Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

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

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'

Cosas de España

Not good news 1: How organisational problems in Spain are impeding the administration of Covid-19 vaccines: The immunisation of essential workers and the over-80s got going this week with a number of complications over appointments, which are slowing down the campaign. Last week just 75% of received doses were injected. See here.

Not good news 2: Madrid’s vaccination plan for teachers and over-80s is mired in confusion.

The ex king seems not to have coughed up all the taxes he avoided - which would have sent the rest of us to jail - but has now come up with a 2nd large tranche of €4m. Presumably under pressure. Or maybe he can't afford good accountants.

Cousas de Galiza

There will, of course, be regional differences in the vaccination program and my impression is that Galicia is doing better than most. I retain a degree of confidence I'll be jabbed in April, if not March. Or maybe May.

And when we can travel again, it’s good to know that Portuguese Railways (CP) are planning a train all the way from Valença on our nearby border to the Algarve and Faro. And places in between, I trust 

María's Tsunami Days 26 & 27. Of Santiago, María writes: Some bars had too many tables out and occupancy was above the 50% percent allowed. Fourth wave, here we come. Exactly my observations in a jam-packed Pontevedra old quarter yesterday lunchtime. Fortunately, my friends and I had reserved in a place outside the casco viejo, where the rules were being scrupulously obeyed. Though this might not help us in the longer run.

The UK

The reports coming from Scotland are doing 2 things: 1. Reducing the chances that independence will ever be achieved, even if the SNP easily win imminent elections there, and 2. Reminding us of just how corrupt a single issue, nationalist, populist government can become. These 2 things are linked, of course. Is Cataluña very much different? 

The Way of the World

The book reviewer of Private Eye magazine: The appeal of celebrity biography used to be that, while gorging on the self-congratulatory cake, you might find a currant of revelation. The books were known as tell-alls for a reason: they implied that previously, information had been withheld. Now, for the first time, here were all the highs, the lows, the drugs, the feuds and the weirdo diets. If you wanted to know what went on behind the lame, you had to buy the book. But fame, books and their bastard offspring celebrity publishing have all changed. Fame is just another fast-moving  consumer good; books are merely a subsection of the see-what-sticks word-vomit we call the media; and books about famous people are all part of the brand experience. Though celebrity biography still outsells all other non-fiction, it is waning - the market nearly halved between 2009 and 2018. A quick survey of this year's post-Christmas remainder pile suggests that the answer for a whole tranche of younger celebs is "Life Lessons", a recent genre mutation takes celebrity autobiography and shunts it towards self-help - "How a Sadsack Like You Can Live An Amazing Life Like Mine". The narrative arc in such books tends to follow a formula: early success owing to irrepressible talent; massive mental health crisis; slow recovery thanks to good friends, being kind and living in the moment; realising everything that led to early success was unutterably vacuous (if well-paid); move to country, have kids, sheep, podcast, run out of money - re-invent self as giver of vital life lessons to pay for a mortgage, sheep, etc.  Talent managers and publishers need these books to exist. It's not clear that anyone else does. 

English

Just in case were are as ignorant as me: ‘Parkour' is a training discipline using movement that developed from military obstacle course training. Practitioners - called tracers or traceurs - aim to get from one point to another in a complex environment, without assistive equipment and in the fastest and most efficient way possible. Also known as PK. Critics say it can be dangerous, encourage trespassing, and cause damage to property. Over the years, many people have died while attempting perilous stunts, like jumping from roof to roof or climbing on high ledges and rails.

Finally . . . 

Here - for your Sunday reading - is a (longish) article - from Debora Robertson entitled. Good manners are simply codified kindness.  Even - especially? - in the times of Covid:-

Even with the loosening of restrictions, we will all have to be cautious for a while yet, wearing our face masks, washing our hands, giving people space. If you are wearing a mask, make an extra effort to smile with your eyes, as Tyra Banks used to tell the hopefuls on America’s Next Top Model.

I don’t know about you, but I still feel awkward when I see people I know in the street. I miss hugging and kissing my friends and even shaking hands with acquaintances. I still find it awkward to know what to do with my hands, and I think I am not alone, given the persistence of the dreaded elbow bump in some quarters. On meeting, I find keeping my hands loosely behind my back to avoid handshakes – à la the Prince of Wales – helps. And it is absolutely fine to put an arm out in a “Halt! Who goes there?” fashion, and cheerfully say, “Too close!” if you feel someone is invading your space in a way that is uncomfortable or potentially unsafe.

WhatsApp with you?

A lot of our work and social interaction has moved on to messaging services such as WhatsApp. It is a quick and convenient way to communicate with an individual or groups of people, but doesn’t leave much space for niceties. 

As with so many things, it is important to deduce the sender’s intention. What they may see as an efficient way of sharing information with you may come across as snappy and rude without vocal or visual clues to indicate tone. You will save yourself a lot of anxiety if you don’t always assume bad faith. Give yourself a break. If you are the sender, a courteous opening and an odd thank you will go an awfully long way.

Socially, I have so many WhatsApp groups busily bubbling away on my phone and I have loved the camaraderie, fun and, YES, gossip (now that no one goes anywhere or does anything, I miss high-quality gossip so much) over the past year. I also live in a state of semi-permanent terror of posting the wrong message on the wrong group, and thereby committing some kind of horrendous faux pas. If this happens, all you can do is fall on your phone and apologise profusely and then, as soon as travel restrictions allow, go and live in an undisclosed location with a new identity and limited social media privileges.

Office culture when everyone is at home

Working from home used to be an occasional “privilege” afforded to few of us, but it is currently the norm for many of us and it may remain so for some time. Of course, we have got to grips by now with the importance of being on time, being available and responding promptly to emails and other messages, but it is also very important to manage your office life as you would if you were in the office, instead of at your kitchen table, which is to say, respect your own and others’ boundaries. Switch off your work email after hours if you can, and don’t expect others to be working late or early just because you are.

Keeping your boundaries

Just as a crisis brings out the best in some, it brings out the worst in others. We are all looking forward to seeing our friends and families again, even under these new constraints. For most, a coffee and a chat on a park bench is enough for now. But we all know those who will want to bend the rules and take offence if we don’t acquiesce. Not one person meeting up outside, but a few? Not six people having a picnic, but 10? And what if they get too close? Want a hug? To shake hands? Of course a firm NO is absolutely fine, but for some it is hard to give, and for others, even harder to hear.

Practise if you have to, but find some words you feel comfortable saying, along the lines of, “I can’t wait to see you, but I really don’t feel comfortable with that yet”. It is also absolutely fine not to see people who you think won’t respect your boundaries, and keep those relationships online only for now.

On the other side of this equation, it is never acceptable to ridicule anyone else’s caution as we navigate our way through the social implications of living in a Covid-19 world. It is boorish and rude. 

Moving on 

As we edge forwards into the spring and summer, we may expect to enjoy greater freedoms, and while the anticipation of that is wonderful in many ways, it doesn’t come without its own anxieties.  I know a few people for whom the past year, while not being enjoyable exactly, has allowed them to relax into their inner introvert, and others who have been inside so long that they view the opening up with trepidation. I think we all need to be patient and, yes, kind with each other. We have been through a hellish shared societal experience and we will feel its repercussions for a long while yet. Some will, no doubt, plunge headlong into a festival of hedonism, and who can blame them? For others, it will prove considerably more challenging. Reticence may feel like deliberate distancing if you are on the receiving end of it. 

What may appear to be stand-offishness face to face may just be nervousness or uncertainty. I hope if we have learnt anything in this past year, it is how to be more honest with our feelings, and that vulnerability is not a weakness. As best we can, I think we all just need to jump in and use our words. If you are anxious or awkward, just say so. 

If you are raring to get out there, pay close attention to people’s non-verbal cues and any verbal hesitancy – they may not be as keen as you are, but might be afraid to hurt your feelings. There is no way out of this other than kindness; let that be your guide. 

If you have friends who get too close or want a greater degree of intimacy than you are ready for, be warm, be friendly, but be firm. Say how you feel, “I love you, I miss you, but I’m not ready for this yet!”. When you are ready, it will be all the sweeter and anyone who genuinely cares for you will understand that.

How not to hate your [neighbour]hood

One of the great boons of this past year has sometimes been one of its greatest sources of irritation. At first, neighbourhood message boards such as Nextdoor and local Facebook groups showed the best of us: making food for NHS workers or vulnerable local people; offers to walk shielding neighbours’ dogs or to pick up prescriptions and shopping; socially distanced gardening and friendly chats over a fence.  And of course, all of that still exists, but at least where I live, what once was so wholesome and good has degenerated into irate threads complaining about huffing joggers, clusters of kids in the park, pavement cyclists, roadworks, dog poo (in plastic bags or not), litter, illegal parties, parking, inadequate mask wearing versus the freedom not to wear a mask at all, vaxxing and anti-vaxxing… all guaranteed to provoke a thousand responses because we’re bored, we’re fractious and some of us have a lot of time on our hands.

Tempting as it might be to have a prod, don’t allow yourself to get embroiled. Engage if you want to, but try to do it in a limited way. Seek out the happy and the helpful. Whizz past the angry and idiotic, especially if you think you might be tempted to respond. You never know, you might have to meet these people face to face one day.

Silence in court

We all seem far more hobbied than we were this time last year, what with the baking, the boxsetting, the tomato-growing, needlepointing, yoga, decorating, and whittling (this might just be my neighbour, who has created far more wooden spoons this past year than anyone could possibly use in a lifetime).

As we work our way back into “normal” life, I see developing a tendency among some to judge others, as though an evening in front of Tarkovsky is somehow better than watching four episodes of Married at First Sight on the bounce, a desire to get back to the opera somehow trumps longing to go back to the football, an expedition looking for Columbia’s rare flora and fauna is somehow more justifiable than a couple of longed-for weeks on one of the Costas. We are all just getting through this as best we can. Put the gavel down – it’s a terrible look. 

Zoom etiquette

Our busy work and social lives have, in many cases, now been reduced to the size of a screen. Zoom (other video apps are available) has revolutionised our interactions and many of us have a love-hate relationship with it. For work, there are more explicit rules than for social interaction. Even now, almost a year on, it is important to dress appropriately for your industry – even if these rules have softened a little over the past months. Take the cue from the most senior person on the call. It is not about being stuffy, it is about inspiring confidence. Though you can take this too far. 

I recently heard a story, possibly apocryphal, of a woman interviewing for a job in a law firm over Zoom. The interview went very well until right at the end they asked her to stand up. When she did, it was clear that while she was all business up top, below the desk she was wearing sweats. She didn’t get the job, but to be honest it sounds like she dodged a bullet to me.

If I had to embroider on to a pillow a phrase that most typifies work life 2020-21, it would be, “You’re on mute!” Can there be a more irritating aspect of online work life than managing the mute button? The most essential of all rules is to make sure you’re muted if you’re not talking – it is very distracting and irritating to hear the background noises of your colleagues’ lives, the tea slurping, snack munching, children shouting, dogs barking mundanity of it – it just makes a trying situation worse. Mute early and mute often are words to live by.

Personal dilemmas

From March 8, we [in the UK] are going to be allowed to meet one friend outdoors for coffee on a bench or a picnic, without the deadening wholesome thud of exercise as cover.  From March 29, we will see the return of the rule of six, so six people from up to six different households will be allowed to meet outside, or two households will be allowed to meet outside even if together they number more than six. Heady times indeed. I envisage myself racing to my local park in the manner of a post-war debutant dashing to the Dorchester. But inevitably, with great choice comes great responsibility. We are practised at this now, but naturally people’s feelings get hurt if they are not the Special One, or part of the Super Six. 

If that person is you, take a breath and realise no one is doing this specifically to hurt your feelings and your day on the park bench or at the picnic table will come. If someone else’s feelings are hurt, reassure them that you are looking forward to seeing them as soon as time and the weather allow (if that is what you want; see boundaries). 

We are all feeling a little raw and weary right now and emotions are heightened. It is also going to be exhausting after all of this time to go back to anything like a social life, however limited, so allow for that when you are dealing with other people’s overtired behaviour.

Handling illness and death

This past year has brought into stark relief how hard many of us find talking about, being around or contemplating illness and death. 

Unlike some other cultures, we are cast adrift with grief without the raft of traditions and rituals to buoy us. Even large funerals, memorials and wakes have been denied to us. There are, however, things we can do to help ourselves and others through this. 

If you have a friend who has lost someone or who is ill themselves, do keep in touch with them, taking the lead from them on what might be appropriate. There is no perfect thing to say or do; being present is more important than being perfect. Do let people be sad and afraid. Saying things like, “Everything happens for a reason”, “No one is sent more than they can handle”, or “I know just how you feel,” only comforts you and often closes down the person you are trying to comfort.  Just be open and kind and there. Send thoughtful treats if possible. Remember, it is never too late to check in on a bereaved friend.

If you feel embarrassed or worried that you didn’t manage to say or do anything in the aftermath of a death, don’t worry unduly, and absolutely do not let it make you feel awkward about getting in touch at a later point. In fact, when the first shock of grief is over, the months afterwards can be particularly lonely and hard. Get in touch. Call. Write. Email. It means such a lot. 

Social life online

Zoom at work is, for many, a necessary evil, so it is understandable that for many, when it comes to their downtime, the very last thing they want is online interaction (the sale of books hasn’t rocketed during our various lockdowns for nothing). 

At the beginning of this extraordinary episode, my inbox was awash with invitations to online dinners, drinks, parties, large group chats and quizzes. I soldiered on determinedly, mostly because I was so desperate to see the faces of the people I cared about, but I knew very quickly it wasn’t for me.  I find such chats exhausting and frustrating and, frankly, I would rather trepan my own head than do a Zoom quiz.  I think many feel similarly, as such invitations have dropped off in recent months. But it can be hard to get out of these things when none of us has an excuse that we have anywhere else to be. In this case, I think it is best to be honest. Being clear that while you love and miss the inviter (if love and miss them you do), you have so many on-screen work obligations you don’t enjoy further time in front of the screen in the evenings or at weekends. Suggest a phone call instead, which somehow feels much more old-school intimate.

And if you are the person who loves a big Zoom meet-up, I am sure you can find your tribe. Don’t be offended if others can’t face it. We are all  just getting through this the best way we know how.

Two-metre pointy stick

No, unfortunately, this is never appropriate, no matter how tempting it might be.

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

Very good news: A single Pfizer vaccine dose could be enough for people who’ve had Covid.This could accelerate rollout, if those going for jabs were offered tests to see whether they had antibodies first

Cosas de España

It had to happen somewhere.

In contrast to, say, France, Spain vaccine refusal level is reported to be as low as only 2%. In Galicia, it might be zero, given that it could cost you between€1,000 and. €600,000[sic]

A famous bullfighter has lost an appeals-court battle to copyright what some consider to the the best performance ever. Which would have meant video viewers needing to pay a royalty. Nice try. And there’s always the Supreme Court

A driverless bus is doing the rounds down in Malaga.

Here’s how to get that non-lucrative residence visa here if you have a house that you want to stay in more than is now allowed to non-residents.

Cousas de Galiza

I’ve never experienced in Spain the sort of attitude which UK police strike in order to foster good relations with the public. Like the time I was let off for doing 85 in a 70 zone. Which has also happened to me in the USA, as it happens. Showing mercy is not a Spanish police thing. I speak as someone who’s been fined 13 times for traffic offences I had no intention of committing and didn’t know I was  committing. So. I wasn’t surprised that my neighbour told me on Friday morning that the police had fined Poio folk for jumping the gun and being in Pontevedra an hour or two before the midnight relaxation of the ban. I guess they know the public fully expect them to be officious, so don’t care about being so.

Here’s María's Tsunami Day 25, in which she touches on this sort of thing.

The EU

Macron and Merkel deserve condemnation, not adulation: Despite their outrageous comments on vaccines, the two leaders get a free pass from the Left.  See the (contentious?) 1st article below.

Germany

What should we make of Angela Merkel refusing the Oxford jab? And: Does the low vaccine take-up in her country show Germans may not be as obedient as Brits think they are?  See the 2nd article below for answers.  

The Way of the World

Dogma is destroying women’s safe havens. Single-sex refuges where victims of domestic violence find safety are losing funding because of a gender-neutral fixation. Two women’s refuges [in UK] have been defunded this month alone. Why? Because they aren’t sufficiently 'gender neutral'.

Finally . . . 

There are at least 15 pet insurance companies in the UK, and then there’s those available from your favourite supermarket. There are some odd and very odd names among them, viz.:-

Affordable Pet Insurance

Purely Pets

More Than

Animal Friends

Every Paw

4PAWS

Scratch & Patch

Golden Leaves

Bought By Many - possibly the oddest.

Incidentally . . . Allegedly the best -Kennel Club Pet Insurance. And, if you have a horse, the worst - Pet Plan Equine. ‘Terrible’ in a large number of reviews. Either it's an awful policy or some multiple reviewer’s really got it in for the company. Emporium is a another company which does badly in reviews. All rather irrelevant to me these days.

Finally, finally . . .

Having just been to the bottle-bank, I’ve decided to go without alcohol for the 29th, 30th and 31st of this month.

THE ARTICLES

1. Macron and Merkel deserve condemnation, not adulation: Despite their outrageous comments on vaccines, the two leaders get a free pass from the Left: Douglas Murray, The Telegraph

When it comes to world leaders, some mystical standard of evaluation always applies. In an era when “populists” were being derided, Emmanuel Macron raced from obscurity to form a one-man party solely centred around himself. At one point after his election as French president, he invited all the country’s legislators to Versailles and lectured them for an hour and a half. Yet Macron is never described as a populist. For some reason Macron’s name is only ever on the good side of the international ledger.

It is the same with Angela Merkel. It does not matter what the Chancellor of Germany does. She can almost destroy the European Union, as she did in 2015 by unilaterally changing the entire continent’s asylum and immigration policy. But still she is the stolid, dependable steerer of the European ship. Even when the catastrophe the continent faces is one that she has created, she is lauded internationally as a safe and sensible pair of hands.

Rarely has this odd standard been more in evidence than in the reaction of both of these leaders to the issue of vaccines.

President Macron reigns over a country which has no shortage of anti-vax sentiment. According to an Ipsos survey carried out in December, just 40 per cent of the French public said that they would agree to get vaccinated against Covid if a jab became available. So Macron’s remarks about the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine last month were not just an oddity – they were dangerous. On the same day that the European Medicines Agency approved the Oxford vaccine for all age groups the French President claimed suddenly that it seemed to be “quasi-ineffective” for people over 65.

There is no evidence that this is the case, and who knows what propelled Macron to say this: hubris, ignorance or simple nationalistic pride and posturing? In the weeks since any kind of row-back from Macron has been resisted. This week he gallantly said that he would have the Oxford vaccine himself, but for his wild claims about the jab he has never apologised.

And here is where the strange double-standard kicks in. Whenever Donald Trump spoke about coronavirus, the domestic and international press were waiting to leap on him. On one occasion they claimed – erroneously – that he had advocated drinking bleach to cure the virus. He had done no such thing.

But still the world went wild. Here was yet another example of the madman Trump, sounding off on a subject he knew nothing about, putting lives at risk.

Perhaps someone somewhere in America did read this reporting and promptly down a bottle of lavatory cleaner with their evening meal. But there was no nationwide problem with bleach-drinking at the time Trump made his remarks. He was not speaking – as Macron was – into an already fetid echo chamber. Yet despite all this, Macron’s name will remain on the side of the ledger which has respectability written all over it.

It is the same with Merkel. Given the present vaccination rates across the EU, European leaders should be doing everything in their power to encourage vaccine take-up among the general population. The comparative figures are – or should be – deeply embarrassing for the EU. Almost 29 per cent of the UK population have received at least one vaccine shot. By comparison the vaccination rates in Italy, Spain, France and Germany hover around 6 to 7 per cent. It is an extraordinary situation for the most powerful countries in Europe to be stuck in – one that will lead to totally unnecessary sloth in the recovery to come.

And what does Merkel do in this position? Having conceded that vaccination rollout has been a disappointment, she went on to say this week that she would not take the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine herself. Hundreds of thousands of doses of this vaccine currently sit in Germany, unused. And here is the Chancellor adding to the existing suspicion of the German people by saying that she would not take this vaccine.

What does she think would happen? What would happen in the UK if the Prime Minister urged the general public to take a vaccine but then said that there was no way he would be willing to take it himself?

And yet with Merkel, as with Macron, none of this will affect their ranking in the portrayal of world leaders. Like Justin Trudeau of Canada, they will still inexplicably remain on the “nice” side of the ledger whatever they do and however incompetent they are. Whereas leaders who go in a different political direction will find every one of their statements open to misinterpretation and more. There was a time when this was hard to discern or difficult to work out. That is no longer the case.

2. What should we make of Angela Merkel refusing the Oxford jab? The low vaccine take-up in her country shows Germans may not be as obedient as we think:  William Cook, The Telegraph

Hold the front page! German Chancellor Angela Merkel has refused to take Britain’s beloved AstraZeneca vaccine! Or has she? As always, in all matters Covid, the truth is a bit more nuanced than the headlines suggest.  

Here’s what happened: Merkel did an interview with Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, in which the interviewer invited her to “lead by example” and receive an AstraZeneca jab on camera, so as to mitigate Germany’s “acceptance problem” regarding this particular vaccine.  

It’s the job of journalists to ask politicians awkward questions – but turns out Germany’s independent vaccines commission have (rightly or wrongly, maybe wrongly) only approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for people aged 65 and under – at least for the time being - and the Chancellor is 66 years old.  For Merkel, it was a lose-lose. “I do not belong to the recommended group for AstraZeneca,” she replied.  

In fact, the paper’s subsequent question was actually a lot more revealing: would she be willing to receive a different vaccine instead? “I think it is right, in addition to the particularly vulnerable and the elderly, to first vaccinate population groups who cannot keep their distance, she responded. “We can sit at a great distance from one another during this interview. A kindergarten teacher, a primary school teacher, cannot do that. These are the people who should get their turn in front of someone like me.” Is Merkel failing to lead by example, by passing up the chance to take the vaccine – any vaccine? Or is she leading by example, by declining to jump the queue?

Merkel is renowned for giving oblique answers to straightforward questions.  Her habit of delaying decisions and deflecting interrogation has even spawned a new German verb, to Merkeln: meaning a propensity for procrastination, for kicking the can down the road.  

It is hard to know her opinion - but what is far more pertinent (and pressing) than trying to work out what Merkel is really thinking - a fool’s errand at the best of times - is trying to work out why Germany has an ‘acceptance problem’ with Covid vaccinations – AstraZeneca’s in particular, and vaccinations in general.  

First things first: no leading figure in Germany is suggesting that Germans shouldn’t take the vaccine - either the AstraZeneca vaccine, or one of the other vaccines approved in Germany.  “Vaccinating fast is the order of the day,” confirmed German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. “I personally have little sympathy for the reluctance to use one vaccine or another.” Yet the fact that he felt compelled to make such a statement shows this ‘reluctance’ is a big issue here.  

“Fears of AstraZeneca could have dangerous consequences,” announced leading German news magazine, Der Spiegel, beneath the headline “the vaccine that nobody wants.” How did these fears arise? Well, after “the product performed weaker in studies than the vaccines from BioNTech and Moderna,” (as Der Spiegel put it), Germans have been passing up the chance to get the AstraZeneca jab. Over half of Germans polled said they’d rather wait for one of the other vaccines instead.  

If there was an unlimited supply of all three vaccines, this preference - be it rational or irrational – might not matter. The problem is, right now, there are lots more AstraZeneca doses available, and Germans aren’t taking them: 1.45 million doses have been delivered, but only 271,000 have been administered; at the vaccination centre at Berlin’s Tegel airport (where only the AstraZeneca vaccine is available, so far), only 200 people turned up for jabs on one day, out of 3,800 available appointments.   It's important to stress that this distrust of the AstraZeneca vaccine isn’t being driven from above. “AstraZeneca is a reliable vaccine, effective and safe, approved by the European Medicines Agency,” said Mrs Merkel. “This vaccine can be trusted. As long as vaccines are as scarce as they are now, you cannot choose what to vaccinate with.”

Like all new vaccines, AstraZeneca’s vaccine has been subjected to various tests, with various results. In some tests, as Der Spiegel reported, it scored lower than BioNTech and Moderna – for some criteria. “The results from BioNTech and Moderna are better, but the AstraZeneca vaccine still significantly reduces the risk,” reported Der Spiegel. And even if AstraZeneca’s vaccine turns out to be slightly less effective, surely waiting for one of the other ones is akin to driving around without a (perfectly good) seatbelt, while you wait to fit a slightly better one?  “All vaccines that have been approved in the European Union to date provide almost 100% protection against severe courses of the disease,” confirmed Der Spiegel. “This is particularly true for AstraZeneca.”  

So where does this German antipathy towards the AstraZeneca vaccine come from? One thing’s for sure: it’s got nothing to do with so-called vaccine nationalism. Germans aren’t bothered about who made the vaccine and where it came from. It seems the problem stems from patients reporting unpleasant side effects. At the Herzogin Elisabeth Hospital in Braunschweig, 88 employees were vaccinated and 37 called in sick, and the news had a negative effect. The German authorities have been keen to point out that reactions to all Covid vaccines can be more severe than they are for other vaccines, that they’re not serious, and that they quickly pass. Yet despite these facts and figures, Germans are voting with their feet.  

For British observers, this controversy seems counterintuitive. Aren’t the Germans rational, to a fault? Aren’t they sticklers for obeying the rules? Well, yes and no. As anyone who knows Germany (especially big cities like Berlin and Hamburg) can confirm, Germany has more than its fair share of rebellious citizens: punks, hippies and anarchists - sceptics and conspiracy theorists of every stripe. The idea that Germany is an orderly land of obedient, servile proles is a largely British stereotype, propagated by people who’ve never been to a German rave, a German demo or a German football match.  

In fact, there’s always been an anti-authoritarian aspect to German society, demonstrated in the enduring popularity of the Green movement, and the mainstream acceptance of alternative treatments such as homeopathy. Vaccine scepticism is entirely consistent with this strain in German society, which is a lot more irrational and emotional than outsiders suppose.  

And above, all, it’s important to remember that we’re all in this together – the British and the Germans, and everyone else in Europe, and beyond. It isn’t a competition. Germany prevented a lot more deaths in the first wave. Britain has done a much better job of vaccination. We should learn from each other and help each other. After all, if Germany’s vaccine programme doesn’t work out, for whatever reason, it won’t do Britain any good at all, whatever the headlines in the tabloids say.

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

Looking back . . . Below is another - UK biased but excellent - overview from MD of Private Eye. One valid point he makes: The greatest problem with a lockdown which has lost its rationale is that people will progressively ignore it and ultimately defy it. We will then have a rule of law crisis. No government should ever get into that predicament.

Looking forward:  EU leaders have agreed to introduce vaccine passports by the summer. Britons dreaming of a beach holiday in the Mediterranean can start planning the trip after. Post-June holiday reservations in Spain are said to be ‘soaring’.

Cosas de España

If you want to know where the (disgraced) ex king is hiding out, click here.

Good News:-

1.  According to the United Nations' Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)SPAIN is better prepared for the global expansion of new and emerging technologies such as 5G, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data than giants like Russia and China, .

2. A Spanish airline has made it into a list of the World's Best Airlines. Not, not Iberia - don’t make me laugh - but Binter Canarias, serving the Canary Islands.

3. Has Utrera’s ancient synagogue been found, after more than 500 years serving other purposes?

Cousas de Galiza

We’ve been waiting  30 years for a high-speed train link to Madrid. So, we probably won’t get excited about the news that: Spain and Portugal have agreed to re-launch the project of the high-performance train between Vigo and Porto(Oporto). 

I saw a new sign in the woods yesterday posting me to Outeiro Giestoso. I didn’t know outeiro (hill/knoll) but figured giestoso came from giesta and that the latter was related to xesta, the Galician word for the brush called ‘broom’ in English* but I could find no one local - in a survey of 2 - who recognised it. I eventually found giesta in a Portuguese dictionary, showing the influence of that language in at least this bit of Galicia. Along the way, I discovered that retama is the Spanish word for ‘broom’ and that it features large on the logo of the Galician Rugby Federation. Which is nice to know.

* Note ‘broom’ and ‘brush’ . . .

The UK

A Scottish study  of the AstraZeneca vaccine is said to have produced ‘spectacular results’. I don’t suppose this will get much exposure in the EU media. Because . . .

The EU   

Sceptical Europeans are turning up their noses at the AstraZeneca vaccine, despite the fact that studies from countries which have begun using it, including the UK, have shown it provides substantial protection for adults of all ages.   The scientific message has also been mangled through hostile briefing. See here. 

As AEP has said, EU members could well pay a high price for this politically-motivated campaign against the vaccine.

The Way of the World

Lady Gaga has offered a $500,000 reward for the safe return of two French bulldogs stolen after her dog walker was shot in Los Angeles. 

May I remind you that this breed is very high on my list of the World’s Ugliest Deformed Canines.

Languages

I was going to say that, unlike English, Romance languages have the problem - in these woke times - of how to end the dominance of male forms. But, of course, both German and Dutch have genders as well. And Icelandic, I  believe. Though I don't know about the other Teutonic languages of Scandinavia. [Stoppress. A Swedish friend here tells me that her native tongue has 2 genders. But 'these are 'common' and 'neuter'. So, no masculine and feminine.]

Anyway, here's a bit on the almost laughable French approach to this problem. I'm aware things are taking place here in Spain too but I'm not up-to-speed on the details: New, unpronounceable mouthfuls are written. Chers étudiants, or “dear students” in the traditional plural, becomes: Cher·s étudiant·e·s. Chers collègues (dear colleagues) becomes Cher·e·s collègues. More here. 

Finally . . . 

I mentioned Bromborough yesterday. A friend there lives in a street at the top of which there’s a wall made of the local red sandstone. In this there are several grooves said to result from medieval archers sharpening the points of their arrows there. A beautiful story to go with a beautiful stone.

I see I wrote about this in 2014: I'm staying with friends in a road called Mark Rake in Bromborough. Each of these names is ripe with historical meaning. 'Mark' originates in the grooves made in the red sandstone walls at the top of the road, where archers used to file their arrowheads. 'Rake' is an old Norse word for 'path to the fields' and Bromborough is the site of the important battle of Brunanburh in 937, in which the Anglo-Saxon king, Athelstan, defeated the combined armies of the Vikings and their Irish and Scottish Celtic allies. One historian has described this battle at "the moment when Englishness came of age" - 129 years before some other Scandinavian descendants arrived from Normandy to obliterate it again

COVID: Progress report 

The UK has made impressive advances, not just in the creation, manufacture and roll-out of Covid vaccines (15m and counting) but also on finding drugs to treat established disease. 

The UK Recovery Trial found the cheap steroid dexamethasone reduces risk of mortality by 20% for those on oxygen and 35 % for ventilated patients. The government-funded REMAP-CAP trial found that two drugs normally used to treat rheumatoid arthritis - tocilizumab and sarilumab - reduce the relative risk of death for patients entering intensive care by 24%. And the combination dexamethasone and tocilizumab reduces ITU mortality by up to 40%. 

We have improved ITU management and ventilator use, and developed early warning systems to spot Covid patients deteriorating outside ITU and at home. The use of pulse oximeters can spot patients with dangerously low oxygen saturation even when they appear well. The NHS has made vitamin D supplements free for those at high risk of Covid, in the hope of improving general health and immunity. 

Compliance with masks, hand-washing, social distancing, isolating, quarantining and lockdown rules has endured, the NHS Covid App has been downloaded 22 million times and we have the world's most expensive test and trace system. Yet despite all the effort, cost, sacrifice and progress, we have been unable to stop 120,000 people dying from Covid, nor the economic and educational carnage that has accompanied it. Might it not have been better to keep the virus out at our borders? 

Keeping out the variants 

MD predicted that effective vaccines might yet save Boris Johnson's career (Eye 1535), and the Tories are indeed ahead of Labour in the polls despite the grim death toll. The variants too are a political convenience. 

There is no doubt the Kent variant has done a lot of damage and needed to be suppressed. It thrived in the UK because of our poor controls, and when it took off in December - as respiratory viruses tend to - it provided a much-needed excuse for Johnson to reverse his risky three-household Christmas gathering. 

Alas, the last-minute "mutant on the loose" message provoked panic and some people fled London and the South-east spreading the new variant nationwide. Others felt it was too late to change plans Johnson had recently assured them it would be "inhuman" to cancel. For five weeks from 6 January, we had more deaths most days than Australia has had in the entire pandemic. My Aussie relatives are aghast at our incompetence. Yet the variant is more likely to cop the blame than the government. 

Playing the fear card 

The "fear of variants" can now be used to sanction all the strategies the government should have put in place a year ago. Strict border control, stricter testing and tracing, suppression of infection rather than letting it simmer and - hopefully -better support for the poor, who suffer the double whammy of most harm from Covid and most harm from lockdown. 

Had we done this a year ago and kept infections low, we might not be in lockdown now. Vaccination will be a big help this time around, and variant fear has spawned scary Covid adverts and is making more people stick to the rules and come forward for vaccination. It's also allowed the government to up the threats. Lie about your sneaky Algarve getaway and you could outstay a prison-full of sex offenders. 

The cons of fear 

Fear of Covid is inevitable, especially in a country that has handled it so badly. The virus may kill around 150,000 of our citizens by the time this outbreak ends, and many more survivors will be left with a lifetime of ill-health. Alas, fear is also very bad for mental health and immunity. 

Never-ending workload stress and death exposure may lead to even more NHS and social care vacancies. Many frontline staff were not given correct PPE and a recent BMA poll found that only a third of doctors feel protected at work, leading to deep-seated anger and anxiety. No one should be exposed to a biological hazard at work without the best protection. A public inquiry must investigate. 

MD works in paediatrics, hence my repeated concerns about non-Covid harms and what we are doing to our children. Traumatic stress is far more likely when children don't perceive the world they live in to be safe. The unremitting daily death tolls and graphic ITU films may help compliance with the rules, but not emotional recovery. We now have variants to worry about too. 

After 3 lockdowns and record deaths, it will take all Johnson's communication skills to convince people that fear of variants and the virus can be switched to "it's safe to go back to school" and "it's safe to summer in Skegness". His only hope of doing that is to get infections to a very low level and keep them there with mass vaccination and much-improved test and trace. In time, a less virulent variant may ride to the rescue. 

Variants happen 

Variants are nothing new. As MD pointed out last March, the virus is "merrily mutating" (Eye 1517) and exists only to spread and reproduce. Our capacity for genomic sequencing is extraordinary, and we have already spotted more than 4,000 variants. The trick is to stop those selected to dominate, as they are more infectious or vaccine-resistant. 

Variation may work in our favour, if the dominant strain becomes no more virulent than seasonal flu (the current strains are 5-10 times more deadly). We could then live with it as we live with flu, vaccinating the most vulnerable and those most likely to spread infection each year, but never eradicating it. Or it may be that the challenge of vaccine evasion leads to more virulent variants that need to be quickly detected and suppressed. Either way, we will be heavily reliant on a properly functioning test and trace system.

For now, expect lots of small, scary variant sequencing and vaccine studies to pop up all over the world. What you need to know is that the vaccines currently available in the UK appear effective against the variants currently dominant here, and if the variants change, the vaccines can be tweaked. 

My advice is to get your vaccination as soon as it's offered. You may get side effects, which show your immune system is responding, but nearly all go in 24-48 hours, and a single jab appears to provide good protection against severe disease and death 3 weeks later. You may still get a milder infection, but that's much better than hospitalisation. The gov.uk and NHS websites have information on vaccine trials, types and contents, and what to do and expect after vaccination. 

When will lockdown end? 

Johnson has 2 choices. The riskier one is to end lockdown when everyone in the highest risk categories has been offered a vaccine, with a few weeks to pass for the effects to kick in. The cautious one is to do the above and wait until infections are at a level that test and trace can properly control - say, 1,500 a day - which gives the best chance of preventing future variant waves. Teachers, parents and pupils also need to be convinced that schools are safe from 8 March. 

Testing will be crucial, but there is only any point if you act on the results, which means supporting people to isolate. Indeed, it is not ethical to test people without supporting them to do the right thing. Infections have always been highest in areas where people can least afford to lock down, so the expertise of local authority and NHS staff will be essential to find contacts and help them with advice and financial support. Technology can help - we can do backwards and forwards contact tracing with genomic sequencing of every positive case. But trust in those delivering the service matters, and public servants are generally more trusted than temporary workers in private companies.

As MD noted at the start of the pandemic: "If you don't measure, you can't manage. And you can't fight a virus if you don't know where it is." Both rapid lateral flow tests and slower PCR tests have a role, but all new tests need to be properly evaluated rather than just rolled out. And before we launch into hideously expensive mass "moonshot" testing of everyone, with its attendant false results, we need to fix the basics of breaking all the chains of transmission from people who actually have symptoms. Tests should be easily available to anyone with a newly runny or blocked nose, sore throat, hoarseness, muscle pains, fatigue and headache, in addition to cough, high temperature and changes in taste and smell. 

Pandemic reform 

Is a pandemic the right time, and excuse, for another reorganisation of the English health service? The government already announced the abolition of Public Health England (PHE) last August, when it hoped the pandemic was over, to be replaced by a National Institute for Health Protection, to stop future pandemics. Noted pandemic prevention expert Dido Harding was installed as "interim executive chair", as if she didn't have enough to do trying to sort out NHS Test and Trace. 

This gave a clear signal that the over-centralised PHE (a Tory creation) was most to blame for pandemic failures, and not politicians or Harding. Whether the overloading of Harding or the destabilisation and demoralisation of 5,500 PHE staff played a role in the ensuing poor management is hard to judge, but it can hardly have helped. So why is the government proposing further reform of the NHS, the one part of the pandemic response that has shone? 

Long time coming 

These reforms have been coming since the Tories realised their Health and Social Care Act 2012 was a disaster, but they needed pandemic cover to ditch it. Health secretary at the time Andrew Lansley was repeatedly warned (eg by MD on Question Time) that feeding the NHS even more to the market would splinter it and patients would fall through the cracks between hospitals, GP practices, community services, social care and public health services. Ten years of austerity hardly helped. 

Before the pandemic, NHS waiting lists and health and care staff vacancies were at an all-time high, scandals and whistleblowers were still being suppressed, and no one seemed to be accountable or in charge. There were specific warnings in 2011 that fragmentation of public health services would make us poorly prepared for a pandemic (Eye 1529), and here we are. So there is a clear rationale for the right reform. 

Hail Hancock 

The best part of the proposals is that "the NHS should be free to make decisions on how it organises itself without the involvement of the Competition and Markets Authority". Instead, the proposed reform reinstates power to the health secretary, which makes sense for a tax-funded service. But it makes it all the more important to install a wise, compassionate, scientifically literate leader, or we could end up with another Lansley, beavering away on an immensely complicated, cunning plan that doesn't work. 

Hancock's new powers and capacity to meddle with the NHS would be considerable. He could replace NHS CEO Simon Stevens with Dido Harding. He could continue to buy goods and services (pandemic or otherwise) from his friends and contacts. He could sell our data. He could push more money into pet projects even if they had no evidence base or NICE approval. He could get rid of NICE, the Care Quality Commission or even NHS England itself, possibly without primary legislation. And he could offer Serco, Sitel, Capita and a horde of management consultants a share of the tax pickings. Just as the Covid Act has allowed the government to make almost any emergency resource allocation decision without scrutiny or tender, Hancock will pick up this baton. 

Stevens's big idea behind the reforms is to join up the NHS, public health services and social care into regional integrated care systems by statute, which hopefully will mean these vast chunks of care will stay public and can't be outsourced. Whether they will be transparent and accountable, help pandemic recovery, resolve urgent problems with staffing, social care and health inequalities, and deliver the myriad lefty promises Johnson made to get elected (Eye 1512), we shall see. Stevens is due to stand down soon. The competence of his replacement is crucial. And a lot depends on Hancock. Has his pandemic performance earned him the right to more power?  

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

Very early in the Covid saga, a Spanish doctor stressed the importance of the size of the viral load you were hit with. So it's good news that a growing body of evidence suggests the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines reduce viral transmission.   

Cosas de España

Here's a warning for those resident here below the horizon.

The last remaining statue of Franco in Spain has finally been taken down - from a wall in  Melilla, one of Spain's 2 enclaves (not a colony!) in North Africa. Needless to say, this was resisted by the ultra right-wing party Vox.

Cousas de Galiza

The Covid restriction levels here go from 5 (the least) to 1 (the most). In the UK and Ireland, I  believe, they go in the other direction. What this says about respective jurisdictions, I’ve no idea. Quite possibly nothing other than Spain is different.

Anyway, as I've said, right now we're all rather confused about where we're allowed to go. This is because there are 2 considerata: 1. The level of infections where you live, and 2. Your particular health authority. Here's a map showing the former. 

We in Pontevedra should be able to go to places of the same colour but, if they're in the health authority of either La Coruña or Ferrol, we can't. And folk in Vigo should able to go to Santiago, though not to differently-coloured Pontevedra. But, as they'd have to pass through the latter, some say they can't. Unless they go by boat, perhaps. We await clarification. But god only knows how this mare's nest will be policed.

Here's María’s Tsunami, Day 24. Maria points out that many people here aren't on their town hall's register - the padrón. So they won't be called for a jab, even though this in now obligatory under our brand new (highly controversial) law. Quite how this will work out is in the lap of the proverbials. Will a vaccination certificate be yet another thing we have to show the police if stopped while driving? Or even just while walking. And where can a forgery be obtained?

The UK

It was to be expected . . . Boris Johnson has begged Brits to raise their seafood consumption to something way above the traditionally low level of this. You'd have to live in a cave not to know why. I guess it'll be the pork that used to go to Poland next.  

English

The word 'orange' used to be norange, like the Spanish word naranja. As with ‘nuncle’, it lost the N to the indefinite article, so went from being a norange to being an orange. I had thought naranja came from Arabic but it seems it really came from the Persian نارنجی - naranji - which itself came from the Sanskrit nāranga. So now you know.

Finally . . . 

Everyone knows about the Spanish Reconquista, when the Spanish - over several centuries - gradually took back El Andalús from the Moors. But how many know that England had its own Reconquista in the 10th century, when the Anglo-Saxons took back about half of England from the Danes who'd sort of moved into it? Until some Norwegian 'Vikings' came from Ireland and took over the Yorkish bit. For a short while, anyway - before they, too, were ousted by the Anglos. Who then had a bit of a respite before William arrived with his fellow Viking descendants from Normandy in 1066. Confusing times.

Incidentally 1: The last major battle against the uninvited Danes - in 937 - was at Brunanburh, which many think is Bromborough on the Wirral. A a voluntary group, Wirral Archaeology, is currently researching proof of this at a secret site there. All strength to their elbows, say I.

Incidentally 2: Back then the kingdom of Strathclyde was separate from the kingdom of Scotland and was, in fact, English. Will the UK get it back if Scotland achieves independence, I wonder.

Meanwhile . . . Is this the worst head-rug ever?

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

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

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain  

Our Covid rule relaxations start at midnight on Friday but there's confusion as to their significance. Travel between cities with the same level of restriction - say Vigo and Santiago - cities is allowed  But, at the same time, we're confined to our health services area. Which rules out inter-city travel. Doubtless this will be cleared up. It needs to be for, as ever, the maximum fines are humungous.

Meanwhile, we've been a tad startled to read that the Galician Xunta has made vaccination compulsory. Again, with huge fines for non-compliers.

Brits are important to the Spanish tourism industry. So there's naturally satisfaction and  a degree of optimism here at the progress of the UK vaccination program, the relaxation of some restrictions and the publication by the British government of a staged route out of the Covid crisis. Many Brits are optimistic too, and have put their money where their hopes are by making post-June summer holiday reservations. Let's hope neither they nor similarly-minded Germans are disappointed. See here or here.

The first article above perpetuates the myth that Galicia is permanently rainswept. I repeat - This is certainly true of (most) winters but not true of summer and autumn. Or even spring in some years. And here's today's dawn to prove it.

María’s Tsunami, Day 23. The mysteries of government. On one of the above themes . . .

The UK and Brexit

Richard North has long warned of the consequence of Boris Johnson's (disdained) Brexit and nowadays treats us to details of the impact he forecast on various - and disparate - sectors, such as shellfish and cosmetics. Today it's architectural services - and a suggestion on how to get out of the mess which is (possibly) less pious than relying on the Johnson government to re-negotiate the deal.

The pain of Brexit's realities is the theme of Nick Corbishley's article for Wolf Street today. Endorsing RN’s long-standing crying in the wilderness, NC writes that: Non-tariff barriers — largely consisting of regulatory barriers that are arguably the biggest obstacle to international trade these days — were not adequately addressed by the trade deal. And that:  The most important trade barriers in services are regulations, not tariffs. This is possibly close to classic British understatement . . .

Finally/The Way of the World

So, we now know what global disaster will, after 12 months, displace Covid as the number one item on Sky News - the (non-fatal) car crash of an American golfer past his prime. Dear dog.

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

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

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain  

Friends of mine here are experiencing side effects with the Pfizer jab and it’s reported that, down in Andalucia, the second Pfizer jab has been suspended, after 46 nursing home residents died after the first one. I wonder how that’s going down in France and Germany, assuming it’s making the media there. 

Maybe this is connected to that . . .  The Voz de Galicia reports today that the administration of the 2nd (Pfizer?) dose has fallen by 50%. And that there’s ‘chaos’ in the vaccination of teachers here in Galicia.  

Anyway . . . If, like me, you’re resident here and patiently waiting for your first jab, do make sure you’re registered at your local town hall - on the padrón - or you’ll never get the invitation.

There’ll be some relaxation of our restrictions at midnight on Friday night. No idea why not before then. So, I’ll finally be able to go to Pontevedra. And lunch there on Saturday with up to 3 friends. 

Here’s Lenox Napier on The Rapper Who Caused a Riot. Or Two.

And here’s María with a bit more info on what’s now possible in this neck of the woods - Tsunami Days 21 and 22.

And the latest fashion in minifundio border markers - a painted stone:-

The USA

The US Supreme Court has ruled that Donald Trump must hand over 8 years of tax returns to New York prosecutors investigating potential tax, insurance and bank fraud by him and his businesses. This doesn't mean that his tax records will be made public immediately, as they've been sought for a grand jury inquiry, which is held in secret. Details will emerge if charges lead to open court prosecution. That couldn't happen to a nicer guy. You can easily predict what his responses were. They never change.

Religious Nutters/Crooks Corner

Televangelist Frank Amedia once claimed his prayers had helped a baby grow 1.5 kidneys and that voting for Democrats would mean we'd all be having sex with cows. Now he's blaming Trump for not being sufficiently deferential to God. Aha, adds the Friendly Atheist, the real problem with Trump’s Twitter account was that it didn’t include enough Bible verses or glory to God. And that's why he isn't President right now. Well, if you believe 7 billion people have descended from A and E in only 6,000 years, what's your credence limit?

Finally . . . 

I've one an awful lot of flying in my lifetime but this has always been my view too:  I hate flying - from the turbulence to the bossy staff in bad uniforms. The full Times article here. 

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

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

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'

Covid

The EU: Something odd is happening. Although I've heard nothing to support it from UK friends and relatives, there's a high level of French and German antipathy and resistance to the AZ vaccine. Ambrose gives his own - sceptical - take on 'Europe's disinformation war on vaccine science' below, claiming support from both French and German experts.

Sweden: The Times: How's it coping with Covid-19? The hands-off strategy hasn’t changed, officials insist. Even as the country emerges from a brutal second wave, health chiefs remain sceptical about lockdowns. Stats available here. Deaths per day certainly seem to have fallen to a very low level. Rates are also falling in the UK and  Germany but not so in France. Some would say, facing elections, M Macron could do with a scapegoat.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain  

Two El Pais articles:-

1. Spain’s regions move to ease coronavirus restrictions despite high contagion rates. We might even see some announced in Galicia today. Madrid has never had the tightest restrictions, despite having a very high rate of infections. The regional president has favoured keeping businesses open there.

2. Spain announces the new target groups for coronavirus vaccination. The 60-to-79 bracket is next in line, as well as under-60s with medical conditions. But: It's not clear exactly when these new priority groups will get their shots, as this depends on the size of the shipments and the speed of administration in a healthcare system whose resources are already stretched thin. I'm still hoping for April . . . But if others are rejecting the AZ jab, I'll be happy to have one in March. Even if it's the last thing I do. As we say . . 

Oh, dear . . . Alleged to be the window of an academia in Valencia:-

The The Way of the World/The USA

Time to eat really tough on Facebook, following the example of Australia. Maybe this will get you round the paywall on this. If not, I'll post it tomorrow.

So, a Boeing 777 had an engine catch fire and fall to pieces over Denver. Well, I was once on a plane sitting right next to one of its 4 engines on fire - a Jumbo jet from Melbourne to London. Which wasn't supposed to end its flight in India. But we never made the media. I guess there were more important things to be concerned about back then. And no rolling 24/7 news outlets desperate for something to say.

Spanish

Scapegoat -  

1. Un chivo expiatorio: An expiatory goat

2. Una cabeza de turco. A Turkish head.

Finally . . .

Back in the 9th century, Cornwall and bits of Devon and Somerset were parts of a Brythonic kingdom called Dumnonia, populated by Brits driven west by invading/settling Anglo-Saxons. Earlier -  in the 6th century - some of of these unhappy 'West Welsh' had sailed southwards to form the Breton region of Domnonée.* Anyway, I mention it because this was the first bit of England invaded by the 'vikings'. In 838 - aided by the locals - they took on the forces of Egbert but were crushed at Hingston Down. Sadly - or fortunately - this didn't stop the Danish and other Scandinavians returning. Frequently and rather more  successfully, essentially establishing a Danish colony over half of England, lasting until the 11th century. Then came William.

*And, as previously noted, to establish Bretoña here in Galicia.

Talking of invasions and Cornwall . . . I wonder how many folk know Spain tried 3 times to invade England in the late 16th century, failing each time. Largely due to treacherous weather. The last attempt was in October 1597, 9 years after the famous one of 1588 - after Catholic spies had alerted Spain to the fact that the main English fleet had left for the Azores. BUT . . . Struck by a tremendous storm when it was 30 miles off Cornwall, the armada was battered for 3 days by fierce winds and high seas. It became scattered, with some ships running aground and others being wrecked on rocks or blowing up when their munitions caught fire. There was, though, some success: One ship landed several hundred soldiers near Falmouth, but they retreated when no reinforcements arrived, and the ship sailed off. The Spanish also failed to catch sight of the English fleet and their commander ordered a retreat to Spain. When the English fleet eventually returned from the Azores, they came across some of the scattered armada and captured 6 of the enemy ships.

So, is all this bloody Galician rain some sort of Spanish revenge on the Brits who live here? Just askin'.

THE ARTICLE   

Costs are rising exponentially for Europe's disinformation war on vaccine science.

Failing to tackle the "nocebo effect" renders €750bn Recovery Fund insufficient and makes restructuring some eurozone debt inescapable. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. The Telegraph

Europe has succumbed to the nocebo effect. If people are primed to believe that something makes them ill, they discover illness. It is the reverse placebo.

Tens of millions have received the AstraZeneca jab in the UK and India without meaningful side-effects beyond minor - and desirable - signs of an immune reaction. Yet frontline health workers in Germany, Austria, France, and Spain have convinced themselves that it is doing them real harm, and that it is also ineffective.

The nocebo effect is a known pathology in medical science. It has been well-documented following false reporting on statins. One clinical trial studying headaches from electric currents found that two-thirds of the volunteers in the harmless control group also had headaches. Nocebo responses can be powerful and physiological. The symptoms are real.

That is probably what has been happening with AstraZeneca in Germany where fake news has run rampant, to the point of mass hysteria. Braunschweig’s Herzogin-Elisabeth hospital reported that 37 out of 88 staff reported sick the day after receiving the jab. The same happened to a quarter of 300 ambulance workers in Dortmund. 

There can be isolated bad batches with any vaccine but this has spread into a broader "me too" epidemic. Clinics in Lower Saxony have suspended use of the jab altogether. Germany faces a systematic rejection of the vaccine, yet it lacks alternatives to plug the gap. Germany's Central Institute for Health Insurance (ZI) says the bogus AstraZeneca scare could delay the entire vaccine rollout by two months. 

That could prove to be an expensive upset at a time when the British B.1.1.1.7 variant is rapidly taking over.  France is already where the UK was in early December just before when the epidemic went parabolic. The variant was 36pc of all French cases late last week, reaching 54pc in some departments. The South African and a Brazilian variants are more than 10pc in four departments.

French epidemiologists say the apparent stability in new cases is an illusion. There are two separate epidemics: the old one is declining with the current partial restrictions; the new B.1.1.1.7 epidemic is relentlessly rising. The numbers seem to knock each other out for a while until the variant reaches an inflexion point and goes wild.

This effect is nicely described by Gary Dagorn in Le Monde, one of the best pieces of reporting so far in the European press on Britain’s epidemic. It concludes that France is “highly likely” to follow the UK into the same furnace unless there is immediate counter-action.

“I think we’re in a situation pretty similar to what happened in England in December,” said Marc Baguelin, a French epidemiologist at Imperial College, London. The French national health and research institute has reached the same conclusion. 

Emmanuel Macron has taken a gamble by defying his scientific advisers and resisting a fresh lockdown. His stand seems popular. He is enjoying a small bounce in the polls. But if the bet goes wrong he - and France - are in serious trouble. He will have to impose the third great national lockdown in worse circumstances, after the new variant has become prevalent. Mr Macron will then need the AstraZeneca vaccine urgently. 

But having falsely declared it “quasi-ineffective” among those over 65 — for whatever political motive — he has poisoned the well. The French no longer want to take the vaccine. Hospital workers in Perigueux are demanding that they be given the Pfizer jab instead.

Italy is further behind France but on the same trajectory. The British variant is a quarter of cases in parts of the Mezzogiorno. Prof Andrea Crisanti, hero of the successful Veneto containment last year, says a fourth wave is now avoidable and is calling for an “immediate national lockdown”.

Germany is still at the bottom of this U-shaped epidemiological curve. It looks stable, but it is treacherous. The new variant is creeping up towards critical thresholds.  The difficulty is that the German press has now completely trashed the AstraZeneca vaccine, and in doing so fed the broader anti-vax movement.

No matter that the data pouring in from the UK’s mass vaccination campaign has beaten expectations. It has demonstrated near total efficacy against death and serious disease, protecting the elderly as presumed, and all without meaningful side-effects. A false story in Handelsblatt, citing government sources, has been echoed across the German media, and neither retracted nor adequately rebutted. Where there is smoke, there must be fire. Such is the national angst. 

Professor Christian Drosten, Angela Merkel’s Covid guru, is battling valiantly against disinformation. “There is always a fly in the ointment somewhere and people are looking at it with a magnifying glass. It is essential that we vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible,” he said.

It is the same message from Carsten Watzl from the German Society for Immunology. “To say that the AstraZeneca vaccine is second rate is completely off the mark, both scientifically and in terms of actual effects,” he said.

However, the damage is done. The concept of efficacy has been misunderstood. People think that if the rate is 70pc it means that 30pc are unprotected. If they were instead told that it is almost 100pc effective against serious illness, worries would ebb away - unless people have completely lost their sense of perspective.

Germany’s own regulators have contributed to the mistrust by withholding approval of the AstraZeneca jab for those over 65 on grounds of inadequate trial data. This was ‘t’ crossing and 'i’ dotting pedantry, a path followed by the French, Italians, and Spanish, who will not even allow it for the over-55s. 

There were no compelling reasons to argue that a standard viral vector vaccine would not be effective for the elderly.  The European Medicines Agency understood this and gave the green light. We now have fuller data confirming the validity of this hypothesis but it is too late. The rejectionists have already dug in their heels. 

The result is that Germany has used just 87,000 of the 736,800 AstraZeneca doses received so far. Spain had used 35,000 doses out of 418,000 delivered as of late last week. The precautionary principle has run amok. 

Where did this squalid saga begin? One could point the finger at Ursula von der Leyen. In December she sought to deflect criticism from the EU’s slow approval process and roll-out by trying to discredit British regulators. “Some countries started to vaccinate a little before Europe, it is true. But they resorted to emergency, 24-hour marketing authorisation procedures. The Commission and the member states agreed not to compromise on the safety and efficacy requirements,” she said.

This was false, irresponsible, and disgraceful. Europe will not suffer as many Covid deaths from the B.1.1.1.7 variant as the UK because some of its elderly are at least vaccinated, but it will pay a high economic price for wasting three months on the rollout before full reopening. 

The pandemic will not be contained in time to avert an extra quarter of double-dip slump. There will be deeper labour hysteresis and economic scarring. Thousands more businesses will be pushed over the edge into insolvency once loan moratoria expire. 

Southern Europe risks losing a second tourist season, or much of it. Public debt ratios will be further beyond the point of no return later this year. The EU’s €750bn Recovery Fund  - in reality €390bn of grants spread across 27 states over five years - is trivial by US standards and is rapidly being overtaken by events.

There will have to be a much larger package to avert another lost decade, but the North is going to resist. Fiscal settings are already turning contractionary in Germany and Holland.  

The European Central Bank is holding the edifice together by chronic monetisation of Club Med debt issuance. This is an unstable equilibrium. It will not be tolerated indefinitely by the German people or the Verfassungsgericht once German inflation revives.

In short, there will have to be an internal eurozone restructuring of Italian, Portuguese and Spanish sovereign debt.  Covid policy failures have made this almost ineluctable. Europe has condemned itself to another traumatic financial and political moment.

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'

Notes:-

1. I don't give links to all the (italicised) quotes I put in my posts. If you need these, the simplest thing to do is post a bit of the text - optimally in quotes - into your Browser's URL box. But, if there's a paywall, you won't always have the access I have. Apologies to those for whom this advice amounts to egg-sucking.

2. At least one reader is having problems posting comments. If you share this challenge, please consider advising me by email here, where it will be now be joined by hundreds of spam messages  - thoughtsfromgalicia@gmail.com

3. While I'm at it . . . Someone asked recently what IGIMSTS stands for - I guess it makes sense to someone.

Per ardua ad astra . . . 

Covid

Click here for what are said to be the latest - encouraging - case and death numbers in the USA and the UK, plus some others.

The EU:  Europe’s faltering immunisation programme has been hit by a boycott of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine by medical staff concerned about its side effects and doubtful of its efficacy against new variants of Covid-19. Health workers in France and elsewhere in the EU are declining the Anglo-Swedish vaccine, increasingly portrayed in European media as a cheap and inferior alternative to the mRNA jabs made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. . . . Public Health England will publish data next month from the UK vaccine programme expected to show that both the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines provide significant protection for all age groups.

Religious groups in the USA have demanded and achieved freedom to ignore Covid restrictions imposed on others. I wonder if this explains this report: Across the UK, the proportion of people who have tested positive for Covid-19 stands at 7%. Among Stamford Hill’s Jewish community it is 65%. For working-age adults - 75% .  . . Not a huge surprise that this seen as 'a sensitive question'. Factors suggested are: multi-generational households, poverty, a higher incidence of pre-existing health conditions and above-average numbers of children.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 

Trekking through the woods in my track-mapping project yesterday, I was astonished to come across this sole petrogliph at the side of the path. Especially as the latter was rather overgrown, suggesting a low level of usage:-

I got to wondering how many hundreds/thousands of years it's been since its carver stood on that spot, possibly as drenched as me.

Lenox tell us that: At least 5 of the 119 Spanish bishops have managed to get their vaccination shots 'inappropriately'.  Probably just absent-mindedness. Distracción or despiste in Spanish, I believe. They're probably quite old. And, more importantly, without a wife to guide them.

María’s Tsunami, Day 20.    

The Way of the World

I suspect - hope! - no reader of this blog would disagree with Matthew Syed's comment that Zealots on the right and left are true heirs of religious fanatics. His Times article is below.

It seems nothing can be advertised these days without a pointless adjective/adverb or two. So, someone's meat is not just marinaded but 'expertly marinaded'. As if we think they'd give the job to dolts. I'm going to compile a list of these. Plus a second list - possibly very short indeed - of British companies whose ads don't centre on a multiracial family. As if there were no others in the UK.

Finally . . .

An ever so slightly contentious statement from the founder and CEO of Trailfinders: The idea that immunisation certificates might be discriminatory is woke nonsense. It’s not a vaccine passport; it’s an immunisation certificate, and it’s the key to unlocking our freedoms generally, not just travel.

THE ARTICLE  

Zealots on the right and left are true heirs of religious fanatics.

The likes of Rush Limbaugh satisfy the human craving for certainty in a way liberal democracy cannot: Matthew Syed, The Times

It is curious looking back through the fog of more than 30 years, but there are things I miss about my days as a born-again Christian. I worshipped at a small church in suburban Reading — a free church, unattached to any other denomination — and soaked up the camaraderie, fellowship and, above all, the sense that we had “the truth”.

It was that last concept that enveloped us most, our possession of “facts” that couldn’t be gainsaid. We became ever more convinced of our “truth” as we spent time in each other’s company — not just at church, but at bible studies (20 or so congregated at our home each Thursday) and fellowship groups. We were not cultish, mind you. We often travelled to other churches and faiths, not to open our minds, but to convert them. As we listened to their sermons, we would glance at each other with knowing looks — how could they be so blind?

I should hasten to say that not all religions or denominations are like this. Many worshippers at the Church of England and my more moderate Muslim friends are pleasingly ecumenical. But the concept of absolute truth, along with related ideas such as heresy and original sin, does much to explain the animosity between rival fundamentalisms, not to mention our long history of holy wars and inquisitions. Religion, on the whole, has rarely been pacifistic.

Later, while researching American politics a couple of years ago, I studied a shock-jock called Rush Limbaugh, who died last week. The grandson of a conservative judge, he started out on local radio, rapidly developing a reputation for hard-hitting, inflammatory punditry. By the 2000s he had amassed an audience of millions and was hailed as the most influential figure on the Republican right. His obituaries described him, if not in these exact terms, as the gelignite that sat beneath the explosion we now call the Trump presidency.

It was while listening to Limbaugh that I had what I might once have called a revelation. His imagery, his apocalyptic language, his allegations of heresy, his demonisation of anyone outside the right-wing sect and, most of all, his self-certainty all led me to a conclusion. The culture wars of America and, to a lesser extent, the UK are not political in the conventional sense. They are far closer — in psychological and liturgical terms — to the old wars of religion.

At times while listening to Limbaugh, I was back on the pew in front of the most charismatic of my pastors, a mustachioed former airline steward who was the antithesis of Thomas from the New Testament. He doubted nothing. He was effective because of his self-certainty. Limbaugh was similar, never using evidence for his climate change denialism, racism, misogyny and opposition to immigration — for why sully a righteous argument with anything so sordid as data? Did the writers of holy scripture offer documentary evidence that the world was created in six days or Eve from Adam’s rib?

He also — perhaps to an extent even greater than religious zealots — demonised those outside his faction. The most insightful book on his techniques is by the scholars Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph Cappella. They put the point exquisitely: “Limbaugh seeks to discredit all other sources of information via extreme hypotheticals, ridicule, challenges to character and association with strong negative emotion.”

This isn’t just about the hard right, of course. The radical left uses identical techniques, merely from a different direction. JK Rowling is about as decent a person as you could imagine, but she expressed a heresy over transsexuality (in fact, a sincere, if disputed, opinion) so has been cancelled — the secular equivalent of being burnt at the stake. Microaggressions — tiny statements that might inadvertently upset someone — provoke fury, not unlike theological infractions. I remember one poor soul at my old church being cast out for a mildly different interpretation of a biblical verse on head coverings.

These alternative poles of absolute truth, these political fundamentalisms, have another character, too. It is no longer possible to admit that a person who once sinned might be worth listening to for, as Matthew recounted in the New Testament, “if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?”

This is why the left cannot bring itself to admit that while Trump was wrong on many things, he was right on others, such as alerting the West to the threat of China and giving Europe a hard time for free-riding on Nato. The former home secretary Amber Rudd once made an error over Windrush and so cannot have a sensible thing to say on anything else, ever — hence, her no-platforming.

It shouldn’t be difficult to see how this “political religiosity” presents a threat to liberal democracy. For the deliberative function of democracy relies on listening to the other side, judging an argument on merit rather than the identity of the person who expresses it, and recognising that no single ideological faction has a monopoly on truth. It is about appreciating that it is often in the coming together of opposing ideas that both sides find, somewhat to their surprise, that we have found a synthesis that transcends both. And isn’t this a subtle and rather beautiful thing?

Nevertheless, rationalists who sit betwixt political extremes, and who can see the preposterousness of both sides, should be honest with themselves. These new religions have appeal precisely because they cater to a deep human need — the craving for certainty. This is something that liberal democracy cannot, and will never, provide. The notion of tolerating other views, of pluralism in values, that we can each select our own conception of a good life, leaves many feeling cast adrift upon a sea of infinite moral possibilities, yearning for a source of navigational authority.

This is why, as George Orwell pointed out, the battle for free societies must be waged in each generation. Advocates of liberal democracy cannot offer ground-level truth. They cannot provide certainty. They cannot hope to match the fire and brimstone appeal of Limbaugh and his fellow pulpiteers. But they can at least offer the prospect of tolerance and peaceful coexistence. And perhaps, as the hard right storms the Capitol dressed in face paint and antlers and the left tears down statues and seeks to “dismantle capitalism”, this isn’t such an uninspiring vision, after all.

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

Bad news: Desperate-for-tourists* Spain may go on the UK’s Red List.

* Even low class British ones.

Better news: Recent studies report that resveratrol, an antioxidant found in red wine, peanuts, pistachios, and dark-skinned berries, could help reduce the severity of Covid-19. It has been linked to a reduction in the severity of the acute respiratory distress syndrome that is sometimes associated with the virus.  

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 

Can it really be true that 50% of the Spanish population shows vitamin D deficiencies. A percentage that increases to 80% in people over 80 years of age.

Lenox of Business Over Tapas reports that at least 5 of the 119 Spanish bishops have managed to get their vaccination shots inappropriately. 

Here’s an El País report (in English) on the narcos of a ‘new era’.  

Just in case you can’t visulise it, here’s a granite block border marker:-

And this is your basic plastic-bag-on-a-stick variant:-

Here’s a law-abiding finca on one side of the granite market:-

And here’s an illegal tinder-box on the other side. Just waiting for a spark:-

María’s Tsunami, Day 19. 

The UK and Brexit

Richard North today: Exporters cannot just be left to fend for themselves. Brexit, as I've always argued, is not an event but a process and it is becoming increasingly evident that the TCA was not the end game. It leaves a myriad of loose ends and unresolved issues which will keep our negotiators busy for years to come. In case you don't recall, RN's Brexit ideal was his Flexcit, a gradual process over many years which recognised the complexity of the challenge and the need to minimise the impact on the UK economy. It was ignored by the British establishment. 

As it is, says RN: It's clear that the adverse impacts of Johnson's deal are far worse than had been anticipated, while his administration's response to business difficulties has been pathetic. On this, RN is pessimistic: Without the problems of business being addressed, any post-Covid economic recovery might be significantly curtailed. In the longer-term, we might even find that the very idea of economic recovery is an unrealisable dream.

So . . . Will Johnson and the Tory party pay a price for this at the next general election? That probably depends on whether Labour can get its act together under Keir Starmer. Who is not at all popular with his party's leftest wing.

BTW . . . The pound 'soared' against the euro this week. IGIMSTS.

The EU 

Critics of the EU have long pointed to the devastating impact of the (politically-driven) introduction of the euro on the weaker economies of Southern Europe. Which was, of course, both predictable and predicted. Especially in view of the very beneficial exchange rate given to Germany. Italy is a case in point and this article addresses the perverse effects the euro has had on the country’s economic, social and political fabric. 

I'd love to hear some admirers of the EU and the Euro explain why this is either (objectively) wrong or (cynically) justifiable. And then move on to Spain. Specifically . . . What's on the other side of the balance sheet? 'Seventy five years of peace'? Hardly persuasive if this would have happened anyway, as it surely would. The Bologna scheme? Easy travel for the middle classes? The ability to stand up as a bloc to Russia? To move out of the umbrella of NATO in favour of a European army led by the French?  . . . All views welcome, of course.

I've seen and heard this talk, so understand this claim. . . . . In talking down AstraZeneca's success, the EU has sacrificed lives for the integrity of the European Project. Vaccine uptake in the EU is only poor because their leaders spread misinformation about the jabs.

The Way of the World

The comedic genius Spike Milligan has been purged from the Disney+ version of Muppet history. Cancelled, if you like. There's a price to wokism - The ‘new religion of the West’, it says here.

https://www.convergemedia.org/wokeism-the-new-religion-of-the-west/

Spanish

The Spanish say they can often do without Please and Thank-you, as they use an appropriate tone. I guess this alternative comes naturally in a language in which normal and interrogative statements are exactly the same. Not, say, reversed, as in English.   

Finally . . .

While awaiting his Nuremberg trial, Herman Goering learnt his prized Vermeer was a fake, by the celebrated Dutch forger Han van Meegeren. Legend has it that Goering looked utterly appalled, “as though for the first time he had discovered that there was evil in the world”, as one observer put it.

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'

My thanks to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for a couple of today's items. 

Covid: Allegedly  . . . There are 4 times more infections among folk who frequent bars than among those who don't. As it’s Spain, we await the data from brothels.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 

Shortsightdness is a complaint occasionally made against Spanish companies by those of us used to better customer service elsewhere. Mark Stücklin here levies that charge against at least some Spanish banks: British customers are by far the biggest group of non-resident buyers and owners of property in Spain. Annoying them chasing trivial income today at the expense of business tomorrow looks short-sighted. If your bank’s an offender, MS gives a few suggestions as to where you might move your business.

The economy: As in many other countries, Spain - thanks to Covid spending - has seen its public debt soar. For Spain - says The Corner - this is twice as worrying, since in recent years public debt was already climbing strongly, leaving the country with less fiscal room for manoeuvre. The Corner concludes that: Public debt will be a major burden for the growth of the Spanish economy in the coming years, unless the strong imbalances that the economy has been dragging along for almost 3 decades are corrected once and for all. 

The Corner has some ideas here on how the economy could/should be reformed. The opening para: The scale of Spain’s recovery from the deepest recession among all euro-area economies is mired in uncertainty but will determine how quickly public finances return to a sustainable path. I guess we know by now who’ll suffer most - the poor and the young. For what it’s worth: Percentage GDP Contractions:-

Spain 11 (Tourism).

Italy 9 

France 8

Germany 5

UK 11 (a figure disputed by AEP as being based on different methodology, which overstates both reductions and increases). 

María's Tsunami, Day 18. María writes of our famed shellfish - percebes (goose barnacles) as a product of the La Lambruna, the Years of Hunger. Though these are now a delicacy commanding, says María, prices that are not enough reward for the dangers some of the gatherers face, the oldest Galician I know insists that many folk refused to eat them back then - as well as other shellfish also now expensive - as they were seen as animal food. As for me, I dislike the (bloody ugly) percebes, which causes some of my Galician friends to faint in shock and horror. And to threaten murder when I impugn them by saying they taste of rubber dipped in salt water.

Talking of life in Galicia . . . Unlike Andalucia, this region is one of smallholdings - minifundios - as opposed to their large estates latifundios. If you're in our (mint eucalyptus) woods, you'll see evidence of this all around you - perimeter markers every few metres. Anything from hard-to-move granite blocks to just plastic bottles on the ground. Or as here, on sticks:-

Another favourite is a coloured pole, as opposed of course to a Pole of colour:-

The UK and the EU

A payment via my Spanish Visa card for Skype credit was refused by Spanish bank today. As the fee was in pounds, is this another consequence of Brexit? Whatever, I then paid with a UK card via my UK bank and so my Spanish bank lost the business. Presumably they don’t want it.  

It’s reported that close to 5 million EU citizens have applied to stay in the UK after Brexit. This includes 246,600 Spaniards. Ironically, this is close to the official number of Brits resident in Spain. Which is in flux, of course.

The EU: Relations with Russia are said to be at 'boiling point'. But Brussels - it’s claimed here - seems reluctant to apply its new sanctions weapon against Moscow, . One wonders why.

The Way of the World: Scotland takes the lead in the Woke Stakes?  And talking of things nutty . . .

Nutters Corner: You just can't beat Kat Kerr . . .

Finally . . . It was sunny here between 2 and 4pm yesterday. But exactly at 4 it started to rain. I rest my meteorological case. . 

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

I'm on record saying the screens and distancing - possibly even masks - will be with us for a long time, at least during winters. So, I naturally agree with this comment: Society will never 'learn to live with Covid' as with flu. Rather than seeing Covid like flu, it's more likely to start seeing flu like Covid. . . . Only a minority of informed citizens know that flu is a deadly and costly disease, claiming tens of thousands of lives a year, and increasing the mortality rate of several other illnesses. Tolerance of flu is built on shaky ground, which may finally buckle in the era of Covid.

Meanwhile, the UK . . .

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 

Lenox Napier walks us through the Catalan election results here.

Things can change fast. Reader Eamon tells me there are now a number of new ferry services from the west coast of Portugal and Galicia to the UK, specifically Liverpool. Here's one going from Ferrol. It’d be nice to see Liverpool port regenerated as a result of Brexit, because Iberian exporters are avoiding the overland route, French strikes and Dover bottlenecks. I’ll be checking out whether any of them take passengers as well as freight and cars. 

Oh, no! . . . One of my bugbears is getting bigger.

I now know the charges for the books I got last week:-

1. IVA suplidos importación. (Surcharge)

2. Despacho (Delivery/Clearance/Customs clearance)

3. IVA on the despacho charge.

These seem like just 3 new taxes to me totalling 25% of value - to the benefit of the Spanish Treasury.

I walk for an hour at 4pm. During the last 3 weeks of rain, I've become convinced that 4pm onwards is the wettest part of Galician winter days, at least along the coast. Even on days which are otherwise dry. Maybe something to do with land and water temperatures and resulting winds. I recall being told something about this years ago by a friend with a yacht in the Med.

Talking of walking . . . María's Tsunami, Day 17.  

The UK and Brexit

Richard North, though a Brexiteer, despises Boris Johnson and his appalling deal. He's not a fan of the British media either: It seems we are condemned to live in a sort of news 'limbo', where the media pay lip service to Brexit as an issue, without really engaging in the substance, churning the same basic sub-set of stories. Rather like in the run-up to the 'completion' of the Single Market, when all the media were interested in was 'Euro-sillies' like standardised condom sizes, fishermen in hairnets and other Johnsonesque fabrications, the media have reduced Brexit to a 'red tape' soap opera.  Even the 'heavy' journals, RN would say. The UK media isn't what it once was. Thanks to Mr Murdoch?

The Way of the World

What would most surprise a time traveller from a hundred years ago about our 21st-century society? . . . The most striking change would be the people themselves. The physical appearance of the average person today is radically different from 1921. We are much fatter now. Fatness, once the exception, is now the norm. The majority of adults in Britain are overweight or obese: 60% of women, 67% of men. In the United States 73% of adults are overweight or obese. That means only slightly more than a quarter of Americans are a healthy weight. See my recent comment re the Edwardians. I wonder if things are as  bad in the non-Anglo world. Speaking as a chap who has the same BMI of 24 as he did in 1995. . . . Just sayin'.

Beyond a joke? . . . Sex education lessons may well become even more awkward. The teacher simply won’t know what to say, as half the words they would normally use will have been banned, for fear of causing offence. . . . In the Handbook of the Gender Institute of Australia's National University, instead of “mother”, the authors suggest “gestational parent” – and instead of “father” - “non-birthing parent”.

Any guesses for the replacement of 'midwife'?

English

I confess I'd never twigged 'Northumbria' was taken from 'North of (the river) Humber'. And I didn't know there use to be a Southumbria. Actually, Suðanhymbre, as opposed to Norþan-hymbre. Nor did I know just how large Northumbria once was:-

Finally . . .

The nickname for Tchaikovsky's penultimate and perhaps best-known symphony is ‘Symphonie Pathétique’.  It turns out that this is a mistranslation of ‘Pateticheskaya’, Russian  for ‘passionate’ - specifically chosen by Tchaikovsky to convey his pride in the work he put in to create it. After his death, it was borrowed into French as ‘pathétique’.

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

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

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'

Covid

The Times: It 's now well established that Covid-19 is driven by “super-spreading”. Most people with the virus don't infect anyone else, but a small number of people infect many others. Super-spreaders really do exist. Scientists have found people who produce 1,000 times as many as aerosol particles as their peers when they breathe out, making them a far greater risk. The older and more overweight people were, the more likely they were to be among the 20% who exhaled 80% of aerosol droplets.   So . . . Maybe steer clear of fat* old** people.

* Sorry. Choose whatever replacement term you think is acceptable this week.

** Ditto

Probably true: Whether we like them or not, vaccine passports will be difficult to resist. Even if the Government doesn’t mandate proof of inoculation, businesses will ask for it themselves

Curfews: Spain, France, Italy and Greece have them. Netherland might not, as a court has told the Dutch government that an overnight curfew because it breaches the right to free movement.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 

It was to be expected that having seen the country lose virtually all its tourism business last year, the Spanish government would come out in support of a vaccine passport.

Thinking of installing solar panels here in Spain? This is for you.

María's Tsunami, Day 16. Spain's neo-Nazis.

The UK

Looking both backwards and forwards, Ambrose Evans Prichard takes issue with some economic performant stats  . . . Britain will beat the eurozone to recovery this year. Far from a laggard, the UK economy is better placed to bounce back to pre-pandemic GDP levels than its European neighbours. See his (optimistic?) article below, with its rationale for this claim.

The EU

Europe’s most prominent federalist - Guy Verhofstadt,  ex Belgian prime minister and now the  senior liberal MEP - has accused Ursula von der Leyen of overseeing a “diplomatic disaster” that has wrecked relations between the EU and Britain. He attacked the European Commission president for making the EU’s vaccines “fiasco” worse with panicked measures.

Someone asks: Is Guy Verhofstadt the only Remainer willing to confront the EU's failings? His is the only voice on the inside that has come out to criticise the Commission’s blinding ineptitude. 

The USA

Donald Trump declares war on Republican senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. The ex-president called the senator a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack”, highlighting the widening rift in the Republican Party

McConnell need only look at the USA section of this to see the wide range of adjectives he can use in response to this.

Finally . . .

Quote of the week: It’s easy to identify a fraudulent call. The caller normally appears to be helpful and has excellent communication skills. A genuine call from a bank is invariably made by someone with none of those attributes.

Harry and Meghan are to perform on Oprah. An English prince and an ambitious American cable-TV actress. A match apparently made in Hell. Who could have predicted that . . .?

Headline of the year so far: Publicity-shy woman tells 7.67 billion people; 'I’m pregnant'.

Suggestion of the decade so far: The baby’s middle name should be 'Netflix'.

THE ARTICLE

  Brexit Britain will beat the eurozone to recovery this year.

Far from a laggard, the UK economy is better placed to bounce back to pre-pandemic GDP levels than its European neighbours: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

The UK economy did not suffer a bigger contraction than the eurozone last year after all. The narrative of a particularly British fiasco – believed by the London media, and the world – is essentially untrue.

It never made sense that the UK’s output figures should have been exceptionally disastrous. We now have the data, and we can see more clearly that it never happened. It was a story of apples and oranges.

“The UK actually outperformed other countries in Europe slightly if you look at nominal GDP, and we’re expecting another outperformance this year,” says David Owen from the US bank Jefferies.

The like-for-like nominal GDP contraction was 10% in Spain, 6.2% in France, 4.8% in the UK, 3.8% in Germany, and 2.3% in the US. This alters the historical verdict on the Johnson government and the British Sonderweg – to borrow a German term. Neil Shearing from Capital Economics reaches the same broad conclusion. “We’re clustered in the middle of the pack with Germany, France, and Italy. We might beat some of the others and get back to pre-pandemic levels by the end of this year, if there are no nasty surprises,” he said.

Confusion over past data is due to measurement models. The Office for National Statistics deducts a fall in visits to the doctor and reduced classes at school from accrued GDP. Most other countries do not. They tend to calculate extra health spending as a boost to GDP. Hence a giant anomaly. This is well-understood by the economics fraternity. It has been badly misunderstood by the lay commentariat. What we have had is an epidemic of bogus quantification. The illusory effect will reverse on the way up. The UK’s headline growth figures will be flattered – and look ridiculous – by mirror-image effect.

“The economy is poised like a coiled spring. As its energies are released, the recovery should be one to remember after a year to forget,” says Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s chief economist. “A year from now annual growth could be in double-digits,” he says. Households have amassed “accidental savings” of £125bn, and have paid down consumer debts by £20bn. Companies have a war chest of £100bn. Mr Haldane thinks a large chunk of this money is going to flood back into the real economy rapidly.

The shape, speed, and logistical back-up for the UK vaccine roll-out pulls forward economic reopening by roughly three months relative to the eurozone. New company births have been surging. There were 201,820 business formations in the fourth quarter, a sign that the UK’s flexible labour and product markets are adapting very fast to the digital leap forward caused by the pandemic. There is a risk that the recovery boomlet could fizzle out by the end of the year if Schumpeterians run amok or the Treasury reverts to austerity too soon. But that same risk applies in spades to Europe. The IMF warns that Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands all have contractionary fiscal settings this year.

The Haldane corkscrew may be over-optimistic but it is certainly more plausible than the OECD’s dire forecast. It expects the UK to languish at the bottom of the developed world this year. Output will be 6.4% below pre-pandemic levels at the end of 2021, and still 3% lower at the end of 2022. Its French chief economist thinks France and Italy will pull far ahead of the UK this year. I am willing to take the other of that trade with conviction, to use hedge fund parlance.

While Emmanuel’s Macron’s chief focus for weeks has been on how to outflank Marine Le Pen on the hard-Right over multiculturalism and Islamist ideology, he has allowed his country to drift into a vaccination crisis that entails huge economic cost. Just three million doses have been administered. The numbers protected are less because France is sticking to the double-dose rule. The rest of February will be used adding a little extra immunity with boosters, rather than broadening immunity as fast as possible. Large numbers at high risk will have no protection for a long time to come. Some 35% of new cases in France are the English variant, rising to 45% in greater Paris and 80% in Dunkirk. South African and Brazilian variants have broken out in the Moselle. Total new infections are bubbling along at just over 20,000 a day. It looks stable but French epidemiologists say this is wishful thinking. Mr Macron is defying his scientific advisers, gambling that he may be able to escape without another lockdown. Schools remain open. One might conclude that he is making exactly the same mistake that the UK made before Christmas, except that he has less excuse knowing what we now know. Whatever happens, France has no chance of returning to normal economic life for several months. There will be no Haldanian coiled spring recovery before late 2021. By then labour hysteresis and the latent insolvency of small firms will be that much worse.

Italy faces the same painful choices. The B117 variant is suddenly 18% of cases. Health authorities are again calling for an immediate lockdown. Vaccination has been faster than in France but is constrained by the shortage of doses. Premier Mario Draghi has had to kick off his tenure by blocking the reopening of ski lifts, setting off the first explosive divisions in his bizarre coalition. Italy risks losing the early summer tourist season as well. Mr Draghi cannot safely spend his way through another quarter of economic distress given a public debt ratio threatening to break through 160% of GDP. He has a horrible dilemma.

For the OECD to conclude that Britain will be left behind this year by France and Italy, it has to make calamitous assumptions about Brexit. No such calamity is occurring. Nor is it likely to occur under any rigorous analysis of what constitutes authentic UK exports to the EU, as became clear in the faux media drama last week over JD Sports. The company is a retailer. It is having trouble shipping clothes from its UK warehouse to shops in Europe because the goods come from China and southeast Asia. It will instead have to ship directly from the Far East to its EU locations. That is of no macroeconomic relevance to the UK. The re-exports by JD Sports may show up as large items in the UK trade balance but they add almost no value.

What we have had over the last month is decibel levels of noise over trade disruption but little clarity on economic scale or what may be permanent damage. Shellfish have been rotting in wharves because the EU has imposed an unexpected ban on live exports but the total value of these exports is £15m. It is not beyond the wit of man to redirect most of this fish for internal consumption. If scallops, oysters, clams, and langoustines are not appearing already on our shop shelves, they will do soon so long as market forces are allowed to operate. I am salivating at the thought of fresh spaghetti alle vongoleor Saint Jacques à la crème from our own waters.

The big container ports tell me that goods are flowing as normal. More ships are going directly from northern Spain to Liverpool and other ports, or from Antwerp to the Humber, instead of going by road. This is better for CO2 emissions and more efficient. There was a January scare over lorry loads through the Channel but that is hard to separate from the other effects: stock-building before the Brexit deadline; people holding back until teething pains are over; and the B117 coronavirus variant. The worst has already subsided. “It is much-improved since mid-January,” said the Road Haulage Association. The Government says lorry traffic is back to 98% of normal. There is still a problem: roughly 40% are going back empty compared to 20% in the past. This is because customs clearance into the EU is needlessly complicated – arguably protectionist – but this is going to boomerang back against the EU when the UK ends its temporary waivers over coming months and starts to dish out the same treatment. At that point European exporters will lose British market share to competitors from the US, Mexico, Japan, Korea, China, Latin America, or South Africa. Once lost, it probably goes forever. Brussels is going to face pressure from European business to dial down its trade harassment regime. “Supply chain problems are hitting German companies very hard. The bottlenecks are becoming dramatic,” said Joachim Lang, head of the German Industry lobby (BDI), last week. He called for an immediate return to constructive trade dialogue between the EU and the UK. We will be hearing more about this. Supply chains are in ferment. British manufacturers have an added incentive to switch from EU suppliers to local production wherever possible.

Nissan will produce more batteries for its electric vehicles in the UK. That is a direct consequence of the EU’s refusal to grant the UK ‘diagonal cumulation’ on Japanese parts under rule of origin thresholds. “Brexit, which we thought is a risk, has become an opportunity for Nissan,” were the revealing words of the chief operating officer.

There has been much focus on the immediate economic shocks of Brexit, but almost none on the silent offsetting effects. This year is going to turn that perception upside down. The spotlight will be back on Europe’s woes.

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

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

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'

Covid

A reader has said there’ll be too many problems with vaccination certificates to make them a viable option. Here’s a (balanced?) Guardian article on the subject. Years ago, of course, one used to have to carry proof of, for example TAB or yellow fever jabs. They seemed to work.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 

Cataluña: It was expected - says The Corner here - that elections there would clarify the region’s political future and bring some stability to the Spanish political scene. However, the results failed to clear up the doubts of the last decade. The most voted party was the Socialist PSOE. It is true that this is a non-independent party, but the margin was minimal, and the Catalan separatist parties have obtained enough seats to form a government. 

Still on politics . . . Spanish hubris. In late 2007 - on the back of what was, to some of us, a very obviously phoney, euro-driven boom - Prime Minister Zapatero proudly announced that Spain's per capita GDP had overtaken Italy's and would soon surpass that of France. And, eventually, even Germany's. This was just before the crash of 2008 and Spain's rapid transition from false boom to authentic bust. So, not only did his forecasts not come to pass but - despite recovery and recent above-EU-average growth, Spain's per capita GDP has now been overtaken by that of the Czech Republic. See here on this.

El Diario agrees that the Ciudadanos party is on its the way out. Here (in Spanish) is that journal's  account of the new party’s - equally rapid - rise and fall. HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for a this. 

One of the 11 things you shouldn't do in Spain - per the video I posted - is put bread on your plate. It reminded me that this item is a comfort blanket to the Spanish. If I ever realise I don't have a barra of it ahead of a dinner for Spanish guests, I urgently call someone and ask them to bring one. There's a real irony here in that, while your guests will go into nervous convulsions if there's no basket of bread pieces on the table, they’ll actually eat very little of it. For years, I'd buy 2 barras for 7 guests and then throw 1.75 of them to the birds. Now I buy just one and only throw 50% of this away the next day.

As for not even just offering to wash the dishes after a meal . . . After many years of having Spanish guests for dinner, I can attest to the extreme rarity of this and am inured to it. As to what happens in Spanish homes, I can only guess it's true there as well. To say the least, home entertaining is not big in Spain and I have only limited experience to draw on here. I guess there are reasons other than my unacceptability as a guest for this.  P. S. I should stress that my lovely neighbours are an exception in this regard.

María's Tsunami, Days 13, 14 & 15. Albeit from a more limited experience, I'd endorse her comment that learning in Spain is mostly by rote. And that: There's no emphasis on understanding a subject and incorporating that learning into the student's everyday life. 

The EU

Yanis Varoufakis is a very clever chap (of the Left) who was the Greek finance minister when the country got into such an economic mess a few years ago that there was a risk it’d leave - or be thrown out of - the EU. Negotiating a rescue with the Brussels' technocrats, YF was right royally shafted. Despite that, he's remained a supporter of the EU, but has called often and loudly for major reform. This is the title of his latest(longish) article: The EU's multiple failures are due to a deeper malaise; its formidable immunity to the smallest amount of democracy. It can be read here or below.

The Way of the World

Officious policing in the time of Covid. . .

- In the UK, a man's been fined for 'trying to do the good deed' of taking leaves from his garden to a nearby wood. 

- Here in Pontevedra, the police have warned an employee of Carrefour she'll be fined if she is again caught shopping there after she's finished her shift. Because the place is in Poio and she lives across the bridge in Pontevedra. So, she's only authorised to go to Poio to work, not shop . . .  Possibly a new urban myth. But, equally possibly, not.

Finally

Brexit hits me in the wallet yet again. I was expecting it some time soon and yesterday I had to pay €24 on books coming from the UK valued at c. 80 quid. I can’t say if this was 25% duty or something else, as no details were given or available for the charge. It could simply be a ‘stealth tax’ from the Hacienda. Or a fee from the forwarder passed on to me. Oddly, payment by card wasn’t an option at Correos.

En passant . . . The books had been ordered by my Madrid-based daughter and, by error, her name was on both the package and the dreaded Correos notification as the recipient. As I knew from experience this would prevent me getting the package and it would probably go back to the UK, I resorted to getting from her a copy of her NIE and then forging her signature in the relevant part of the form. I needn’t have bothered really; just getting her ID from the copy was enough for the clerk. As a Spanish friend said to me later: You needn't have worried. No one ever checks the signatures here. So why demand them? Of course, I have to give one on a PDF to 'prove' my identity. IGIMSTS. 

THE ARTICLE

The EU's multiple failures are due to a deeper malaise; its formidable immunity to the smallest amount of democracy

From denial, to grudging acceptance, to substantial intervention, to debacle: that was the European Union’s trajectory once the storm that nearly consumed Wall Street in 2008 had crossed the Atlantic, starting the euro crisis. Twelve years later, the EU’s reaction to Covid-19’s arrival is following an ominously comparable trajectory.

Eurosceptics take aim at the EU’s excessive red tape and incompetence, the Commission’s vaccination fiasco being a case in point. Euro-loyalists contend that the EU has learned its lessons and has responded to the pandemic with refreshing proficiency and solidarity. They are both wrong.

The EU’s multiple failures are due to a deeper malaise, one the euro crisis unveiled and the pandemic is now exacerbating. What malaise? The EU’s formidable immunity to the smallest amount of democracy.

From denial to acceptance

It is hard to tell which was the EU’s darkest hour. Was it in 2009, when we realised that Europe’s banks – French and German ones primarily – were insolvent and were part of a monetary union that was unable by design to address a doom-loop of collapsing banks and governments? Or did our darkest moment arrive last March when, as Italians and Spaniards were dying of Covid-19 in heart-wrenching numbers, some EU governments put limits on exports of masks and other medical equipment, choosing that very moment to disregard Europe’s celebrated single market?

Technically, the EU’s initial response was legally justified both in 2009 and 2020. In 2009 the EU’s institutions lacked the authority to save either the collapsing banks or the hamstrung member states. Having created a European Central Bank (ECB) lacking a government to support it and banned from either recapitalising eurozone banks directly or helping national governments do so, the EU was never going to have a good global banking crisis. Similarly, during the pandemic in 2020, with public health largely outside the EU’s “competence”, it was not surprising that the moment the body count began to rise, and intensive care units to fill up, it was every country for itself.

But getting caught out by events was part of the EU’s design. Its architects understood that the institutional edifice they had created was not fit for purpose, but hoped that emergencies would force their successors rapidly to forge new institutions which, without crisis, there was no political will to create. The question in 2009, and once more today, remains: did denial turn to acceptance fast enough? And how fit for purpose were the new EU institutions that resulted?

A decade ago, the EU’s reaction time was around six months. The first time EU leaders heard that a Greek government bankruptcy was about to bring down two German and two French banks was in the middle of December 2009. By May 2010 the first Greek bailout was finalised, saving the Franco-German banks and setting precedent for similar bailouts across Europe. That intervention has since led to the mobilisation of trillions of euros, channelled through brand new institutions: the European Financial Stability Facility, the European Stability Mechanism, the informal Troika (the trio of the Commission, the ECB and the IMF) nestling within the all powerful but still informal Eurogroup. There was also, of course, QE, or “quantitative easing” (effectively a money-creation programme of the ECB), which did most of the work to hold together the eurozone and, consequently, the EU.

In 2020 the EU’s reaction time shrank from six to three months. Following their countries’ restrictions on exports early in the crisis, Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron pushed the EU towards coordinated action: a €750bn recovery fund to assist the member states hit hardest by Covid-19 followed a potential €1.8trn pumped into Europe’s economy through the ECB’s bond-buying scheme. Then there was the now-infamous centralised vaccine procurement programme.

Given that the EU lacks a homogeneous state’s nimbleness, requiring quasi-unanimity between its 27 national governments, a reaction time between three and six months before trillions are mobilised to tackle unforeseen calamities is not too bad. Moreover, it would be unfair not to acknowledge that the EU conjured up rivers of euros with which it tried to extinguish both the euro crisis and the Covid-19 recession. And yet the result has been, in both cases, a comedy of errors.

From acceptance to motivated failure

As a boy, on stormy winter nights, I would count the seconds between lightning and thunder to work out if the storm was getting closer or moving on. During the euro crisis, including when I was Greek finance minister, I caught myself doing something similar after each monthly EU crisis summit, which always ended in a press conference announcing new impressive numbers and crisis-busting initiatives. I would record the half-life of the post-EU summit euphoria, noting how it shrank from weeks in 2010 to days in 2013 to hours by 2014. In 2015 I found myself inside those Eurogroup meetings, where I witnessed the true reason behind the EU’s failure: an institutionalised inclination to pose the wrong question.

When finance had its near-death experience in 2008, the UK’s then prime minister Gordon Brown and the governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, and in Washington, DC the then Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, and the chair of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, brought together bankers and Treasury aides and asked the right question: “What will it take to stop this crisis from consuming us?”

Meanwhile, in Brussels, a similar gathering took place, but the question posed was very different: “Given that our rules can no longer apply, how can we continue to pretend that they do?” Even if the answer given to this question is ultra-smart and implemented fully, only by accident will it ever minimise the human and economic cost of a crisis.

Why this penchant for asking the wrong question? The answer is that if the right question had been asked at the peak of the euro crisis (ie, “What will it take to stop this from consuming us?”), the answer would be self evident: tear up the EU rule-book, which banned the ECB from doing what the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England did, and instruct the ECB to print the money the French and German banks – and even member states – needed to survive. Alas, that was something that Europe’s oligarchs, whom EU leaders are loathe to cross, were supremely averse to doing. Why? Because by consenting to cast aside the original EU rule-book they would be willingly undermining their greatest achievement.

As originally constructed, the eurozone is an oligarch’s wet dream. It features a central bank that finances every corporate oligarch with unlimited free money within a large, rich economy where, due to the rules ruthlessly constraining what political institutions can do on behalf of the majority, it is impossible for the electorate to vote in any government, national or federal, that may transfer substantial portions of wealth from the few to the many.

Why would they ever allow this dream to end?

Were the EU’s powers-that-be unaware that answering the wrong question would undermine not just the workers and middle classes of Greece and Germany, but also deal a mighty blow upon aggregate investment and, thus, European capitalism? Of course not. But, in their eyes, the debacle of the euro crisis, and the avoidable pain it caused across Europe, was a price worth paying for their immunity from the democratic process. If anyone needs a textbook definition of a motivated failure, this is it.

Smoke and mirrors

Since 2010 tremendous effort has gone into circumventing the EU’s own rules while pretending to respect them. It began with the Greek bailout, which the rules did not allow but which was essential to re-float the Franco German banks. To disguise the EU bailout loans so that they would not look like EU bailout loans, the EU employed super-smart financial engineers, some of them former Lehman Brothers employees. They were the ones who designed fiendishly complex loan facilities and new institutions for delivering them in a manner that meant not a euro would be wasted on needy Europeans. And when the deed was complete, with huge austerity paying to support Europe’s bankers, they allowed the ECB to print as many billions of euros as necessary to cover up the underlying stagnation and further to enrich the oligarchs. Countries such as Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain had been converted to debtors’ prisons, while thousands of eastern Europeans, unable to find work in the depressed eurozone, were drawn to a UK boasting relative economic dynamism, thus giving the Brexit cause the push it needed to win narrowly in 2016.

Cut to last year, and the EU’s economic response to Covid-19. Once more, after a period of denial and comical retributions, the EU announced large sums and new institutions to spend them across the continent – causing predictable euphoria among the commentariat. Equally predictably, six months later the euphoria has deflated, leaving behind it the usual foreboding. With hindsight, what transpired was a faithful rendition of the euro crisis, only this time with a whiff of radicality in the issuance of common debt.

Last March, in a moment of harmonised panic following EU-wide lockdowns, 13 heads of governments, including President Macron, demanded from the EU the issue of common debt (a so-called eurobond) that would help shift burgeoning national debt from the weak shoulders of our states to the EU, so as to avert Greek-style austerity in the next few years. Chancellor Merkel, unsurprisingly, said “Nein” and offered a consolation prize in the form of a recovery fund to be financed by up to €750bn of common debt. It sounded like a lot of money to be raised by something sounding very much like the requested eurobond. But, alas, it was – like the Greek bailouts from 2010 onwards – lots of smoke and mirrors.

The press did not see it as such, at least not initially. Merkel’s decision to end her opposition to fiscal transfers was widely portrayed as the Hamiltonian moment (referring to Alexander Hamilton’s portrayal of common debt as the cement of the American union) the EU needed to turn into a proper union. The argument was that the EU bonds, which will finance the recovery fund, were the proverbial foot-in-the-door that might allow a substantive fiscal union to squeeze through later. The problem is, however, that a foot in the door can just as well end with a crushed foot and a slam shut.

The reason that, six months after the announcement of the recovery fund, the thrill is gone is that Europeans have begun to sense not just its insignificance but also the dangers it brings. To defend the EU’s weakest people and communities, the recovery fund should be large enough to offset the austerian cuts that would be otherwise necessary to balance the budget deficits once Berlin goes back into the black and demands other EU countries do the same. It packs less than one tenth of that, ensuring that a new tsunami of austerity will hit sooner or later.

And then there are the toxic politics that the recovery fund has already engendered and is bound to magnify. Suppose, for instance, the UK functioned like the EU: lacking a nationwide unemployment benefits system, an NHS and, generally, automatic transfers from better off to worse off regions. Now, introduce to that dystopic UK an EU-style recovery fund. Finally, imagine the horror of politicians representing Sussex and Surrey negotiating with their counterparts from Northumberland and Yorkshire on how much money they will transfer to them after the pandemic, even before we know its impact on each region.

The divisions and toxicity of such a process would make Brexit look like a tea party. And yet this divisiveness has been built into the EU recovery fund, complete with country allocations drawn up before we know the effects of the recession on each nation.

It is almost as if the whole thing were designed by a cunning Eurosceptic. Except that the real drivers are not ideological but, rather, the same old oligarchic interests that have obstructed a rational resolution of the euro crisis for more than a decade. [I think YV means debt mutualisation here]

In sickness and in health

Around the same time the recovery fund was being finalised, EU leaders decided, quite sensibly, to defer all decisions regarding vaccine procurement to Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission. The idea was to prevent beggar-thy-neighbour politics and to ensure that every European country would be guaranteed the same number of vaccines, pro rata, at the same price. Reasonable Europeans, not unreasonably, allowed themselves to hope that a new era of rational coordination and pan-European solidarity was dawning. How wrong they were.

The EU vaccines procurement fiasco is yet further proof that inefficient bureaucracy was never the EU’s true weakness. The roots of the union’s multiple failures can be traced to its origins in a glorified cartel. The rules that have caused so much avoidable pain across the continent, and have guaranteed the oligarchy immunity from anything resembling a democratic process, are embedded in the unwritten corporatist covenant at the centre of the EU – which, lest we forget, began life as a real cartel: the European Coal and Steel Community.

Unlike nation states that emerge as stabilisers of conflicts between social classes and groups, the EU was created as a cartel with a remit to stabilise the profit margins of the large, central European corporations. Seen through this prism, the EU’s stubborn faithfulness to failed practices begins to make sense. We know that cartels are reasonably good at distributing monopoly profits between oligarchs, but terrible at distributing losses. We also know that, unlike proper states, cartels will resist any democratisation of their decision-making, whether it is about debt or vaccines.

In this context, the European Commission’s policy for ordering vaccines was driven by one imperative: to keep the Franco-German axis in balance. Why else did Brussels split the lion’s share of the EU’s vaccine budget straight down the middle between German company BioNTech and French company Sanofi (placing an order for 300 million vaccines from each), while procrastinating for three months over the Brexit-tainted AstraZeneca vaccine? When the French vaccine was significantly delayed in clinical trials, leaving the Commission with a serious vaccine shortage, the panicked reaction came straight out of the euro crisis book of malice. The EU lashed out by threatening to impose a “vaccine border” on the island of Ireland, exposing the mendacity of its professed commitment to the Good Friday Agreement.

It was strikingly reminiscent of the retributions during the euro crisis between EU leaders struggling to shift the blame on to others – an all too familiar game. The Commission is attempting to camouflage bad decisions with even worse ones. A top EU official, Martin Selmayr, tweeted on 31 January that Europe’s vaccination roll-out was faster than Africa’s. On the day the EU’s authorities approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for general use, Macron opined that it was “quasi-ineffective for people over 65”. The German federal health minister said he was open to using the Russian vaccine if it was approved by the appropriate EU authorities.

This will be Merkel’s legacy. She spent her huge political capital to keep intact the Franco-German foundation of an EU that affords Europe’s ruling class the greatest power any oligarchs could possibly enjoy in a technologically advanced society where liberty is guaranteed, but only within a political sphere stripped of all authority. Even when Merkel had to give ground, as in the case of the recovery fund, she endorsed a mechanism that will redistribute wealth from poor German workers (and taxpayers in other EU countries) to Greek and Italian oligarchs, who have a cosy relationship with their countries’ governments.

Together, EU officials and the oligarchs of Europe’s south and north have contrived to rob European peoples, both in sickness and in health, of any capacity to participate in the decision-making process. As a result, 13 years after the 2008 crisis, the pandemic has hardened the reality of Europe as the world’s richest and at once sickest continent. They have done so by turning the EU into a cash cow that must be at once submitted to unquestioningly and blamed by our domestic oligarchies for their failures. Europe’s tragedy, to quote the novelist Arundhati Roy, is “immediate, real, epic and unfolding before our eyes. But it isn’t new. It is the wreckage of a train that has been careening down the track for years.”

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

Below is another fine overview - albeit with a  UK bias - from MD of Private Eye. The highlighting is mine.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 

Ignoring what happened to the big boys who are pro or anti independence*, the most interesting news from the Catalan regional elections of the weekend is that the far-right wing Vox party now has 11 seats (from none), while the the centre-right party fell from 36 to 6 and the the not-so-far-right PP party fell from 4 to 3 seats. Ciudadanos ,which started out claiming to be centrist but moved to the right, really does seem to be on its way out as a political force for the good. I'll post a wider and deeper analysis when I come across one.

* Basically: The pro-independence bloc grows to a majority, despite a narrow Socialist win.

I knew the French had helped the Americans with their War of Independence but hadn't been aware - or had forgotten - that the Spanish did too. Especially one Bernardo de Gálvez, the Governor of the Spanish province of Louisiana, who organised free black men into 2 militia companies to successfully defend New Orleans. He then defeated the British in the  1779 battle of Baton Rouge. In which he re-took that city from the British, who'd seized it from either the French or the Spanish. It's all a tad confusing but you can read about him here.

I might have posted this video on 11 Things You Should Never Do in Spain from this nice couple a year ago but it bears a re-show.

The UK

Scotland: In what must be a unique political phenomenon, not a single word of criticism about Nicola Sturgeon's  Covid restrictions has ever been heard from her 60 MSPs at Holyrood or the 46 MPs at Westminster. Does that mean that they all agree with her or, rather, that the SNP is the most docile, even supine, bunch of politicians ever? More likely obsessed with independence. A one-party, single-issue 'state'. With a poor record in health and education which is being ignored. Like ¨Cataluña??

The phenomenal success of the TV show The Masked Singer has no doubt been a symptom of enforced confinement. The image of a bored nation slumped recumbent, accepting any imbecilic nonsense, is hard to disregard. BUT . . Perhaps it won’t have done much for the nation’s IQ, but watched with younger ones this series will have made for a happy living room. You could hardly ask for more during our winter of discontent. A shame I missed it? Not really; no family to sit with . . . Inter alia.

Germany

The most influential dictionary in Germany has irritated traditionalists and some linguists by issuing guidance to make the language more gender-neutral. Critics say that the edict results in cumbersome and artificial phrases that are far removed from the way most people speak. . . In recent years councils and politicians have often tied themselves in knots as they try to adapt to the linguistic demands of a more liberal age, using exotic hybrids that combine the masculine and feminine forms with asterisks, forward slashes or underscores.

Thank god we stopped using the Old Norse/German of the Anglo Saxon invaders/settlers. Thanks, it's said, to the later Danish invaders

The USA

Senior Republicans drew battle lines against Donald Trump at the weekend, as he sought to use the acquittal in his impeachment trial to reassert control over the party.

Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland, stating the obvious: We’re going to have a real battle for the soul of the party over the next couple of years. 

Republicans need Trumpism without Trump. But will they get it?

Spanish

Twice yesterday Spanish friends used 'alive'(con vida/vivo) instead of 'live'(en directo). An easy mistake, of course. I'm sure there are equivalent traps for English speakers in Spanish.

English

I'm used to seeing the (American) criticism of 'you/he/they suck' but had never seen 'They blow' until last night. Is this really in use or just a bit of praise from a foreigner being linguistically logical? As with a Spanish friend who wrote, coincidentally, yesterday of 'my youthhood'. Which, in fact, I think would be a nice addition to the language.

Finally . . .

After hearing a loud bang, my sister went down to her newly-cleaned kitchen to find their plumber had dismantled the garbage disposal machine and it was in bits all over the place:-

What are you doing?

There's nothing wrong with your garbage disposal, Terry.

I could have told you that but why are you here?

Your husband's name is Harry, isn't it?

No, it's Franklyn.

Fuck me, I'm in the wrong house.

The could only happen to my unfortunate sister, who's never had a friend in Lady Luck.  . . 

COVID REVIEW: ‘MD’, Private Eye

Not up to the task 

A year since our first known infection, and I 05,571 deaths later, it's hard to escape the conclusion that the UK was simply not up to the task of controlling Covid without vaccines. We need a swift public inquiry so lessons can be learned before the next pandemic arrives. A key one is flexibility. We were expecting influenza and we got coronavirus. Prepare for another coronavirus, and we'll likely get influenza. 

When you've seen one pandemic . . .

Preparing for the type of virus only gets you so far. Each one is unique. When you've seen one pandemic ... you've seen one pandemic. 

MD made the early error of assuming the Sars-CoV-2 virus would be similar to its 2003 cousin (Sars-Co Y-1), causing a very unpleasant disease in a limited number of people that was relatively easy to spot and contain. It does indeed do that, but in addition it evolved to spread silently - asymptomatically, pre-symptomatically and with minimal symptoms - so it was everywhere on our hyper-connected planet before we realised it. And although an individual's risk may be reassuringly low, the law of large numbers means that a whole population exposed to a small risk will result in a large number of deaths (more than 2.2m globally). 

Vaccines v variants 

More vaccines are coming on board; but exotic viral variants are on the rise - from Brazil, South Africa and Kent - which may, or may not, spread faster, be more virulent and evade some vaccines. 

We must do trials to see if our gamble to ignore the manufacturer's schedule and give as many high-risk individuals a single dose of vaccine provides better protection than giving half the number both doses 21 days apart. Everyone should get a second dose in 12 weeks, if supply can keep up, but we may need to change tack. No matter how many times we tweak our vaccines, the virus will do its best to outfox us. Such is the wonder of evolution . . .

The Red Queen 

The Red Queen hypothesis of evolution is simple: predator and prey co-evolve in an escalating cycle of complexity. If foxes run faster, rabbits are selected to run faster still, forcing foxes to run even faster. If a fox's eyesight improves, rabbits are selected to blend better with the environment, so foxes need even better eyesight. Antibiotic and vaccine resistance are good examples. As Lewis Carroll's Red Queen explains to Alice: "It takes all the running you can do, just to keep in the same place." 

Fortunately, the virus doesn't need to kill us to feed on us. It exists solely to reproduce and many people peacefully co-exist with it on board, as we do with many other viruses. Death of the food source is no use to the virus, though variants that cause more severe disease force people into homes and hospitals where there are more chances to spread. So we need to ventilate the buildings as much as the patients. Stuffy, ventilation-free indoor spaces can be a Covid trap. 

Thinking outside the school 

The longer we cut our education provision, the more we harm our children and our future. The World Health Organization (WHO) advises that schools should be last to close, closures should be as brief as possible, and they should be first to open. 

Some children have spent just 60 days in school in the last year. Laptop provision for home schooling has improved, but too many children can't afford or can't access decent broadband and many parents are exhausted. Children have always been at the lowest risk from Covid and the highest risk from lockdown. Their welfare is supposed to be paramount but those under 18 are not even allowed to ask questions at the government's Covid briefings. 

Lateral flow tests may quickly pick-up pupils and staff with the highest viral loads, but falsely reassure those whose infections are missed. Higher risk teachers and school staff should be vaccinated. But the biggest problem may be schools themselves. Most are currently open but at 20-30 percent capacity. When they return to full capacity, classrooms will be overcrowded, and many are poorly ventilated or hermetically sealed. Alternative venues could be safer. 

Inverse Covid laws 

Life is full of risks if you're obese, old, disabled and/or poor, but even more so in a pandemic. The inverse Covid laws apply. Those most at risk from Covid are least able to escape it. Those who most need to isolate can least afford to do so. Those most likely to die are least likely to access help. If you plot a graph of poverty v Covid deaths in the UK, or indeed any deaths, it makes unedifying viewing. 

We can either blame people for being sitting ducks or help them put nutritious food on the table and reduce their risk of premature disease and death. Lockdown is a blunt tool with horrible side effects, and there's a limit to how much any country can harm its young to protect the rest. But if you don't control infections with border quarantine, social distancing and a functioning test, trace, isolate and support system, there is no other option. 

Preparing for the worst 

At the start of a pandemic, when you can't be sure what you're dealing with, the countries that did best adopted the precautionary principle. Those previously scarred by Sars picked up on social media warnings from Wuhan whistleblowers before they were deleted, assumed China was covering up again, took rapid pre-emptive action and largely protected their citizens and their economies from Covid. The rest of the world waited for the WHO, which was being led a merry dance by the Chinese government. 

Anticipating the science 

Following the science is all very well, but if you wait to assemble all the facts in an exponentially growing pandemic that started in a country that covers up, you're too late. In the UK, we could not stop the virus arriving but as soon as we knew, in early March, that it was spreading so rapidly we didn't have the testing capacity to keep track of it, we should have locked down. 

Instead, we lied about the reasons we had stopped testing, flirted dangerously with herd immunity, dithered, U-turned, locked down late and set a pattern of poor management that cost many lives. 

Global inquiry 

Could the pandemic have been prevented, or at least severely curtailed, at its origin? A global inquiry is under way, and most countries will wait until it reports to the World Health Assembly in May before launching their own, perhaps to pin as much pre-blame as possible on the Chinese government and the WHO. 

The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPRR) was set up by the WHO to independently and impartially criticise anyone (including the WHO), but in diplomatic terms. It can't compel witnesses to appear but has interviewed more than I 00 frontline pandemic experts. 

The second report of the IPPR came out last month and declared: "The global pandemic alert system is not fit for purpose ... Critical elements of the system are slow, cumbersome and indecisive. The procedures and protocols ... leading up to the declaration of a public health emergency of international concern seem to come from an earlier analog era and need to be brought into the digital age ... This technical updating must be accompanied by a political step-change in the willingness of countries to hold themselves accountable for taking all necessary actions as soon as an alert is issued."

Ground zero, evidence zero? 

A WHO team is in Wuhan, 14 months after the outbreak, to gather evidence on the precise origin. Good luck with that. They spent the first fortnight locked in a room in a quarantine hotel where every shred of waste has to go into a bio bag. The WHO does not have the resources for an independent investigation and is entirely reliant on the evidence and witnesses the Chinese authorities choose to share with them. 

We many never find when and where Bat Zero met Pangolin Zero before meeting Human Zero. But we do know that cramming several species of petrified wild animal into a small crate, transporting them across continents as they shit, swap and spread virus everywhere, before being slaughtered in a crowded live market, taken home and eaten is high-risk. If we allow this to happen anywhere in the world, we all pay the price. But how do we stop it? 

Chinese lessons not learned 

China delayed owning up to Sars in 2003, and did so again this time. It delayed admitting to the outbreak, and when it did, it denied the strong likelihood of human-to-human transmission, disciplined frontline whistleblowers who said 

otherwise, and had to be bumped into releasing the viral genome by a brave scientist who was then disciplined. The delay broke international law and caused chaos at the WHO, which didn't want to upset its second biggest funder without more proof, but could sense another Sars unfolding. 

The WHO kept the risk at "moderate" - fooling MD and many others - and delayed announcing a public health emergency until 30 January 2020, even though Wuhan had locked down on 23 January (8 weeks after the first known infection). The best chance of preventing the pandemic was already lost. 

China did control its own Covid, and was commended by the WHO. Releasing the virus's genetic sequence allowed PCR and vaccines to be developed. But its initial cover-up did cost lives. When doctors and nurses in Wuhan were contracting the virus - proof of human-to-human transmission - they were initially forbidden from wearing masks to avoid promoting panic. So much for the precautionary principle. 

Speed matters 

IF you have, say, a heart attack or stroke, the sooner you act the better your chances of survival. The same is true in public health emergencies, and no one knew this more than Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergencies programme and an Ebola expert. 

The Press Association obtained recordings of WHO meetings in January 2020 of Dr Ryan incandescent that China was withholding information that could be the best chance to prevent global spread. The WHO issued stern warnings from 30 January, with clear instructions on how to manage the outbreak, but many countries - including the UK and US- didn't act. On 11 March, the WHO belatedly used the call-to-arms word "pandemic". Still many countries didn't act. 

On 13 March, Dr Ryan delivered the impassioned speech the world had needed in early January: "You need to be prepared and you need to react quickly. You need to go after the virus. You need to stop the chains of transmission. You need to engage with communities very deeply. Community acceptance is hugely important. You need to understand the impact on schools, security and economics. You need to be coordinated and coherent. Be fast, have no regrets - you must be the first mover. The virus will always get you if you don't move quickly. 

"If you need to be right before you move, you will never win. Perfection is the enemy of the good when it comes to emergency management. Speed trumps perfection. The problem we have... , is that everyone is afraid of making a mistake; everyone is afraid of the consequence of error. But the greatest error is not to move. The greatest error is to be paralysed by the fear of failure." And, in the UK, paralysed by the fear of your spartan backbenchers and their champions in the press. 

Staff are still dying 

DR Gamal Osman, a frontline BAME consultant in his sixties, died from Covid last month on 28 January. His brother had died from Covid in September, but he refused to stand down, rallying his colleagues at North Bristol NHS Trust by saying: "This isn't a time for cowards." His trust could have insisted he stood down, but many hospitals and care homes would collapse if all their high-risk staff were removed from front-line care. Frontline staff must get their second vaccine doses, and have variant-proof PPE. Dr Osman was the sole-earner for his wife and 7 children. Colleagues have set up a GoFundMe page to support them. 

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'

Happy Valentine’s Day to the romantics among you. . . 

Covid

The UK: Folk there seem to have moved on from wondering - as I am - when they’ll get jabbed to wondering when they’ll get the certificates the will allow them to have a summer holiday outside the UK

The world: Covid has robbed us of the ability to properly weigh risk.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 

Needless to say. Spain has a gender identity bill going through the parliamentary motions. See here. It’s pretty controversial, I guess. Spain’s right-wing voters are inevitably unhappy about it, as this ABC article shows.

I've mentioned before there's a place in North Galicia called Bretoña, reputed to be the location of a 6th century monkish group from either Great Britain or Little Britain (Brittany) - Britania or Armorica. See the map here. What's really interesting/amusing about this is that Galicians believe the migration was the other way, with Galicians colonising the British Isles, including Ireland. 

The article relates that: In the 5th and 6th centuries emigrating Britons also took Brittonic speech to the continent, most significantly to Brittany and Britonia(Bretoña). Needless to say, there's no trace of a Bretonic language in North Galicia nowadays. Indeed, there's no trace of the Brits who came to Bretoña either. (Incidentally and confusingly, there's also a village called Bretoña quite close to Pontevedra but I doubt it has anything to do with ancient Brits. Unless some pensioners have settled there.)

It’s a shame there’s no trace of a Bretonic language in Galicia, as this would surely help in the (impossible?) task of proving that the region/country is entitled to join the Celtic League as the 7th Celtic member.

The UK and the EU

Reader sp asks me if I’m keeping a list of the ways the Daily Telegraph thinks ‘The Project’ will fail. I’m not, of course, as this would be an odd thing to do for someone who believes it’ll fail in due course. I’m reminded of the comment that: Only a fool makes predictions. Especially about the future. So, I think it’s legitimate to  speculate on the collapse, while declining to forecast exactly when and how. 

The Way of the World

A nice observation: Football, at its highest level, has become completely detached from the lives of its supporters — the perfect symbol of the financial gain and cultural loss from what we now call globalisation.

An even nicer observation: The divisive agenda of woke activists is the very opposite of ‘anti-racism’. Every time one of our institutions gives room to performative wokery, it denies space to genuine opportunity for ethnic minorities See the full article below.

A propos . . . Breastfeeding is now chestfeeding: Why are the language police trying to wipe out women? To placate the angry, vocal few, one sex is being written out of the lexicon. It must stop. [I think I said that a few days ago]. See the full - and rather angry - 2nd article below 

Finally . . .

Here’s a tale that tickled me this week. Bear in mind that a Casino in Spain is usually/always just a private club, not a gambling joint:-

A group of friends in their 40s get together to choose somewhere to go for lunch, and finally they decide on the restaurant in the Casino because the waitresses are stunning and very friendly.

Ten years later, the same group of friends, get together to choose somewhere to go for lunch, and finally they decide on the restaurant in the Casino because it has a wondeful menu and a wide choice of wines.

Ten years later, the same group of friends  get together to choose somewhere to go for lunch, and finally they decide on the restaurant in the Casino because it is a quiet place, without too much noise and has a no-smoking policy.

Ten years later, the same group of friends get together to choose somewhere to go for lunch, and finally they decide on the restaurant in the Casino because it has wheelchair access and even a lift.

Ten years later, the same group of friends, now in their 80s, get together to choose somewhere to go for lunch, and finally they decide on the restaurant in the Casino because they all agree they have never been there before . . .

THE ARTICLES

1. The divisive agenda of woke activists is the very opposite of ‘anti-racism’.

Every time one of our institutions gives room to performative wokery, it denies space to genuine opportunity for ethnic minorities: Charles Moore 

The subject of today’s column furnishes so many examples that I am spoilt for choice. I think I’ll start with Winston Churchill, because everyone has heard of him.

On Thursday, a conference was held on the “racial consequences” of Churchill. Its speakers condemned him. Kehinde Andrews, professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University, said Churchill was the “perfect embodiment of white supremacy”. “The British Empire was far worse than the Nazis”, he added. No one defended Churchill. The conference was held at Churchill College, Cambridge, at that college’s instigation. The college was founded in 1964, with the great man’s blessing. It is also the home of the Churchill Archives, by far the most important collection of his papers.

Here is my second example. In 2019, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), the charity which looks after charities, chose the experienced Karl Wilding, already on the staff, as its new chief executive. It was criticised for picking “another white man”. Once appointed, Mr Wilding announced his urgent priority to improve the NCVO’s Diversity and Inclusion. He and the board commissioned “independent consultants” to report on the situation. He also met “#CharitySoWhite”, a campaign group devoted to attacking white dominance of charities. It was a pre-requisite for the consultants that NCVO should admit to institutional racism, so the eventual report was a foregone conclusion.

In the course of its inquiries, the leading consultant claimed she had been shocked by a meeting with Mr Wilding. He was the oppressor, she judged, and had exhibited the sin of “white fragility”.

During Covid, Mr Wilding had scored an extraordinary hit for the charity sector – securing £750 million from the Government to save it from collapse. This did not save him. He recently left his post at the NCVO. A leak of the consultants’ report this week claimed there had been “bullying and harassment” on the basis of race. The new-ish chairman of the NCVO, Priya Singh, grovellingly acknowledged it was “a structurally racist organisation” (and equally dreadful about homophobia, transphobia etc).

Both these stories reveal organisations which are unfair and ungrateful to those who help them and indulgent to those who hate them. Churchill College could never have raised the money to exist at all without the respect in which the statesman himself was held. The NCVO would have precious few charities to oversee if Mr Wilding had not obtained that huge subvention from the Government.

The question, then, is, why did Churchill College and why did the NCVO (including poor Mr Wilding) and why do bodies such as the National Trust or Historic England or the British Museum give room to those who detest what these organisations do and try to oust the people who run them?

Simple fear is part of it. No one wants to be accused of racism, harassment and “microaggressions”. Most realise that, if they are, their colleagues will not dare defend them. It feels easier to give in – though it isn’t. But I think there must be another feeling in the minds of the institutions blowing with this gale. They half-believe that people like Pror Andrews and organisations such as #CharitySoWhite are right – a bit hot-headed, perhaps, but on the right track.

It is true, as a general proposition about human nature, that people who dominate tend to exploit the rest. Western nations have dominated most of the world for more than 200 years, so there is a history of (among many other, better things) exploitation. It should be told, and that tale will involve Churchill, if only because he was the last globally powerful Englishman. Any painful consequences of the past (along with many more beneficial ones such as the spread of Christianity, the rule of law and modern medicine) for minority-ethnic people alive today should not be hidden. Wrongs that persist must be righted.

But it is a mistake – indeed, for the institutions involved, a potentially fatal mistake – to accept all “anti-racists” at their own valuation. What is emerging as this attempted Cultural Revolution spools out is that Martin Luther King’s ideal that people be judged by “the content of their character” not by the colour of their skin has been rejected by organisations such as Black Lives Matter.

Instead, they have set up doctrines uncommonly like those of apartheid South Africa, except that the racial hierarchy is reversed. Whereas apartheid demeaned blacks people above all, woke “anti-racism” demeans white people. It does this explicitly. The very name #CharitySoWhite is a small example. (You can prove it by imagining how people would rightly abhor an organisation called #CharitySoBlack designed to stop black people running charities.) Whiteness is seen as badness: so it must be extirpated. This is a racist doctrine. It is pretty much as simple as that.

When our institutions accept such critiques, they are not only digging their own graves; they also ignorantly and patronisingly accepting the unwarranted claim that the authors of these critiques speak for most ethnic minority people.

Surely anyone who wants BAME people to prosper would favour greater opportunity. And surely opportunity is less likely to open up if they are taught (literally taught, as happens in some schools) that society is against them. Every time one of our institutions gives room to this performative wokery, it denies space to genuine opportunity for ethnic minorities.

There are millions of ethnic minority people in this country doing jobs well and, as a result, often getting better jobs. Some of them, funnily enough, are Conservative MPs, elected mostly by the votes of supposedly racist whites. Several have reached Cabinet level. One, Rishi Sunak, is even Chancellor of the Exchequer. There are no BAME politicians of comparable importance in the Labour Party.

A more junior minister, Kemi Badenoch, eloquently defends British culture against Critical Race Theory, speaking in a language – English – which is not her first. She is also active trying to overcome minorities’ suspicion of Covid vaccines. Like Priti Patel, she suffers a flood of social-media abuse as a result, some mentioning her other “race-traitor” sins, such as being married to a white man. Despite the BBC’s strengthened impartiality policy, Emily Maitlis approvingly retweets the editor whose reporter seemingly attacks Mrs Badenoch at every turn.

In BLM-style woke ideology, the rise of ethnic minorities is seen as a positively bad thing. The ineffable Professor Andrews puts it thus: “Do not be fooled: a cabinet packed with ministers with brown skin wearing Tory masks represents the opposite of racial progress.” He would seem to prefer an all-white Cabinet, then.

Within government today, discussion is inconclusive. There are strong voices, such as that of the No 10 Policy Unit head, Munira Mirza, which understand exactly how wokery can intimidate BAME people who not agree with its doctrines. Dr Tony Sewell’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, expected next month, is likely to show reasons other than ubiquitous racism for some disparities. Why, for example, are young black males and young white males, doing worse academically than all other ethnic groups? Might it have something to do with weak family structures?

Also within government and officialdom, however, are nervous voices daunted by the task of turning round the oil tanker of nonsense. They need urgently to understand that if they accept the essential woke premise that Britain is a racist state, they must accept the implied conclusion – that Britain must be destroyed.

2. Breastfeeding is now chestfeeding: Why are the language police trying to wipe out women?

To placate the angry, vocal few, one sex is being written out of the lexicon. It must stop. Lionel Shriver

When designing the constitution, America’s founders feared democracy’s natural pitfall: the tyranny of the majority. They were leery of the ignorant masses and, originally, voting was largely restricted to landowners. But a competing danger — the tyranny of the minority — is arguably worse. At least when majorities tyrannise, a large number of people get what they want.

In the West’s current frenzy of inclusivity it’s often majorities whose wishes are at risk of being ignored: most recently non-trans people, and in particular, “women”. If I can still use that word.

Last week Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals (BSUH) NHS Trust delivered another blow to this once-straightforward class of humanity.

Midwives were instructed to cease referring to “breastfeeding” and prefer “chestfeeding”. “Breast milk” was to be known as “human milk”, “breast/chestmilk”, or “milk from the feeding mother or parent”.

Indeed, the latest guidelines suggest the word “mother” is best avoided. “Birthing parent” is better. When that awful W-word can’t be avoided one must say, “woman or person”— which seems ominously to imply that there’s a difference. These changes will be implemented in the trust’s written materials — leaflets, webpages, letters, and emails. It later clarified that the new terms were to be used alongside, not instead of, traditional terms.

The updated policy was designed by a team of “gender inclusion midwives”, one of whom describes “themself” as “non-binary”.

Who did not design this policy and who was not consulted?

The overwhelming majority of the people who use BSUH’s maternity services: women. This strained, clumsy, impractical lexicon is meant to cater instead to the tiny number of natal females who transition to male socially but not medically and give birth. As of 2017, the UK had two such people. To coin a phrase, the policy is not for the many, but the few. Women don’t matter; people who have renounced being women do.

The health trust is doing nothing new. The obliteration of women via the elimination of the word “women” and the insulting, dehumanising reduction of women to their biological functions or constituent parts (“people who menstruate”, “people with cervixes”) are indicators of a widespread, but frankly baffling, theatrical deference to transgenderism. We’re elevating the perceived rights of a minuscule minority above the rights of a vast majority.

So who cares if women are raped by biological men in prison, endangered in domestic violence “refuges”, distressed by “people with penises” in dressing rooms, or compelled to consign their sporting competitions to pointless farce when bruisers who “identify” as female win every contest. The interests of roughly 200,000 transgender Britons (about 0.3 per cent of the population) trump the concerns of about 34 million British women.

The columnist Janice Turner wrote a terrific essay on this subject for The Times last month. Consider this an update. Let’s start with “chestfeeding”, a contrivance that Microsoft Word underscores with a chiding red squiggle. The computer is right. Chestfeeding is not a word. That’s because human infants cannot extract nourishment from a chest. The only body part that produces milk is called a breast. For medical professionals to misidentify this aspect of the anatomy can only make patients worry about the quality of their education. By the by, the neologism “chestfeeding” is gross.

The trust’s inane linguistic makeover exemplifies not merely the tyranny of a minority but the tyranny of a minority of a minority. The trust’s verbal acrobatics are the product of a handful of trans activists, in complicity with supine authorities desperate to appear upstanding in ultra-contemporary terms. These days, that’s an all-too-common symbiosis. But these manglings of the English language are not necessarily at the behest of the majority of trans people. Trans people will, however, get the blame.

For this variety of news story does the trans cause no favours. Surely for rational people, the principal trans cause is to be treated like everyone else and be left in peace. Hear, hear. I’m all for that. But bend-over- backwards social obeisance that rides roughshod over half the human race backfires big time. It stirs hostility in compatriots who might otherwise regard transgender people with genial, live-and-let-live acceptance. Appearing patently absurd to most ordinary people, NHS sexual health advisories to “people with vaginas” and cancer charities’ appeals to “menstruators” are destined to draw popular derision. “Chestfeeding” is a gift to the trans community’s detractors. Although the lousy optics are not your average trans person’s fault, this is terrible PR.

The purpose of “inclusive” new lingo that offends most of the people to whom it applies doesn’t seem to be ingratiation. This movement to deform language in the service of a narrow political agenda clearly entails an element of proselytising, or at least of subliminal advertising. If even faintly up to date, any woman who reads a BSUH maternity leaflet that is full of bizarre avoidances of the word “woman” and “breast” knows full well which minuscule population these awful lingual contortions are meant to accommodate. The trans issue is thus put implicitly front and centre, even more so than whatever vital medical information the NHS is trying to communicate. The conspicuously weird language is intended to make the sacredness of transgenderism paramount.

I remain unconvinced that the majority of the trans community requires or wants all this elaborate pandering. Just because you’re trans doesn’t mean you’re stupid. If you’ve transitioned from female, but have kept the regulation equipment, then you know that an NHS invitation for a cervical smear still pertains to you. If you get pregnant you also know that “maternity services” pertain to you — and for the NHS to call them “perinatal services”, a BSUH rebranding sure to confound most patients, doesn’t make your circumstances any less personally complicated and emotionally fraught.

I also remain unconvinced that most transgendered people want women to be discomfited, insulted, or erased on their behalf. I refuse to believe they all yearn to relabel pregnant women as “birthing bodies” or reduce all women to mere “individuals with cervixes”, because these ungainly word games wouldn’t seem to make the real lives of trans people any better. The sole party the painful euphemisms seem palpably to benefit is the administrators who introduce them. Excited to find themselves on the ideological cutting edge, they get to feel warm and fuzzy inside.

As Turner noted, the left’s verbal assault on sex and biology lands overwhelmingly on women. But insisting that the NHS also reduce male patients to “people with prostates” would merely multiply the asininity.

These fashionable but fatuous lingual atrocities are unlikely to stick, sliding in the long run from hypermodern to passé. We’ve seen the avant-garde urge to radicalise through renaming before. The firebrands of the French Revolution contrived their own version, replacing the Gregorian calendar with the French Republican Calendar. Twelve newly christened months and 10 newly christened days of the week were cleansed of any reference to religion or royalty. But this bold exercise in equality and secularism lasted only a dozen years; it’s once more a chilly février, not Pluviôse, in Paris.

In time, we’ll probably look back on “chestfeeding” with perplexity and amusement, citing such semantic abominations as evidence of an era when certain brands of zealotry ran amok. I hope I live long enough to see the day.

Fair enough, let’s keep making an effort to bring into the fold groups who’ve been shafted or ignored in the past. But making room for minorities needn’t and shouldn’t crowd out the majority. While majorities can abuse their inherent power, they can also suffer abuse. It’s an odd argument to have to make, but majorities have rights too. When those rights are violated, the injury is to a multitude. The overwhelming preponderance of Britons want the NHS to treat “men” and “women”. In our eagerness to include, let’s not leave most of the country out in the cold.

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

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

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'

Covid

The UK: Experts predict a huge fall in English Covid patients. The number of coronavirus patients in hospitals will more than halve over the next month, according to internal government projections seen by The Times. Hospital admissions and deaths are predicted to fall to October levels, according to estimates presented to the government by its scientific advisers. They said that infection rates were falling faster than anticipated and that they were increasingly optimistic about the reopening of schools on March 8 and the relaxation of other restrictions in April. The government estimated yesterday that R, the rate of transmission, had definitively fallen below 1.0 for the first time since July.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 

More ‘macro’ success for the Spanish economy, hiding what’s happening for the disadvantaged. Which, sadly, includes most of Spain’s youth.

In Spain you can be jailed for insulting the monarch or for offending religious sensibilities. Eventually this will change. As with the law on rape, that on defamation will be brought rather more into line with modern thinking. It takes a long time to move away from every aspect repression. Meanwhile, there is protest on a grand scale.

Talking of change . . . Consumers in Spain are moving more and more towards electronic payments at the expense of cash, with mobile phones increasingly used

Valencia becomes the latest region to ban tourist room rentals, except - I think - where the whole building is dedicated to them.

Advice on changing your tatty bit of green paper into the rather more durable - and infinitely more valid for identity-proving - TIE.

You can see some of Pontevedra’s fine old quarter at minute 48.30 of this

And here’s María's Tsunami, Day 12

The UK

There is at least a 2nd Scot who has a poor opinion of the current Scottish government. This is a blogger I follow on the subject. A very sharp  - if rather right-wing - lady. [Am I still allowed to say that?]

Stonehenge: A vast stone circle created by Neolithic people has been discovered in Wales. This backs a century-old theory that the nation’s greatest prehistoric monument was built in Wales and venerated for hundreds of years before being dismantled and dragged to Wiltshire, where it was resurrected as a second-hand monument. Interestingly a very old legend talked of this circle - 'The Giants' Dance' - being in Ireland. Which is said to be what Wales was called way back when. Maybe because the Irish and the 'Welsh' were both he original inhabitants of the British Isles.

The EU 

The EU vaccine implosion may finally trigger the body's 'controlled disintegration. The Brussels political project has shattered. Maybe not yet. See the first article below.

The USA

The cracks have widened in the Republican party. Nikki Haley, a former ambassador to the UN, has broken with Donald Trump and declared that “he let us down . . . we shouldn’t have followed him”. Haley harbours her own White House ambitions. She said he had “fallen so far” that she did not think he could run again for the presidency in 2024. Her condemnation came as Trump’s legal team prepared to present his defence in his impeachment trial in the Senate.

The Way of the World

I've asked the bodega I bought wine from recently to advise me of the results of their investigation into whether the request I got from Santander bank for 2 of my PIN numbers was in fact from their bank. If I hadn't been sensitive to the risk, the 2nd article below - headed No one seems to care about phone hoaxers - would certainly have made me think. Banks, customers and the police all appear to have little incentive to take seriously a crimewave that is raking in billions, claims the columnist. Ever since the advent of credit cards and telephone and electronic banking the criminal law has been losing its grip over modern fraud. 

Spanish/Galician

Chirimiri is Sirimir(I?  in other parts of Spain and they both come from the Basque zirimir.

Finally . . 

I laughed this morning at this opening sentence of a column: Sorry to brag but I consider myself a Usain Bolt when it comes to flinging my big weekly shop through the supermarket checkout. Why? Because I used to be like that as regards my supermarket shopping, from start to finish. Armed with a list I never deviated from. Whereas, now, sauntering around a previously-hated Carrefour hypermarket is the highlight of my week . . 

Adapt or die, say I.

THE ARTICLES  

1. The EU vaccine implosion may finally trigger the body's 'controlled disintegration.  The Brussels political project has shattered – but Britain's challenge remains the same in the face of the world's regulatory superpower: Sherelle Jacobs, The Telegraph

The EU is dead, long live the EU! Whether Brussels has had a hellish or heartening week, it is slightly difficult to tell. On the one hand, Brussels’ vaccine embarrassment is a historic moment. On the other hand, the Commission has been in its element in recent days, as the dud deal it outwitted the Johnson Government into signing continues to unravel.

Brussels has Britain over a barrel. No 10 lacks the political will to renegotiate the Northern Ireland protocol, which has proved to be a far more grotesquely complex logistical arrangement than Ministers had anticipated. Nor does Westminster have a compelling answer for Unionists who are volcanic over the protocol’s denigration of the Good Friday Agreement, altering as it does Northern Ireland’s status without the consent of its people. In recent days, Brussels has delighted in rejecting Michael Gove’s timid suggestion of a ‘refining’ of the protocol, and the extension of a three-month grace period. 

Meanwhile, the City of London faces “death by a hundred thousand cuts”, at the hands of Brussels, which is poised to lock Britain out of its banking market. Many Brexiteers warned that Johnson’s thin deal – which made barely any mention of financial services – recklessly gambled the sector’s future on the goodwill of Brussels. And so their worst fears may come to pass.

Still, if Brussels has been confidently flexing its muscles as the world’s regulatory superpower this week, it has also cut a shrivelled figure as it tries to salvage its higher mission. As member states foam to take back control of core governing competencies from the Commission, it is dawning on even Remainers that for all its progressive platitudes and political ambition, the EU is at best an economic function.

The vaccine debacle has exposed Brussels’ public health policy as unacceptably driven by its single market mission. That ‘pooling resources’ to negotiate ‘value for money’ jabs should be the overriding goal in the middle of a pandemic – rather than snapping up as many vaccines as possible  – is clearly ludicrous.

It begs the question whether the EU has finally overextended itself, using its economic clout to fashion itself into a supranational political entity – but one that is so distorted as to be unsustainable. Some Brexiteers have been anxious to speculate about whether this is the "crisis" that could finally collapse the entire project. In truth, it is more of a "moment".

The vaccine debacle may well go down as the point when the EU hit its glass ceiling. Save for regional partnerships like the Southern European Initiative and the Baltic Partnership Agreement, the EU has next to no experience of vaccine procurement, and as a result virtually no best practices. Its previous attempts to dabble in this area have been spurious, reducing instead of increasing the vaccine choice of member states. A Baltic joint procurement effort for the BCG jab, abandoned in 2015 because no provider had the valid paperwork for all three Baltic states, is but one example. 

Still, Brussels bureaucrats exist in the realm of destiny rather than experience; crises are not challenges, but rather opportunities to consolidate control. In this, the EU has become more confident since the Euro Crisis. The debacle pathologised its fixation with top-down ‘technical solutions’ in chaotic situations, and radicalised its faith in executive federalism. But fate is cruel. Instead of gloriously rising to the occasion, the EU has failed at a life-and-death task, which was simply beyond its capabilities.

Though the EU project may have reached its final limits, the institution is probably too big to fail. Its demise is likely to be a process rather than an event. One could, for example, envisage the Commission being converted by Germany and other leading member states from uncontrolled political leviathan into tightly defined regulatory agency charged exclusively with the mission of overseeing the single market. The EU Parliament could conceivably then morph into something more like an elected auditing body. Put simply rather than a 'collapse' of the EU, we may see the dream of integration make way for the era of 'controlled disintegration'. 

After all as a political mission, the European Union is a devastating farce. But as a regulatory hegemon it is formidable. The fact remains that, while the magnetic powers of pre-destined integration elude the continent of Europe, the gravitational pull of the EU’s regulatory orbit remains powerful. (And it is testament to the messy randomness of history that the latter is the accidental byproduct of a drive for the former!)

As far as Britain is concerned, then, the question remains the same. Does it want to keep the United Kingdom as one, and diverge meaningfully from Brussels? Or does it see no alternative to EU alignment, and the partition of Northern Ireland? Unfortunately for full-fat Brexiteers, Johnson seems to be drawn towards the second. 

2. No one seems to care about phone hoaxers: Banks, customers and the police all appear to have little incentive to take seriously a crimewave that is raking in billions: Matthew Parris, The Times

I blush at the recollection. In hindsight it was obvious. Nearly two years ago I came close to handing over all my bank account details to a fraudster. My partner was out or he’d have stopped me before I was drawn deeper and deeper into a half-hour’s collaboration with a man I didn’t know, each step seemingly harmless until he was congratulating me on my internet skills as I linked my laptop with his, feeling proud.

“You idiot!” my partner said, returning to find me shaken, hands trembling with what I’d almost done.

Long story short. I was scammed on the landline and persuaded by someone claiming to be from BT and to be responding to my complaints about our dreadful broadband speeds in rural Derbyshire. He seemed to know all about it and we discussed BT’s response. Finally he asked to hook his computer up to my laptop to check. I can’t believe I agreed to this but had by then invested 20 minutes in an exchange that at first had seemed routine. Then he “confirmed” that the internet speed was abysmal (it was), went off to “talk to my supervisor” and came back to offer a very substantial refund from BT. Only when he started asking for account details did my slow-growing suspicion boil over.

I now know to hang up on the incessant phone calls I receive, offering to “refund” me for this or that. I now know too that there’s a market out there for bank or credit card details and a whole fraudster ecosystem. The hoaxer who calls you may already have bought information in the market, the better to impress and so manipulate his victim. I’d proved a soft touch but how many others might be too? My hoax caller could cast his fly without risk until somebody bit.

You may say I should have reported it to BT or the police. Have you tried getting through to BT and, anyway, what could they do? Another time at my London flat I did try the police: wittingly this time I’d played along with a telephone scammer to the point of arranging to hand over a cheque to a courier and then rang my local Met police station. They weren’t interested in entrapment and, given the more urgent workload they face, I understand why. I took no further action. The vast majority don’t. We slam down the phone and shrug. A Commons public accounts committee report in 2017 estimated that only one in five defrauded individuals report the incident to the police.

Ever since the advent of credit cards and telephone and electronic banking the criminal law has been losing ts grip over modern fraud. The perpetrator might be in any bedroom in the world with just a laptop and a smartphone. Finding him at all, let alone catching him red-handed and bringing him to book, would challenge even an infinitely better-funded, better-equipped and better-staffed law enforcement operation than ours.

As a chilling video presentation on my own bank’s website explains, the entry-point for fraudsters is increasingly the customer, acting unwittingly as cat’s-paw for the fraudster (known as push-payment fraud). Banks and big financial institutions can guard against hackers “breaking in” to their systems but how do you lock the cyber-doors against your own customers?

Action Fraud, the national fraud reporting service, doesn’t make clear if the police want to hear about unsuccessful attempts and they’d surely be swamped. Successful attempts reported by individuals or banks cost us billions (nobody really knows the figure). In 2019 there were 122,000 known victims of push-payment fraud, a figure increasing at a rate of about 45 per cent a year.

“Card not present” fraud, where online purchases are made by a fraudster using a victim’s credit card details, is another area of growth. I will spare you any more of the various (and wildly different) estimates different bodies and inquiries have made, partly because the balance between reported and unreported crime is wholly speculative, and partly because in a field where mixed use is often made of the internet, the telephone and plastic cards, categories of fraud elude clear definition. “It’s very common, very bad and fast getting worse” is all we can safely say.

Shocking? Yes, but I’ve begun to understand why rising public indignation has never pushed this evil into the political foreground. The small person, the bank customer, rarely has to pay. The banks will usually refund you. I’ve been looking at their voluntary code governing reimbursement. It’s remarkably forgiving. A refund will normally be available if (of course) the bank is to blame but also if neither you nor the bank is to blame. Even if it was your fault, your refund may be denied only if you had “no reasonable basis” for supposing your payment was legitimate or you were otherwise “grossly” negligent. And even then you should be refunded if you are a “vulnerable” person. Most big banks are signed up to this code and draw on a pooled fund in order to refund defrauded customers.

Public-spirited? Perhaps, but here’s the unintended consequence. The hoaxed customer has no great incentive to report the crime, nor the police to pursue the criminal, because the bank has reimbursed them. There is apparently no “victim”. The bank, meanwhile, has a weakened incentive to withhold compensation from a negligent customer, or to report particulars of the crime, because it all comes out of a collective fund. So in the end it’s all the banks’ customers who pay: in marginally increased bank charges. And there’s less pressure on any of us to guard against fraud.

Every inquiry into cyberfraud I’ve seen concludes by recommending “educating” the public better. The banks do try. Online I have to tick a box saying I’ve really thought about my proposed remittance and offering me advice on fraud before I can click Submit. What more can they do? If we, the public, are proving poor students perhaps it is because no penalty attaches to our failure to learn.

Columnists who identify an ill are expected to prescribe a pill. I offer no such prescription. I suspect it’s hopeless. More than three centuries ago a fraudster faced a criminal charge of stealing (by impersonation) the equivalent of some £4,000 from his victim. (See Regina v Jones, 1703). Acquitting, the judge ruled: “We are not to indict one man for making a fool of another.”

Times have changed. Or have they? Is it to be “you fell for a scam and serves you right”? Or is it to be “never mind, the bank will cough up”? Hey-ho, I see no other alternatives.

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'

My thanks to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for a couple of today's items. 

Covid

Good News: An existing anti-inflammatory drug - Tocilizumab - has been shown to both save lives and speed the recovery of the sickest patients.

Spain: Andalucia: Ahead of  an announcement today about urban border closures/re-openings for the weekend, the Junta has revealed large swathes of the province of Sevilla will see their restrictions relaxed. Details here.

Australia: Thanks to its 'self-imposed isolation', the existential dread is gone. For many Australians, the pandemic – in the deadly, life-altering way we Europeans understand it – was something that happened back in March and April.

The AZ vaccine: The WHO’s imprimatur for the vaccine will come as a relief to the entire country. Scientists advising the WHO have recommended its use in all adults, including the over-65s, notwithstanding concerns about its effectiveness against the South African variant of the virus. What matters most, they say, is that it stops serious illness, hospitalisations and death even, if there are questions about its impact on milder illnesses caused by mutations.  

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia

From El País: Spain’s tourism industry is feeling the loss of British visitors. The number of tourists from the United Kingdom fell 82% in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, with the Balearic Islands hardest hit by the drop. 

From El Economista: More than 11,000 companies face fines of up to €600,000 for not having a free customer service phone number. Says Lenox: The companies in question are those that operate in general basic services, such as transport, private health, messenger services, financial services, insurance or utilities. Already denounced the consumers’ organisation, Facua, are Seur, IAG and Línea Directa.   Actually, I know the free number for Línea Directa. For a fee . . .

When I first came here, I was shocked at what I was later told was typical Spanish Anti-Americanism, all dating back to the loss of Spain's colonies at the end of the 19th century and the lack of support for the government against the Nationalist revolt of 1936. I was reminded of this reading this account of the American doctrine of Manifest Destiny. 

Here’s María's Tsunami, Day 11. And my comment to it . . .

The UK

For obvious reasons, comparisons are regularly made between Cataluña and Scotland. At least one Scot has a very poor view of Scotland's government: The SNP administration is a truly appalling government, a ragbag of competing egos enmeshed in a bitter internal war played out on a daily basis between its past and present leaders, Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, and with a record in domestic policy that’s second to none for ineptitude. Only the Covid pandemic and a flair for public relations, aided and abetted by a tame television channel, have prevented Sturgeon’s government from sinking into a morass of its own making. Even beating the pandemic takes second place to gaining independence for the Sturgeon government as it gears up for the indyref2 it says it wants, while issues like closing the horrifying attainment gap between rich and poor schoolchildren and ending Scotland’s dreadful record as the drug-death capital of Europe are getting nowhere. It deserves to be pilloried not just for seeking, yet again, to break up the UK but for being an awful administration.

Would anyone go this far in respect of the Generalitat of Cataluña, I wondered. Well, one very knowledgeable observer based in Barcelona who says he ‘probably' would. I guess it's true of all single-issue governments. As nationalist governments tend to be. 

The UK and the EU

Time will tell, of course. Meanwhile, there's no shortage of 'experts' who say something like: Europe risks cutting off its nose to spite its face on financial services. And: Brussels' determination to rein in the City of London could be self-defeating.

Or it could not.

Currently, the UK accounts for nearly a third of all capital markets activity in the EU, nearly double that of France and more than France and Germany combined. Frankfurt wants that business and seems to be first in line. Increasing German influence/power in the EU. Will France try to stop that? Vamos a ver. Meanwhile, it's claimed that Europe’s fragile banking system could also feel the strain of being shut out of London. The politics of Brexit means Europe’s banks, with profits squeezed by negative interest rates and many with balance sheets stuffed with sovereign bonds, have cut themselves off from a potentially valuable source of liquidity should more troubles emerge. As they surely will.

Galician

Here’a video from a chap who’s always impressed me on the relationship between Galician (Gallego/Galego) and Portuguese.

Talking of Galego . . . a friend has reminded me that the sort of drizzle (llovizna) which gets under your umbrella is called chirimiri here. Not to be confused with chimichurri, which is an Argentinean/Chilean spicy sauce which goes on ribs.

But, anyway, here’s details of the 70 words for ‘rain’ in Galego. Chirimiri isn’t actually among them.

Finally . . .

Some friends of Lenox’s used his family home for this entertaining video. It will certainly improve your street-Spanish, though the English subtitles sometimes play it down.

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

Worrying news: It’s reported - reliably? - that an unexpected side effect is found in 10% of patients who’ve overcome serious contagion - diabetes.

Even Moore worrying: While most European countries - and the USA - are seeing a decline in the death rate, Spain isn’t. See the 3 and 7 day averages here.

But some good news.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain  

The Russians are coming. To some parts of the country anyway. Back to the past -  a business concept that involves saving costs on rent, decoration, and personnel.

Spain’s democracy is said to be a little less ‘full’ that last time it was assessed. Covid hasn’t helped, of course.

My neighbour is having his garden fence replaced, involving the removal of huge chunks of granite. Yesterday someone was hitting one of these with a sledgehammer. When I suggested he put on safety glasses, both he and my neighbour laughed. And the latter's riposte was that the guy had 'true Galician eyes'. 'Different from everyone else's in the world, then?' I asked. To no reply.

A slice of country life from Lenox

And María's Tsunami, Day 10

See the article below - largely a Google translation - on the obstacles now facing Brits who want to move here. It's not impossble, of course. Just more difficult. Back to the past again.

The UK and Brexit

Not a problem for some, it seems. It's an ill wind . . etc: Rapacious veterinary contract firms - known for hiring cheap, newly qualified foreign vets and hiring them out at top rates – the provision of a 'complete [EU documentation] service' is a license to print money. Hard-pressed companies desperately needing have incomprehensible EHCs for their consignments, are having to pay anything from £150-250 a time for each certificate. The government is footing the bill [other people's money, of course] for certifying food products destined for Northern Ireland, to the tune of £150 per document each time a certificate is needed. Very profitable opportunism at the expense of taxpayers.

But, anyway, this answers my question about different coloured ink requirements . . . If loads are being delayed or rejected for "the wrong kind of colour", this is down to the official veterinarians. Who, being foreign, might not understand the clear instruction on the form to use a different coloured ink in some parts of the form. (For reasons unknown, by the way.)

These comments are taken from ¨Richard North's post of today, in which he concludes: This is bullshit. The Commission has completely lost sight of what they are trying to achieve. All it takes is a bent vet to sign off the form and take the money, to make a mockery of the system.  . . . Interestingly, people now ask for Brexit "benefits". Well, what Brexit has done is expose us to the full force of a shitty system that we've been instrumental in supporting for the past 50 years (since before we joined). Inside the 'walls' of the Single Market, we have been shielded from the realisation of quite how bad it really is. Now we're exposed to the full horror of it, it might motivate us to do something about it. And pigs might take off.    

The EU 

More - from this article  - on the debacle of the trip to Moscow of the EU’s ambassador: Rather than getting EU-Moscow relations back on track, Borrell’s visit drove them to a new low . . . German broadcaster Deutsche Welle said his visit was “perhaps the biggest shambles” in the EU’s short-lived history of international diplomacy. Some are now even calling for Borrell’s resignation.  . . .  The fact that Brussels appointed Borrell as its chief diplomat despite the central role he played in Spain’s post-referendum crackdown on Catalonia means that every time the EU wants to send a message on human rights, it risks facing ridicule. Not a great couple of weeks for Brussels.

The USA

The video presented by the Democrats to the impeachment hearing. Shocking. And meant to be, of course.

The Way of the World

The devaluation of language.  . . . A letter I received yesterday from a money exchange company I've used began thus:- Dear valued client. We are closing your account, as we have decided to focus on business clients only. Perhaps their spellcheck dropped the 'un' off 'valued'.

Spanish

A phrase and a word new to me:-

Llegar contrabajo:  To be in work (Literally: To bring a double bass)

Cateto: Hick, hillbilly, country bumpkin.

English/Spanish Refrains

It's an ill wind that blows no good: No hay mal que por bien no venga

Finally . . .

If you’re thinking of checking your ancestry via DNA test and hope to believe the results, you might want to view this first. And then select one of the better  - but still far-from-perfect - options.

THE ARTICLE 

Settling in Spain, "mission impossible" for the British after Brexit 

As of December 31, they have to abide by the immigration regulations like other non-EU citizens. 

Settling in Spain becomes an arduous and complicated task for the British after the UK's departure from the EU, effective December 31, since with it they have seen most of their privileges as community citizens disappear, such as receiving public health care, coming without having a job offer or moving without crediting financial resources to support themselves. 

This is an issue on which experts in Immigration and British associations such as Brexpats in Spain coincide, which brings together more than 20,000 citizens of the United Kingdom who live on Spanish soil and who have been "fighting" to avoid the materialization of Brexit for the last four years. Although it is already a fact, there are those who have not yet assimilated the situation, says the Marbella lawyer and specialist in Immigration Ricardo Bocanegra, and many are upset at the procedures that they are now forced to do. 

Accustomed to being citizens of the European Union, they have begun to feel like "foreigners in our country", says the Marbella lawyer, who considers that the real problem is not for those who are already here, but for those who want to come from now on. 

Abiding by the immigration rules like other non-EU citizens

From January 1, the British who are thinking of settling in Spain must abide by the provisions of the General Immigration Scheme, whose conditions are "very strict," says Bocanegra, and they will be required the same as any other non-citizen. community. 

This means that they will have to prove, among other issues, that they have accommodation to stay, financial resources to support themselves if they do not work and medical insurance that provides them with health coverage equivalent to that provided by Social Security itself. 

Their newly acquired status also affects everyday issues such as driving vehicles, since since there is no reciprocal recognition agreement between the two countries, British people who want to drive a car must obtain a valid driving license in Spain for what they will have to do the necessary tests and pass an exam. 

This issue generates great discomfort, especially among those who already live here, since previously no process was necessary, while since the announcement of Brexit and until the end of the year the British driver's license could be exchanged for the Spanish one, but to those who move from now on there will be no other option but to be examined, adds Ricardo Bocanegra. 

"No more coming to Spain to find a new life" 

For the youngest, "Coming to Spain to find a new life like I did is over," said Brexpats in Spain treasurer, said Sharon Hitchcock, who has lived on Malaga's Costa del Sol for more than thirty years, with regret.

When she moved, she did not need to have work lined up or prove she had resources that were "higher than the amount established each year by the General State Budget Law to generate the right to receive a non-contributory benefit" in order not to become a burden on Social Assistance in Spain ", indicates the website of the Ministry of the Interior; if not, otherwise it is complicated, according to the experts. 

According to Hitchcock, the position in which Brexit has left them represents a change "for the worse" and a throwback to the 80s that is "very sad" and she insists that, as things are currently, the only people to move will be those who have significant financial backing. 

This new situation - with difficult demands to cope with  - does not favour British pensioners who wish to retire in Spain, a large percentage of whom to date used to settle in the areas of Malaga, Alicante, Mallorca or the Canary Islands, says the president of this entity, Anne Hernández. 

The elderly have their pensions and many also have some savings, explains Hernández, which before the UK left the EU was enough to live here. 

However, now they have to adapt to the new conditions and meet the strict requirements established by Spanish law, some of which are very difficult to assume - such as taking out medical insurance with coverage that, due to age and pathologies, is "almost impossible" for them to pay;  or prove they have in the banks an amount of money that the majority do not have, concludes the president of Brexpats in Spain. 

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

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

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'

Covid

Interesting News: But the source  makes it a tad suspect, especially as it’s been pocked up by the British tabloids.

 Spain: Disurbing news. Deaths soar as cases fall. Just a question of the lag?

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 

After 40 days of administration, only 2% of Galicians have had a jab. Hence this cartoon:-

A doctor up in Ourense has refused a jab, because 'it's a genetic experiment’. His professional body is wondering what to do about him

Customer service Spanish style. I inherited a Santander bank account when it took over a local bank. In the past 2 weeks or so, I've been inundated with emails informing me, as María has detailed, how I can avoid their outrageous charges. Basically by giving them a ton of business. Incidentally, I joked years ago that Spanish banks would shortly be charging you just for entering them and then for breathing inside them. But, anyway, today, they've followed up with an email today asking what I think of them. It's headed: En el Santander, escuchamos tu opinión. As if. But, of course, it costs them nothing to send off millions of emails playing at customer service.

María's Tsunami: Day 9

The UK

A  headline: A year after the horse bolted, the Government unveils its plan to close the stable door. The Minister of Health has announced measures to tighten Britain’s borders. But why didn’t it happen ages go?

One of the consequences: Waits of more than a year for NHS treatment can be expected “for some years” The public should not expect non-Covid-19 care to resume at the same pace as it did during the summer and autumn of last year because this wave has been much harder on the health service.  192,000 people are have now on NHS waiting lists for more than a year, compared to just over 1,600 a year ago. Heads should roll.

The EU

Another incompetent senior politician is in the firing line, along with UvdL .  . . Crimean bubbly was surely popped in the Kremlin this week following the blundering visit to Moscow by the EU’s foreign policy chief,  Josep Borrell, an old-fashioned Spanish socialist, “engaged” with the Russian leadership on the same day as jailed dissident Alexei Navalny appeared in court on a fresh set of charges. On his visit, Borrell listened silently to Sergei Lavrov publicly berating the EU as an “unreliable partner”; found out from Twitter that Russia was expelling 3 EU diplomats; failed to mention the crisis in Ukraine; tried unsuccessfully to get cosy with the Russian foreign minister by lamenting the American treatment of Cuba.; and admiringly of the Russian vaccine. . . Russia, in other words, played him  There were plenty of moments when Borrell should have expressed public displeasure. By failing to do so, he humiliated the EU.

The Way of the World

There's a huge amount of chat these days around The Great Reset. Which seems to mean different things to different people. With perhaps the nuttiest folk accusing billionaires of wanting to control our brains through linking them to our computers. Anyway, below is a relevant article, entitled: The backlash against globalism is coming, unless more heed is paid to the interests of those left behind. This seems to suggest the very opposite of what some fear is going on. But who really knows?

Back to day to day life . . . As part of moves to be more trans-friendly, a UK hospital has instructed its midwives to say “chestfeeding” instead of “breastfeeding” and to replace the term “mother” with “mother or birthing parent”. Plus, the ‘maternity services' department will now be 'perinatal services. And “breastmilk” will either “human milk”, “breast/chestmilk” or “milk from the feeding mother or parent”. Other changes include replacing the use of “woman” with “woman or person” and “father” with either “parent”, “co-parent” or “second biological parent”.  . . .  How much further will this madness go before it stops? Will the word 'penis' disappear from our dictionaries, for example, as being too exclusive to what used to be known as 'males'?

Finally . . .

There’s a terrific 2 part series on  Youtube - Edwardian Britain in Colour. Well worth viewing, As someone has asked, can you see a single obese person in any part of it? 

THE ARTICLE  

Business elites fear a revolution is at hand. The backlash against globalism is coming unless more heed is paid to the interests of those left behind: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telgraph.

Davos Man is trembling. The cosmopolitan superclass is scrambling for ways to share a little of its income stream – as a prudent insurance policy – before the bottom half of western democracy takes matters into its own hands.

The new doctrine is enshrined in the Davos Manifesto, the digital billionaires’ answer to the Communist Manifesto of 1848. The cardinal code is ‘stakeholder capitalism’, otherwise known as looking after your workers, and agreeing not to trash society, or the local water system, or the planet.

There has been something grotesque about a lockdown crisis that has ravaged small firms and the manual self-employed even as the well-to-do accumulate trillions of excess savings. The Nasdaq 100 index is 40pc higher than before the pandemic. Listed global equities have risen in value by $24 trillion since March. The owners of wealth have made out like bandits. We’re on the brink of a terrible civil war. The US is at a tipping point in which it could go from manageable internal tension to revolution,” says Ray Dalio, founder of the world’s biggest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates. Words no longer suffice. The pie will have to be divided.

Davos men and women know in their hearts that the economic dispensation of the last 20 years has been gamed by their caste, adorned in the ideological bunting of globalist virtue. They know that staggering inequalities have festered, to the point where the average chief executive of an S&P 500 company earns 357 times as much as the average non-supervisory worker. The ratio was around 20 in the mid-1960s. It was still 28 at the end of Ronald Reagan’s term, which is an amazing thought. They know that open physical and electronic borders have worked marvellously to their advantage, lifting the profit share of GDP to levels last seen at the end of Gatsby’s 1920s, while – by mirror image – cutting labour’s share of GDP through wage arbitrage.

Gold collar ‘brain’ workers have been able to float in a privileged sphere of monetised knowledge above frontiers and the nation state, the Anywheres of David Goodhart’s trenchant sociology. Blue collar ‘brawn’ workers in the West – the locally rooted, clannish Somewheres – have had to compete with Chinese wages. “What is generating massive financial returns right now is intellectual capital. Labour is not being paid,” said Barclays’s chief executive Jes Staley at this year’s virtual Davos.

It has long been a rumbling theme at the World Economic Forum that something should be done about this, but few were listening hard enough to the primordial scream. They hear it now. The storming of the US Congress on January 6 by Trumpian militias was not exactly Bastille Day for the Davos coterie. It was more of a cross between Mussolini’s march on Rome, and the autogolpe of a Bolivarian caudillo. But what it exposed is the sheer hatred felt against privileges and faux-righteousness of the post-national Anywheres.

Mr Dalio’s prescription is a peace-time ‘Manhattan Project’ to rebuild the crumbling base of western society. His model is Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, although one might equally look to Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal before the First World War – an assault against overmighty cartels and the practitioners of “predatory wealth” then derailing American capitalism.

The pandemic has accelerated the pathologies. The European Central Bank estimates that the lockdowns have brought forward the digital switch by seven years. A cascade of old economy insolvencies will come as moratoria expire. The K-shaped recovery threatens to Brazilianise the social structure of Europe and North America yet further. Sao Paolo’s rich take helicopters to move from their urban fortresses to beach retreats, flying over gridlock and the carjack gangs. That is where inequality takes you. “You’re going to get a very high risk of extremism coming out of this. We have to find some way to adapt, otherwise we’re in a very dangerous situation,” said Mary Callaghan Erdoes, head of assets and wealth management for JP Morgan.

It is unfair to use Davos Man as a foil. The WEF at times feels like a boot-camp for sinners, a forum for the moral improvement of corporate elites. The high-minded éminence grise, Klaus Schwab, is a product of south German Christian democracy, inspired by the doctrines of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum on the ‘rights and duties of capital and labour’. Rerum Novarum was intended to “refute the false teaching” of socialism, fast gaining traction among European workers in the 1890s. “The first and most fundamental principle...must be the inviolability of private property”. Yet it also called on the owners of capital to raise their moral game, and it feels contemporary. One thinks of Amazon and Uber. That the spirit of revolutionary change, which has long been disturbing the nations of the world, should have passed beyond the sphere of politics and made its influence felt in the cognate sphere of practical economics is not surprising. The elements of the conflict now raging are unmistakable... in the enormous fortunes of some few individuals, and the utter poverty of the masses; also, finally, in the prevailing moral degeneracy. The momentous gravity of the state of things now obtaining fills every mind with painful apprehension.” This is Prof Schwab to a tee. He has been warning for a very long time that there will be backlash against globalism unless more heed is paid to the interests of those left behind, although one wonders if he also means the unfashionable cultural sensitivities of the Somewheres. (I doubt it).

My optimistic view is that today’s inequality will self-correct as the political pendulum swings back. In hindsight we can see that the Western liberal democracies blundered after the Lehman crisis in imposing fiscal austerity, offset by ultra-loose money and quantitative easing à outrance . The enrichment of capital was not matched by the enrichment of labour. The mix was poisonous. America has now switched to fiscal reflation on a colossal scale. A Keynesian labour economist heads the US Treasury. The Federal Reserve has adopted equality as its new lodestar and will try to accommodate deficit-spending. The Washington system as a whole is moving towards the sort of Manhattan war-economy that Ray Dalio wants. It is buttressed by Joe Biden’s ‘Buy America’ trade and procurement policies. A carbon-border adjustment tax will curb outsourcing to Chinese plants and help to bring home America’s manufacturing base.

The shift in Britain began in 2016. The triple eruptions of the referendum, the European elections, and Boris Johnson’s demolition of the Labour red wall have together led to a regime change. Had vested interests succeeded in overturning the outcome of Brexit, the consequences would have been nefarious for British democracy. But they did not succeed and that is of elemental importance. Brexit has been a paradoxical episode because the Left aligned itself with the multinationals, bankers, and cross-border rentiers, and against its own working-class base. The British metropolitan Left – as opposed to the Jacobin hard-Left – never seems to have understood that the EU has locked contractionary fiscal policies and creditor supremacy into its legal structure. The difficulty for Europe is that the existing treaty architecture favours status quo incumbents and is resistant to any form of transformational change. Trying to repeal the Acquis is like pulling teeth. The pendulum cannot swing back. It is jammed.

The Greeks voted for radical change in 2015. The Italians voted for radical change in 2018. Neither changed anything. Rebel leaders are invariably co-opted. The European institutional government in Brussels is as insulated from normal democratic pressure as the papal Curia. So the question I have is how the EU – and above all the eurozone – is going to reinvent itself in time to head off the backlash of the Somewheres.

For Davos man and woman, a solution to their burden may be coming soon: a wealth tax. Tim Bond from Odey Asset Management says governments face a choice between inflationary deficit spending and the easier path of one-off confiscation.

Fed analysis shows that the richest tenth in the US had a net worth of $80.7 trillion late last year, or 375pc of GDP and far above historical levels. A 5pc raid would generate $4 trillion, covering a fifth of GDP. It would pay for the pandemic nicely. The expropriation could perhaps be spread over several years to avoid tanking the market. Mr Bond says it is much the same picture for the UK. If you wanted to focus only on the plutocracy – the 1pc – it would in theory generate the equivalent of 1.6pc of GDP annually for five years.

Whether you could in fact haircut the rich in this way without all kinds of political consequences and evasionary counter-moves is an open question. But the axe is going to fall one way or another. And it is happier end than dangling from a lamp post.

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

Good news: An artificial finger has been created to help scientists work out how long the coronavirus can survive on surfaces. The silicon prosthetic will be used to touch different materials contaminated with the virus for varying lengths of time to see whether particles linger.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

Will Spain's right-of-centre PP party finally end the long-standing dominance of the left-of-centre PDSOE party down in Andalucia? Politico Europe poses the question here. Inevitably, it's all about subsidies - in the context of a hugely complex national payment system, one of the most obscure and archaic in the EU. Not to mention EU 'convergence' rules. Which may or may not be largely ignored. In the Continental way of things.

The terrific cityscape I have from my salón window is a great comfort to me in these confined-to-the-house times. But it does raise a a query or two. Like, why is money being spent on illuminating two bridges? Not only with necessary light but also with showy green, blue, red or bright white lights. As in this (inevitably) poor foto from my phone of the adjacent Corrientes and O Burgo bridges:-

My cleaner has the answer; someone's getting commission. I should add I've no idea if this is right or not. But it's probably a view quite widely held.

Yesterday, I was rather suspicious of a possible phishing 'Prenotification' email alleged to be from DHL, as I couldn't recall ordering anything. An internet search endorsed this possibility and it worried me that no one in the UK had sent me anything. After scouring my laptop for malware etc. and checking with the DHL webpage, it dawned on me it was the wine I'd had so much trouble paying for last week. Duh . . . 

María's Tsunami: Days 7&8

The Way of the World

Did you know that there’s a Galentine’s Day? February 13. Last year, it's said: Pre-pandemic, parties were thrown, trays of red velvet cupcakes – frosted with lipsticks and high heels – were bought, and goodie bags handed out. Because what better way to tell your ‘bestie’ she’s the “free therapist I don’t deserve” than with a preposterously pricey “pamper pack”? Teachers, we are told, should also be showered with heart-clutching teddies and helium balloons, alongside neighbours, who now have their own card section: “Not everyone has a neighbour as wonderful as you!” Which leaves us stuck with a whole new conundrum: what to buy the DHL guy this Sunday?

Rather more seriously  . . . The UN has a new slogan - There is no wrong way to be a woman. One British female columnist opines:  This is a ridiculous mantra that wants to diminish women’s experiences and feelings in the name of 'inclusivity’. See her (very) angry article below.

Tesla is worth more than Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, GM and Ford put together, despite Toyota alone selling 20 times more cars last year.

Finally . . .

A nice quote from a high level US financier, talking about how Jeffrey Epstein operated and became a multi-millionaire: Have you ever met someone of great wealth who didn’t think they were a terrific judge of character?

THE ARTICLE 

The only wrong way to be a woman these days is to stand up for women’s rights: The United Nations's new slogan is a ridiculous mantra that wants to diminish our experiences and feelings in the name of 'inclusivity’: Suzanne Moore 

I was a bit worried, I must admit, that I was doing this womanhood thing all wrong. For my whole life I haven’t really got the hang of it. There are many things that women are meant to be interested in: shopping, baking programmes, thrillers in which other women get tortured that leave me cold. Ditto: weddings, dating, baby showers, celebrity gossip about torsos with pouts. And that’s just to start with.

But I shouldn’t have worried because the United Nations has come up with a new slogan and tweeted “There is no wrong way to be a woman. There is no wrong way to be a woman.” They actually said it seven times, but I don’t want you to pass out with boredom. Maybe if you chant it you reach nirvana or maybe women are just so thick they need telling over and over.

The right way to react to this ridiculous mantra is surely to feel murderous. What is this slogan for? Who is it for? These endless attempts at inclusivity mean that being a woman can now even be a feeling in a man’s head. Eddie Izzard, I saw the other day, had been voted the best female comedian. Sorry, but I am not laughing. 

There is no wrong way to be a woman. Are they serious? Let me list the ways. I and many women live with them every single day.

One of them is to live in fear. One woman is killed every three days in this country – a figure which has become much higher in lockdown. Being old is also seen by many as the wrong way to be a woman. Another is wanting sex. Or not wanting it at all. Both of these things can be regarded as “problematic”. Also it is wrong to moan about having children because you didn’t have to have them, although getting an abortion would also have made you very wrong too.

Another wrong way to be a woman is to refuse to stop talking about what it is like living in a female body: periods, endometriosis, childbirth, miscarriage, infertility, menopause and that icky stuff. Speaking of this apparently excludes those women whose bodies don’t do those things.

You see, in recent years, it has been mostly wrong to be a woman in public life who stands up for the sex-based rights of other woman. Standing up for trans people is decent and right, but standing up for the rights of women apparently makes one a transphobe. If you start talking about the female experience and think it’s not just different to men’s but different for women of different ethnicities and classes, you will be called a bigot. Your job as a woman, unlike a man’s, is to include everyone, all the time.

Self-sacrifice always. Don’t speak for oneself ladies! Even if you are thick skinned enough to go into politics, questioning the idea that women should maintain legal right based on biological sex is a no- no. This is most definitely the wrong way to be a woman, and it is apparently not welcome in the Green Party, the SNP or the Labour Party. Joanna Cherry, a lesbian who has fought for women's rights all her life has been pushed out of the SNP for “unacceptable behaviour”.

Another very wrong way to be a woman is to think of yourself as more than a collection of body parts: lactators, menstruators, birthers, cervix havers. You do have to wonder what the word “woman” even means now that some organisations have banned us from saying it altogether.

One thing is clear though – if you are a woman the message you receive from birth is that you are pretty much always doing it wrong. That you will never be good enough. 

Of course we can unite around all kinds of differences, and let them flourish. But these are differences that need to be acknowledged and talked about. Not brushed away in a simple ‘inclusive’ virtue signalling slogan. Otherwise we are left with a regurgitation of patent nonsense and the denial of women’s embodied experience. Womanhood becomes reduced to just an individual choice.

I sure as hell don’t need the UN telling me that I am doing OK. I will keep challenging this utter gibberish because doing womanhood “wrong” is my absolute right

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

Not so good news: The UK: Millions of people are likely to need a 3rd vaccine dose this year. NHS chiefs hope that the extra doses can be given at the same time as winter flu jab.

Definitely bad news: The scientist leading the UK’s Covid symptom app study has warned that large sporting events and big weddings with international guests will remain on hold long after the second wave recedes.

Better news: The Covid vaccine could come in pill form. This would help alleviate supply issues that have hindered the rollout in some areas of the world, including Europe.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

I'm reminded by this article that, when I came here 20 years ago, it was considered bad to be only a milluerista. Even more so now, of course. Hence these sad sentences:  Sixteen years later, what once seemed an aberration has become a depressingly ingrained feature of Spanish life. If the term ‘mileurista’ seemed a lament in 2005, it has now become almost a bitter aspiration. Many young people would kill to land a steady job paying that much every month. No wonder, as top-line GDP has grown and the rich have got richer, I bang on about the gap between the macro and the micro of Spain's economic development. And that we have a left-of-centre government with a 'far left' coalition partner. You need to read the full article to understand just how bad things are now for Spain's young folk. Storing up problems for the future?

Case in point - 20 years ago, the average price of an English lesson from a native speaker was around €15 an hour. Twenty years  on, it’s  . . . €15. Maybe €8-10 in real terms. 

Inventions made or improved on in Spain can be seen in a virtual museum - The Comfort Musuem. Sadly, only on Instagram. Here's a helpful graphic for those who, like me, don't bother with social media:-

Interesting to see the  monkey wrench called a llave alavesa. I've always seen it called llave inglesa. This is the explanation, with an interesting note on the the alternative Spanish name for it: La llave alavesa (comercializada como 'llave vasca' fuera del mercado español)​ es una variante de la llave inglesa tradicional. Su principal aportación es que permite una apertura regulable apta para tuercas de grandes dimensiones; muy práctica especialmente para los profesionales de la fontanería.

Is the toughest post-Brexit transition still to come for Brits on the Costas? This is the question posed in this article. It's always a surprise to read that about  60% of Britons in Spain are below the state pension age. But 60% of what total? The official one of those 'resident' or the vastly bigger actual one? The latter, of course, might well have sizeably reduced recently, as Brits who should have become resident - and so taxable - have fled 'home' before the Hacienda contacts them.

After so much rain here, I've begun to pray for some of the cold winds and snow that are hitting the SE of both Spain and the UK. But snow hardly ever falls here on the Atlantic coast, even when I can see it on the distant hills.

The UK

An intriguingly optimistic article from our resident Casandra on R&D into future power sources below.

Good question: Why do dumbed-down broadcasters insist on giving us airhead celebs over genuine experts?

The UK and the EU

Can this really be true? One exporter has claimed that, when pigs go to the Netherlands, the forms must be filled out in a red pen; when they go to France, in a blue pen. Talk about 'non-tariff barriers'!

The Netherlands

It’s an ill wind . . Storm Darcy: The Netherlands has declared a ’code red' emergency as a rare snowstorm hits. But . .  It has raised hopes of the first traditional ice-skating marathon for 24 years.

Finally . . .

Here's a sentence I could never have imagined writing . . . What with the Covid restrictions and 3 weeks of pretty incessant rain, meandering around a supermarket or a large Chinese bazar has become the highlight of my week.

En passant, rain is forecast for 13 of the next 14 days as well . . . Not a great time to be deprived of social contact, other than on a screen.

THE ARTICLE 

The possibilities for the UK’s net-zero drive are tantalising: It may sound far-fetched, but research in Cumbria has found a way of creating power from radioisotopes: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph

Imagine a nuclear battery in a little box that uses decaying isotopes to generate cheap and clean electricity around the clock for decades with no combustion, fission, or noise. It just sits silently and emits constant power. This far-fetched idea is becoming real. Vaulting advances in materials sciences are unlocking technologies that radically change the cost calculus of radioisotopes. Companies are springing to life with prototypes that could be on the market before the next general election.

As it happens, the UK is the world leader in the rarified field of isotope batteries. A British-Australian start-up with research operations in Cumbria has found a way to harness gamma rays from the radioactive decay of cobalt-60. Infinite Power thinks it can cut costs to levels that take your breath away. “It is the cheapest source of electricity on the planet,” says Robert McLeod, the chief executive.

The batteries can be used for anything from charging posts for electric vehicles to full-sized power plants for cities, generating cheap baseload electricity. This power can be used to balance the grid as intermittent wind and solar become the backbone of the system, but also switch to the production of “green” hydrogen from electrolysis at off peak-times.

Infinite Power is working with the UK National Institute for Advanced Materials, a hub of leading universities known as the Royce Institute. These are part of a flourishing British ecosystem in radioisotope technology. In 2019 the National Nuclear Laboratory launched an Americium battery on behalf of Nasa that can generate power for hundreds of years in deep space, the first of its kind in the world.

Scientists at the Culham Centre of Fusion Energy are working on tritium (hydrogen-3) and carbon-14 to make ‘diamond batteries’ from spent nuclear fuel. They have linked up with the University of Bristol on a man-made diamond that harvests the energy from carbon-14 isotopes and promises to generate power on a “near infinite basis”.  

A spin-off company called Arkenlight is working on the first commercial prototypes for microbatteries. “Ultimately we want to be producing millions of devices annually. It’s an extremely exciting project,” said Prof Tom Scott, the leader of the project.

Infinite Power is eyeing different segments of the market, convinced it can outcompete fossil-fuel plants for electricity on a gigawatt scale. The technology works in much the same way as a solar panel except that the energy does not come from the sun. It comes from the decaying isotope.

The normal vibration process in solar cells instead converts beta, X-ray, and above all gamma waves from cobalt-60 into electricity. “There is much more energy in a gamma ray,” said Mr McLeod. He estimates the “levelised cost” of electricity at $7-17 per megawatt hour, cheaper than thin-film solar ($36-44), gas combined cycle ($44-68), or nuclear ($118-192), once scale is achieved. The capital cost is under $300,000 per megawatt, a tiny fraction of the $6,500 average cost for the latest nuclear reactors.

If the company can deliver anything close to this cost the technology offers tantalising possibilities for the UK’s net-zero drive, and for wider global use. There has been a surge of interest from American investors since the Biden administration swept into Washington on an electrification mission.

Cobalt-60 is relatively safe with a half-life of 5.2 years, though you would not want it in your kitchen. The small pencil-sized sticks are placed in tubes, protected by 11in (30cm) steel in boxes. They are sealed in cement buildings when scaled up for serious power. They do not require the fortress architecture that make nuclear fission plants so expensive.

The batteries could be used in small power units in Sark, or rural Africa, or in warehouse-size power plants of 100 megawatts or larger for industrial hubs. “It is modular so we just add more boxes. Our plan is a one gigawatt plant within two years,” said Mr McLeod. The company has signed a letter of intent to build its first 30 megawatt plant in the UK.

Separating hope from reality is inherently difficult with new technologies. A bandwagon effect is creeping in.

One California start-up is raising funds to develop “a smartphone that you never charge” and EVs that never need recharging using a nano-diamond battery, allegedly at minimal cost. Sceptical British scientists roll their eyes.

The UK government has jumped on Infinite Power’s cobalt-60 battery to help solve an immediate conundrum: how to switch from combustion engines to EVs without breaking the grid, already under transition stress as it goes from being a 20th Century fossil-based system to a 21st Century flexible system of distributed green power.

The UK would in theory have to double its total generation to decarbonise just half of all road transport traffic, although a static analysis exaggerates the apparent difficulty: EV car batteries would themselves be part of the solution by charging at night and releasing power back to the grid at peak times for an arbitrage profit. Nevertheless, cobalt-60 is the answer to immediate prayers at the Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy. “We’ll be rolling out the first EV charging points within twelve months. The UK government is extremely positive. They see it as a way to promote export-led industry and rebuild trade links with Commonwealth countries,” said Mr McLeod.

Britain has a strong incentive to make use of spent nuclear fuel. It is sitting on the world’s largest stockpile of radioactive residue at Sellafield, listed today on government books as a giant liability but with the potential to become an asset instead.

Dr Tim Tinsely, head of the NNL’s radioisotope programme, said nuclear batteries kill two birds with one stone.“You would be repurposing a waste product into something of value, and contributing to a net-zero agenda,” he said.

The raw material for cobalt-60 is cobalt-59. This comes from mines in Canada, Australia, Zambia, and more controversially from the Congo. This standard form of cobalt is not scarce but nor is it cheap. It currently fetches $45,700 per metric tonne on the London Metal Exchange, driven up by the voracious needs of lithium car batteries. Demand will settle down as ways are found to replace the metal with nickel. Tesla is working on cobalt-free batteries. The larger issue is that cobalt-59 has to be converted in an industrial reactor by bombarding it with neutrons. There are 85 such reactors in Europe, some already producing isotopes for X-rays, scanners, smoke detectors, measuring devices, and so on. Others are scattered all over the world. They are crying out for business, especially in ex-Soviet states such as Armenia and Kazakhstan.

Mr McLeod said the isotope can be recycled again and again by putting it back in a reactor every ten years. By then the isotopes have partly decayed into nickel. There are almost no operating costs once the system is up and running.

Dr Tinsley said it was unclear whether there is a big enough global supply of cobalt-60 to produce power at commercial scale. Infinite Power says the market is deeper than it looks. “We can easily build a one gigawatt plant within current supply,” said McLeod.

Once the technology takes off, demand creates its own supply. It becomes commercially worthwhile to build small industrial reactors just to make the cobalt-60 round-the-clock. That at least is the idea.

Mr McLeod said the radioisotope technology has lain dormant because the world was not ready. He compared it to gasoline in the late 19th Century before the combustion engine. It was deemed useless by early oil drillers and tipped into rivers in Pennsylvania. A single twist in technology turned waste into liquid gold.

What is clear is that there are countless technologies emerging across the world that are changing the calculus on CO2 abatement faster than governments, economists, and commentators can keep up. Britain is the crucible where so many breakthroughs are happening, perhaps because the country never succumbed to the technology luddism of the precautionary principle, and perhaps because the grip of vested interests is relatively weak (the same thing).

The UK may achieve net-zero much sooner than widely-supposed, and at a nice profit.

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

Interesting news for some: Regular aerobic or moderate physical activity in the weeks and months prior to receiving the jab can increase the amount of antibodies produced by the over-60s, according to researchers at Trinity College Dublin.

The UK 1: Some medical professionals have criticised the delaying of a second dose for 12 weeks to accelerate the rollout. BUT . . The first real-world data from the vaccine rollout shows promising evidence that justifies it. People who have been vaccinated are enjoying high levels of protection from the first dose, which reduces infections and saves lives.

The UK 2: Richard North: The good news is that the Covid figures are going the right way – across the board. Cases, hospital admissions and deaths are falling, while the vaccination numbers are steadily increasing. 

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

The Galician government has announced a free antibodies-based virus-testing scheme, via pharmacies. But only if you're 46-64. Can anyone understand the logic of this restriction, other than keeping the cost down?

It you're a cash-rich Brit - or someone who bought a house in London for a pittance 50 years ago - and you want to live permanently in Spain, this is good-ish news is for you.

How can I stay in Spain for more than 90 days?, asks someone, somewhere: Mark Mark Stucklin replies: Residency is your only option if you want to spend more than half a year in Spain, or longer than 90 days at a stretch. The downsides include the incomprehensible Spanish tax regime, Soviet-style utilities and a maddening bureaucracy. Blimey . . . The man is even more critical than me. But, like me, still lives here. Presumably because, as with everything and everyone, it's the net balance that counts. Anyway, see his full reply below, including reference to the above Golden visa scheme.

María's Tsunami: Day 6. Another example of how - as Spain hurtles into the 21st century - some unfortunate folk have scarcely entered the 20th. 

I wrote that sentence before I read this about the UK: Imagine how much worse lockdown would be if you didn’t have properly functioning broadband. Imagine having the kind of piddly speeds that meant you couldn’t watch Netflix, make a Zoom call, order a supermarket delivery or reliably stay in visual touch with your family and friends. That is still the lot of hundreds of thousands of rural residents, forced to live stuck in the 20th century even as the 21st changes around them at breakneck speed. So, not only in Spain, of course.

The UK

Richard North: The bad news for Johnson is the closer we get to a post-Covid normal, the more media attention will focus on Brexit. And there is no vaccination or other magic bullet that will save the prime minister from his folly there. 

The USA

Jason Miller is Trump’s senior adviser. He asserts that the former president “feels happier” than he did in the White House and is pleased no longer to be on social media. Miller was aboard the jet on January 20, heading for the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The emotions on it, he claims, ran the entire gamut. Some folks were very sad this day had come, but there was a sense of pride that this was the single most successful first term in US presidential history.

Now, you and I might feel our jaws drop at hearing that but Miller was able to make this boast with a straight face because millions of Americans agree with him. And do does his boss.

The Way of the World

Allegedly . . . The myth that working from home will liberate us has been shattered. The chance to work 'wherever, whenever' has always been a poisoned chalice, but lockdown has been a rude awakening for many. I have to admit I'm not very surprised , having done it for years.

Elizabeth Holmes is awaiting trial in America after it emerged that her supposedly revolutionary blood-testing venture, Theranos, which briefly achieved a market value of £7bn, - yes, 10 billion US dollars -  was based on faked test results. In June 2016, it was estimated that Holmes's personal net worth had dropped from $4.5 billion to virtually nothing. Poor woman.

There are naturally articles and documentaries on her. And a film in the planning stage. Will she get royalties, during or after her prison spell?

English

María used the word ‘rube’ in her latest post. So, just in case . . . North American 'informal': country bumpkin; yokel. Origin: Rube showed up around the turn of the 19th century as a slur for a gullible country boy. Its origin is similar to that of hick. Both are diminutive forms of names that were associated with country folk at the time: Rube for Reuben, Hick for Richard.

Finally . . .

A reader has asked what IGIMSTS means - I guess it makes sense to someone.

THE ARTICLE 

Q. How can I stay in Spain for more than 90 days?:  

I own a Spanish holiday home and was looking forward to retiring there. After Brexit I am told I can’t spend more than 90 days there at a time. How do I get Spanish residency and is it a good idea? Will Spain bring in a scheme that lets homeowners stay longer?

Answers: From Mark Stucklin, owner of Spanish Property Insight at www.spanishpropertyinsight.com

Residency is your only option if you want to spend more than half a year in Spain, or longer than 90 days at a stretch. If you don’t mind stints of 90 days or less and are happy with a total of 180 days a year, residency might be a step too far.

The downsides include the incomprehensible Spanish tax regime (where many dreams have unravelled), Soviet-style utilities and a maddening bureaucracy. As a resident you would also have to rely on private health insurance, at least for the first few years.

If residency makes sense, one option is to apply for a non-lucrative residency permit that allows you stay for one or two years, plus renewals, if you can demonstrate your financial independence and private health insurance. “The first and second renewal lasts two years,” says Raymundo Larraín Nesbitt, a Marbella-based lawyer who helps clients with residency. “At the time of applying for the third one you may apply for the long-term residency. If you do this you should renew it every five years.”

Another option is the so-called Golden Visa, where you get a residency permit, and path to citizenship, if you invest €500,000 or more in Spanish property. You can also apply if you can show you have spent €500,000 in cash on Spanish property since 2013. If you do apply for residency, hire an expert. Doing it yourself will wear you out.

And there is no sign that Spain plans to allow stays of longer than 90 days.

[Would the EU allow it to?]

[If not, would Madrid take any notice - given the economic contribution of these 'swallows?]

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

Israel: The 'magic' has started. Early data shows the vaccination campaign is working. It took longer than expected but there is now 'real world' evidence to show the Pfizer jab is both saving lives and reducing infections.

UK jabs: Hmm. My old friends and my younger siblings are now being jabbed. Rather brings home the UK success in this area.

R&D: An interesting line of research on blood group correlations. . .  Rh- patients may need to be more closely monitored and those whose blood-type is Rhesus Negative may be wise to take even more than standard precautions. More here.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain .

Spanish farmers are unhappy about 2 current developments:-

- Protection being given to wolves, here and here, and

- Protection proposed for jamón.

The police and taxation authorities can be arbitrary anywhere in the world. Here’s a current example from Barcelona. The city authorities are slapping €60,000 fines on anyone they catch renting out a spare room for less than 31 days, even though there’s no law expressly forbidding it. According to La Vanguardia, hard-up households, especially empty-nesters, in desperate need of additional income to help pay the mortgage, and avoid losing their homes, are being ruined by fines of €60,000 for renting out their spare rooms for 31 days or less. There is outrage at the disproportionate size of the fines for an activity that is not illegal, and causes no harm to anyone. See here.

Just loose change? Or a lot of money that could have been better spent? . . An art collection owned by a popular baroness is at the centre of a row in Spain after the government agreed to pay her nearly €100 million to keep it on public display. The deal envisages the state paying €6.5 million annually for 15 years to Carmen Cervera, the Dowager Baroness Thyssen-Bornemisza and a former Miss Spain. It would have the option of buying the 427 works after that period. It is linked to an agreement that would allow Cervera to remain domiciled in Andorra to avoid paying tax in Spain.

Another nice piece from Lenox at Spanish Shilling, on funny Spanish drinks. Including the hard to imagine creme de menthe-+lemon Fanta.

María's Tsunami: Day 5.   Cronyism, she fears, is a Spanish disease that'll never disappear as long as there's a Spain. In my view, you could almost put 'blatant' before 'croneyism'.

The Way of the World

In the USA at least . . . The cottage industry of fact checking has turned itself into a system of Orwellian misinformation — one that uses fact-o-meters and Pinocchios to insist that war is peace and ignorance is strength. Rather than clarifying reality, fact checking is routinely used to hide the truth and shield the powerful from accountability. All in the interests of people who are already billionaires, it says here.

A couple of nice phrases from that article: The 24-7 news cycle’s miasma of disinformation. And: The entire “fact checking” brand is now the misinformation era’s single most deceitful weapon.

Being woke seems to be less about adjusting one's own behaviours and attitudes and working to protect minority and oppressed groups from systemic injustice than it is calling out others for getting it wrong, purely for the dopamine hit of online righteousness. See the article below.

English

Ninety percent of English words starting with the letters eu- come from an Ancient Greek word for 'good'. e. g. Euphemism. Eucharist??

Finally . . .

Gas meters: 2  contrasting UK experiences:-

1. Perry: We photograph the two meters and email them to the company each month. No estimates required. Nor an ID or copy of one or both passports, I suspect.

2. No need for readings. My smart meter is sending data incessantly.

Said meter:-

THE ARTICLE 

I may be politically correct – but I am fed up with self-righteous wokeness. The cruel public shaming of transgressors is counter-productive: Emma Burnell, The Telegraph

I have always been proudly politically correct. I associate this with the simple act of politeness. I treat people equally and with respect. I don’t knowingly use terms I know are hurtful to minority groups. I work to try and address my own prejudices and those built into systems where I have the power or influence to make changes. 

I was always deeply frustrated with the caricature some on the Right perpetuated of political correctness as anything other than this. Sadly, others seem to have adopted that caricature wholesale in the morphing of political correctness into being woke. Perhaps the Right’s latest triumph is to finally manage to define the Left’s approach to equalities as they have always wanted it to appear – and for the Left to believe them. 

Being woke seems to be less about adjusting one's own behaviours and attitudes and working to protect minority and oppressed groups from systemic injustice than it is calling out others for getting it wrong, purely for the dopamine hit of online righteousness.   

Woke is not kind even as it invokes the language of kindness. It is often cruel in behaviour seeking not to persuade through dialogue but simply to remove transgressors by public shaming and coercion. It does so not in a way that would lead to redemption. Instead it leads to a small group of people using the awesome power of their platforms to proclaim on others acceptability to society. People are praised and shunned on a whim. Little can be changed structurally through such superficial, individualistic actions.   

I am a 45-year-old, middle class white woman. I am very aware both of my privileges and fragilities. I know where I am discriminated against and where I have advantages (and that the scales tip decisively towards the latter). Perhaps I am not supposed to be woke. So I’m happy to leave the terminology behind. Whether you call it woke or PC doesn’t matter – what does is outcomes.   

Any sensible approach to both thinking about and actively tackling discrimination should not exclude groups who are so close to your way of thinking but have a different attitude or methodology. There should not be just one way of thinking, but different visions that reach the maximal amount of people and make the maximum amount of different.    Equally, and this is the hardest part, they have to change the hearts and minds of those displaying the discrimination. Particularly those at the lowest end or with the least intent. Freezing people out and publicly shaming them is just about the least persuasive tool you could use. It fosters resentment, often not simply against those individuals who did the shaming, but towards the groups they purport to represent.  

In the end, I don't think the woke moment will last. It is too good at hunting and finding witches. There will be too few of the pure left to sustain a movement.   

But if enough people don’t simply question the effect this has on action against inequality, and if it brings a further backlash against the more established tradition of political correctness, that would be but deeply counterproductive to anyone fighting for a more equal society. 

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

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

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'

Covid

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

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain.

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

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

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

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

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

María's Tsunami: Day 4. 

The UK and the EU

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

France

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

The EU

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

The Way of the World

Wokism at work:-

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

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

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

Nutters Corner

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

English

Disinterested and uninterested are different words with different meanings:-

Disinterested: Not influenced by considerations of personal advantage.

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

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

Spanish/Galician

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

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

Finally . . .

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

Bloody irritating. 

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

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

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'

Covid

The UK 1: Reported to be now past the peak of the second Covid wave. Cases are falling across country, says the health chief as 10 million get the first vaccine jab. Cases, hospital admissions and deaths are falling in all 4 nations but it will be months until the pressure on hospitals eases.

The UK 2: Britain has begun the first trial to explore “mixing and matching” vaccines in the hope that it could minimise supply problems here and abroad. A group of 800 volunteers aged above 50 are being recruited to try the Oxford and Pfizer vaccines in combination instead of using the same one for first and second doses. This could provide equal or even better protection.

Denmark: Has become one of the first countries to set out concrete plans for an electronic “corona passport” that could allow those who have been vaccinated to travel overseas. From the end of February Danish residents will be able to prove that they have been inoculated by printing a certificate from a government website.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain .

Bad news here for ‘the taurine community’. Not to mention the Pamplona coffers.

Did I already report that the the Junta de Andalucía has made a few exceptions to the rules of staying within one’s municipality. These include hunting events and skiing in the Sierra Nevada. Maybe hunting wild boar will make my walking in the forest behind my house legal, most of the tracks being in the Pontevedra municipality, not mine. 

Jab-jumping: Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas tells us that: From El País in English: Spain’s Covid immunisation drive is dogged by line-jumping politicians and other irregularities. Hundreds of people, including political leaders, retired doctors and family members of health workers, have received the vaccine even though they are not part of the first priority group’. El Español has named and shamed the clever ones who got their vaccinations when they shouldn’t’ve. From Público, we read that ‘More than 450 senior officials and officials of the Murcia Health Department, in addition to the councillor and his wife, were illegally vaccinated’. And ABC has its own story from next door Valencia: ‘The Generalitat Valenciana detects 185 cases of people vaccinated without meeting the requirements’. Lenox adds: But will they all get their 2nd jab?

Lenox also tells us today that: The imprisoned ex-treasurer for the PP Luis Bárcenas has now admitted to the court that the party was improperly financed between 1982 and 2009. And that Rajoy destroyed ‘real accounts. But not before Bárcenas took a copy. Like all crooked accountants do/ should do. Por si acaso. 

María's Tsunami: Day 3 

The EU

Not a huge surprise . . . Merkel and Macron defend the bloc’s policy as vaccination numbers lag behind those of Israel, UK and US. Because: National leaders are starting to feel the heat over the EU’s struggling Covid vaccine rollout, which is increasingly being seen as overcautious, marred by mistakes and miscalculations, and achingly slow to progress. See the full article here. 

The hardline Brexiteers' view of things: The EU’s descent into madness or even downright malignancy can be explained by a combination of Covid-related desperation, incompetence, Brexit and the panicky realisation that the historic vision that inspired Europe’s elites since the Second World War is crumbling before the eyes of despairing, devastated electorates. There were three rationalisations for the EU’s creation. The first was to forge a new era of peace and unity; the second was to use its clout to ensure the economic and personal security of Europeans; and the third was to pioneer a superior, morally righteous form of progressive governance in a Kantian, post-nationalist world. Seven decades after the launch of the European Coal and Steel Community, Robert Schuman’s “first step in the federation of Europe”, it is clear that the EU has proved ineffective at best and a calamity at worst on all three counts. The full article is below. It's very hard-hitting about a '70-year experiment that has failed'. Of course, 70 years ago, just about everyone bought into the Vision. Only experience has changed the mind of some people. But not all, of course.

English

I was very surprised to hear the my daughter in Madrid didn’t know what 'woke' means. And it seems she’s not alone in her generation. Here’s Wiki: Woke is a slang term that is easing into the mainstream from some varieties of a dialect called African American Vernacular English. ‘Woke' is increasingly used as a byword for social awareness. So, Being alert to injustice in society, especially racism.  Or, as my daughter said: You mean exceptionally politically correct?

Spanish

Again from Lenox today: Magnet reports that ‘Spain is a linguistic exception: only 81% of its inhabitants speak Spanish at home’. It quotes the Pew Research Centre here which says that the other languages spoken in Spain are Catalán/Valencian 12%, Gallego 3% and Euskera 1%. 

Finally . . .  

Is there an emptier modern phrase than Lessons will be learned? You mean, you never learned them after previous (government) cockups? Just an alternative for Sorry, I guess.

THE ARTICLE

The Trumpian EU has demolished its final reasons for existing. The incompetent bloc’s treatment of Northern Ireland explodes its claim to be a ‘progressive’ force: Allister Heath, The Telegraph

What is wrong with Ursula von der Leyen, the hapless bureaucrat who presides over the European Commission? Why the horrendous descent into sub-Trumpian rhetoric, the demonisation of pharmaceutical firms, the threats to divert vaccines? Why the demagogic flirtation with toxic anti-vaxx scare tactics? Why the misrepresentation of scientific findings, and the baseless attacks, in concert with other European leaders, on Britain’s vaccination strategy and the AstraZeneca jab?

Even more shocking has been the careless inflaming of tensions in Northern Ireland: after spending years claiming that they didn’t want a hard border, the EU almost imposed one by diktat last week. Its ongoing attempt to undermine the UK’s unity through its intransigent interpretation of the Withdrawal Agreement is a disgusting overreach which increasingly risks a crisis in the province.

As Boris Johnson has now formally warned, the UK may have to act unilaterally, invoking Article 16 of the protocol to suspend the Agreement, unless the EU drastically reviews its absurd interpretation of the texts. Extending the so-called grace period on traders moving goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland until 2023 won’t be enough.

But the possibility of the Agreement being swept aside begs the question of what will happen to the UK-EU trade deal, which has yet to be ratified by the European side, and more broadly of relations between Britain and Brussels. The UK has already put up with far too much. If everything goes very wrong, von der Leyen and her protector Angela Merkel, the most over-rated continental politician of her generation, will be entirely to blame.

The EU’s descent into madness or even downright malignancy can be explained by a combination of Covid-related desperation, incompetence, Brexit and the panicky realisation that the historic vision that inspired Europe’s elites since the Second World War is crumbling before the eyes of despairing, devastated electorates.

There were three rationalisations for the EU’s creation. The first was to forge a new era of peace and unity; the second was to use its clout to ensure the economic and personal security of Europeans; and the third was to pioneer a superior, morally righteous form of progressive governance in a Kantian, post-nationalist world. Seven decades after the launch of the European Coal and Steel Community, Robert Schuman’s “first step in the federation of Europe”, it is clear that the EU has proved ineffective at best and a calamity at worst on all three counts.

The vaccines fiasco is proving far more damaging to the project than the Eurozone crisis. Together with years of feeble economic growth, that tragic episode showed not just the EU’s inability to deliver prosperity, but also how savagely smaller members were treated. But it was always possible to blame Germany, or national politicians, or the complexities of modern economies, and Brussels survived.

Responsibility for the jabs nightmare cannot be deflected. EU politicians put integrationist ideology before lives: in the spirit of Brexit, Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency went it alone, giving the Pfizer/BioNtech jab the green light early. We were still covered by EU rules, but used an emergency procedure which other countries could also have invoked.

The European Medicines Agency took almost another three weeks before approving its first vaccine. But that was just the start of a litany of errors: Brussels and most member states were too slow at procuring vaccines, failed to diversify orders, were too concerned about cost and lacked the skills required to negotiate. The French gambled on homegrown vaccines that didn’t materialise; Macron and others failed to distribute the jabs they do have quickly enough.

Europe’s reluctant elites realised they couldn’t stop Britain from leaving, but they decided that we would have to pay a heavy price pour decourager les autres. At first, it worked: support for leaving the EU has fallen across much of the continent since 2016. But the vaccines fiasco radically changes the cost-benefit analysis of Brexit even in the minds of Europhiles. The advantage from a speedier vaccination will be worth thousands of lives and much economic growth; this more than offsets the slightly slower annual growth rate economists usually claim will be the result of leaving the EU. Brexit is already a net gain for Britain: this is a potentially terminal body blow to the Europhile narrative.

It is no longer possible to deny that the EU is a power-hungry, unethical bully. It waged a five-year war of attrition against British democracy, and Mario Draghi’s most important qualification for being appointed Italy’s new prime minister is that the European Central Bank likes him. Brussels doesn’t care about peace in Northern Ireland. It has no real interest in genuine free trade: its concern is merely to extend its jurisdiction and legal and political supremacy. It has unnecessarily imposed trade barriers on the UK on the bogus grounds of defending the single market.

At a time when Brexit Britain is taking moral stances on Hong Kong and Alexei Navalny, the EU continues to suck up to the Russians via Merkel’s beloved NordStream 2. At best, the supposed European superpower intends to act as some sort of amoral non-aligned player, friendly to China and happy to take Nato handouts in return for nothing.

Post-war European ideologues thought that it was worth giving up on national democracies for the sake of peace, efficiency and a more rational political order. That trade has failed. Instead of brilliant technocrat-kings forging a European demos, complex, finely balanced peace processes are being sacrificed in a fit of pique. The EU was meant to be the antithesis of Trumpism: it was billed as a law-governed, humanist Rechtsstaat. In reality, it is incompetent, uninterested in the rule of law, threatening and autocratic, all Trumpian hallmarks.

A 70-year experiment has failed: there is no longer any justification for the people of Europe to continue to allow themselves to be governed by these second-rate apparatchiks and retread politicians. The EU will stagger on, perhaps even for many years, but never again must it be allowed to claim the moral high ground.

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

Loss of smell was ignored at first as an indicator but is now seen as the most reliable marker.

See an insightful article below.

Another useful Spanish treatment.

American slang for the virus has reached Spanish kids:  La Rona, from Corona. La rona, is actually ‘mange’ in English.

I haven't yet made up my mind whether this guy is a genius or a nut. Or both, perhaps.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain .

Well, as I said, vaccine queue jumping isn’t confined to Spain. Or Germany. The BBC has reported on this happening in Wales.

And a reader has advised that several Spanish people have been find for engaging in it. Which is good news.

One thing that shouldn’t survive Covid. Read an anti-bullfight opinion here.

This is one of the tracks I've been negotiating in the last few days:-

And this is a long-distance foto of the Marismas de Alba - the Marshes of Dawn - that I pass through en route to Pontevedra 4 times daily. Or used to. It's a very poor foto but it does illustrate how the marshes - where water is usually not visible at the surface - are being rapidly turned into a single large lake:-

Reader Perry thinks the chozo/chouzo/choza/chouza is for shepherds to shelter in. Given that it’s on top of a windswept peak in the middle of a rockstrewn forest, and there are no sheep around for many, many kilometres, I prefer to go with María’s suggestion it is/was for fire wardens.

My latest gas bill is based on an estimate and, of course, is higher than the actual. To do something about this I have to go on line, cite my ID and upload a foto of the actual reading. Which will be way more than the total of the estimate date of 11 January, 23 days. Twenty five years ago, in the UK, I could just fill in a pre-paid card left by the ‘inspector’ when I was out, and mail it to the gas company, so the bill would be accurate. But perhaps it’s a lot more complex in the UK nowadays. Though I doubt it.

Talking of customer service . . . I had problems yesterday paying by VISA for wine I wanted to order. I advised the bodega - from which I’ve ordered several times before - of this but their reply essentially was that it was my fault, as their web page worked perfectly. They suggested I go through the entire process again but this time I should opt for a bank transfer. I replied there were plenty of other wine suppliers in Spain and counter-suggested they deliver the order and send me a bill with their IBAN on it, so I could then make a transfer. Otherwise there’d been no order. This had the desired effect of reminding them what good customer service was. For anyone, never mind an existing customer. BTW . . . To be very specific, the bodega didn’t start their initial response with anything like "We're sorry to hear. . ." But did eventually get their tone right.

Here’s María’s Tsunami, Day 2

Germany

No such thing as euros-cepticism exists in the Federal Republic. At least not in the way it is understood in its various forms in the UK, the Netherlands, the Nordics, Eastern Europe, France, Italy, or (spasmodically) Ireland. But the scale of this error has left its mark on the German collective mind. 

See the second article below for AEP’s views on longer term consequences of the ‘vaccine fiasco’.

The EU

The vaccine saga exposes a great number of EU pathologies, starting with the breathtaking absence of apology. Heads would roll in a democratic state. The EU’s constitutional structure shields the executive from accountability.

The betting is that, for one political reason and another, Mrs vdL won't lose her job. Resignations in response to failure have sadly fallen out of fashion in the UK but have rarely been à la mode in the EU. 

The Way of the World

British Celebrities have been ordered by the Advertising Standards Agency not to use photo filters to exaggerate the effectiveness of beauty products they promote, after Instagram influencers were caught making their fake tans appear darker. As if they will.

Still in the UK . .  The quango Ofcom used to monitor broadcasters for ‘hate speech’, utilising just 4 categories - race, sex, religion and nationality. As of Jan1, there are now 14 categories: disability, ethnicity, social origin, gender, sex, gender reassignment, nationality, race, religion or belief, colour, genetic features, language, political or any other opinion. But I expect it'll eventually be reduced to just one - anything.

Finally . . .

The problem I had in paying for the wine by VISA arose from a security measure I’d never seen before - involving 2 numbers from my PIN and a code sent to my phone. I completed the process as I understood it, twice, but without success. If any reader has mastered this, could they please tell me which of these goes in the box, assuming PIN numbers of 3 and 4 and a code of 1234

3 4 1234

341234

7 1234 where 7 is 3 +4 (as implied in the instructions)

71234

To be positive . . . At least if you don't go out much because of Covid risk, you don't have to worry about your phone being under-charged. So, not all bad.

THE ARTICLES

1. Beating Covid requires luck as much as skill. It’s easy to forget that the decisions behind vaccine rollout were made by the same people who botched PPE and tracing: Daniel Finkelstein The Times

I need to start this column about our performance on Covid-19 by telling Einstein he got it wrong. The great physicist famously said that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”. This is, in fact, pretty much the opposite of the truth. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same result.

Of course this quote isn’t really Einstein’s. While it is attributed to him over and over again, the attribution is wrong each time. Which isn’t surprising since believing that doing the same thing produces the same result on every occasion is a mistake that wouldn’t be made by a GCSE maths pupil.

Anybody who studies even elementary probability knows that repeated actions produce slightly different outcomes at random. The more times you repeat the action, the more likely you are to get a useful average, but the outcome of each individual repetition is still likely to vary both from the average and from the outcome of the next repetition.

While familiar to maths students, this statistical observation passes many historians and political analysts by. Which is apparent when you consider the debate about our vaccination programme and the contrast with other policies we have put in place to fight Covid.

Everyone has noticed that while it is fair to describe our achievement on vaccination as world-beating, it is absurd to use that term, as some ministers have, to describe other aspects of policy. Most notably, of course, we have a horrifically high death rate, we have spent a lot of money on a tracing system while struggling to make it work and (let’s put this delicately) not every contract we have concluded for personal protective equipment seems, at first sight, to have been good value.

The temptation is to conclude that sharply different ways of working and sharply different people must have been responsible for one outcome rather than the other and that the situation would be much better if only we had done to everything else what we did with the vaccine.

But I have reached a more uncomfortable conclusion. I think we did broadly the same things over and over again and got different results.

It is interesting now to read the coverage of vaccines chief Kate Bingham from last year, in the period when she was considered a fool with an outsize interest in PR, before everyone realised she was a genius who had saved the country. Almost every article had a “here we go again” tone to it. She had been picked by Boris Johnson without an open competition for the role, she wasn’t a vaccines expert, she had “been to school with the prime minister’s sister”, she was married to a Tory minister and the Tory minister had “been to Eton with Boris Johnson”. It’s all exactly like Dido Harding — and look how tracing turned out.

The thing is that all of these things are still true. That Bingham’s efforts have been successful hasn’t changed any of it. Not the bit about no open competition or knowing Rachel Johnson or being married to Jesse Norman or it being like the appointment of Harding.

Listen to Bingham’s description of how she set about putting us in pole position on vaccines. We rejected the European programme because we thought Britain could do better with its own ideas and flexibility. The team then sought to be nimble and used personal contacts to make deals. The country bet big and early on some vaccines and the bets came off.

This is all very impressive, as is Bingham, but each part of this explanation of success — the nimble informality, the use of personal contacts, the confidence that Britain had a better way, the leadership of someone trusted by ministers who has commercial expertise — has been used as an explanation of failure at a different point in the Covid crisis.

We appreciated this similarity when we thought Ms Bingham would fail but forgot all about it when she succeeded.

Ursula von der Leyen provides an interesting counterpoint. It wasn’t long ago (six weeks?) that the president of the European Commission was being praised for her maturity and her negotiating skills as we reached the last stages of the Brexit talks. Now she appears to be a terrible negotiator, whose response to failure has been notably immature.

How likely is this? She is the same person after all. The truth is that the EU approached vaccine procurement and its failures in exactly the same way it approached Brexit, but with different outcomes. It was bullish and self-confident, highly centralised, completely unyielding, opaque and somewhat graceless.

When the government claims successes or its critics point to failures, both have a tendency to ignore the role of randomness, of luck, of complexity and of risk. Let me use as an example a criticism I made of the government.

I argued in the autumn that the restrictions would not prove tough enough and it seems I was right. Yet my argument was based on the idea that there would soon be a vaccine that worked, something that wasn’t obvious at the time.

If that judgment had been wrong then, far from being insufficiently tough, the restrictions might soon have been thought pointless and unsustainable. The government would still have been open to criticism but from entirely the opposite direction.

The success of the vaccination programme rests on bets, some of which we know are correct and some of which we do not. We chose vaccines that ended up working while the EU was distracted by a French option that hasn’t come off. But what if it had been the other way round? It looks like our early approval of the vaccines will be vindicated and many are confident that our delaying of the second shots is a sensible move. But what if it turns out we were wrong?

If we had been unlucky with our vaccine decisions it wouldn’t have turned the programme leaders retrospectively into fools or incompetents. None of this is to argue that we can’t make judgments about our actions, still less that we haven’t made mistakes, or that no one has been found wanting. Some government decisions I’ve found baffling. While it is possible that our death rate will end up varying little from that of similar nations, it looks as though it will be worse and that part of the explanation will be decisions we took or failed to take.

Yet when we assess which they were, we need to look at whether the choices we made were reasonable ones in the circumstances and not just look at how the choices turned out.

2.  Furious Germany will not forget EU vaccine disaster when Brussels seeks more bailout money. The EU has only itself to blame for its vaccine saga, as its botched pandemic response exposes cracks in the union: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 

The EU’s vaccine disaster is not enough in itself to crystallise Germany’s mounting exasperation with Brussels and the European Institutions.  But it vastly complicates the next big test of the Brussels regime: how to prevent another lost decade and a sovereign debt crisis in the Club Med bloc, and who will pay for the rescue.

No such thing as euroscepticism exists in the Federal Republic. At least not in the way it is understood in its various forms in the UK, the Netherlands, the Nordics, Eastern Europe, France, Italy, or (spasmodically) Ireland. But the scale of this error has left its mark on the German collective mind. 

Die Zeit calls this episode “the best advertisement for Brexit”. Bild Zeitung calls it “checkmate Brussels”. There is a knock-about feel to these outbursts.  What ought to worry the Commission and Germany’s pro-EU elites more is a deeper critique of the EU project from very well-informed quarters.  

Daniel Stelter, Germany’s corporate guru, writes in the insider publication Manager Magazin that this crisis has exposed something rotten at the core. “It is dawning on the German and European population that the political class has failed across the board in meeting the enormous economic and social challenges of the Corona crisis. It marks the accelerating decline of the EU,” he said. 

He accused politicians of “trying to throw sand in our eyes” and seeking to divert blame with squalid populist gestures. “Everybody in the economic sphere now knows that whenever there is a problem at a production site in the EU, there is a risk of being hit with an export ban: vaccines today, biotech tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow what?” 

“This destruction of trust in the EU as a place of business (Standort EU) is all of a piece with its tendency towards over-regulation and planned-economy control. The gap between wish and reality in the EU is greater than ever. By failing to procure vaccines, the EU has validated Brexit and given all EU citizens an objective reason for euroscepticism,” he said.

The danger for Europe lies in the intersecting effect of vaccine paralysis and an even longer economic downturn. The glacial roll-out and lack of doses may delay recovery by three months. That is an extremely expensive failure in terms of political credibility and recessionary metastasis.

“We see the EU's vaccine crisis having three successive inter-related effects: a prolonged lockdown, a longer second leg of our double-dip recession, and an anti-incumbent mood,” said Wolfgang Münchau's EuroIntelligence.

The vaccine saga exposes a great number of EU pathologies, starting with the breathtaking absence of apology. Heads would roll in a democratic state. The EU’s constitutional structure shields the executive from accountability. Ursula von der Leyen breezily insisted yesterday that the handling of vaccine procurement had been a great success.

Sandra Gallina, the EU trade negotiator elevated to director-general of health, was defiant before a committee of Euro-MPs. The EU is in the “top league” on vaccine roll-out. “I’m not jealous of what Biden is doing because in actual fact the situation here in Europe is, may I say, better,” she said. On vaccines? Really?

Officials cannot shake the habit of self-congratulation. Martin Selmayr, the Commission’s eminence grise, tweeted that the jabs were proceeding marvellously: the EU had vaulted ahead of Africa. Such is the pontine doctrine of Commission Infallibility.

The errors made in acquiring vaccines were not accidental. They were inherent in the ideology of the institution. This dysfunctional culture keeps making mistakes each time it ventures into a new terrain, and then has great trouble correcting itself. Without revisiting the maddening themes of farm and fish policy, what about the EU’s first stab at a carbon emissions trading scheme? It was a byword for market illiteracy. Nobody died. It has now been reformed. But you don’t get such a second chance in a pandemic.

In this case it was an elemental error to put trade hagglers in charge of a health emergency. Rather than spend months trying to drive down the price - when the imperative was time - the Commission should have done the opposite. Germany’s IfO Institute said it should have paid a dose premium to bring forward production since the cost of pandemic measures in lost GDP is hundreds of times greater. IfO calculates that the economic utility of each shot is €1,500. 

The EU treated Big Pharma as the enemy when it should have been pulling out all the stops to help these companies. “Liability and indemnification, these were really important for us,” said Ms Gallina yesterday. Well quite. That was the problem.

One can sympathise with the desire to hold the 27 states together, which necessarily slows everything down and leads to the lowest common denominator. “Just imagine what might have happened if some richer or luckier member countries such as Germany, the home of BioNTech, had used their clout and deep pockets to secure a disproportionate share of vaccines for themselves,” said Holger Schmieding from Berenberg Bank. 

But even here, the Commission’s motive was in part to take Big Pharma down a few notches by acting as a unified bloc and showing who was boss. It was about power. Just as the Brexit negotiations were about power, not trade, and certainly not about peace in Northern Ireland.  

However you distribute the blame, the fact remains that the Commission seized on the pandemic to increase its powers and then botched the operation horribly. So what will this mean for confidence in its management of the €750bn Recovery Fund, the other great power-grab by Brussels since Ursula von der Leyen took the helm?

The German, Dutch, Austria, and Nordic parliaments are already suspicious over the use of this slush fund. Allegations that Italian premier Giuseppe Conte was conspiring to siphon off money for political patronage triggered last week’s collapse of his government. The Bundestag’s Grand Inquisitor, Wolfgang Schauble, is already growling.

It is going to be much harder to rustle up another fiscal stimulus, a Recovery Fund Mark II. One awaits the icy response when Northern taxpayers are asked to cough up hundreds of billions more. Germany agreed to fund big transfers after the first wave of Covid because Italy and Spain had been devastated, while the North had been largely spared. Nobody has been spared this time.  

But if there is no mega-stimulus, Club Med will be left languishing in structural depression, notwithstanding an initial  dead cat bounce from reopening. One thing everybody agrees on is that monetary union cannot survive another protracted slump in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece. The debt ratios will spiral higher. Polities will react.  

Berlin will have to decide whether to embrace a genuine fiscal and debt union: the Hamiltonian solidarity - all for one, and one for all  - that was carefully dodged last year. The decision may have to be made in the run-up to the German elections in September in a mood of disgust over the vaccines. “Germany is going to have another moment of truth,” said David Marsh, head of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum.

We have yet to discover how much financial and economic damage has been done below the water line by Covid. Delayed recovery undoubtedly means that debt legacies in southern Europe will be even worse than suggested by the main forecasting bodies just weeks ago. Italy’s debt may approach 170pc of GDP.

The default policy setting in the eurozone is austerity-lite. Covid relief is winding down across Club Med. It is not as bad as the demonic tightening after the Lehman crisis but arguably the needs are even greater this time. Bank of America says there is a fiscal gap of 10pc of GDP.

The contrast with the Rooseveltian blast-off policies in the US is staggering. If Joe Biden gets most of his latest stimulus package, the accumulated total will be 25pc of GDP in direct crisis relief and fiscal transfers since last March.

The EU’s €750bn Recovery Fund is more publicity stunt than macro-stimulus. Half come in the form of loans that mostly displace borrowing that would have happened anyway. The €390bn in actual grants is spread over five years between 27 countries. Italy will receive just 0.7pc of GDP a year once its own payments as an EU net contributor are stripped out. The sums arriving this year are just a trickle.

“Since last summer a bubble of complacency has surrounded the EU’s recovery package,” said Prof Adam Tooze from Columbia University. The Recovery Fund has already been dwarfed by a 10pc collapse in fixed capital investment last year, compared to 1.7pc in the US.  

“By virtually every measure, the recession in Europe in 2020 was far worse and the policy response less adequate. The conclusion is inescapable. For all the commendable determination to avoid the mistakes of 2010, the ECB, Europe’s governments and the Commission have not done enough. What Europe needs most of all is a second big fiscal push,” he wrote.

Once again, the ECB will have to paper over trouble with funny money. It will have to continue its disguised (or at least denied) monetary-fiscal rescue of southern European governments. Should it cease to do so - or even hint at an end to bond purchases - markets will take instant flight. The implicit sovereign bankruptcy of Italy will become explicit. Debt restructuring will be on the table. That will unleash the political demons.

The German constitutional court - the self-described “people’s court” - has already ruled that the ECB is acting ultra vires and beyond its legal mandate. None of us know whether Germany will let the ECB go full Reichsbank or whether it will finally say that enough is enough. But either way that decision will have to be confronted over the next year or two. When it comes, the vaccine nightmare will not be forgotten or forgiven.

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

According to the Worldometer stats, UK cases seem to be falling more rapidly than Spain's.

Germany's cases also seem to be well on the way down 

Italy's cases are levelling off but in France they're still rising.

I've no idea, of course, what this really signifies. Except more trouble for M Macron. Who deserves it.

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain .

Maria and I have both mentioned cases of vaccine queue-jumping here. And I've cited the case of the head of the Red Cross in Hamburg. Who was fired yesterday. So, will any heads roll in Spain, where ethics are somewhat lower? Stay tuned. While not holding your breath.

Yesterday I returned to the mud of the forest, to take a closer view at the chozo/chouzo featured yesterday. 

And once again I plunged into mud above my knees when nearing it. Possibly here:-

And here's my reward:-

1. A sight of said chozo/chouzo. Small and in granite. I can't believe it was a refuge for anyone, especially on top of a peak. The track to it is new, by the way, and wasn't there on Saturday:-

2. Two views of the valley far below:- 

I made a video but no point in showing it here . . 

Yesterday I studied local maps to see where the border actually is between my municipality of Poio and that of Pontevedra. In the process I discovered that all the paths I've been walking for the past week are mostly in Pontevedra, and so barred to me. In theory. Fortunately, they aren't policed.

Another month, another change of name for María's blog. Here's Day 1 of Tsunami. 

The EU

Hmm. Ursula von der Leyen has attempted to pin the blame on her deputy for the embarrassing U-turn in the vaccine export row: The European Commission's chief spokesman said 'only the Pope is infallible' and Ursula vdL blamed her trade commissioner for the vaccine fiasco, throwing her under the bus amid rising anger from EU capitals at her “go it alone” tactics during last week’s battle with AstraZeneca. Key figures including Michel Barnier were kept out of the loop by the European Commission president:

Nutters Corner/The USA

Just when you thought things couldn't get any more insane in the Republican Party world . . . A QAnon-supporting congresswoman who promoted numerous baseless conspiracies was last night blasted as a “cancer for the party” by the top Republican in the Senate. Mitch McConnell criticised Marjorie Taylor Greene’s embrace of “loony lies and conspiracy theories” and for endorsing social media posts that called for the assassination of top Democrats. “Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr’s airplane is not living in reality,” Mr McConnell said.  

Guess who really likes her.

The Way of the World

A lawyer faces being disbarred for life after he was seen having sex during a court hearing that was being held on Zoom. Héctor Cipriano Paredes Robles had been supposed to take part in the hearing in the central Peruvian region of Junin. The case involved a local criminal gang. In the middle of the proceedings, the lawyer - apparently unaware that his camera was on - could be seen stripping off and then having sex with an unidentified woman, believed to have been his client, who was allegedly connected to the gang.

Finally . . .

I tried to order some wine this morning on line and came up against a new security measure: Put the first and third numbers of your PIN and the code sent to your phone in this box. I tried it 3 times, without success, and so told the bodega to send me the wine and a bill with their IBAN on it. I wonder if anyone else has faced this challenge and succeeded. 

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

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

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain

Where foreigners buy property in Spain. I had difficulty with the most frequent flag. It resembles Andorra’s but that struck me as very odd. Turns out to be Romania’s . .

Talking about maps . . . Looking at that of may barrio today, I noted there were said to be 2 pharmacies in my street. Whereas there certainly aren’t any. I guess they’re the registered offices of the owners. So, judging by the size of the houses, it must be a profitable line of business.

I was looking at the local map because Google doesn’t do the tracks in the forest behind my house and I’m trying to draw up my own map. Which, for the last 3 days, has meant tramping through mud at times up to my knees. And even falling into the stuff, and struggling to get up. Today I’ll return to see this, which has just become visible from the track below it because of tree cutting.

By the way, for speakers of Gallego, I believe it should be Choza, not Chozo. At least according to the dictionary of the Real Academia Galega.

The last 2 nights have seen power cuts in my house - as evidenced by the flashing clock lights on my hifi system. Because of all the rain? Or the storms which have brought it?

The widespread vaccine queue-jumping in Spain has reminded me of the importance here of the ‘personal factor’. Which leads to croneyism, of course.

María touches on this here: New Year Same Old: Days 30 & 31

The EU  

It seems a lot of people have belatedly realised the EU's incompetent leader(s) can't be voted out by a damaged electorate. As there isn't one. But quite possibly the current President will eventually be ousted by the national power-brokers, rather than by angry voters. Maybe falling on her sword.

Meanwhile, here’s the view of Ross Clark of The Times: Von der Leyen may yet be forced to resign, but the problem goes far deeper than that, to the democratic deficit at the heart of the EU. Von der Leyen is, in effect, the head of supra-national government and yet she is not accountable to voters; rather she was installed as a result of behind-the-scenes horse-trading between the larger EU member states. The European Commission’s constitution is a recipe for ending up with failed politicians who, though rejected by their own citizens, can rely on powerful friends to swing them an impressive retirement job.

And another view can be read in the brutal article below, from the influential German paper, Bild.

From memory, Spanish examples of the EU equivalent of the UK ploy of  'kicking incompetent politicians upstairs' to the House of Lords are Loyola de Palacio and José Manuel Garcia Margallo. Or 'motormouth' as I prefer to call him.

Right now, this looks like a very costly practice for EU citizens. Of which I'm one, of course. Sobering to read this morning I'd be getting the vaccine this week or next week in the UK. Here? Maybe April, too late for the birth in the UK of my latest grandchild.

The second article below if from a dedicated Brexiteer and so I guess he can be forgiven for making much of the moment. In triumphalist vein that British politicians are scrupulously - and correctly - avoiding.

The USA

Hey, ho.  Donald Trump’s entire legal team have walked out days before his impeachment trial - having refused to build the case around his baseless allegations that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. They had wanted to argue on the constitution doesn't permit the conviction of a president who's left office.

Another day, another team of 'highly respected' alternative lawyers. 

English

I used the word/phrase ‘hifi’ above but wonder if many younger folk will know it is.  All streamers now, it seems. No need for expensive machinery. Just for a highly expensive phone.

Finally . . . 

I've just noticed that today's date is a palindrome . . .

THE ARTICLES

1. Ursula von der Leyen’s mess has disgraced Europe: Peter Tiede, chief political reporter for Bild 

Oh, how we Germans made fun of those strange Brexit birds with the weird Euro-populist Boris Johnson at their head. Marching out of the EU. Ridiculous! Well, they’ll soon see what they’re left with. Without Europe. All alone.

Now we see it. All of us — 83 million Germans, and all of Europe — undersupplied with vaccines, left lagging behind not only the US and Canada but also Britain! Of all the people, it was Johnson who got it right: he ordered vaccines for the British in time, generously and sufficiently. In surplus!

And we? We have done everything wrong and are struggling with a vaccination disaster. Germany, of all countries! Industrial power, clever nation, kings of cleanliness and order. We screwed up. We ordered too little, too late. We were too stingy, too lame. As a result, Poland and Hungary are already wondering what on earth the EU is all about.

In Germany, vaccination appointments for the elderly have had to be cancelled, if they actually got any at all. There is chaos in the land of order. We are confused. Self-doubt leads to anger: we will not have vaccinated 70% of Germans before the autumn. And that is the best-case scenario.

This is devastating on a human level for the people who urgently need the vaccine and for those who will die because they did not get it in time. It’s also devastating on a political level: the US launched the biggest vaccine procurement programme in history last April and the UK started ordering soon after that. Johnson negotiated as tough as nails and paid well for them.

And what did the EU do? It created the biggest confidence-destroying programme in its history. On top of this, Brussels and the governments of the EU states have managed to confirm the old prejudice of a sluggish Europe. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, denies all blame. Whistling loudly in the dark and thus damaging even further any confidence in her ability to run the EU. Music to the ears of the populists and anti-democrats.

Von der Leyen started a dispute with the vaccine supplier Astrazeneca, which was supposed to look daredevilish but was just dumb. She has disgraced Europe.

As Germany’s defence minister, she had already failed miserably in the procurement of helicopters, aircraft and weapons. Angela Merkel ordered her away to the European Commission. Just as Europe has been doing for decades with its discarded political personnel: disposed of like nuclear waste in the final repository of Brussels. That is the story that Johnson has told the British again and again. He, the European populist. Now, we agree with him.

Worse still, Von der Leyen has either knowingly lied to 447 million Europeans or didn’t know what she was talking about. Both are intolerable.

The EU’s contract with Astrazeneca reveals that the commission negotiated badly and did not secure any binding rights. It did not do what it is supposed to do: take care of our Europe. And our 27 governments either did not intervene or intervened too late.

The contract with Astrazeneca and the vaccination disaster are a declaration of bankruptcy for Brussels, an indictment of the 27 member states. An insult for us Europeans and especially for convinced Europeans like me. And the fact that we in Germany can only vaccinate at a snail’s pace, that we are left behind by countries like Italy, Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, is our humiliation. Especially when we look at the island that once belonged to our EU.

It is embarrassing because now we are the fools.

A Chorus of condemnation

Germany Ursula von der Leyen is facing criticism across her native Germany, where the EU’s vaccine travails remind many observers of the numerous mishaps that occurred during her time in charge of the defence ministry.

Der Tagesspiegel, a Berlin daily, said Brussels’s refusal to own up to its mistakes was “jaw-dropping” and “bordered on shamelessness”. Bild accused Von der Leyen of either “lying to the faces of 447 million Europeans” about the bloc’s contract with Astrazeneca or being ignorant of its contents. Die Zeit, a pro-European weekly, described the vaccine debacle as the best present imaginable for Brexiteers, while Der Spiegel said it could turn out to be the “worst catastrophe of [Von der Leyen’s] political career”.

Austria Österreich, a tabloid, has derided the EU’s vaccination strategy as a “total disaster” and said Von der Leyen’s decision to antagonise the companies as “just about the stupidest thing you could do in this situation”. Niki Fellner, its editor-in-chief, called for her to be sidelined from the talks as soon as possible. “The EU should form a taskforce with three or four heads of government — in the best case, Merkel, Macron, Kurz [the Austrian chancellor] and Rutte [the Dutch prime minister] — who will take over these botched talks,” he wrote. “Or each EU member state should negotiate with the vaccine producers bilaterally.”

Hungary Budapest has turned east, unilaterally approving China’s Sinopharm vaccine. “If vaccines aren’t coming from Brussels, we must obtain them from elsewhere,” Viktor Orban, the nationalist prime minister, said. “It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.”

2. Europhiles have finally had their eyes opened to the hideous reality of the EU: In a display worthy of 1960s Nasserite dictators, over the last 72 hours Eurocrats have broken every norm of civilised behaviour: Daniel Hannan. Daily Telegraph.

Remainers were right. Brexit has indeed led to an outbreak of populism, protectionism and chauvinism. But not on the side of the Channel they expected. 

The EU’s behaviour over the past 72 hours has been so demented, so self-wounding, that it is hard to know where criticism should begin. 

Let’s start with the bare facts. Brussels is in dispute with AstraZeneca, the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company, over the late delivery of some Covid vaccines. For what it’s worth, the EU seems to have a staggeringly weak case. It published its contract with the firm but, far from being any kind of “gotcha”, that contract showed that AstraZeneca had simply promised to use its “reasonable best efforts” to fulfil the order, the same form of words it used with the UK, which also saw some late deliveries. The rights and wrongs of that dispute, though, are beside the point. The EU’s quarrel is with AstraZeneca, not with Britain.

In pursuit of its quarrel, Brussels announced plans to block the export of vaccines from a completely unrelated company, the American corporation Pfizer, to Britain – vaccines which no one disputed that the UK had purchased, and on which the EU did not pretend to have any legal claim. 

In other words, Brussels was threatening to halt the sale of life-saving drugs to a neighbouring country, not in response to any provocation, but simply because it was cross that that country was further advanced in its vaccination programme. 

It gets worse. In order to deflect criticism from its hopeless record in ordering vaccines, the European Commission aimed its law expressly at Britain. Its export ban did not apply to other neighbouring states, such as Iceland, Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Ukraine or Belarus. The only country in the vicinity to be targeted was the UK.

It gets worse still. To make sure that no vaccines could enter the UK, the Commission announced that it was excluding Northern Ireland from the single market arrangements which it had previously insisted were so critical to the peace process. Incredibly, it didn’t notify Britain or Ireland in advance, and its move united every party in Dublin and Belfast against it (as well, for that matter, as every party at Westminster except the SNP), eventually forcing it to back down. Still, a point was made – a point that cannot now be unmade. For four years, EU negotiators claimed that the merest possibility of a border in Ireland would risk a return to terrorism, and worked to convince the world that this was a risk that Britain was somehow prepared to run. Yet it took precisely 29 days before the EU itself announced such a border.

It gets even worse than that. Annoyed at Britain’s success, European leaders started casting doubt on the efficacy of the AstraZeneca product. Engaging in the kind of nuttiness which gets people banned from social media, Emmanuel Macron claimed that the vaccine “didn’t work”. In other words, the EU is breaking every norm of civilised behaviour and threatening expropriation over a vaccine which, from sheer sour grapes, its leaders claim is ineffective.

Let’s summarise. The European Commission elbowed aside its member states, which had begun their own procurement programmes, and insisted on negotiating en bloc for the 27. It moved slowly and bureaucratically, reportedly because it was holding out for vaccines produced by Continental firms. In the end, three months after Britain, it signed a contract with AstraZeneca similar to that which some of its nations had tried to sign earlier. As criticism mounted, it panicked and lashed out – smashing the principles of due process, private property and free trade in the process.

Eurocrats are behaving not so much like mini-Trumps as like 1960s Nasserite dictators. They are deliberately disrupting supply at the height of a pandemic. And their petulance, shockingly, is aimed at the only pharmaceutical company in the world which is high-mindedly offering the vaccine to all comers on a not-for-profit basis. 

The British government, like AstraZeneca, wants to spread the inoculation programme globally, reaching countries that can’t afford their own vaccines. This is the thanks we get.

For at least some British Remainers, the events of this week have served as what Western Communists used to call a “Kronstadt moment”. Kronstadt, the site of a naval mutiny against the Bolsheviks in 1921, became a shorthand for the moment when a previously loyal party member suddenly grasped the true nature of the Soviet regime. For some, it came with the 1956 Hungarian rising, for others the 1968 Prague Spring. For some, it never came at all. But it always involved a wrenching mental reset, a readiness to look again at old certainties.

Consider the assertions made by the two sides in the 2016 referendum. Eurosceptics argued that the EU was slow, introverted, bureaucratic, inefficient, ready to make up the rules as it went along, a bully and a bad neighbour. Europhiles saw it as principled, internationalist, effective, generous, rules-based and committed to global trade. If we treat those two views as verifiable claims, which has just been falsified? 

When Remainers, including Labour and Lib Dem MPs and every expert that the Guardian could wheel out, argued last year that Britain’s refusal to join in the EU’s procurement scheme would cause needless deaths here, they undoubtedly believed it. But it is Boris Johnson’s conviction that Brexit would mean a more agile Britain that turned out to be right.

More agile – and, I hope, more generous. It is a pity that, instead of quietly asking Britain to sell it some spare doses, the EU behaved so peevishly. But the UK should hold itself to a higher standard. Because of our successful procurement programme, we will end up with a vaccine surplus this year. We should use that surplus to benefit less well-stocked nations – our friends in the Commonwealth, naturally, but others, too. We might, for example, prioritise Ireland, to which every town in Britain has family connections. We might help our oldest ally, Portugal, currently experiencing a surge of infections. We should, in short, be the positive global force that the EU is failing to be.