

Trump wasn’t elected because Clinton was cordially detested. What American presidential candidate since George Washington hasn’t been? She was dull on the stump. But if dullness were politically fatal, the entire American political system would have been in the cemetery with President Harrison since 1841. (He gave a two-hour inaugural address in freezing rain, then caught a cold and died a month later.)

Clinton’s “popular vote” victory was and is inconsequential. America, since its founding, has had a devolved system of voting for the president that eschews nationwide first-past-the-post to give more obscure regions (our Scotlands) a greater say than weight of population would allow. She and Trump knew the rules. The cheating would have been different in a different game.

Russian electoral interference was doubtless factual but doubtfully culpable. I’ve spent time in Russia. The idea that the Russians could fine-tune America’s enormously complex machinery of election is … I’ve driven Russian cars.

And there’s no use blaming Trump’s election on the rise of populism. “Populism” is an epithetic catch-all in use whenever the ideas popular with the good and the great aren’t popular.

The highest decibel in the Trump campaign noise was xenophobia. (An interesting question: how many of those with the condition can spell it?) Americans do hate foreigners. Because we are foreigners.

America not only doesn’t have political parties in the commonly accepted sense of the term, it is not a nation in the commonly accepted sense of the term. It is not united by bonds of history, culture or ethnicity and only barely by a common (sometimes very common) language. America is not even united by territory: in our frontier mentality, there’s always lots more of it. Mars!

America is what you get when you turn a random horde of people loose in a vast and various space. Some came here on the make, some on the run, some were dragged here involuntarily as slaves, some were chased here by poverty, oppression or bigotry and some were here already and were defeated by disease and demographics until they became foreigners in their own country. The bunch of us have never got along. The grounds of our mutual suspicion are in the roots of our family trees. We know what we foreigners get up to. Trump called loudly to our prejudice. But self-loathing is not a very firm campaign plank.

Trump wasn’t elected by the irrational nationalists, the savage racists and the doomed-flight right-wingers. They were a factor. His campaign didn’t explicitly offer them a home — more like Airbnb accommodations. But there’s little likelihood that maniacs came out to oppose Clinton in greater numbers than they opposed Obama.

During the 2016 presidential campaign I interviewed Trump supporters. A surprising number were sceptical of the man himself. A gas station owner in his fifties and wearing a Trump button said: “I think he’s out of whack.”                           “You think he’s crazy and you’re supporting him? Would you want him in your home?” I asked.                                 

He smiled. “No thanks.”                                                                                                                                                        

“But …” I began.                                                                                                                                                              

“But,” he continued, “I’ve got these 25-year-old underground gasoline storage tanks. They need to be replaced. I can’t get a permit to dig them up. I can’t get a federal permit. I can’t get a state permit. I can’t get a local permit. I need a permit to put new tanks in. I can’t get a federal permit, can’t get a state permit, can’t get a local permit. I’ve got a junkyard out back. It’s been a junkyard since the 1920s. Now there’s an endangered newt living in the water inside some old snow tyre. I’ve got a towing operation and a body shop. I’m doing pretty well. I don’t mind Obamacare. I can afford to give the guys who work for me health benefits. But every time some genius in the White House gets a bright idea, a load of paperwork the size of the old Boston phone book lands on my desk. I don’t have a legal department. I don’t have a HR department. It’s just me and my wife, and I’m a mechanic.”                                                               

“So how,” I asked, “does sending a lunatic to Washington fix this?”                                                                                       

He laughed. “It’s what they’ve got coming.”

And maybe, alas, it still is.                                             

* 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 19    

Sweden’s ‘success’ again.  

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia  

So, now we know.  . .  The ex-king’s ex-mistress has revealed that he was the victim of a coup d'etat led by his estranged wife, who conspired with then prime minister to force him from the throne in favour of his more manipulable son. Certainly plausible.

Intriguing to see that the current government plans to set up a Public Prosecutor dedicated to pursuing the crimes of the Franco era. I wonder if he/she will see the light of day, given the forces of resistance. La Casta.

The orcas along our coast have forced the authorities to consider banning yachts between Ferrol and Cedeira. Even if they were only ‘playing’ when buffeting vessels.

In 1702, during the War of the Spanish Succession, the combined British and Dutch fleets destroyed both the Spanish bullion ships and their French escorts, in the nearby San Simón Bay. Since when, many folk have tried - but failed - to find at least some of the gold and silver once thought to have gone down with the ships. A chap called Fernando Navarrete made a documentary about this in 1990 but it seems it was never aired. Looking for it, I did at least come up with this. And this.            

A reader has kindly advised me of another odd group of Spaniards, this time closer to home in a region of nearby Asturias. I’ve visited it a couple of times and have friends there but had never heard of the Vaqueiros de Alzada who were/are nomadic cowherds, in the mountains of Asturias and León, who traditionally practice transhumance, i.e. moving seasonally with cattle. And who have a culture separate from their non-Vaqueiro Asturian and Leonese neighbors and can often be distinguished by their last names, many of which are unique to them. See here for more. And see a map of the region here.    

María's Fallback Diary: Day 5   

Spanish

- Bota: Leather container to hold wine, pear-shaped and with a stopper in the narrowest part through which the liquid comes out in a very fine stream.

- Trillo: Threshing board/sledge

- Triturar: To triturate:-  1 : To crush, grind. 2 : To pulverise and comminute thoroughly by rubbing or grinding.  As with the triturado version of tomatoes one gets in a can here.

Finally . . . 

Here's Richard Ford writing in the 1840s about a Spanish rural scene:-

All classes here gain their bread by making it, and the water-mills and mule-mills are never still; women and children are busy picking out earthy particles from the grain, which get mixed from the common mode of threshing on a floor in the open air, which is at once Biblical and Homeric. 

At the outside of the villages, in corn-growing districts, a smooth open " threshing-floor" is prepared, with a hard surface: it is called the era. and is the precise Roman area. The sheaves of corn are spread out on it, and four horses yoked most classically to a low crate or harrow, composed of planks armed with flints, etc., which is called a ‘trillo’: on this the driver is seated, who urges the beasts round and round over the crushed heap. Thus the grain is shaken out of the ears and the straw triturated ; the latter becomes food for horses, as the former does for men. 

When the heap is sufficiently bruised, it is removed and winnowed by being thrown up into the air ; the light winds carry off the chaff', while the heavy corn falls to the ground. 

The whole operation is truly picturesque and singular. The scene is a crowded one, as many cultivators contribute to the mass and share in the labour; their wives and children cluster around, clad in strange dresses of varied colours. They are sometimes sheltered from the god of fire under boughs, reeds and awnings, run up as if for the painter, and falling of themselves into pictures, as the lower classes of Spaniards and Italians always do. They are either eating and drinking, singing or dancing, for a guitar is never wanting. 

Meanwhile the fierce horses dash over the prostrate sheaves, and realise the splendid simile of Homer, who likens to them the fiery steeds of Achilles when driven over Trojan bodies. 

These out-of-door threshings take place, of course, when the weather is dry, and generally under a most terrific heat. The work is often continued at night-fall by torch-light. During the day the half-clad dusky reapers defy the sun and his rage, rejoicing rather in the heat like salamanders ; it is true that their devotions to the porous water-jar are unremitting, nor is a swill at a good passenger's ‘bota’ ever rejected; all is life and action ; busy hands and feet, flashing eyes, and eager screams; the light yellow chaff, which in the sun's rays glitters like gold dust, envelopes them in a halo, which by night, when partially revealed by the fires and mingled with the torch glare, is almost supernatural, as the phantom figures, now dark in shadows, now crimsoned by the fire flash, flit to and fro in the vaporous mist. 

The scene never fails to rivet and enchant the stranger, who, coming from the pale north and the commonplace in-door flail, seizes at once all the novelty of such doings. Eye and ear, open and awake, become inlets of new sensations of attention and admiration, and convey to heart and mind the poetry, local colour, movement, grouping, action, and attitude.  

And here's a couple of fotos I took in NW Iran in the mid 1970s, 175 years later:-

* 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 19    

What's happening in Europe, where it's  not as bad as it was but where the growth in cases (and future deaths?) is still worryingly exponential.

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia  

A nice article on the Valley of the Fallen and the monstrosities therein.

My car had its regular mechanical test yesterday. Waiting at the ITV for my turn to enter one of the 3 sheds, I feared - given the 6 cars in front of me - that I had an hour's wait ahead of me. But the gods smiled on me and I was selected - via an SMS message - to leave the queue and to drive into shed number 3. Later I wondered if this was because the woman at the desk and I had had a good laugh when I gave her my Sergas heath card instead of my credit card. Well, they are the same size and colour . . .

I have at least 4 official documents with the registration number (matriculación) of my car on them. But the chap who did the final test told me, very pleasantly, that a sticker (pegatina) with the number on it had dropped off the initial registration card of the car. So I had to go to Tráfico to get a new one, or I'd  be fined if stopped by the police . . . So, I have a cita for this next Tuesday. IGIMSTS.

Which reminds me . . . Our local police have been charged with keeping a special lookout for drivers using a phone or lighting a cigarette. I confidently predict that, within 5 years, you'll be fined here for inserting a CD or adjusting your radio except via the steering wheel. And that, within 10, the same will apply to scratching your face or picking your nose . . .

María has kindly sent me this article on the Maragatos, where Ford's reference to both Don Cordero and Pedro Mato are explained. Incidentally, I take issue with the claim that, on the Calzada Real, Betanzos is at the east end and Madrid at the west. Not from where I sit. It says the same in Spanish, so it's not a translation error.    

Which allows me to segue into George Borrow's description of the Maragatos as: The most singular caste to be found amongst the chequered population of Spain. See below for everything he said about them - good and bad - in his famous book The Bible in Spain. A highly recommended read. Possibly all true, But, then again . . On line here.

See the first article below on wonderful Spanish 'ingredients'.

María's Fallback Diary: Day 4   

The UK

Click here for a terrific hatchet job on the country's (alleged) Prime Minister.   

The USA

Today, having continued to have a faster growth rate than nearly all other countries, the USA will overtake the UK total of 614 deaths per million. The next dread milestone is Spain's total of 647. Countries that the USA used to be 'doing better than' include Italy, Sweden, France. the Netherlands, Ireland and Switzerland. It's hard to see how Trump supporters can continue to trumpet his 'success'. But that's American politics, I guess. Hitlerian level lies.

The Way of the World

We live in an era in which extreme and unreasonable discourse and action have become the most reliable tool for those seeking political, economic or social success. It explains how purveyors of extreme and unreasonable discourse have won recent elections in nations as diverse as the US, the UK, India, the Philippines and Brazil, to mention only those countries. . .  outrageous hyperreality . . . Click here for more. 

Spanish

A few years ago, I was looking for a Vigo restaurant called Bangkok, where we ‘actors’ from the documentary I mentioned the other day we’re going to have dinner. After 20 minutes vainly wandering the streets, I realised that the name of the place was actually Van Gogh  . . . We have one in Pontevedra too.

Finally . . . 

Is it just me or is modern TV advertising more phoney, meretricious and nauseating than ever? Especially when multinationals seek to demonstrate their green credentials.

Richard Ford - like Vincent Werner more recently - doesn't pull any punches when it comes to criticising who and what he saw around him in Spain during his 3 years in the country in the 1840s. But he does love and admire Spain and its people. So it is that, after pages of negatives, he suddenly lists positives such as these: They are full of excellent and redeeming good qualities; they are free from caprice, are hardy, patient, cheerful, good-humoured, sharp-witted, and intelligent; they are honest, faithful, and trustworthy; sober, and unaddicted to mean, vulgar vices; they have a bold, manly bearing, and will follow well wherever they are well led, being the raw material of as good soldiers as are in the world; they are loyal and religious at heart, and full of natural tact, mother-wit, and innate good manners.

THE ARTICLES

1. Why Spanish ingredients are worth their salt: The country’s larder is bursting with the finest produce, from fiery spices to preserved fish and vegetables – all perfected over centuries by generations of passionate artisans

There’s a reason the flavours of Spain are instantly recognisable. Seasoning from salt flats, smoky pimentón, precious saffron… the region’s unique ingredients, and the care and attention that go into bringing them to the table, are what make its dishes so special.

The gold standard

Spain is one of the world’s largest producers of saffron, plucked from the stamens of the delicate crocus flower. It enriches dishes around the globe and is worth more than its weight in gold. Azafrán de La Mancha saffron, with its protected designation of origin (PDO) status, is considered the best. It has aromas of dry hay with floral hints and a bright red hue, and a flavour profile that begins with a slight bitterness and mellows to ripe grain and toast.

Just a pinch of this precious ingredient is enough to impart big flavour and bring that familiar yellow to the country’s much-loved paella. Resplendent with ruby-red peppers and scarlet tomatoes, together they make up the colours of the Spanish flag.

Originating in the Levant, saffron was brought to the Iberian peninsula by the Moors. The purple crocus only flowers for a few fleeting days in October, so labour for the cultivation and production is intensive – saffron workers’ nimble fingers need to gather 10,000 flowers to produce just one kilo of the spice. Everything is done by hand: tending the soil; harvesting the crocuses; separating the stigmas; and arranging them in layers to be gently toasted over hot coals. In autumn the towns of La Mancha celebrate their efforts at the annual saffron harvest.

Crystal-clear winner

Salt or flor de sal is used to cure anchovies straight from the sea and is a key seasoning in salt cod, chorizo and salchichón, another classic variety of fermented Spanish sausage. Harvesting in Spain dates back to antiquity, from the pristine coasts of Majorca to the Canaries, thanks to natural ingredients of sunlight, moisture in the air and wind. Pioneering salineros are ever inventive, creating new gourmet products like “salt foam”, a variety of delicate, low-density sea salt, with light, soft crystals; airy in consistency, subtle in taste and perfect with fish. Production takes place on the Santa Pola Salt Flats of Alicante, a nature reserve of almost 1,600 hectares inhabited by 40 species of birds and fish.

Other luxury varieties include salt flakes or sea salt flavoured with lemons, tomato and basil, red wine, ginger, and even rose petals – often hand harvested on a small scale.

Old flames

Pimentón or Spanish paprika is one of the quintessential flavours of Spain. A touch of this special spice gives a distinctive sweet, smoky signature to chorizo, soups and stews. In Extremadura’s La Vera valley, the fields blaze with an intense red from crops of peppers that originally came back from America with the Conquistadors. Columbus brought the first pepper seeds – Capsicum annuum – from the New World, gifting them to the Spanish king and queen in 1493, who gave them to monks to grow and, praise be, they did a great job. The PDO Pimentón de La Vera and PDO Pimentón de Murcia remain the main production areas today.

Picked and dried on racks for several days, the peppers are then smoked over fires burning holm oak. Wafts of smoke drift around piles of peppers, which are turned every couple of days before being ground into the deep red spice. Graded by flavour, the three distinctive blends are sweet, bittersweet and piquant.

Well preserved

In winter months, cooks reach for canned fish and vegetables and Spain’s longstanding tradition of preserving produce picked at its peak means quality all year round.

The best anchovies in the world are from Cantabria – on a par with Ibérico ham, truffles and caviar for gourmet status.

The blue-hued, firm-fleshed fish thrive in the cool waters along the Cantabrian coast. Salted moments from landing at nearby canning factories, they’re washed and cured in barrels for a year. The anchovies are then filleted and packed by hand into ornate tins, in neat layers topped with olive oil. They’re delicious draped on top of a salad of crisp lettuce with boiled eggs and pungent aioli or served solo with a chilled glass of white wine.

The tradition of tinning tuna began with exceptional albacore from the Bay of Biscay – and now Spain is the world’s second largest producer of tinned tuna.

On Andalusia’s Cádiz coast, PGI (protected geographical indication) tuna is caught by the almadraba technique, used for upwards of 3,000 years in the area. In ancient times nets were attached to land on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar to catch the fish on their migration; now a system of nets suspended between boats is used to ensure sustainable quotas are adhered to.

Spanish molluscs are excellent too, such as clams and cockles typically preserved in brine, octopus canned in olive oil and squid in its own ink.

The growing and canning of vegetables in Extremadura, Andalusia and Catalonia follow traditions going back generations. Star products include vibrant asparagus from Aragón and stalk vegetables such as cardoon and borage from Navarre.

In regions like Murcia and Valencia, and around the Ebro valley, Navarre and La Rioja, just-picked asparagus, peppers and artichokes are preserved. And in all areas of Spain, tangy tomato puree and sauce are fantastic.

Navarre’s preserved PDO Pimiento del Piquillo de Lodosa peppers are a sought-after delicacy, for their silky texture and sweetly fragrant, slightly hot flavour. Peppers from Nájera in La Rioja are a tapas favourite as are the smoky Bierzo peppers from León.

Bittersweet artichokes like the ones from Tudela in Navarre (PGI Alcachofa de Tudela), with their layers of leaves and flavoursome hearts, taste equally good preserved as they do fresh.

2. George Borrow on the Maragotos, in the mid 1830s

Chapter XXIII: Astorga—The Inn—The Maragatos—The Habits of the Maragatos—The Statue. 

We went to a posada[inn] in the suburbs, the only one, indeed, which the place afforded.  The courtyard was full of arrieros [muleteers]and carriers, brawling loudly; the master of the house was fighting with two of his customers, and universal confusion reigned around.  As I dismounted I received the contents of a wineglass in my face, of which greeting, as it was probably intended for another, I took no notice.  Antonio, however, was not so patient, for on being struck with a cudgel, he instantly returned the salute with his whip, scarifying the countenance of a carman.  In my endeavours to separate these two antagonists, my horse broke loose, and rushing amongst the promiscuous crowd, overturned several individuals and committed no little damage.  It was a long time before peace was restored: at last we were shown to a tolerably decent chamber.  We had, however, no sooner taken possession of it, than the waggon from Madrid arrived on its way to Coruña, filled with dusty travellers, consisting of women, children, invalid officers and the like.  We were now forthwith dislodged, and our baggage flung into the yard.  On our complaining of this treatment, we were told that we were two vagabonds whom nobody knew; who had come without an arriero, and had already set the whole house in confusion.  As a great favour, however, we were at length permitted to take up our abode in a ruinous building down the yard, adjoining the stable, and filled with rats and vermin.  Here there was an old bed with a tester**, and with this wretched accommodation we were glad to content ourselves, for I could proceed no farther, and was burnt with fever.  The heat of the place was intolerable, and I sat on the staircase with my head between my hands, gasping for breath: soon appeared Antonio with vinegar and water, which I drank and felt relieved.

We continued in this suburb three days, during the greatest part of which time I was stretched on the tester bed.  I once or twice contrived to make my way into the town, but found no bookseller, nor any person willing to undertake the charge of disposing of my Testaments.  The people were brutal, stupid, and uncivil, and I returned to my tester bed fatigued and dispirited.  Here I lay listening from time to time to the sweet chimes which rang from the clock of the old cathedral.  The master of the house never came near me, nor indeed, once inquired about me.  Beneath the care of Antonio, however, I speedily waxed stronger.  “Mon maître,” said he to me one evening, “I see you are better; let us quit this bad town and worse posada to-morrow morning.  Allons, mon maitre!  Il est temps de nous mettre en chemin pour Lugo et Galice.”

Before proceeding, however, to narrate what befell us in this journey to Lugo and Galicia, it will perhaps not be amiss to say a few words concerning Astorga and its vicinity.  It is a walled town, containing about five or six thousand inhabitants, with a cathedral and college, which last is, however, at present deserted.  It is situated on the confines, and may be called the capital of a tract of land called the country of the Maragatos, which occupies about three square leagues, and has for its north-western boundary a mountain called Telleno, the loftiest of a chain of hills which have their origin near the mouth of the river Minho, and are connected with the immense range which constitutes the frontier of the Asturias and Guipuscoa.

The land is ungrateful and barren, and niggardly repays the toil of the cultivator, being for the most part rocky, with a slight sprinkling of red brick earth.

The Maragatos are perhaps the most singular caste to be found amongst the chequered population of Spain.  They have their own peculiar customs and dress, and never intermarry with the Spaniards.  Their name is a clue to their origin, as it signifies, “Moorish Goths,” and at the present day their garb differs but little from that of the Moors of Barbary, as it consists of a long tight jacket, secured at the waist by a broad girdle, loose short trousers which terminate at the knee, and boots and gaiters.  Their heads are shaven, a slight fringe of hair being only left at the lower part.  If they wore the turban or barret, they could scarcely be distinguished from the Moors in dress, but in lieu thereof they wear the sombrero, or broad slouching hat of Spain.  There can be little doubt that they are a remnant of those Goths who sided with the Moors on their invasion of Spain, and who adopted their religion, customs, and manner of dress, which, with the exception of the first, are still to a considerable degree retained by them.  It is, however, evident that their blood has at no time mingled with that of the wild children of the desert, for scarcely amongst the hills of Norway would you find figures and faces more essentially Gothic than those of the Maragatos.  They are strong athletic men, but loutish and heavy, and their features, though for the most part well-formed, are vacant and devoid of expression.  They are slow and plain of speech, and those eloquent and imaginative sallies so common in the conversation of other Spaniards, seldom or never escape them; they have, moreover, a coarse thick pronunciation, and when you hear them speak, you almost imagine that it is some German or English peasant attempting to express himself in the language of the Peninsula.  They are constitutionally phlegmatic, and it is very difficult to arouse their anger; but they are dangerous and desperate when once incensed; and a person who knew them well, told me that he would rather face ten Valencians, people infamous for their ferocity and blood-thirstiness, than confront one angry Maragato, sluggish and stupid though he be on other occasions.

The men scarcely ever occupy themselves in husbandry, which they abandon to the women, who plough the flinty fields and gather in the scanty harvests.  Their husbands and sons are far differently employed: for they are a nation of arrieros or carriers, and almost esteem it a disgrace to follow any other profession.  On every road of Spain, particularly those north of the mountains which divide the two Castiles, may be seen gangs of fives and sixes of these people lolling or sleeping beneath the broiling sun, on gigantic and heavily laden mutes and mules.  In a word, almost the entire commerce of nearly one half of Spain passes through the hands of the Maragatos, whose fidelity to their trust is such, that no one accustomed to employ them would hesitate to confide to them the transport of a ton of treasure from the sea of Biscay to Madrid; knowing well that it would not be their fault were it not delivered safe and undiminished, even of a grain, and that bold must be the thieves who would seek to wrest it from the far feared Maragatos, who would cling to it whilst they could stand, and would cover it with their bodies when they fell in the act of loading or discharging their long carbines.

But they are far from being disinterested, and if they are the most trustworthy of all the arrieros of Spain, they in general demand for the transport of articles a sum at least double to what others of the trade would esteem a reasonable recompense: by this means they accumulate large sums of money, notwithstanding that they indulge themselves in far superior fare to that which contents in general the parsimonious Spaniard;—another argument in favour of their pure Gothic descent; for the Maragatos, like true men of the north, delight in swilling liquors and battening upon gross and luscious meats, which help to swell out their tall and goodly figures.  Many of them have died possessed of considerable riches, part of which they have not unfrequently bequeathed to the erection or embellishment of religious houses.

On the east end of the cathedral of Astorga, which towers over the lofty and precipitous wall, a colossal figure of lead may be seen on the roof.  It is the statue of a Maragato carrier who endowed the cathedral with a large sum.  He is in his national dress, but his head is averted from the lands of his fathers, and whilst he waves in his hand a species of flag, he seems to be summoning his race from their unfruitful region to other climes, where a richer field is open to their industry and enterprise.

I spoke to several of these men respecting the all-important subject of religion; but I found “their hearts gross, and their ears dull of hearing, and their eyes closed.”  There was one in particular to whom I showed the New Testament, and whom I addressed for a considerable time.  He listened or seemed to listen patiently, taking occasionally copious draughts from an immense jug of whitish wine which stood between his knees.  After I had concluded he said, “To-morrow I set out for Lugo, whither, I am told, yourself are going.  If you wish to send your chest, I have no objection to take it at so much (naming an extravagant price).  As for what you have told me, I understand little of it, and believe not a word of it; but in respect to the books which you have shown me, I will take three or four.  I shall not read them, it is true, but I have no doubt that I can sell them at a higher price than you demand.”

So much for the Maragatos.

It was four o’clock of a beautiful morning when we sallied from Astorga, or rather from its suburbs, in which we had been lodged: we directed our course to the north, in the direction of Galicia.  Leaving the mountain Telleno[Pico Teleno] on our left, we passed along the eastern skirts of the land of the Maragatos, over broken uneven ground, enlivened here and there by small green valleys and runnels of water.  Several of the Maragatan women, mounted on donkeys, passed us on their way to Astorga, whither they were carrying vegetables.  We saw others in the fields handling their rude ploughs, drawn by lean oxen.  We likewise passed through a small village, in which we, however, saw no living soul.  Near this village we entered the high road which leads direct from Madrid to Coruña, and at last, having travelled near four leagues, we came to a species of pass, formed on our left by a huge lumpish hill (one of those which descend from the great mountain Telleno), and on our right by one of much less altitude.  In the middle of this pass, which was of considerable breadth, a noble view opened itself to us.  Before us, at the distance of about a league and a half, rose the mighty frontier chain, of which I have spoken before; its blue sides and broken and picturesque peaks still wearing a thin veil of the morning mist, which the fierce rays of the sun were fast dispelling.  It seemed an enormous barrier, threatening to oppose our farther progress, and it reminded me of the fables respecting the children of Magog, who are said to reside in remotest Tartary, behind a gigantic wall of rocks, which can only be passed by a gate of steel a thousand cubits in height.

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

** A tester bed: The 14th-century design suspends a full-size canopy (with curtains on the top, back and sides) from the ceiling or headboard instead of posts. Possibly like this one, though of a much inferior quality:-

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 19 Testing. A Comparison

The UK: From my reading, my News-viewing and chats with my younger daughter, I get the strong impression that testing there is chaotic. Indeed, it's reported that around 70% of people wanting a test can't get one. And that folk in the Midlands of England who apply on line are being sent to North Scotland. At the same time, the (less-than-credible) Prime Minister is averring that the UK is doing the most testing of any country in Europe and promising that there'll soon be 10 million tests a day being performed. So, quite a lot of dissonance.

Spain: If I correctly understand my doctor neighbour and local friends, here anyone can get an immediate PCR test via their GP, on demand. Or one can elect to pay €40 for a test - possibly the antibody one - at one of the many private high-street labs in our towns and cities. The article I cited yesterday on the promising new Spanish test put it this way:  Spain is immediately PCR-testing anyone who displays symptoms, anyone who has been within close proximity of a 'positive', and even, in many cases, everyone admitted to hospital or attending consultations or treatment for chronic health conditions, including where these are completely unrelated to Covid-19.   

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia  

It might be wrong on this but it seems to me that most retail outlets in Pontevedra city which close are converted into dental surgeries or ophthalmologist's, Maybe it's a reflection of an ageing population.

Efficiency: Every September I get called by a chap in Mapfre with whom I once discussed a home-insurance proposal. But this year he also raised car insurance. It became obvious that his computer had none of the details of discussions over the years with his colleague in the same office. Very probably because, as the latter once told me, they're employed as autonomas (i.e.are self-employed) and so are in competition with each other. Which makes them cheaper to employ but, from my point of view, considerably less efficient. Presumably, though, the company takes a corporate view and doesn't much mind about the latter. Needless to say, Vincent Werner touched on this sort of thing in his controversial book It Is Not What It Is: THE REAL (s)PAIN OF EUROPE.   

On a much wider front, Werner claims that Spain is run by an invisible force that goes by many names (e.g. la casta). If true, maybe this is behind the claim of my Spanish friends at lunch yesterday that only Spaniards can understand why a left-wing party (the PSOE) would decline to support its coalition party's demands for a Commission of Inquiry into corruption and, likewise, for its demand that there be an official survey of current attitudes towards the (debased) monarchy and a republic.

Maybe one of the things at play is a much greater level of far-right (even Francoist) attitudes among the populace than previously considered. Some support for this contention comes from this paragraph from a Spanish paper quoted by Lenox Napier in yesterday's edition of his fine Business over Tapas bulletin: There was a time when Vox was nothing more than a little fantasy that wouldn’t catch on. Four cats and a dog went to the rallies and Santiago Abascal, who had already failed in private business, would climb onto the street benches, megaphone in hand, futilely trying to get his message through. But they weren’t listening and practically nobody voted for him and his party. They didn't even have the money to pay the bill for those journalists they invited to lunch to gain sympathy. And yet, 6 years after its founding, Vox is now the political party that earns the most money, the one that receives more private donations than all the others put together. And the party which is - sadly - currently wielding the most influence on Spanish (tribal)politics, dragging them to the right. And, by the by, preventing the approval of the national budget.  

Anyway, here's María's Fallback Diary: Day 3, which I couldn't locate yesterday.

And below is Richard F0rd’s entire dissertation on the (now, says María, traceless) Maragotos. It’ll give a good idea of the very entertaining - and possibly then accurate - way he writes. 

English/Spanish 

As I expected, there was no support yesterday from my (duly horrified) Spanish friends for the phrase De algún culo va a salir sangre, as meaning ‘It’ll all come out in the wash.’

Finally . . . 

Another 1840s gem from Richard Ford: Most things in Spain may be obtained by good humour, a smile, a joke, a proverb, a "cigar" (or a bribe), which, though last, is by no means the least resource, since it will be found to mollify the hardest heart and smooth the greatest difficulties, after civil speeches had been tried in vain. For Dadivas quebrantan penas, y entra sin barrenas; ‘Gifts break rocks, and penetrate without gimlets’. Or;  Mas ablanda dinero que palabras de Caballero; ‘Cash softens more than a gentleman's palaver’.

And:-

FORD ON THE MARAGATOS OF ASTORGA IN LEÓN.  AND TOUCHING ON THE SWISS

The Spanish muleteer is a fine fellow; he is intelligent, active and enduring; he braves hunger and thirst, heat and cold, mud and dust; he works as hard as his cattle, never robs or is robbed; and while his betters in this land put off everything till to-morrow except bankruptcy, he is punctual and honest, his frame is wiry and sinewy, his costume peculiar; many are the leagues and long, which we have ridden in his caravan, and longer his robber yarns, to which we paid no attention; and it must be admitted that these cavalcades are truly national and picturesque. Mingled with droves of mules and mounted horsemen, the zig-zag lines come threading down the mountain defiles, now tracking through the aromatic brushwood, now concealed amid rocks and olive-trees, now emerging bright and glittering into the sunshine, giving life and movement to the lonely nature, and breaking the usual stillness by the tinkle of the bell and the sad ditty of the muleteer—sounds which, though unmusical in themselves, are in keeping with the scene, and associated with wild Spanish rambles, just as the harsh whetting of the scythe is mixed up with the sweet spring and newly-mown hay-meadow. 

There is one class of muleteers which are but little known to European travellers—the Maragatos, whose head-quarters are at San Roman, near Astorga; they, like the Jew and gipsy, live exclusively among their own people, preserving their primeval costume and customs, and never marrying out of their own tribe. They are as perfectly nomad and wandering as the Bedouins, the mule only being substituted for the camel; their honesty and industry are proverbial. 

They are a sedate, grave, dry, matter-of-fact, business-like people. Their charges are high, but the security counterbalances, as they may be trusted with untold gold. They are the channels of all traffic between Galicia and the Castillas, being seldom seen in the south or east provinces. 

They are dressed in leathern jerkins, which fit tightly like a cuirass, leaving the arms free. Their linen is coarse but white, especially the shirt collar; a broad leather belt, in which there is a purse, is fastened round the waist. Their breeches, like those of the Valencians, are called Zaraguels, a pure Arabic word for kilts or wide drawers, and no burgomaster of Rembrandt is more broad-bottomed. Their legs are encased in long brown cloth gaiters, with red garters ; their hair is generally cut close —sometimes, however, strange tufts are left. A huge, slouching, Happing hat completes the most inconvenient of travelling dresses, and it is too Dutch to be even picturesque; but these fashions are as unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians were ; nor will any Maragato dream of altering his costume until those dressed models of painted wood do which strike the hours of the clock on the square of Astorga ; Pedro Mato also, another figure costume, who holds a weathercock at the cathedral, is the observed of all observers ; and, in truth, this particular costume is, as that of Quakers used to be, a guarantee of their tribe and respectability ; thus even Cordero, the rich Maragato deputy, appeared in Cortes in this local costume.

 The dress of the Maragata is equally peculiar; she wears, if married, a sort of head-gear, El Caramietto, in the shape of a crescent, the round part coming over the forehead, which is very Moorish, and resembles those of the females in the basso-relevos at Granada. Their hair flows loosely on their shoulders, while their apron or petticoat hangs down open before and behind, and is curiously tied at the back with a sash, and their bodice is cut square over the bosom. At their festivals they are covered with ornaments of long chains of coral and metal, with crosses, relics, and medals in silver. Their earrings are very heavy, and supported by silken threads, as among the Jewesses in Barbary. 

A marriage is a grand feast; then large parties assemble, and a president is chosen, who puts into a waiter whatever sum of money he likes, and all invited must then give as much. The bride is enveloped in a mantle, which she wears the whole day, and never again except on that of her husband's death. She does not dance at the wedding-ball. Early next morning two roast chickens are brought to the bed-side of the happy pair The next evening ball is opened by the bride and her husband to the tune of the gaita, or Moorish bagpipe. Their dances are grave and serious; such indeed is their whole character. 

The Maragatos, with their honest, weather-beaten countenances, are seen with files of mules all along the high road to La Coruña. They generally walk, and, like other Spanish arrieros, although they sing and curse rather less, are employed in one ceaseless shower of stones and blows at their mules. 

The whole tribe assembles twice a year at Astorga, at the feasts of Corpus and the Ascension, when they dance El Canizo, beginning at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and ending precisely at 3. If anyone not a Maragato joins, they all leave off immediately. 

The women never wander from their homes, which their undomestic husbands always do. They lead the hard-worked life of the Iberian females of old, and now, as then, are to be seen everywhere in these west provinces toiling in the fields, early before the sun has risen, and late after it has set; and it is most painful to behold them drudging at these unfeminine vocations. 

The origin of the Maragatos has never been ascertained. Some consider them to be a remnant of the Celtiberian, others of the Visigoths; most, however, prefer a Bedouin, or caravan descent. It is in vain to question these ignorant carriers as to their history or origin ; for like the gipsies, they have no traditions, and know nothing. Arrieros, at all events, they are; and that word, in common with so many others relating to the barb[horse] and carrier-caravan craft, is Arabic, and proves whence the system and science were derived by Spaniards. 

The Maragatos are celebrated for their fine beasts of burden; indeed the mules of León are renowned, and the asses splendid and numerous, especially the nearer one approaches to the learned university of Salamanca. 

The Maragatos take precedence on the road; they are the lords of the highway, being the channels of commerce in a land where mules and asses represent luggage rail-trains. They know and feel their importance, and that they are the rule, and the traveller for mere pleasure is the exception. Few Spanish muleteers are much more polished than their beasts, and however picturesque the scene, it is no joke meeting a string of laden beasts in a narrow road, especially with a precipice on one side, cosa de España. The Maragatos seldom give way, and their mules keep doggedly on; as the baggage projects on each side, like the paddles of a steamer, they sweep the whole path. 

All wayfaring details in the genuine Spanish interior are calculated for the pack as in England a century back; and there is no thought bestowed on the foreigner, who is not wanted. Nay is disliked. The inns, roads, and right sides, suit the natives and their brutes; nor will either put themselves out of their way to please the fancies of a stranger. The racy Peninsula is too little travelled over for its natives to adopt the mercenary conveniences of the Swiss, that nation of innkeepers and coach-jobbers.

* 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 19 

Some good news from here.  A Spanish lab has created a test which produces accurate results in under 30 minutes. The devices do not need technicians or laboratories and can be used in local GP practices, in A&E, and even in high-street pharmacies.  And, I guess, private labs. Available December/January. Maybe.

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia  

For those interested, articles on the property market here and here. 

I must get up to Astorga to see what’s left of the Maragatos community that both George Borrow and Richard Ford wrote about - A small ethnic and cultural community with distinctive customs and architecture. The Maragata women used to wear a striking regional dress that made them stand out when they travelled to other parts of Spain. Tierra de Maragatos has its own traditional way of building stone houses with large doors.  Efficiency: Renfe: My elder daughter told me yesterday - hardly to my surprise - that she’d had so many problems booking a trip on the net that she gave up and called them, only too happy to pay the increased price this meant. Can it be deliberate?  

After a new shower was installed in my bathroom, the cold water taps started to turn on the hot water boiler. The plumber denied any connection but the internet says differently. Air left in the system acts as a ‘cushion’ and fools the boiler into thinking the hot water tap has been turned on. Good job I haven’t paid anything yet.

Some good news on the subject referred to by Maris yesterday.

The UK

The UK Home Secretary, Priti Patel, doesn’t seem to know that many words in English end in G.  Someone wrote of this yesterday thus: She had earlier said citizens could be arrested for minglin’. Correcting her pronunciation, she refined it to mingerlin’.  I don’t really know I feel about this.  Don’t want to be snobbish but . . .

A man in Manchester boarded a bus wearing a snake as a face mask. A Transport for Greater Manchester spokes(wo)mxn said: Government guidance clearly states that this needn't be a surgical mask, and that passengers can make their own or wear something suitable, such as a scarf or bandana. While there is a small degree of interpretation that can be applied to this, we do not believe it extends to the use of snakeskin - especially when still attached to the snake.

The UK and the EU

As regards the negotiations on a 'comprehensive trade deal' against an end October deadline  . . . Richard North today: We're going round in circles, claim and counter-claim, leaving us no further forward, and with not the slightest idea of what is really going on. No doubt it'll all come out in the wash.

The USA

Another non-surprise.  

The Way of the World/Social Media

One of the most important things social media does is to induce feelings of powerlessness. Thanks to Twitter, politicians, newspaper columnists and the PR managers of big brands are exposed to the power of the mob every day. No matter how powerful you are, social media offers you the opportunity to feel like a victim. 

English/Spanish 

It'll all come out in the wash: [Allegedly, though I don't see it] De algún culo va a salir sangre.  

English 

Relatively new in the UK, from Oz and NZ: ‘To dob in’. To inform against someone. I wonder if Americans have ever heard it.

Finally . . . 

Some bon mots from Richard Ford in the 1840s:  The Moors thought so highly of the bastinado, that they held the stick to be a special gift from Allah to the faithful. It holds good, a priori and a posteriori, to mule and boy, “A hijo y mulo, para el culo;" and if the "macho" be in fault, and he is generally punished to encourage the others, some abuse is added to blows, such as “Que perro!” " What a dog!”

More anon.

* 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 19 

Some good news. Maybe. 

The Swedish question we’re all asking.

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia  

Rules, Regulations and Customs: As I lunched outside the Moroccan restaurant yesterday, I was saddened to see all 5 of the 16 year old girls at the table of a tapas bar on the other side of the street taking turns to smoke a couple of metres away from their companions.  

And I was angered by 2 smokers at our table who didn’t even do that, despite prompts both from the restaurant owner and me. Spanish individualismo at its worst

So . . . Aggressive orcas are not as newsworthy as we’re being led to believe: On the net, from November 2012: On Friday we were sailing from La Coruña  to the UK. A few hours north of there, our rudder was hit numerous times. We couldn't tell what was causing it at first and then an Orca appeared alongside. We turned the engine off and the Orca swam away. We were left with a damaged rudder and no steering. We had to be towed back in by the coastguard. The Orca then came back for some more and bashed us while under tow, so hard that the towing line snapped. All in all pretty scary. It's been happening to other yachts as well. 

Over the years, I’ve been told several times by South Americans that the language here in Spain is more - shall we say - robust than back home in their own countries. And as shocking to them as it it is to us other foreigners. Last Saturday, at the pool in my community, I heard a mother castigating her 4 year old son as a coño. Which, yes, is the biggest taboo word in English. This isn't at all unusual and, in truth, this 1845 comment from Richard Ford remains apt today: Few nations can surpass the Spaniards in the language of vituperation. It is limited only by the extent of their anatomical, geographical, astronomical, and religious knowledge. The last reference is to the habit of using the communion wafer and holy persons in Spanish oaths. Such as Cago en la (puta) hostia; I shit on the (effing) host. And Cago en el cuerpo de Jesucristo. Though I might have made the last one up, just to give you the picture. Though not Cago en la madre que te parió; I shit on the mother who gave birth to you. My elder daughter was once gobsmacked to hear a woman say this to her own son . . . What I haven't invented is Cago en Diós or Cago en la Virgen. Which you can probably translate for yourself now. And which are included in this list of similarly profane exhortations. Which, to my surprise, contains one or two I've never heard.  

María's Fallback Diary: Day 2 

The UK

The BBC's star DJ, Zoe Ball, has been given a salary increase of one million pounds, taking her income from 0.4m to 1.4m pounds. The poor woman must have been living in relative poverty. Other 'stars' didn't do quite as well but, as the Times says this morning: The 6-figure increases awarded to presenters who were already on lucrative deals risk criticism from viewers and politicians, with enduring anger at the move to abolish free TV licences for over-75s. Lucky for the BBC that times are so good for everyone else in the country.

The EU

Nick Corbishley of Wolf Street is none too impressed by government policies in respect of what are called ‘zombie companies’. His views can be read here, where his final para is: Allowing zombie firms to proliferate in order to protect banks from the consequences of their bad lending practices and investors from the consequences of their bad investment choices doesn’t just reward — and by extension, incentivize — bad actions and decisions; it stores up bigger problems for the future. 

English

I believe Nick is English, writing for an American web page. So, I’ll have to forgive him for ‘incentivize’.

Does anyone under, say, 40 say whilst instead of while?

The USA

The amusing J-l Cauvin once again.  

The Way of the World 

I see that my spellcheck recognises womxn but not mxn. Intolerable discrimination, in my view. I wish to be a real mxn.

Finally . . . 

Today is the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower of The New World.  Especially for American readers, here’s nice article on the consequences of this event:-

The story of the passengers that built America — and shaped Britain. A small ship that set sail in 1620 would change the course of history: Mark Bridge. The Times

When the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth 400 years ago today, she was a small ship carrying a motley group of pious religious Separatists and opportunist colonisers — one of many vessels making the perilous crossing to the New World. She might easily have been forgotten if her passengers’ settlement had failed. Against the odds, Plymouth Colony endured and its founders have become icons of American history, albeit with a legacy that is hotly contested.

The Times spoke to historians, descendants of the passengers and members of the native American Wampanoag tribe about the events that helped shape the US — and build Britain.

‘It’s as much a British story as an American story’

The Mayflower famously carried religious Separatists seeking freedom to worship in autonomous congregations outside the Church of England. Yet the voyage was backed by hard-nosed London merchants and carried a majority of non-Separatists, including traders and administrators. As such, a historian says its passengers represented allied religious and mercantile groups that would change the face of this country as well as North America.

Graham Taylor, author of The Mayflower in Britain, by Amberley Publishing, said: “It’s as much a British story as an American story and as much an economic as a religious one. The voyage was a commercial operation by London merchants, using a London ship, a London crew and embarking London passengers.

Referring to the affiliation of many Mayflower Separatists to the “Brownist” movement and their sojourn in the Netherlands before the voyage, he said: “Even the passengers who left from Leiden were organised from London. It is perhaps the City of London’s most celebrated contribution to world history. The merchants were the sponsors of the Brownists because the religious intolerance of the state interfered with trade and the merchants wanted freedom of trade. He added that the voyage’s roots lie in developments in British history going back decades before 1620 that had consequences here long after. “The Brownists who did not emigrate to America pursued the same struggle for freedom of belief after 1620 as before and were involved in both the Civil War and the 1688 Revolution.” He added: “One factor in the Civil War which has perhaps been underestimated is that New England served as a model for the parliamentary cause. Having another English-speaking [region] already exercising the freedoms you wanted in your own country, but weren’t allowed to have, was a big incentive and inspiration. New England seemed to offer not only free trade and freedom of belief but also economic prosperity. In 1645, for example, the New Englander Hugh Peter told parliament that freedom from oppression was already achieved across the Atlantic: “I have lived in a country where in seven years I never saw a beggar, nor heard an oath, nor looked upon a drunkard.’ This wasn’t the American dream of the 19th century but the British dream of the 17th.” “One governor of Plymouth Colony, Edward Winslow, came back to England and became an adviser to [parliamentary leader, then lord protector] Oliver Cromwell. He helped Cromwell set up the modern British Navy, most of whose officers were New Englanders.”

He believes that, by first demanding, then achieving, a separate church, the Brownists blew apart the Church of England’s monopoly on worship. “As soon as the Civil War started, the Brownists re-emerged. They and the Baptists were the people who opened the way for Nonconformists to be Nonconformists. In turn this enabled the modern Anglican Church to be the modern Anglican Church — liberal, and tolerant of other beliefs.” He said the Glorious Revolution of 1688, backed by the same Separatist and mercantile factions that built Plymouth Colony, resulted not only in toleration for most dissenters but also the ending of most royal trade monopolies. “Suddenly a huge swathe of the economy was liberated from state control. The merchants’ joint-stock companies now proliferated, British merchant capitalism came into its own, and in the 18th century Britain became the strongest economy in Europe.”

‘Their moral strength lives on today’

Eighteen adult women sailed on the Mayflower and only five survived beyond the colony’s first winter. Until recent decades the stories of the women and girls of the Mayflower were almost wholly neglected in scholarship. However, a series of breakthroughs has been made by researchers such as the British-Canadian author Sue Allan, revealing their central role in passing on the Separatist tradition. In her latest book In the Shadow of Men: The Lives of Separatist Women, she shows the web of family connections that linked many Separatists of the Mayflower era, including the backgrounds of passenger Elizabeth (Barker) Winslow who married her husband, the future governor of Plymouth Colony Edward Winslow at Leiden in 1618 and who died, in her late 20s, at the end of the first winter after the Mayflower’s arrival. Ms Allan discovered that Elizabeth was born in Chattisham or nearby East Bergholt in Suffolk and was the daughter of two Separatists, named in local records in 1598 for their refusal to attend church services. Among the handful of others named was Mary, the wife of Bartholomew Allerton, a local tailor, and mother of Elizabeth Winslow’s fellow Mayflower pilgrim Isaac Allerton. She told The Times: “We need to learn from the women especially that they are an important part of this story. What did they do? They were raising the children, but actually they were passing on their legacy: this moral strength coupled with a resolute, can-do, will-do attitude, which seeded New England and clearly lives on today. New Englanders are often laughed at for being puritanical but a strong sense of morality is not weakness. Looking at the [Separatist] women, they were all Separatists themselves; they didn’t come to it through their husbands, they were born to it.  “If these folks had not stood up, we probably wouldn’t have had Congregationalism; we would have only had the one church in England and, under the Stuarts, we probably would have gone back to being Catholic. They did change history; they stood up to be counted and not only did they open up the way for other people to believe in the manner they wanted; they also opened the way for people not to believe, so it’s a wider freedom.”

While great strides have been made in learning about the Mayflower women, one in particular remains elusive. Ms Allan said: “The most compelling is the one we can’t find. She’s there, I know she’s out there and I know she has to be from a strongly Puritan family and that is Mary, wife of William Brewster [a leader of the pilgrims]. She was ‘the mother of the mothers’, the one they would have looked towards for guidance, in the New World especially, and we don’t know her [maiden] surname or where she even came from and the hunt for her is just all-consuming.”

The study of women can also help to bust myths. Ms Allan said that William Bradford, a Mayflower passenger and governor of Plymouth Colony, is often depicted as especially puritanical but it is noteworthy that he wrote a spirited defence of Thomasine Johnson, the wife of a Separatist pastor who was accused by her brother-in-law of “abominable immodesty” for wearing fashionable dresses that flattened her stomach and pushed her bust upward, and “scoffing” at anyone “grieved or offended” by her attire. To make matters worse, she was accused of being fond of wine and loathe to get out of bed in time for worship. In his writing, Bradford, who appears to have had a soft spot for Thomasine, pointed out that she was “helpful to many, especially the poor” and that her outfits were typical of those worn by women of her rank at the time.

‘It’s like finding a royal ancestor’

It is estimated that about 35 million people are descended from one or more Mayflower passengers and finding a connection is a common goal of family historians with roots in colonial America. Tom Gede, a 72-year-old lawyer from Davis, California, has traced his own descent from four of the Mayflower’s passengers: Huntingdonshire-born John Howland, his wife Elizabeth, and her parents, John and Joan Tilley. He said: “Seeking Mayflower ancestors, among those interested, is like trying to find a royal ancestor, [giving] the same sort of elation at finding one. What’s interesting is that they were not royalty, they were a mix of yeomen and tradesmen and artisans — distinctly commoners. For many who find their Mayflowerconnection it [brings] a distinct pride in the middle-class roots of American society. So there’s a bit of irony in it in that this is about the accident of birth and who you’re descended from by birth but it’s all about cherishing the meritocracy.”

Referring to the harsh conditions, which saw five of the Mayflower’s 102 passengers perish at sea and 45 more die on land in the winter of 1620/21, another descendant, Ryan Woods, of West Somerville, Massachusetts, said: “Their voyage shows tremendous courage and perseverance and overcoming of adversity. Using this story and family history to teach about history and culture is very important to me and I think one of the real values is in highlighting not only the Mayflower story and the story of the native people, the Wampanoags, but also how genealogy can be applied more broadly to teach history, social studies and all of the various elements of that to young people, and adults for that matter.

Mr Woods, 38, a former history teacher, is chief operating officer of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, an organisation founded in 1845 that has published voluminous research on the passengers’ connections. Having learnt of his own Mayflower descents from relatives in childhood, he said his four-year-old son Nathaniel is following in his footsteps by already taking a keen interest in their shared lineage. Nathaniel told our reporter how his ancestor John Howland fell overboard during a storm, only to be rescued when he grabbed on to a trailing rope.

Many descendants argue that the Mayflower Compact, the first governing document of Plymouth Colony, signed by 41 male settlers, laid the foundations for the US Declaration of Independence and Constitution, with momentous consequences. Karen Pogoloff, 69, of Newport News, Virginia, said: “The Compact, which some historians say was very influenced by Stephen Hopkins, my ancestor, does have great import to later democracy in the United States. It allowed the Saints and the Strangers [Separatists and others], who had very different perspectives, to agree on how they would do things and so those early governments and early decisions certainly shaped the country we are now.”

Hopkins, interestingly, was a non-Separatist who had previously settled for a time in the more worldly colony of Jamestown, Virginia, after being shipwrecked on Bermuda. His mutinous conduct while marooned has led some to propose him as the inspiration for the comic character Stephano in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

Descendants also describe friendly relations between Plymouth Colony and the native American Wampanoag people with whom the settlers made a treaty. Heather Rojo, 58, a retired teacher from Manchester, New Hampshire, said: “Previous colonies did not have good relations with the native people here, but the Plymouth colony took a different attitude with the native Americans and established good relations right away, which were very successful for over 50 years. I think that if they hadn’t done that they would have been as unsuccessful as Jamestown and colonies north of here in Maine that failed because they didn’t get along with the native people. Over the years there have been so many treaties broken and so much animosity but looking at Plymouth Colony and its success, let’s hope that in the future relations with native people continue like that.”

Naturally, the Mayflower had its black sheep. Miranda Duval Dunkle, a 43-year-old housewife in Orange County, California, and descendant of passengers John and Elinor Billington and their son Francis, explained: “The Billingtons were the ones who had the most colourful history. John was accused of murder and tried and convicted and hanged for his crime. His wife Elinor, she was awful, she’d be in the stocks all the time; another son John caused all kinds of trouble. Their younger son who I’m descended from didn’t want anything to do with it. He was the good egg and distanced himself from his crazy family and was able to prosper.”

‘It’s basically viewed as an invasion’

The Mayflower settlement at Plymouth was founded on top of the former Wampanoag settlement of Patuxet, the inhabitants of which had been wiped out in the preceding years by disease brought to the region by European settlers and traders. While many descendants of passengers today hold a positive view of the settlers’ relations with the Wampanoag, the local tribe, Wampanoag historians see things rather differently.

Paula Peters, a historian and member of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, said: “To colonise someone is to take away their own heritage and replace it with something else and that is what happened here and it’s not something that is seen by the Wampanoag as a benefit. There were benefits to trade and interactions with Europeans, for sure. There were novelties, whether it be glass beads or metal pots, but overall our ancestors were taken advantage of.” She believes it was because the Wampanoag were so weakened by the “Great Dying” at the time of the Mayflower’s arrival that they countenanced an alliance with the settlers whose first acts had included pillaging Wampanoag corn stores and clearing the bones of Wampanoag plague victims from their former dwellings. She added: “The Wampanoag did not understand the English intention to make them subject to the Crown. [Massasoit] Ousamequin who was the leader at the time that the Mayflower arrived here was a great leader of the Wampanoag and would not have agreed to an alliance that made him subservient to a king he had never met or known. Why would they agree to having another law rule over them?  “There was deliberate misrepresentation in the pilgrims’ treaty with the Wampanoag. The evidence is in [William] Bradford’s own writings, in the journals of the pilgrims, that they left certain language out of the agreement that indicated that they intended the rule of law to be under the Crown.”  “One of their missions was to convert us both religiously and to their way of life, instead of accepting our people who were here for thousands and thousands of years. Even though the lifestyle was simplistic it wasn’t primitive — they weren’t barbarians. They had a knowledge of the circle of life around them, the environment, the climate and even celestial knowledge that showed that they were very sophisticated but in a much simpler way, a way that was in balance with the world around them.” She said that the story of the Wampanoag Tisquantum, better known today as Squanto, was instructive. Tisquantum has often been fondly depicted as an English-speaking Indian who helped the pilgrims learn how to plant and fertilise native crops and served as their indispensable interpreter and guide in relations with the English.

Ms Peters said: “Everybody knows who Squanto was but they don’t know why he spoke English. He spoke English because he was kidnapped [by English sailors in 1614] as a potential slave [and] lived in London for five years before going home to find his whole family dead of a plague and the village he was a part of [Patuxet] had become Plymouth Colony — it’s a back story that people don’t know and should know.”

In the 1670s, half a century after the pilgrims’ landing, tensions between the Wampanoag and other native Americans and New England settlers, including those of Plymouth Colony, erupted into bloody war. The tribes were defeated, incurring losses from which their communities would never recover.

Ms Peters said that Mayflower 400 commemorations provide an opportunity for the Wampanoag today to have a voice. “It has been really important for us to step up onto this international platform and speak our truth and lend balance to the story of the Mayflower which is truly a story that can’t be told honestly without the inclusion of the Wampanoag voice. Today there are around 5,000 of us, where in the 17th century there were literally hundreds of thousands. We are politically, culturally and socially a very active and vital tribe.”

Linda Coombs, another Wampanoag historian, said: “Generally speaking, we don’t perceive the Mayflower landing very well at all. It’s basically viewed as an invasion — people came in, took over our territory and curtailed us in our way of life and that’s a process that’s still going on today. She said: “The Mashpee [Wampanoag] went through a battle for several months this spring just to retain their federal status. If they had lost they would have lost their land and their status as a tribe. This just harks back to colonial times, with someone else deciding for us who we are.”

* 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 19 

Denmark: In the news for once.  

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia  

Spain, says this author, has had a bad summer and facers a worse autumn/fall. Economically speaking, that is.  

'Orrible Orcas along the Spanish coast. Which appear to be both whales and dolphins, it says here.   

Which reminds me  . . . (Real?) whales have been sighted along our Galician coast recently. Probably because the water is now quite a lot warmer than when I last entered it 21 years ago and feared for my manhood.

María has changed the title of her blog again. Here's Day 1 of Falling Back.  

The USA

Just a reminder of how unscrupulous you can be there with impunity  . . . Bakker, of course, has served a prison sentence for an earlier fraud perpetrated on the credulous faithful. 

The divine Bette Midler on Fart:-

The Way of the World

Sexist signs . . . ?

Spanish

I cited the word baliza yesterday, one of the meanings of which is 'beacon¡. Later, I recalled the belisha beacon that warns of zebra crossings in the UK and wondered if the surname Belisha was related to baliza. But could find nothing to evidence this possibility. But, anyway, it's a nice coincidence that one type of beacon in the UK has a name similar to the Spanish baliza. IMHO. 

English/Spanish  

From Richard Ford's The Spaniards and Their Country of 1852 comes this phrase: Una mujer de mucha campanilla: ‘A woman of many bells’. Meaning, he says, a woman of 'much show, much noise or pretension'. The origin is the 'gay decoration’ of the heads of 'sumpter' mules.  I wonder if it's still used, perhaps down in Andalucia. The only reference I can find is this, page130. 

Incidentally, there's a fine mini essay on Ford here, by Roy Lotz. Scroll down a bit for it. As he says: Ford’s works must be one among the best travel books ever written.

P. S. I haven't been able to determine how this book - The Spaniards and Their Country - relates to Ford's earlier works  - A Hand-book for Travellers in Spain and Gatherings from Spain . But I suspect there's considerable, or even total, overlap.

English

'Sumpter': A pack animal, such as a horse or mule. Middle English: Driver of a packhorse from Old French sometier from Vulgar Latin saumatārius from Late Latin sagma sagmat- packsaddle, from Greek from sattein to pack. So, now you know.

Finally . . .

I confess I wasn't aware of this:  The king of Morocco and the Junta de Andalucía came together 1998 to create a religious forum based on the principles of peace, tolerance and dialog. There are few organizations in the world that represent the three Mediterranean cultures of Islam, Catholicism and Judaism. Their aim is to find common ground for stability between these religions and they pursue it with dedication and openness. The Foundation has been endorsed by the Peres Centre for Peace, the Palestinian National Authority and other individuals and institutions in Israel, committed to promote understanding resolve conflict. They also have the support of the European Union, but clearly, this is an enormous task given present day tensions.  Their base is in Sevilla amidst the now disused Expo ‘92 exhibition buildings on La Isla de La Cartuja.  At first sight, it looks as though it is put together haphazardly, as though the Lego that it was built from was a mix of two different building sets. But it is what is inside that is important. The building itself is designed to recreate the Islamic influence evident all over Spain, but to modern standards.  By comparison, the Alhambra and The Mesquita in Cordoba are undeniably impressive, but dulled by 700 years of use, the paint and carvings bearing the patina of smoky candles and oil lamps. The colours here are bright, clear and vibrant.

This info - as did yesterday's - comes from a chap (Marinero) who's doing a fine job here of providing potted histories of earlier times in Spain.  As well as this more modern addendum. This is his admirable main web page.  

* 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 19 

Sweden: A couple of articles on that 'renegade' state - here and below as Article 1.       

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia  

Says a Guardian columnist: Nothing has stopped the squabbling, abuse and point-scoring that has characterised much of the political reaction to the pandemic. See  here.  

Back in December 2016 I walked part of the Camino Espiritual. This is one of 4 alternative Caminos you can take from Pontevedra city these days. Compared with just one 10 years ago. All authentic pilgrim routes, of course.   

This is my (amusing?) write-up, with fotos. I said then that I'd come back and walk down from the Armenteira monastery towards Cambados, along the allegedly beautiful Route of Rocks and Water. Well, I finally did this yesterday and it more than lived up to its billing, as this couple of fotos hopefully show:-   

Both these fotos and those in my 2016 write-up give you a good idea of Galicia's beauty. The upside of more-than-average Iberian rainfall. Maybe I should add that it was 35 degrees and very dry, but the shade of the trees all along the route came in handy. 

María's Dystopian Times, Day 30.  

The UK and The EU

For those zealots following the current argy-bargy, the second article below will be of interest.

English

Scoff-law/Scofflaw: Its original meaning was someone who mocks or ridicules anti-drinking laws, but has extended to mean one who flouts any law, especially those difficult to enforce, and particularly traffic laws. Only in Brit English?

Spanish

Baliza: Beacon; Mark; Tag; A signal in the car of his (separated) wife which allowed a local man to find her and her lover in Ponte de Lima, prior to torturing and killing him and then throwing himself off Rande bridge on the Vigo-Pontevedra A9 autopista. 

Finally . . . 

A reminder: We all know that the lands around the Mediterranean have been a source of ambition, warfare and slavery, with empires rising and falling and constant bloodshed. But the most lasting impression of these times is in the architecture the Arabs left behind. The beauty of their buildings is beyond doubt, and even more impressive considering that most of Northern Europeans at this time lived in primitive huts.

THE ARTICLES  

1. Renegade Sweden plots its recovery

Growth has picked up but it is too early to say whether the country’s light touch has been a success: Russell Lynch. The Telegraph

In the minds of many motorists, the Volvo is synonymous with reliability, but even Sweden’s totemic national marque briefly succumbed to Covid-19 in the spring.

Almost 280,000 cars rolled off the production line of its vast Torslanda plant near Gothenburg last year before the pandemic struck, forcing the company to send home 6,000 workers in the first unplanned stoppage in the 56-year history of the factory.

No longer though. While Britain and other countries were languishing in lockdowns, workers were back on shift by the end of April after 15 days off. Now the plant is churning out virtually a car a minute, and, according to the country’s biggest company, production is now “roughly the same” as before the outbreak.

The revived fortunes of the emblematic brand are reflected across Sweden’s wider manufacturing sector, which has grown for two months running and in August expanded at its fastest pace since November 2018.

While growth has picked up, its Covid-19 infection rate has also plummeted as cases rise elsewhere in Europe, adding fuel to the debate over drastic economic shutdowns.

European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control figures show Sweden with a lower infection rate than Nordic neighbours who imposed tougher restrictions, which Johan Carlson, the head of its public health agency, claimed as a vindication of a “consistent and sustainable” strategy.

All through the crisis, schools stayed open, while Swedes could visit cafes and restaurants, go shopping or hit the gym even as the death toll rose. Volvos may not be at the racy end of the motoring spectrum, but the controversy over its light-touch lockdown – masterminded by state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell – was anything but boring.

Around half of the nation’s 5,838 deaths so far, for example, have been in care homes, which were locked down belatedly at the end of March. But while Christmas comes under threat over here, now Tegnell believes Swedish families will be able to celebrate.

So can Sweden’s falling infections and lesser economic blow be taken as a victory for its light-touch approach? According to economists, the answer is more nuanced, and it depends on comparisons. The country’s 8.1pc decline in GDP during the first half of 2020 looks good against the eurozone – which fell more than 15pc – but not so much against its Nordic rivals who had tougher lockdowns.

Denmark, for example, saw an 8.8pc decline, while Norway’s was similar, at 8.3pc. Finland, whose economy “only” fell 6.3pc, actually comes out ahead of Sweden despite a higher score on Oxford University’s stringency index, which measures the severity of lockdowns out of 100. Finland averaged 33.3, compared to Sweden’s 25 over the first half.

Sweden has also seen more than six times as many deaths per million as Denmark, underlining the stark human costs of the policy

By these yardsticks, the case is hardly conclusive. Tomas Dvorak, an economist with Oxford Economics, says: “The overarching picture is that I’m not sure whether the ‘no-lockdown light touch’ policy has been that beneficial economically.”

Sweden’s less dense population and the highest share of single-person households in Europe make it less likely to succumb to infections. But the characteristics of its economy are also more pandemic-proof than many European peers. Swedish consumption fell sharply between March and May, but the economy is less reliant on services and tourism than badly hit economies like Britain and Spain. As a major exporter, trade accounts for 90pc of its GDP. Three quarters of its exports are sent to the eurozone, with Germany alone accounting for 11pc of total overseas sales.

But while the domestic hit was smaller, the emphasis on exports leave it exposed to a resurgent virus overseas, if demand in major markets sinks. Those big manufacturers like Volvo and truck maker Scania, or Skanska – the world’s fifth biggest building firm – also have extensive supply chains vulnerable to Covid-19 disruption.

David Oxley, European economist at Capital Economics, warns: “I wouldn’t say Sweden is out of the woods. Domestically the economy has done pretty well. By any normal standards it has seen an eye-watering decline but in a comparative sense it has got off lightly. Activity is picking up.

“But Sweden is more open and oriented to exports than many. Being such an open economy, they are more reliant on what policymakers elsewhere do. That will be a great headwind for growth over the coming years if growth in major European export markets start to slow. Sweden won’t be immune from any of that.”

Also unhelpful to the export cause is an appreciating Swedish krona, which has recovered all of the ground in the early stages of the crisis when traders were spooked by high death rates and a laissez-faire lockdown. Alongside these headaches overseas, Sweden has its own internal pre-Covid challenges. Household debt is high, and like much of Western Europe, its population is ageing, putting up welfare bills.

Sweden also has issues with high unemployment, which has jumped above 9pc despite government support schemes to ease the pandemic. Even before the outbreak, the nation was struggling to absorb the record 162,000 asylum seekers it took from Syria and elsewhere in 2015.

The difficulty integrating the newcomers, which pushed the population above 10 million for the first time in 2017, fuelled the rise of the populist Swedish Democrats in 2018 elections and left Social Democrat prime minister Stefan Lofven at the head of a fragile coalition.

But the one major advantage the Swedes do have compared to many other nations is massive fiscal firepower, built up after years of balanced budgets since a banking crisis in 1992. That gave it the leeway to fire off an initial SEK300bn (£25bn) in aid such as deferred tax for companies as part of a stimulus worth 17pc of GDP, while Sweden’s central bank, the Riksbank, also made SEK500bn in loans available to companies.

The Riksbank also launched SEK300bn in quantitative easing and caught markets by surprise in the summer by extending the programme into the middle of next year with a further SEK200bn, although it is yet to take interest rates back into negative territory.

Next week Magdalena Andersson, Sweden’s finance minister, is set to add further ballast when she presents her 2021 budget on Sept 21.

Robert Bergqvist, a former Riksbank senior official and now the chief economist of Swedish bank SEB, expects stimulus measures worth a further 2pc of GDP as “aggressive” fiscal policy takes the strain again.

He says: “We are going to have tax cuts for low and middle-income earners – that is good as a kick-start. I also expect the government to spend more money on municipalities who will use the money immediately, so you will have a swift response. Hopefully we are also going to see more infrastructure investment, as we would like to see more green investment.”

Even after all that, Sweden’s deficit is unlikely to rise past 45pc of GDP and he reckons “there is lots of ammunition to support growth”.

The approach contrasts with the recent speculation over tax rises in Britain, which Bergqvist believes would be a “big mistake”. He warns: “Right now you want to stimulate the economy. If you start talking about it [tax rises] then the private sector will not spend the money.”

SEB forecasts Sweden’s growth will bounce back by 4.2pc next year and expand a further 3.1pc in 2022. But even as the country claims a Covid-19 victory, the global fight against a resurgent virus is entering a dangerous new phase. That could leave some potholes ahead in the Volvo economy’s road to recovery.  

2.  Europe’s refusal to offer its neighbour and security ally even a bare-bones trade deal is a hostile posture that has consequences: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph 

If the UK were about to violate international law and resile from the Northern Ireland Protocol, it would be a very grave matter. 

But a potent allegation has been made that suggests something closer the opposite. We need to know whether or not the EU negotiating team cynically misused its stranglehold control over the Withdrawal Agreement to twist its intent, and in so doing breached the EU’s obligations of good faith and subverted the Good Friday peace accord.  

If it is true that Michel Barnier “explicitly” threatened to obstruct exports and food supplies from Great Britain to Ulster by means of an extreme and malicious interpretation of the Protocol – as the Prime Minister asserts – it is the EU that is playing fast and loose with international law, and arguably crossing a line into geopolitical vandalism. 

If it is not true, this country needs a new government immediately. 

The facts will out. 

What is already apparent is the collective insouciance of the EU elites over the fate of Ulster’s Unionist community, as if its cause were not really legitimate. One notes, too, a striking unwillingness by EU officials even to consider whether their own Rottweilers might be going too far. 

One would hardly know from the public discussion that the underlying issue at stake is a conflict between two incompatible treaties and legal-political arrangements. 

But before entering the legal thickets of the Protocol, it is relevant to point out that the EU is a practised abuser of international law. It frequently finesses or ignores treaty obligations that conflict with its core interest. Pacta Sunt Servanda tweeted Ursula von der Leyen last week. Well, quite. 

The EU has systematically refused to comply with the judgments of the World Trade Organisation, flouting rulings on GMO crops, hormone beef, and Airbus subsidies, as if the matter were optional. It has repudiated the doctrine of legal supremacy and “direct effect”, the very doctrine that the EU now asserts in the Withdrawal Agreement.  

It has eroded direct effect in a series of cases, culminating in Portugal v Council where the European Court ruled that the EU has no obligation to follow WTO law if it narrows the European Commission’s scope for manoeuvre. How delicious. 

The ECJ ruled in the Kadi-Barakaat case that the EU should disregard the UN Charter, the highest text of international law, if the Charter is at odds with the EU’s internal constitutional order. 

This is not to say that the EU is the most egregious scoff-law of the Western world but rather that it picks and chooses when it will be bound by international law like everybody else. It will not sacrifice core interests, and it is surely the UK’s core interests that are at stake right now as the Internal Market Bill heads for a its second reading. 

The Northern Ireland Protocol was agreed on the assumption that Brussels would agree to an off-the-shelf ‘Canada-Japan-Korea’ trade deal with no bells and whistles – as Mr Barnier himself had offered – and therefore that there would be no more than a light-touch trade border between Britain and Ulster. On that basis the Unionists said they could live with it.  

The EU has since moved the goalposts. The prospect of a no-deal rupture and intra-UK trade tariffs has constitutional implications for Northern Ireland, creating a much harder trade border in Irish Sea than the Unionists supposed. It therefore intrudes ineluctably on the Good Friday peace accord.

It is too glib by half to say that Boris Johnson signed up to the Agreement and therefore that it is his own fault.

It is equally glib to dismiss the invocation of the Good Friday accord as a canard. It takes some chutzpah to claim that a hard (electronic) tariff border on the island of Ireland is a grave threat to peace, but that a near identical tariff border down the Irish Sea is of no significance even though it severs constituent parts of the UK and covers ten times as much trade.

The Good Friday accord is also an international treaty. The Withdrawal Agreement cannot override it and impose a new constitutional regime on the Unionists without their consent. The UK internal market bill is therefore a necessary safeguard. It is to be activated only in the case of emergency, should the EU act on the Barnier threats and further weaponise the Protocol.

It beggars belief that Brandon Lewis should tell the world that the new legislation “does break international law in a very specific and limited way” when its deeper purpose is to prevent a breach of international law. Had he framed the matter with more skill – and more accuracy – he might have spared some considerable damage to the reputation of this country.

Article 5 of the Protocol states that Northern Ireland is part of the UK customs territory and that there should be no tariffs on goods shipped across the Irish Sea from Britain unless they are re-exported to the Republic, a trivial amount that could be ring-fenced easily. 

But the sub-clauses take away this protection, giving the EU extraordinary powers, should it wish to abuse them. The default setting is that all shipments into Northern Ireland are to be deemed “at risk” – obliging HMRC to collect tariffs – unless the EU agrees to a narrow list. Furthermore, Article 10 gives the EU a lever of control over the UK’s entire state aid and industrial policy by tenuous linkage to Ulster.

The allegation is that Mr Barnier played these incendiary cards in an effort to browbeat Boris Johnson into submission on the broader trade talks. Once such a card is played, there is no going back to the status quo ante.

It is a near reflexive tendency in EU circles to argue that the UK brought this state of affairs upon itself (which I dispute, but that is to relitigate Brexit) and that as the smaller party it should expect to be pushed around, that ‘strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must’ as the Melians were told.

This has consequences. “If you start playing the relationship talks in the spirit of a geopolitical power game, don’t be surprised when the other side plays in the same spirit,” says Eurointelligence. 

We now have a stand-off and an EU ultimatum of 20 days, and no flicker of recognition yet from any EU leader that their own side might be behaving badly.

German finance minister Olaf Scholz says a no-deal outcome will have “very harsh consequences” for the UK economy but that the EU will muddle through just fine. Up to a point, Count Copper.

The question is whether the EU is willing to jeopardise its £95bn trade surplus with the UK and inflict damage on its own industries, for which it is less prepared than Mr Scholz pretends, and to do so for an ideological purpose: forcing the UK to accept the EU’s extra-territorial supremacy over state aid policy and standards, a means of eviscerating British independence.

The UK is being offered extremely little in these talks, and is asking for extremely little. Mr Scholz is therefore misframing the equation. If the EU wants to save a deal and preserve its large export acquis on this island, it will have to give up this colonial demand.  

At the end of the day, Europe’s refusal to offer its immediate neighbour and security ally even a bare-bones Canada trade deal is a hostile posture. 

The EU could have opted for subtler statecraft, recognising that Brexit requires a fundamental rethink about the EU’s near abroad, a chance to create an outer ring of friendly trading nations that do not wish to be locked into an emerging unitary state. Instead it has driven the UK further away. Historians will judge this to have been a strategic failure of the first order. 

This final squalid slide towards an acrimonious rupture is sad for those of us who love l’Europe des Patries. But the UK has to defend itself against predatory diplomacy, deal or no deal.

* 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 19 

Interesting: Face masks may be inadvertently giving people Covid-19 immunity and making them get less sick from the virus, academics have suggested in one of the most respected medical journals in the world. The commentary, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, advances the unproven but promising theory that universal face mask wearing might be helping to reduce the severity of the virus and ensuring that a greater proportion of new infections are asymptomatic. If this hypothesis is borne out, the academics argue, then universal mask-wearing could become a form of variolation (inoculation) that would generate immunity and “thereby slow the spread of the virus in the United States and elsewhere” as the world awaits a vaccine.

Meanwhile . . . 

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia  

Yesterday I read of a couple being prosecuted by a squatter who objected to being 'insulted' by them . . .     There's a view around that Spain's squatter problem has been blown up out of all proportion by those in whose interests this would be. One of their arguments is that most of the occupied properties belong to the (nefarious) banks, as if this were an issue-settling point . . . In this article, Nick Corbishley in Barcelona doesn't seem to share this view.  

There are alway forest fires in Galicia in spring, summer and autumn. A mayor up in our hills insisted yesterday, firstly, that every day brought a new one and, secondly, that they're all started deliberately. If true, this is very sad.

As this foto shows, our local police yesterday began enforcing the new rule that, even on the terraces of bars, you can't lower your mask unless you're actually eating or drinking. 

Surveying the scene on my regular terrace, I concluded that the majority of both smokers and non-smokers were either ignorant of this new injunction or were simply ignoring it.

Efficiency/bureaucracy . . . Someone's TIE calvario. Should have applied here in Pontevedra. 

Yesterday I did what I should have started to do weeks ago - rode my (non-E)bike the last 2km into town. For reasons best known to itself, the chain came off the gear spindle after about 3 minutes. As I wrestled with it, the first chap to come along offered to help me. Whatever they are or aren't, the Spanish are superb Samaritans. And the most generous in the world with their organs. Post mortem, I mean.

María's Dystopian Times, Day 29  

The USA

A blogger again goes to town here on Trump's dangerously egregious Covid lies. If the American people vote him back into power, they'll truly deserve him.

English/Spanish  

A reader advises that this is a more modern version of one I listed yesterday.

- Two breasts pull more than two carts: Tiran más dos tetas que dos carretas.

Finally . . .

I am an atheist but love to visit cathedrals, temples and mosques. Likewise, I really love this song re talking to Jesus by the MagnifManTran

* 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 19 

Someone has prepared this per million deaths table, and concludes: It's almost as if there's no direct correlation between lockdowns and deaths per million.

Peru. Harsh lockdown.

Belgium. Harsh lockdown.

Spain. Harsh lockdown.

Bolivia. Harsh lockdown.

Ecuador. Harsh lockdown.

UK. Lax lockdown.

Chile. Harsh lockdown.

Brazil. Extremely lax lockdown.

USA. Mix of harsh and extremely lax lockdowns.

Italy. Harsh lockdown.

Sweden. No lockdown.

Mexico. Mix of harsh and extremely lax lockdowns.

Personally, I think the sample is too small to be truly indicative and, on top of that, the situation it too complex to draw definitive conclusions right now. In some of these countries - e. g. the USA - the death rate is rising much faster than in others. In addition, it's too simplistic to say there was no lockdown in Sweden. De jure, no. De facto, yes. To a degree.

Spain: The back-to-school ‘experiment’ discussed here, a bit.    

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia  

I've been banging on about levels of efficiency here . . . Yesterday I read that some Brits are being given a TIE with the wrong statement on it, possibly affecting their rights after the end of this year. Instead of (as on mine) Residente Permanente bajo Artículo 50, theirs refers to Residencia de familiar de un ciudadano de la Unión. Check yours . . And good luck if you need to change it!

Which reminds me . . . I went shopping yesterday, to two outlets. The first, to a paint store, was largely successful but the second - to a large wholesale  ironmongers - wasn't. But the young woman there directed me to another one 2km away. As I neared it, I came up against a road closure and had to make a 5-6km detour to get to it. To no avail, as they too didn't have what I was looking for. But 50% success counts as pretty good for my shopping expeditions and there are more ironmongers to try.

The noteworthy aspect, though, of this experience is that the pleasant young lady in the first ironmongers only proved helpful after I'd followed up her news that they didn't stock the item with the question of who else might do so. At this point, she not only gave me the info but insisted on coming outside to point the way to the new store. It's sadly common here that one does have to ask this question when given a No. Does that rank as poor customer service or as an inability to think before being prompted to do so? Or am I being too harsh7critical?

María's Dystopian Times, Day 28  

The Way of the World 

The Rolling Stones are re-issuing old songs. This has me wondering, if Manfred man did the same with this number, would they have to sing of Quinn the Inuit?. . .

Spanish

A new verb for me: Tronchar: To split. As in Me troncho; 'I split my sides laughing/I'm dying laughing'. But . . . A warning -Es una expresión un poco pasada de moda.

English/Spanish  

Three more (less all-known?) refrains:-

- Beauty draws more than oxen: Tetas de mujer tienen mucho poder.  [Sin tetas, no hay paraiso]

- Beggars' bags are bottomless: Zurrón de mendigo nunca henchido.

- Better keep now than seek anon; Nunca dejes camino viejo por camino nuevo.

Finally . . . 

My relentless war with the prolific sucker shoots on my bourgainvillea continues apace. For the last week, the temperature here has been in the (unseasonal) 30s. Which has been of great assistance to the plant. Next week it’ll be 10 degrees less, they say. Which just might be to my advantage. 

* 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 19 

Spain: Here's the official view of the current (alarming) situation.    Not totally reliable PCR testing is said to be at a high level now.   

The USA: As I've been stressing for a while . . . The US has suffered a much worse Covid-19 death toll than all but a handful of its developed peers. It’s a predictable, preventable catastrophe.  See here for more.

The deaths per million table:-

Apart from the inexorable rise of the USA - past Switzerland, Ireland, France, Sweden and Italy -  the most notable feature of this table is the appearance over the last month or so of several South American countries. One of these, Peru, is said to have had an early lockdown even fiercer than Spain's:-

Peru 918

Belgium 852

Spain 635

Bolivia 615

Chile 615

UK 612  

USA 592

Italy 589

Chile 597

Brazil 609

Ecuador 607

Sweden 578

Mexico 539

Panama 491

France 472

Colombia 437

Netherlands 365

Ireland 360

In comparison . . .

Portugal 182

Germany 112

It looks certain that the USA will pass the UK's per capita total within the next week or so. Followed by Spain's.

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia  

These are called pisos relax and they’re usually not at all clandestine. Even advertising for employees. Business seems to be pretty much as usual.  

A propos . . . Here's El País again, on Spain's largest establishment of this type. One which has obeyed the law. Rather ruthlessly, as it happens.

Talking of the law . . . I'm assured it's now illegal to smoke on bar terraces. But 4 times in the last week I've had folk indulging in this awful habit at the next table. As you'd expect from the statistics, all women.

I noted a few days ago, that one could 'smell' inefficiency here in Spain. Right on cue, the ITV place I'd cited as an example sent me an email yesterday reminding me of the appointment for today which they'd postponed for a week. 

And . . .. One of my missing Private Eye's has turned up, 3 weeks late. Fingers crossed for the other one.

A surprise. 

María's Dystopian Times, Day 27  

The USA

Alarmism?   The tinder that could soon ignite widespread violent conflagrations throughout the United States lies ominously stacked around us. Millions of disenfranchised white Americans, who see no way out of their economic and social misery, struggling with an emotional void, are seething with rage against a corrupt ruling class and bankrupt liberal elite that presides over political stagnation and grotesque, mounting social inequality. Millions more alienated young men and women, also locked out of the economy and with no realistic prospect for advancement or integration, gripped by the same emotional void, have harnessed their fury in the name of tearing down the governing structures and anti-fascism.  The enraged, polarized segments of the population are rapidly consolidating as the political center disintegrates. They stand poised to tear apart the United States, awash in military-grade weapons, unable to cope with the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic fallout, cursed with militarized police forces that function as internal armies of occupation and de facto allies of the neofascists. More here. On or off-beam, it's ceertainly well written.

The Way of the World 

The BBC at its woke-est.  To kids . . . ’More than 100 gender options’.  

English

The final 5 words new to me from David Mtchell's novel Cloud Atlas:- 

- Heliconia: A large-leaved tropical American plant which bears spectacular flowers with brightly coloured bracts.

- To trice up: To hoist up or in and lash or secure with a small rope.

- Dybbuk: (in Jewish folklore) a malevolent wandering spirit that enters and possesses the body of a living person until exorcise.

- Paregoric: A medicine consisting of opium flavoured with camphor, aniseed, and benzoic acid, formerly used to treat diarrhoea and coughing in children.

- Pellucid: Translucently clear.

Finally . . . 

An interesting article here on the relevance of Extinction Rebellion . . .

Capitalist technology is already solving the climate crisis but Extinction Rebellion hasn't noticed: The climate rebels are out of date: we have the technical means to solve the problem at no net economic cost: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph

Extinction Rebellion was an anachronism even before it began. The movement is a throwback to the early 21st Century, before leaps in technology and the vast mobilising power of market capitalism entirely changed the climate equation.

The great catastrophe so feared by our new age Puritans has in a sense been averted already, if only they could see it. The free market is cracking the carbon challenge with a speed and efficiency that the environmental Left could never achieve.

We have the technical means to solve the problem at no net economic cost - indeed, the green switch can be levered into a net economic gain - and without any need to stop travel, live on beans, or to forgo our affluent lifestyle.

One defers to UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the gravity of the threat facing mankind, specifically its shattering warning in October 2018 that the danger thresholds of global warming are lower than previously thought, and that we have just a decade left to prevent unstoppable feedback loops. 

But the IPCC was wrong to stray beyond its brief into the realms of political economy and to infer that “limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”. This quote has become the rallying cry of the Rebels. It is quasi-religious nonsense. Curbing CO2 emissions requires no such thing.

The net-zero switch is already happening very fast. The most elegant way to bring it forward even faster is to give markets the signal of a Pigou carbon price that ratchets up systematically, as proposed by the International Monetary Fund. 

Better yet, the proceeds should be recycled back to the people as a dividend to avoid the Gilets Jaunes problem of social consent. Such is the thrust of House bill HR 763 gaining support in the US Congress from both parties and a roster of Nobel economists of all stripes.

Free enterprise will work its magic once this structure is in place. We do not need to shut down the modern developed economy, causing mass unemployment, pauperisation, and – let us be clear – starvation.

The drastic remedy of the Rebels would shatter consent and more or less guarantee the very nightmare that they most fear. It is the combined power of finance and technology that will save us, and that requires economic growth. 

Even today we have the means to abate over 85pc of man-made emissions, and tomorrow will be yet better. Thanks to our engineers, inventors, capitalists, and bankers – yes, even them – costs are plummeting along a discernible chain that runs through the 2020s and accelerates with scale.   

Data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows that new solar and wind already undercut new coal on pure cost without subsidy in areas holding two-thirds of the global population. By the middle of the decade they will start to undercut the marginal running costs of existing coal plants, at which point these plants will no longer be viable.

The economics of energy storage is tracking the gains of solar over the last decade but with a lag. Cryogenic compressed air (to name one) already competes toe to toe with shale gas in Texas, the cheapest natural gas in the world, and will therefore drive more costly liquefied natural gas (LNG) out of the global market as a back-up for renewables. 

Once global carbon taxes rise towards $50 a tonne, gas will struggle to compete at all unless carbon capture (CCS) comes to the rescue at viable cost, but that too is a solution if it happens. NetPower in the US is already closing in on the prize with the British-designed Allam cycle.

The Holy Grail is green hydrogen from electrolysis. Goldman Sachs argues in The Rise of Clean Hydrogen that once this reaches critical scale it could abate 45pc of all greenhouse emissions and become the backbone of global decarbonisation. We are not there yet but the riches of Croesus are being harnessed in what is now a global arms race to dominate the coming hydrogen economy. 

Blue and then pure green variants will start eating into market share by mid-decade, first mingled with natural gas in existing pipelines for heating (up to 20pc) before progressing towards a full hydrogen based system - unless something even better comes along, such as Eavor’s closed-loop geothermal technology: cheap, clean, and beautifully simple like an underground heat pump.

We can argue about the timeline but the picture is clear enough: hydrogen fuel cells for new ships, trains, and long-haul lorries are coming this decade, with clean synthetic fuel for jets taking a little longer. 

Hydrogen will be used as a feedstock for steel, cement, glass, chemicals, and fertilisers. We reach nearly every sector. Agriculture is the last nut to crack, but it is partially crackable, and CCS can do the rest in any case. Bingo.

The crossover point for the purchase cost of electric cars will arrive between 2022 and 2024, and will then become a cascade since operating costs are far lower.  The switch is largely thanks to a free market entrepreneur named Elon Musk, not thanks to the chattering green classes, let alone the eco-Taliban.

It is irrelevant whether or not Tesla itself survives to reap the reward. Volkswagen and Daimler have turned their backs on the combustion engine for ever.  

Tesla has already unveiled its million-mile battery. Later this month it will unveil a 500 mile-range battery on a single charge, now becoming de rigueur for premium models. Lucid Air is already on 517 miles. Range angst is so passé. 

We flip instead in mounting angst over the nearest petrol station. They are already becoming scarcer in Norway, the EV laboratory. We flip too to angst over road  access, since no major city in Europe, California, New England, Japan, or China, and perhaps much of India too, will allow vehicles with an exhaust pipe into their air space much after 2030. Once the EV shift gets going, it will proceed with lighting speed.

Personally I share the emotional leanings of Extinction Rebels. I don’t like to see the planet trashed either. We used to call this sentiment conservationism, the natural reflex of Telegraph readers. However, I take umbrage at their assault on my journalistic free speech. I have been writing ‘green’ articles for this newspaper for a long time without ever encountering a murmur of editorial disapproval. We are a broad church.     

The Rebels have an inflated sense of their own significance, and they are late to the party. It is already five years since the catalytic shift of the Paris Agreement, with its in-built ratchet effects on emissions. A $90 trillion alliance (PRI) of global investors and wealth funds is already operating on the assumption that the fossil economy is in terminal run-off. 

Big Money switched its primary allegiance to the environmental cause long before the Rebels began their Ghandiesque offensive, and it did so not to save polar bears but because green energy is where future profit lies.

The Alpine gathering of the world financial elites in Davos has been a sanctum of climate correctness for a decade. Battered oil and gas executives huddle on the margins, complaining at the exorbitant cost of capital for drilling, lamenting that Big Wind can now raise equity and debt more cheaply than Big Oil.

Opec leaders buttonhole one at the blueberry, celery, and beet juice bar, plaintively explaining that an accelerated path to net-zero will leave a string of failed states across the Middle East and Africa, with northward migration to match. But nobody listens to them anymore. 

The global policy class has already digested the IPPC’s scientific warnings. They do not need Extinction Rebels to educate them on the consequences.

Not all states are acting on this known science, of course. China has again let rip on new coal plants, pointlessly, with 94 gigawatts in development this year. It emits more CO2 than Europe and America combined these days so Rebels might more usefully focus their efforts on Xi Jinping (if they dare) rather than on the sins of this post-industrial island, which has largely driven coal out of its power system and enacted the first legally binding net-zero plan for 2050 among major states. 

But there is a green China and a brown China, and the green forces will win because the Communist Party knows that the Tibetan glaciers are melting, the great rivers are going haywire, the aquifers of the North China Plain are being depleted, and the Chinese people are first in line for devastation if nothing is done.

In any case, China will soon be forced to the net-zero table. The EU is launching its green deal with a carbon border adjustment tax. The Biden campaign in the US has pledged its own variant under its net-zero plan, explicitly to “hold China accountable”. Chinese exporters will be squeezed out of the world’s two biggest markets unless Mr Xi puts a stop to gratuitous eco-vandalism.

Joe Biden’s $2 trillion blitz on clean energy over four years is above all a ‘Buy America’ trade offensive aimed at China, the latest twist in the battle for superpower supremacy and control over 21st century green technology. If the polls hold true and we see a Democrat clean sweep, the world energy order is going to look very different, very soon. There will be nowhere left to hide for global free-riders.

Six months into the pandemic, we can now see that the economic shock has accelerated the green switch rather than slowing it. ‘Build Back Better’ is the near united refrain of the OECD bloc. The fossil industry is the greatest casualty of Covid-19.

So all I can say to Extinction Rebellion is thanks for your pious intentions, but our elected leaders and our creative capitalists already have the matter in hand.

* 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'* 

Note: I'm indebted to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for some of today's items.  

Covid 19

Spain: 

1. Why is hit worse than the rest of Europe? See the comprehensive article below.

2. One major problem with the testing - at least here in Spain - seems to be an abnormally high level of false positives. And maybe negatives too. I assume this is with the antibodies test, not the PCR one.

3. Risking jail, some parents in Spain resist sending kids back to school.  See here.  https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-09-08/coronavirus-spain-parents-resist-back-to-school 

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia  

A modern version of yesterday's nostalgia theme, to the tune of Sweet Home Alabama  

And here and here are more traditional versions of a/the eulogy to Galicia/Galiza.  

Corruption. Quite a scandal is brewing in the kitchen. Government spying on the folk trying to bring it to account. With obvious intentions. See El País in English here. 

Talking of intentions . . . . Prostitution: The PM has said that the government's intention is that this will be abolished. Good luck with that, mate, You'd certainly go down in history if you achieved it.

María's Dystopian Times, Day 26  

English

Three more words new to me from David Mtchell's novel Cloud Atlas:-

- Giffer: A cap-wearing old person; a cross between git and duffer.

- Styro: A brand name for a type of polystyrene (= a light, usually white plastic used especially for putting around delicate objects inside containers to protect them from damage, or for putting around something to prevent it from losing heat). Guessable.

- To kedge: (With reference to a boat) To move or be moved by hauling in a hawser attached at a distance to a small anchor.

More anon . . .

Spanish

Alcachofa: Artichoke. Clearly brought by Arabic speakers from North Africa

Alcachofa de ducha: Shower head

Alcachofa  de ducha de mano: Handheld shower head. Always an option in Spain.

English/Spanish  

Three more (less all-known?) refrains:-

- Anger is short madness: La ira es locura, el tiempo cue dura.

- As soon as one goes out of the window another one comes in through the door: A rey muerto, rey puesto.

- At the game's end we will see who gains: Al freir, será el reir, (y al pagar será el llorar).

Finally . . . 

According  to a book I've just read, autistic folk both live in the present and apologise profusely without really meaning it. Blimey! Are all Spaniards autistic, then? Or just 'on the spectrum' . . . ?

THE ARTICLE 

Covid: why Spain is hit worse than the rest of Europe: Daniel Dombey, the FT 

The country is experiencing a surge in cases driven by social factors and governance problems

As coronavirus infections rise across much of Europe, one country stands out. Spain this week became the first EU state to record more than half-a-million cases since the beginning of the outbreak.

During the past 14 days, it has recorded 260 coronavirus infections per 100,000 of population — twice the level in France, the next worst affected country on the continent. 

Almost 10 per cent of Spaniards tested for coronavirus have positive results — far above the levels in France, Italy, Germany and the UK. 

The big question is why things have gone so wrong.

September is not March

Spain is again reporting up to 10,000 new cases a day — as it did at the peak of the pandemic in March and April. But Spanish officials insist the figures are not comparable. They argue that in March only about one case in 10 was detected, which meant daily tallies showed just a sliver of the real picture. Now, they say, the detection rate may be between 70-90 per cent.

“How the pandemic is evolving now has nothing to do with how it developed in March,” said María Jesús Montero, a government minister and spokesperson, this week.

She noted that roughly half the current cases were asymptomatic and that hospitalisations and deaths were far below their March-April levels.

The government stresses Spain is not alone in suffering from a so-called second wave. But if it is part of a broader European phenomenon, it is experiencing a surge in cases that outstrips those seen elsewhere.

Party like there’s no tomorrow

Democratic governments are generally reluctant to blame citizens for their problems. Nevertheless, Spain’s leaders have stepped up criticism of young people for spreading the virus through partying and socialising. In Spain, as in much of the rest of the world, the average age of coronavirus cases has dropped: at the end of March, it was 59, today, it is 38.

One practice that is causing concern is botellón — large groups drinking in public places as a cheap alternative to barhopping. The ministry of health is becoming increasingly frantic in its attempts to alert young people to the risk of infection, taking to TikTok and other social media this week to warn: “This is not a game.”

By far the most frequent place of infection, however, is people’s homes, which account for half of all cases where the cause is known. While the wearing of masks outside has become obligatory in the country, it is not clear that people have fully grasped the risk of infection at home. According to a survey released last month by the World Health Organization and Spain’s Carlos III Institute of Health, almost 50 per cent considered social gatherings in homes were only low or medium risk.

Spain — like much of the rest of Europe — is now contending with a further problem. The rise in infections came while many of the country’s cities were largely emptied for the holidays. The return to work and school could push rates up further.

Track and trace failure

Spain’s central government imposed a harsh coronavirus lockdown in March, using emergency powers, and brought the number of cases and hospitalisations down. But the lockdown became increasingly controversial and the emergency powers lapsed on June 21. Within about two weeks an increase in cases became visible.

The important thing is what you do after testing people: to isolate the person who has tested positive and identify and quarantine their contacts

The problem is that the crisis has been hugely complicated by Spain’s political polarisation and its decentralised model of governance. 

Pedro Sánchez, prime minister, insists handling the pandemic is now primarily the responsibility of the country’s regions, whose collective health budget is more than 10 times that of his administration. The regions respond that the central government must provide more leadership.

The upshot is that while controls were rapidly dropped in June — with plans for a step-by-step phase out being discarded — reintroducing such curbs has been halting and sometimes halfhearted. 

Some epidemiologists identify this as the central error in the handling of the crisis. Regions were able to scrap lockdown measures without demonstrating they were increasing track or trace staff or preparing more adequately for a new rise in cases.

“People didn’t do what they said they were going to do,” said Prof Miquel Porta at Barcelona’s Municipal Institute of Medical Research and a former head of Spain’s Epidemiology Society. 

There is no overall figure for the number of people working on track and trace in Spain. But in Madrid, where more than 35,000 cases have been diagnosed over the past two weeks, there are only some 800 dedicated trackers. For the country as a whole, only three contacts have been identified per coronavirus case; in 38 per cent of cases, the cause of infection remains unknown.

“The important thing is what you do after testing people: to isolate the person who has tested positive and identify and quarantine their contacts.” said José Ramón Arribas, head of infectious diseases unit at Madrid’s La Paz hospital. “But we have not been among the leaders in any of the activities that have been shown to be effective.” 

The reimposition of controls remains patchy. Some regions have responded to the increase in cases by introducing steps such as requiring bars close by 1am. Britain, where cases have returned to about 2,000 a day, is now banning most gatherings of more than six people. Spain passed the 2,000 cases a day mark in mid-July, but Madrid, the worst-affected part of the country, has only just issued a prohibition on groups of more than 10.

What next?

When seeking to explain why coronavirus has hit Spain so hard, officials often stress the country’s tactile culture of social mingling. Mr Sánchez has also emphasised that those who have least are most exposed: in one working-class district of Madrid, the proportion of people testing positive has reached almost 1,000 per 100,000 over the last 14 days.

Not only are the most disadvantaged people in Spain often crammed together in small flats, the country as a whole is more densely populated than often imagined, with almost all of its population is concentrated in about 13 per cent of its land mass.

At present, only about 5 per cent of cases nationwide lead to hospitalisation and only 0.4 per cent prove fatal. But the pressure is increasing. In Madrid, Covid-19 patients occupy 17 per cent of all hospital beds. And with fears mounting that young people will infect their more vulnerable elders, infection rates are rising in all age groups. Spain’s total of 246 deaths over the past week compares with a toll of 65 a month ago and just 10 in the week to July 9.

Ultimately, epidemiologists say, the data is still too incomplete to provide a simple answer as why Spain is suffering higher coronavirus rates than anywhere else in Europe. But the bigger question is whether the country will remain an extreme case or serve as a harbinger of what awaits the rest of the continent.

* 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 19  

The USA will today overtake Italy in the deaths per million stakes. Some success, Mr Trump!

The Spanish government aims a hard-hitting video at the rule.breaking young.  Esto No Es Un Juego.   

Living La Vida Loca in Spain/Galicia  

Spain’s education system doesn’t get an favourable international press, Here’s a relevant article.  

And the economy isn’t too good at the moment, with a full recovery - it says here - now forecast for 2023. Possibly to coincide with the arrival of the AVE high-speed train here in Galicia.  

We’ve had orcas in our (Ria )estuary). The media says they attacked a boat but a knowledgeable naval friend pooh-poohs this. They are, after all, dolphins, not (killer) whales.   

At midday yesterday, Pontevedra’s ‘tapas street’ was very quiet, in sharp contrast with the day before. A waiter explained it was back-to-school day. Just primaria, I think.

Here's Julio Iglesias singing (in Gallego with subtitles) about his nostalgia and his home-sickness (morriña/saudade) for his patría chica, Galicia. He's reputed to drop in occasionally - by helicopter - for a meal in Combarro, 9km  along the coast from Pontevedra city. Though not with the  young man  who's claiming to be the result of a one-night stand. Must be quite an old song as we call it Galiza in Gallego these days, not Galicia. As to the future, who knows. Iglesias was actually born in Madrid but his father (o meu pai) was from Ourense, up in our hills. The only place in Spain which can be both the hottest and the coldest in the country. Albeit at different times of the year. There's an aerial view of Pontevedra city at min 2.19. But Combarro doesn't figure.

Well, at least one brothel - in Madrid - won't be staying illegally open. Maybe.

María's Dystopian Times, Day 25.     Incidentally, I made a comment to Day 4.

English

Three words new to me from David Mitchell's astonishing novel Cloud Atlas:-

Three more words new to me from David Mtchell's novel Cloud Atlas:-

- To splish: To scatter liquid about in blobs  

- Ankh: An object or design resembling a cross but having a loop instead of the top arm, used in ancient Egypt as a symbol of life.

- To replumph: ?? Probably to fluff up, as with a cushion.  Invented?

And one from today's Times: To whicker: (Of a horse) To give a soft, breathy whinny.

English/Spanish  

I'm not posting refrains today as a reader has kindly warned me that; Hombre refranero, hombre puñetero. Which can be (politely) translated as 'A man of many refrains, is a pain'. The impolite would use synonyms for 'bloody'/'sodding'. Possibly followed by 'boring' or 'dull'. Or so say my Spanish friends.

Finally . . . 

Did you notice that the company responsible for the Julio Iglesias video is called Portal Splish-Splash? Pure coincidence.

* 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 19  

A lesson? Back in May, Israel - after imposing tough measures -  had one of the lowest per capita death rates in the world. Now, after relaxation, it has one of the highest proportionate daily infection rates in the world.  With schools returning and the crisis deemed to be over, the public threw caution to the wind. . . . Most infections are occurring within 2 specific segments of the population: ultra-orthodox Jews and Israeli Arabs. These groups are not only often crammed into high density housing but haven’t stopped taking part in their many communal or religious activities. Both groups also tend to ignore what the government tells them to do.  . . .  Behaviour is surely key. If we must continue to live with this dangerous virus, we must all discipline ourselves to buckle down to a distanced, masked and somewhat restricted way of life. 

Sounds like a microcosm of the USA. But not quite as bad.

Living La Vida Loca in Spain/Galicia  

At last! Some good news re Renfe . . .

Even better news for consumers . . . 

The foto in this article - on the more than 30 films shot in Pontevedra city - shows an encounter a few feet away from where I take my midday tiffin. Ironically - given Galicia's (exaggerated) reputation for precipitation - the rain on the day was supplied by a hose . . .  

You can find clips of Esa Mujer on Youtube if you search pontevedra esa mujer.   The full film is here, for a small fee.  

BTW . . . . It says here that Far Montiel has also been characterised as "the most beautiful woman of 20th century Spain." She was certainly a busy bee, appearing in nearly 50 films and recording around 500 songs. I seem to recall that she wrote about all her (many) lovers. Ah yes:  In 2000, Montiel published her autobiography Memories: To Live Is a Pleasure.  . .  A sequel Sara and Sex followed in 2003. In these, Montiel revealed relationships in her past, including one-night stands with writer Ernest Hemingway, as well as actor James Dean. She also claimed a long-term affair in the 1940s with playwright Miguel Mihura and mentioned that science wizard Severo Ochoa, a Nobel Prize winner, was the true love of her life.  

María's Dystopian Times, Day 24  

English

Three words new to me from David Mitchell's astonishing novel Cloud Atlas:-

- Sinnet: Braided cordage in flat, round, or square form, made from three to nine cords and used for making mats, lashings, etc.

- Shagreen: 1. Sharkskin used as a decorative A material or, due to its natural rough surface of pointed scales, as an abrasive. 2. kind of untanned leather with a rough granulated surface.

- Glabrous: Free from hair or down; smooth. (Chiefly of the skin or a leaf).

English/Spanish  

Another 3 (less well-known?) refránes:-  

-  All griefs with bread are less: Las penas con pan son menos.

-  All things are easy that are done willingly: Tarea que agrada presto se acaba.

-  Anger and hate hinder good counsel: Tomar las cosas a pechos, da fin a los hechos.

Finally . . . 

To say the least, I'm not a vegan or even a vegetarians. Truth to tell, I never even eat salad. The 2015 article below gives several reasons why not. I could add more. Of course, I don't expect everyone to agree, and the author came in for considerable abuse at the time.

THE ARTICLE

Why salad is so overrated:  Tamar Haspel, The Washington Post

As the world population grows, we have a pressing need to eat better and farm better, and those of us trying to figure out how to do those things have pointed at lots of different foods as problematic. Almonds, for their water use. Corn, for the monoculture. Beef, for its greenhouse gases. In each of those cases, there’s some truth in the finger-pointing, but none of them is a clear-cut villain.

There’s one food, though, that has almost nothing going for it. It occupies precious crop acreage, requires fossil fuels to be shipped, refrigerated, around the world, and adds nothing but crunch to the plate.

It’s salad, and here are three main reasons why we need to rethink it.

1. Salad vegetables are pitifully low in nutrition. The biggest thing wrong with salads is lettuce, and the biggest thing wrong with lettuce is that it’s a leafy-green waste of resources.

In July, when I wrote a piece defending corn on the calories-per-acre metric, a number of people wrote to tell me I was ignoring nutrition. Which I was. Not because nutrition isn’t important, but because we get all the nutrition we need in a fraction of our recommended daily calories, and filling in the rest of the day’s food is a job for crops like corn. But if you think nutrition is the most important metric, don’t direct your ire at corn. Turn instead to lettuce.

One of the people I heard from about nutrition is researcher Charles Benbrook. He and colleague Donald Davis developed a nutrient quality index — a way to rate foods based on how much of 27 nutrients they contain. Four of the five lowest-ranking vegetables (by serving size) are salad ingredients: cucumbers, radishes, iceberg lettuce and celery. (The fifth is eggplant.)

Those foods’ nutritional profile can be partly explained by one simple fact: They’re almost all water. Although water figures prominently in just about every vegetable (the sweet potato, one of the least watery, is 77 percent), those four salad vegetables top the list at 95 to 97 percent water. A head of iceberg lettuce has the same water content as a bottle of Evian (1-liter size: 96 percent water, 4 percent bottle) and is only marginally more nutritious. 

Take collard greens. They are 90 percent water, which still sounds like a lot. But it means that, compared with lettuce, every pound of collard greens contains about twice as much stuff that isn’t water, which, of course, is where the nutrition lives. But you’re also likely to eat much more of them, because you cook them. A large serving of lettuce feels like a bona fide vegetable, but when you saute it (not that I’m recommending that), you’ll see that two cups of romaine cooks down to a bite or two.

The corollary to the nutrition problem is the expense problem. The makings of a green salad — say, a head of lettuce, a cucumber and a bunch of radishes — cost about $3 at my supermarket. For that, I could buy more than two pounds of broccoli, sweet potatoes or just about any frozen vegetable going, any of which would make for a much more nutritious side dish to my roast chicken.

Lettuce is a vehicle to transport refrigerated water from farm to table. When we switch to vegetables that are twice as nutritious — like those collards or tomatoes or green beans — not only do we free up half the acres now growing lettuce, we cut back on the fossil fuels and other resources needed for transport and storage. 

Save the planet, skip the salad.

2. Salad fools dieters into making bad choices. Lots of what passes for salad in restaurants is just the same as the rest of the calorie-dense diabolically palatable food that’s making us fat, but with a few lettuce leaves tossed in. Next time you order a salad, engage in a little thought experiment: Picture the salad without the lettuce, cucumber and radish, which are nutritionally and calorically irrelevant. Is it a little pile of croutons and cheese, with a few carrot shavings and lots of ranch dressing?

Call something “salad,” and it immediately acquires what Pierre Chandon calls a “health halo.” Chandon, professor of marketing at INSEAD, an international business school in Fontainebleau, France, says that once people have the idea it’s good for them, they stop paying attention “to its actual nutritional content or, even worse, to its portion size.”

I won’t be the first to point out that items labeled “salad” at chain restaurants are often as bad, if not worse, than pastas or sandwiches or burgers when it comes to calories. Take Applebee’s, where the Oriental Chicken Salad clocks in at 1,400 calories, and the grilled version is only 110 calories lighter. Even the Grilled Chicken Caesar, the least calorific of the salads on the regular menu, is 800 calories. 

Of course, salad isn’t always a bad choice, and Applebee’s has a selection of special menu items under 550 calories (many chain restaurants have a similar menu category). Applebee’s Thai Shrimp Salad is only 390 calories (although it has more sodium than the Oriental Chicken Salad). Other chains, like relative newcomer Sweetgreen, have a good selection of salads that go further toward earning their health halo: more actual vegetables, less fried stuff.

I asked Bret Thorn, columnist at Nation’s Restaurant News and longtime observer of the restaurant industry, about salads. “Chefs are cognizant of what’s going on in the psychology of diners,” he said. “They’re doing a kind of psychological health washing,” not just with salads, but with labels like “fresh” and “natural,” and foods that are “local” and “seasonal.” “A chef is not a nutritionist, or public health advocate,” Thorn points out. “They make food that customers want to buy.” 

And we want to buy things that are fried or creamy or salty or sweet, or all of those things. Which doesn’t mean that the right salad can’t be a good choice for a nutritious meal. It just means that it’s easy to get snookered.

3. Salad has unfortunate repercussions in our food supply. Lettuce has a couple of No. 1 unenviable rankings in the food world. For starters, it’s the top source of food waste, vegetable division, becoming more than 1 billion pounds of uneaten salad every year. But it’s also the chief culprit for foodborne illnesses. According to the Centers for Disease Control, green leafies accounted for 22 percent of all food-borne illnesses from 1998-2008. 

To be fair, “leafy vegetables,” the CDC category, also includes cabbage, spinach and other kinds of greens, but the reason the category dominates is that the greens are often eaten raw. As in salad.

None of this is to say that salad doesn’t have a role in our food supply. I like salad, and there’s been many a time a big bowl of salad on the dinner table has kept me from a second helping of lasagna. The salads we make at home aren’t the same as the ones we buy in restaurants; according to the recipe app Yummly, its collection of lettuce-based salads average 398 calories per serving (although a few do get up into Oriental Chicken territory).

An iceberg wedge, with radishes and bacon and blue-cheese dressing, is something I certainly have no plans to give up. But as we look for ways to rejigger our food supply to grow crops responsibly and feed people nutritiously, maybe we should stop thinking about salad as a wholesome staple, and start thinking about it as a resource-hungry luxury.

* 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 19  

A cold dose of reality?   Let’s get real. No vaccine will work as if by magic, returning us to ‘normal’. See here.

The UK: Sounds familiar . . . A steep rise in new infections pushed daily recorded cases of coronavirus to almost 3,000 yesterday, a rise of more than 1,000 on Saturday. This has led to fears of an uncontrolled resurgence in the disease, driven in part by a growth among younger adults. Said someone wise:  It's very hard to unpick the ‘why’ , and probably multiple reasons are contributing. A bigger question is ‘what do we do next in the UK?’”

Living La Vida Loca in Spain/Galicia  

The disgraced ex-king . . . HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for this bit of recent news that says a lot about modern Spain: The  spokeswoman for the right-wing PP party was fired last week by the party's leader, who said that no one in the PP will be allowed to criticise the actions nor seek explanations of Juan Carlos I, currently self-exiled to Abu Dhabi. Meanwhile, over 70 ex-ministers and senior figures have signed a letter in support of Juan Carlos. These include 'barons' from both the PP and the left-of-centre PSOE parties.   

Is Cataluña to be the new Galicia? Or perhaps only the new Campo de Gibraltar?

Bull taunting we could all enjoy.

María's Dystopian Times, Day 23 

The Way of the World

Some actress made more than a million dollars in 24 hours by offering revealing fotos of herself on a site for fans willing to pay for them. I suspect I'd get rather less.

Jessica Krug, an associate professor of history at George Washington University (GWU) lived for years under an assumed race and ethnicity until she disclosed the truth on September 3. Having assumed identities such as that of a Bronx-bred Afro-"boricua" (Afro-Puerto Rican), she wrote: “I have eschewed my lived experience as a white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City under various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim: first North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness."  The editor-in-chief of RaceBaitr, a website where Krug had published articles, said she had only come forward with the revelation because her deception was about to be revealed. GWU said it was "looking into the situation".  

Note that 'black' can/must now be 'Black' in some circumstances.

English/Spanish  

Another 3 (less well-known?) refránes:-  

- Abundance engenders disdainfulness: La abundancia mata gana.

- After dinner rest a while; after supper walk a mile: La comida a reposar; y la cena a pasear.

- A soft answer turneth away wrath: Cortesía de boca gana mucho a poca costa/Cortesía de boca mucho consigue y nada cuesta.

Finally . . . 

Checking further on the word prenda, I somehow arrived a site for a store called Liverpool which offered sweatshirts at more than 1,000 dollars. I eventually discovered that the sign for the Mexican peso is the same as that for the UDS dollar . . .

* 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 19  

As expected, the US deaths/million total has passed that of Sweden and - ignoring South America - these are now the top worst countries. More stats here.   

Belgium 854

Spain 629

UK 611

Italy 588

USA 582

Sweden 577     

Who'd bet against the USA - with its never-ending first wave - reaching the second slot?  Even the first.
As for 2nd waves, it looks like Spain is now out in front. Though with a much greater gap between cases and deaths. See the article below for relevant factors, where the highlighting is mine.      

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia 

Last year saw more immigrants coming to Galicia than since 1990. Inevitably, the largest contingent was from troubled Venezuela. Followed by Colombia, (Portuguese-speaking) Brazil Peru, and Cuba. Not much potential for cultural or religious clashes, then. Lucky Spain.

Given the number of 'pilgrims' albergues that have sprouted in Pontevedra city - and maybe along the rural camino too - 2021 had better be a much a much healthier year for the owners/investors than this one. Grounds for optimism stem from the fact it'll be un Año Santo Jacobeo**, preparations for which have been in process since the last one in 2010. 

María's Dystopian Times, Day 22  

Spanish

I've always thought that prenda was a skirt/garment but, seeing it in a recent refrán, I had to check and discovered it also means ‘a pledge’. No obvious connection that I can see.

Perhaps it lies in the several meaning of prenda here.  

English/Spanish  

Another (less well-known?) refrán:-  

-  A rule  isn’t unfair if it applies to everyone: Ley pareja no es dura/rigurosa.  [Truth to tell, in Spain all rules are unfair, unless you can bend them to your own advantage. Or just ignore them as being inconvenient to you.]

Finally . . .  

I have 3 grandchildren, aged 19 months, 3 and 5. The youngest in is Madrid and the other 2 in the UK. By some freak coincidence, they all attended the first day of some sort of school last Friday.  

THE ARTICLE 

Coronavirus: Spain reckons with Europe’s worst second wave: Spain’s resurgence of coronavirus is driven by the capital, where people complain of poor testing and tracing.   The Times

In the working-class neighbourhood of San Diego, anger is growing among residents who face the highest rates of coronavirus infection in Spain. The barrio, bordered by railway tracks and Madrid’s circular motorway, is part of the Puente de Vallecas district, which over the past two weeks recorded 987 cases per 100,000 people, twice as high as the capital’s average and almost four times that of the country.

Outbreaks in Madrid have pushed it to the fore of a second wave in Spain, where the pandemic is spreading at its fastest pace in Europe. Politicians again stand accused of acting too late, They puzzle over the causes, but those in San Diego have their own explanations. “This is a poor neighbourhood,” Margarita Martínez, 55, who works as a carer for elderly people, said. “The government gives money to wealthier areas but they have abandoned us.” Julián de Diego, 62, who was born in San Diego and has been a taxi driver for 39 years, added: “Why has it happened here? Because we are working people who go out to clean people’s houses, stations and offices, and we drive public transport and work in shops. We are at risk. And they don’t send resources and trackers and tracers here.”  Some blame overpopulation. “Lots of people are living in very small houses and sharing flats,” said Aroa Garcia, 36, a mother of four. Others said young people were not distancing or wearing masks. “They meet in large groups,” Edberto Realba, 26, a food courier from Venezuela, said. “They party a lot.”

Madrid has recorded 467 cases per 100,000 people over the past two weeks, with the highest incidences concentrated in Puente de Vallecas and three other poor southern districts. The capital accounts for a third of infections in Spain, which in turn has had about a third of Europe’s new cases if Russia is excluded. In the past fortnight the number of cases nationwide has reached 236 per 100,000 people, compared with 27 in Britain, 28 in Italy, 105 in France and 19 in Germany.

Spain’s record is causing alarm across the Continent. Experts and the public question how the authorities were caught off guard and what measures they will take to curb the escalation. Today the country registered 8,959 new infections, the highest number since the resurgence and one that will fuel fears about the return from summer holidays to schools and offices. The Socialist-led coalition government of Pedro Sánchez, who this week ruled out another national lockdown, has acknowledged that things “are not going well”. Spain was one of the hardest hit countries during the first wave of the pandemic and has lost about 29,000 lives to the virus, although estimates based on excess deaths put the figure at about 45,000. The government points out that the mortality rate is half what it was at the height of the crisis and that the majority of positive results are asymptomatic. However, the surge is being felt on the front line. “Our hospital has started to have to reorganise entire floors and operating rooms and non-emergency consultations,” said José Curbelo, a senior doctor at the Princesa hospital in Madrid, where the average number of Covid patients has increased from about ten in June to 80 now. More worrying, Dr Curbelo observed, is that the capital’s primary healthcare centres are “saturated” with Covid cases, which has compounded Spain’s much-criticised lack of track and tracing. “Primary care colleagues are overwhelmed and they’re actually trying to do the tracing,” he said, adding that laboratory bottlenecks meant it could take a week or longer to do the PCR test and get the results back.

In San Diego most people interviewed by The Times volunteered that they were waiting for delayed medical appointments. Several said they had friends who could not risk or afford being tested in case the result was positive; that would mean isolation and loss of work. “Many people here can’t afford to self-isolate,” Mrs Martínez said. “If you don’t work you won’t eat.”

Health experts including Dr Curbelo also believe that the country came out of confinement too quickly. After the strict lockdown was eased on June 21, Spain rapidly opened its borders to foreign tourists and its famously gregarious social gatherings got under way. 

Mr Sánchez said last month that outbreaks in July among itinerant farm workers in Aragon and Catalonia were a turning point. He cited nightlife and family reunions as causes of the new wave. Today the Madrid region announced tighter restrictions on social gatherings, including limiting the number of people at ten to match measures reimposed elsewhere in Spain. Health experts have welcomed such measures but analysts have pointed to deeper problems afflicting Spain: its political fragmentation and polarisation and a debate over the powers of its decentralised system of 17 regional governments. “This crisis has shown the deficiencies of the Spanish state, that it’s not a federal state and it’s not a centralised state,” said Miguel Otero-Iglesias of the Elcano Royal Institute, a think tank in Madrid, who served on a government committee on the transition out of lockdown. “One of the biggest problems in Spain is that it does not have a sufficiently institutionalised and assimilated culture of co-operation.”  Ildefonso Hernández-Aguado, a former director-general of public health for the Spanish government, said the regions had underestimated the second wave. “There has been a problem with not enough health workers for the contact tracing,” he said. But he disagreed that decentralisation was an added issue. “The problem is more with governance and with democratic quality,” he said. “I haven’t seen the presidents of the regions being accountable for all the measures that they have been taking for the last two months when they are the ones responsible.”  Ignacio Rosell, professor of preventive medicine and public health at the University of Valladolid, added that the regional system means that data can be affected by delays. “The autonomous communities send their information to the health ministry’s central epidemiological surveillance base. But if any region has problems or information delays, it affects the general data.”

With no national picture, no national strategy and a paucity and disunity of data, botched plans by regional governments have added to the impression of political improvisation. This week there was chaos outside a Madrid testing centre where thousands of teachers had been sent at the last minute before the start of the academic year next week.

On the front line that lack of a national strategy is being felt. “Authorities must understand that they have to invest heavily in detecting and treating those infected. It is a priority,” said Dr Curbelo in Madrid. “It is not necessarily more hospitals or more doctors needed, but a better network to detect and isolate and monitor cases. Without that it is impossible for the disease to be controlled.”

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

** When 25 July falls on a Sunday and a special east door is opened for entrance into Santiago Cathedral.

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 19  

More good news.

Months ago, I reported the stress being placed on the viral load you were hit with, as distinct from fleeting contact with someone with the virus. Experience has confirmed the critical importance of this. Perhaps explaining why many more people haven't come down with it, despite its high R rate. The first article below addresses this issue.

Spain:

1. As I was saying about thosr naughty kids . . .

2. The reaction of the Galician government:-

3. If you live in or travel to Madrid, you’d best familiarise yourself with the new rules.

Portugal: The traffic light country . . . Green, Red, Green, threatened Red, still Green. It would be funny if it weren't so serious.

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia 

The second article below is a nice one on why you might find yourself being stared at here. Totally accurate, in my experience.

Rio Tinto means Red River and there is one, of course. Dowmn inm Andalucia. Here's an article on its possible relevance to space travel.

Don't open those packages from China . . .

A sourish note . . . I was thinking, as I brewed my coffee yesterday morning, that things here just don't happen the way they should. In truth, you can 'smell' inefficiency here, just as you can 'smell' efficiency in The Netherlands and France (except for some lazy waiters/waitresses in the latter case). Right on cue, 2 hours later, the ITV operator called me to postpone an appointment for my annual car-check by a week and to say the payment I'd made on the internet hadn't gone through. So, could I ignore the new system of no face-to-face contact and go to the office to pay the fee before my new time slot.

María's Dystopian Times, Day 21   

The USA

Insanity unravelling?

Text  here.  

The backcloth, from a very left wing perspective. But is the prescription as valid as the description?     

The Way of the World

I heard the TV ad of a company this morning in which it claimed to have thousands of 5 star reviews. I noted they didn't say 'genuine reviews'. So, wasn't surprised to hear just now that Amazon had deleted 20,000 such reviews. Of course, one can also pay for 1 star reviews of a competitive business.

English/Spanish  

Another (less well-known?) refrán:-  

- A pound of care won't pay a pound of debt: Pesadumbres no pagan deeds. [Nice again]

Finally . . . 

White floor tiles are great. And so is sunshine. But the combination certainly shows up the dust . . .

THE ARTICLES 

1. Viral load: How much of the virus does it take to make us sick?  Growing evidence suggests the dose of the virus determines how ill we become. It may also help explain why deaths no longer track cases: By Paul Nuki

How many people outside of your family have you had a sustained face-to-face conversation with – at close quarters – over the last six months?

If you are anything like me, it’s not many. I’ve had several meals sitting opposite friends but all were outside or in well-ventilated restaurants. I can recall just two prolonged conversations with strangers in the street which started within handshaking distance but, in both instances, we took a step back within a few seconds. And the last time I was indoors shouting over music, hugging strangers and sharing drinks was in Alpine bar in early February, just a few weeks before the world closed down.

Only an Alp or two away in Ischgl, Austria, similar scenes resulted in one of Europe’s largest super spreading events; a tragedy that helped propel the virus across Europe and which killed at least 30 people, most of them healthy men like me between 50 and 70.

The change in our behaviour – replicated all around the world – has not only reduced our chances of our coming into contact with SARs-CoV-2 but has reduced the probability of being exposed to large amounts of it. Put another way, we are not just having fewer interactions but the intensity of those interactions has dramatically faded.

Scientists are now wondering if this phenomenon – one which likely reduces the “infectious dose” of the virus people are exposed to – may help explain why hospitalisations and deaths are not tracking confirmed cases as closely as they were in the Spring. 

If they are right, it has important implications not just for epidemiological modelling but how we assess our own risk and behaviours. Where to wear a mask, when to return to the office and even which bed you sleep in are all questions it could inform. 

“The initial dose of virus and the amount of virus an individual has at any one time might worsen the severity of Covid-19 disease,” speculated members of the Oxford Covid-19 Evidence Service Team in March. “The amount of virus exposure at the start of infection – the infectious dose – may increase the severity of the illness and is also linked to a higher viral load [in infected patients]”.

Hard evidence is now building to support this view from animal, human and modelling studies, new and old. 

First, a clear link has been established between the amount of virus patients have in their system – their viral load – and the severity of illness. Studies from China have shown viral load is higher in patients with more severe disease. And a large American Study published in The Lancet last month found that “viral load at diagnosis” was an “independent predictor of mortality” in hospital patients. The higher the load, the greater chance of dying.

But what about the infectious dose? Does the amount of virus you are initially exposed to make a difference to the chances of catching the bug and, more importantly, surviving?

Here the evidence is less clear cut but it is mounting. A study published in May by scientists at Public Health England’s National Infection Service at Porton Down, Salisbury, gave ferrets varying doses of Sars-Cov-2 and found a clear difference in outcomes. 

Animals given high and medium doses contracted the virus and suffered many of the same ailments as humans. But a low dose “appeared to result in infection of only one ferret”. It also escaped the worst effects of the disease, with no scarring of its lungs or fatigue reported.

In many ways, we should not be surprised if the infectious dose of SARs-Cov-2 we are exposed to increases the risk of severe disease. As the geneticist and epidemiologist, Francois Balloux points out: “There are loads of examples in the literature for symptom severity being dose-dependent for plenty of [other] bugs.”

The most obvious is the flu. A major 2010 study of influenza A concluded that there was a clear relationship between the infectious dose of that virus and patient outcomes. “Low dose exposure may lead to infection, due to the high infectivity of the virus, but of those infected only a small proportion may become ill,” said the authors. In contrast, “exposure to high doses of virus results in most of the infected subjects also becoming ill”. 

So how much of the Covid-19 pandemic might the infectious dose of the virus end up explaining, and what lessons might we reasonably take from the research as it stands?

The answer to the first part of the question could be huge. For instance, one retrospective study of the 1918 Spanish Flu finds the much higher fatalities seen in its second and third waves can be explained entirely by people being exposed to a larger infectious dose rather than a mutation in the virus, as has previously been assumed.

As for practical measures, they should probably be steered by the principle of keeping interactions fleeting rather than intense. This may translate, as the government wants, into people having greater confidence in returning to the office and other well-ventilated environments, assuming they are well spaced.

In the home, in contrast, you should probably distance more, especially if someone has the virus. Don’t share a bed with an infectious partner or child and, as suggested by the BMJ in May, “isolate an infected household member as far as possible”. 

Masks and handwashing are the obvious go-to in more crowded environments. As the flu study mentioned above prophetically predicted when it was published in 2010: “When exposure to airborne virus is reduced, for instance by population-wide use of face masks, the relative decrease in numbers of illnesses is expected to be greater than the relative decrease in [viral] transmission”.

Last, steer clear of packed bars, Alpine or otherwise. The infectious dose of the virus will, unfortunately, be just as high there as it has ever been.

2. 10 reasons why a Spanish person might be staring at you   [Note that the young(I guess) writer eschews fullstops/periods, at least some of the time]

Planning a trip to Spain involves a lot of sightseeing—mostly of Spanish people staring at you.  The Spanish stare is deliberate and undisguised, and while it might be off-putting for foreigners used to turning their gaze as soon as they’re caught, it’s just another quirk of the curious people of this country. Spend enough time in Spain and you will probably catch yourself staring at people too.

1. You’re wearing a summer dress before it’s at least 30C (86F) outside.

2. If you’re eating on the go. Meal times are sacred in this country—a time to sit down with friends, talk about everything except work, and savour food and a copa or two of wine. If you’re running to work with a sandwich or eating lunch at your desk be prepared to receive some confused looks.

3. It’s 21C (70F) and sunny and you aren’t wearing a scarf. Scarves in the winter. Scarves in the fall. Scarves in the spring and scarves in the summer. Hit the streets without one and the elderly women who are walking their little dogs will be very concerned for your well-being.

4. It’s 4:29 on a Wednesday and you are walking down Gran Via and haven’t you figured out Spanish people just like to stare?

5. There’s a 3%  chance of precipitation and you didn’t bring an umbrella or a heavy rain coat. Lack of preparedness will result in having to pay for a €12 umbrella at Sol that will last you 20 minutes at most.

6. You are out having dinner before 8:30 PM (and even then, you’re early)  Spanish meal times defy all logic, but if you try to show up early for dinner you will find that most restaurants closed or empty. Don't even try to make a reservation on weekends before 9pm, that's just weird. Once you get used to this schedule eating dinner at 6pm is unthinkable.

7. If your “night out” starts before midnight  Spanish nightlife is not for the fainthearted. With dinner starting anywhere between 9pm and 11pm, you won’t find anyone out before midnight or 1am. Best part about the late start times? In just a few hours the metro will be open and you can pocket the cab money for early morning, post-party churros. 

8. You make plans and you arrive on time  Again, Spain runs on its own clock (literally, Spain has been in the wrong time zone for seven decades).  Always plan to show up at least 10-20 minutes after the time you agreed on. 

9. If you head out to a sobremesa with your friends and don’t agree split the bill evenly  This is one of the more logical ones. The social life here revolves around food whether it’s meeting up for tapas before dinner or for a long sobremesa on the weekends. It’s the norm to split the bill evenly making the waiter’s, and your own lives, easy. That, or take turns picking up the tab. Much simpler than trying to figure out who owes those extra €3.

10. If you’re yelling loudly, in English, for no reason  

* 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 19  

Spain 1: Interesting claims in the face of rising cases.

And some good news.

But this is this is what the world is up against - its youth. As I walked into town last night, I passed 5 young men aged around 17. One of them was wearing a mask, 2 of them had their masks around their necks and 2 didn't have any mask on. A few minutes later  - in the busy Plaza  Verdura - I noted 7 young English/American women - very probably all assistant teachers - in close proximity at a table. Who all hugged and kissed - Spanish style - when they parted. No elbowing. So, will their pupils be infecting them, or will it be vice versa? As I left the square, it struck me that there were dozens of people consorting there without masks and with no pretence of distancing more than a few inches. And that, when they left, they'd all don masks to walk through the streets with more space between them when eating and drinking. Seems odd but IGIMSTS.

Spain 2: A negative assessment from a Spaniard.  

The writer of that article makes the point: If we take the number of deaths per million inhabitants, only Belgium and Peru surpass us, and it is very possible that the Belgian case is due to different accounting criteria. This led me to today's table, where I see that - having passed most other European states - the USA has reached Sweden's total and will certainly pass it today. And Italy's next week. Next milestone, the UK’s:-

Peru 885 

Belgium 852

Spain 625

UK 611

Chile 597

Italy 587

Brazil 586

Sweden 577  

USA 577

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia 

Now that the courts have ordered the Franco family to give back to the state the mansion that was 'gifted' to their (in)famous antecedent, the next step will get them to relinquish the priceless statues that found their way into it back then.  

So, we're to have the amazing 5G countrywide very soon. Which will certainly be a major change from the paltry wifi capability that Telefónica gave me for 15 years. Until they laid a cable in our barrio and we entered the 21st century.

Another example of an aggressive driver in a yellow car last evening, when a young man raced past a car that had stopped to let me onto a zebra crossing, less than a metre from me. Is yellow a colour to be afeared of in any other country?

If you've an itch to do the Camino Portugués, Correos has a new page (in Spanish) for you here, detailing its services. In English.     

The traditional summer fires in our mountains have one positive consequence - they reveal petroglyphs that were either forgotten or never known about.  

Spanish

Mampara - Screen; partition. Not to be confused with  . . .

Mampostería - Stonework; masonry. A traditional wall of stones held together pone way or another.

English/Spanish  

Three more obscure(?) refranes:-  

- A good payer won’t object to leaving a deposit: Al buen pagador, no le duelen prendas.

- A man may learn wit every day: Todas los días se aprende algo/No te acosterás sin saber una cosa más.

- A moneyless man goes fast through the market: Quien poco tiene, pronto lo gasta. 

Finally . . . 

Something great that I found after seeng the obit of one of the members of The International Sweethearts of Rhythm. Who deserved to be more famous than they are/were. 

Here (I hope) is a podcast on the possible major consequences of Covid on the way things will be done in the future. 

* 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 19

Sweden: The scientist in charge of Sweden’s coronavirus strategy has suggested that the over-70s could be able to spend Christmas with their friends or families as the country prepares to relax its guidelines for vulnerable groups.

The UK: More confusion . . . Tests for antibodies may be dramatically underestimating the proportion of people who have been infected with the coronavirus. The claim, made in The British Medical Journal, implies that it is possible some parts of the UK are far closer to herd immunity than had been thought. However, the authors cautioned that they could not put a figure on how far out the estimates were. According to seroprevalence studies, only 5% of people in the UK and 17% in London have been infected. Three researchers have said that there are inherent flaws in the way those figures are calculated, which may prove to be crucial, particularly when it comes to detecting mild cases. They may also explain, they said, why some regions seemed to be avoiding a second wave despite the relaxation of lockdown.

Spain: Radar Covid is a free app which uses Bluetooth, anonymously, to inform users if you’ve spent at least 15 minutes within 2m of a person who's tested positive for coronavirus in the previous 14 days. The Spanish PM has called on all citizens to download it, stressing it could reduce the impact of the pandemic by 30%. 

Portugal: To be re-red-listed after only 2 weeks on the green list, catching out many Brits who quickly booked a holiday there. And infuriating many (all?) of them. IGIMSTS.

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia

Spain’s economy was thumped by an 80% fall in tourism receipts in July. Nationwide that is. The Galician economy - thanks to domestic tourists - wasn’t hit anywhere near so badly.

The Spanish judicial system is not exactly famed for expeditiousness. And you can imagine what Covid has done to it. Shades of Jarndyce v Jarndyce - Dickens' famous example of the futility and length of civil court cases. 

At last, the greedy Franco heirs have been ordered to give up the mansion here that was ‘gifted’ to Franco by the Galician people back in the 1940s, largely without their knowling they'd been so generous.

Yesterday I received edition number 1529 of Private Eye. Fine but I wonder what happened to editions number 1528 and 1527? Will I eventually get them or have they fallen into The Pit of August?

María's Dystopian Times, Days 19 and 20.      

The UK

From the  Private Eye just received:-

The USA

At the Republican National Convention, Trump’s message was crystal clear. Trump argued that only he could stop the racial unrest that he himself has incited. Trump claimed that only he can rebuild the economy that his negligence helped destroy. Trump alleged that only he can navigate America out of the coronavirus pandemic that he failed to contain. In other words, Trump is telling voters to re-elect him to save them from his own failures. It could well work.

English/Spanish  

Astute readers will've noticed we've reached the end of the alphabet in respect of well-known refrains. So, turning now to those less well-known, back to A . . . So. three more refranes:-  

-  A constant guest is never welcome: A donde te quieren mucho, no vengas a menudo/Lo poco agrada y lo mucho enfada/Visita cada día, a la semana hastía.

- A creaking door lasts longest: El viejo qui se cura, cien años dura.

- A few germs never hurt anyone: Chancho(cerdo) limpio nunca engorda.

Finally . . .  

I didn't know there were this many breeds of cow in the entire world so I was surprised to read there were at least 16 in Galicia alone:-    

* 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 19

Sweden attracted worldwide attention earlier this year when it stayed open throughout the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, and now it is holding out again, this time refusing to recommend the use of masks. While most of the world has come to terms with covering their noses and mouths in crowded places, people in Sweden are going without, riding buses and metros, shopping for food, and going to school maskless, with only a few rare souls covering up.  . . . But unlike many countries in Europe seeing a resurgence of cases - such as France, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Italy - Sweden's data now seems to be pointing in the right direction: down.  See here. 

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia

Inditex 1: This is the Galicia-based parent company of Zara. And a bewildering - to me - host of clothes outlets which seem to dominate our main shopping street. I see they have a new one - called bizarrely Lefties - which you can read about here. Not yet in Pondevedra. As if I care . . .

Inditex 2: This is a hard to believe this story re the private owners of the company being interested in buying the Manchester United football club from the - widely unpopular - Glaziers. Who are American. I’ll believe it when I see it. 

María's Dystopian Times, Day 18.   

The UK

The problem the BBC faces in all its comedy output is that it can't bear to poke fun at the things it holds most dear. And so, as satire, it fails and becomes mere propaganda for the Establishment and the woke culture. Time for change say some. Many, possibly.   

Talking of laughing . . . Words not really necessary:-

France

Nice to know others are confused aussi: French bureaucrats were accused of smothering businesses in red tape yesterday after publishing an almost impenetrably convoluted guide to the wearing of masks in the workplace.

The Way of the World

A bit more on the  moribund(?) full stop/period below

Coffins made by Trappist monks. And then blessed by them! Can surely only be in the USA.

English

You heard it first here . . . In America, a sub-group of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is demanding that teachers “abolish standard English”, which it calls “anti-Black linguistic racism and white linguistic supremacy”. Its manifesto demands that teachers “decolonize the mind (and/or) language” and calls on them to “not dismiss Black Language simply as a dialect of English ... it’s not spoken only by Black people who are positioned in a ‘low’ or ‘working class.’ Recognize it as a language in its own right!”. It ends by stating: “This Ain’t Another Statement! This is a DEMAND for Black Linguistic Justice!”. And, no, it’s not a parody.

English/Spanish  

Three more refranes:-  

- You must face the consequences of your actions: Quien por su gusto padece, (que) vaya al inferno a quejarse.

- You're casting pearls before swine: No se hizo la miel para la boca del asno.

- You've made your bed; now lie in it: El que le hace paga.

Finally . . . 

A friend sent me this morning this wonderful Oscar Peterson video. If you don’t like the first piece, go to minute 7.57 for a divine rendition of Hymn to Freedom. One nice comment: A very heartwarming and a little bit sad concert, the old master losing his left hand and the pupil continuing his marvelous technique, so great!

And here you can hear the multi-talented (and personally hated) Hugh Laurie performing the same piece, albeit briefly.  

THE ARTICLE

Teenagers' fear of the full stop is all a question of confidence: Like the Australian uplift, the fear of sounding too declaratory is symptomatic of an attitude of mind: Melanie McDonagh

Aggressive punctuation is an actual thing. Last week, research from Birmingham University revealed that teenagers perceived text messages ending in a full stop as insincere. My daughter, who’s 13, agreed. “It makes you look angry,” she said. However, ellipses, the three dots that take the edge off every statement, are fine.

It strikes me that this reluctance on the part of teenagers to assert anything, as in saying something categoric enough to require a full stop, is symptomatic of an attitude of mind. It’s the equivalent of an earlier kind of diction, the terminally irritating Australian uplift at the end of a sentence which turns every statement into a question. Thus, saying anything assertively, like making a statement, is seen as being aggressively sure of yourself, whereas being tentative in your spoken or text speech is inviting agreement from your interlocutor. 

Similarly, many teenagers won’t intrude on others’ space by calling them on the phone rather than texting, unless they really do require an immediate response. That’s a kind of etiquette in itself. And, funnily enough, it replicates the unease many felt nearly a century ago about the telephone intruding into people’s homes with its assertive ring … and, in a way, the concerns were right.

But there’s another aspect to all this, viz, the perennial desire of the young to send up adult attempts to ape their vernacular. So, teenagers joyously mock grown ups’ use of emojis; my daughters’ friends use them sparingly… the eyes streaming tears, as in tears of laughter, and eyes and mouth symbols for god knows what.

When teenagers do use copious emojis, beware. It may be what she calls “fairy comments”, by which she means using hearts, flowers, sparkles and fairy symbols to send up any statement they accompany as insincere and ironic – usually quotes on Instagram by white male politicians. Funnily enough, that’s exactly how these same symbols are used in the Asterix books … only they’re funnier. But that’s the usage right now. Give it another couple of weeks and the teenagers will probably have moved on. It’s annoying. Full stop.

* 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 19

Even though the number of cases in Spain has risen by 78% since lockdown ended, only 4% have had to go to hospital, and only 7% of these have needed to be admitted to intensive care. See here. 

Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia

I claimed my money back for an end June train journey from Madrid that got me home 2 hours late. According to a 2013 site, I should have got 100% back but I see that the Renfe page - when I finally found the info - now says only 50%.  I don’t have the energy to pursue this. And, as they say, it’s better than a kick in the orchestra stalls.

Having seen the folk on the streets of Pontevedra, I wasn't too surprised to read that hotel occupancy in Galicia was at the 90% level in the first half of August. Enough to turn a profit. The second half will have been at least as good, I imagine. September, though, won’t be at this level, as it’s the month preferred by (stay-away) guiris.

But what a strange month is August. I managed to get estimates for 3 things that need to be done around the house but no one will come to do them until some time later this month.  Or perhaps even October. But I did manage to get my car serviced this morning.

My problems, though, are nowt compared to that of the poor folk who’ve been desperate for more than 2 months to get the new ‘minimum income’ benefit but who right now can't even get an appointment to make an application.

Another funny thing about August is that there's 'always' a dip in the temperature in the last week. But this year there was an unprecedented (and heavy) snowfall which blanketed the Picos de Europa, across 3 northern regions to the east of Galicia.

A reader has said this is response to the comment from Rod Liddle cited yesterday; Outrageously insufferable article by this chap - Rod Liddle. Perhaps, he might care to educate himself a little bit and look up the stats for infant mortality and deaths under age 5 in Britain and Spain (worldometer). I don't know if British children are happier or not than Spanish - what they are more likely is to be . . . dead. I have to say that the treatment my daughter received in a Madrid hospital 19 months ago was exceptionally good. But I noticed that there seemed to a large excess of both facilities and (un-sackable, civil servant?) personnel. And I wondered if this was a consequence of the drastic reduction in the birth rate in recent years. Could this be a factor in Spain's superior number?  

The other thing to note is that the situation is not clear-cut. There certainly are numbers for recent years which show Spain's natal mortality rate is lower than the UK's but, then, there's also the charts here. Where it isn't. What's undeniable is that it has reduced significantly since 1990. But both countries have, despite falling rates, moved down the EU league since 1990. And what's particularly noteworthy is the high number for the USA, where far more is spent per capita on healthcare than anywhere else in the world. I can guess at the factors but don't know them for sure.       

María's Dystopian Times, Day 17.   

The USA

A presentation from the US Mail.  

The Way of the World

Eight months into the Covid crisis/panic, we've learnt not to place total trust in computer modelling. The predictions from these depend, of course, on the critical assumptions inserted in the model. Or as commonly said, Shit in, shit out. I was reminded of this  by reading Christopher Booker's thought-provoking book  "Global Warming: A Case Study in Groupthink: How science can shed new light on the most important 'non-debate' of our time. Booker therein cites this comment from Dr Richard Lindzen: Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age. I recommend the book to all, whether you're a believer in man-made global warming (AGW) or not. But especially if you are.

English

Another new word for me: tosher: Someone who trawled London’s drains for valuable items.

English/Spanish  

My thanks to María for this explanation of La ocasión la pintan calva, literally 'Ocasión, they portray  her bald'. For 'You have to strike while the iron is hot'. This refers to a Roman goddess, Ocasión. She was depicted with beautiful, flowing hair pinned up in front, but bald on the back of her head, meaning that you can't catch her by the hair to prevent her getting away.  See here.

Finally . . . 

More atheistic news . . . The godless are said to sleep better than the godful.  

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