Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain

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

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

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*  

Living La Vida Loca 

• Being rather more aggressive than their British oppos, our police have begun fining folk on the basis of a gamut of new - or re-visited - crimes. Though I do wonder if anyone has yet been done for smoking in public. If not, this might be because our police are engaged in getting ever-more efficient in fleecing motorists. Using their new mobile radar traps. Fines are way up, said the headline to this foto:-

• Which reminds me . . . When I was in The Netherlands, a long car journey would involve a constant speed limit of (a slightly irritating) 80kph, regardless of the roadside properties. Here in Poio yesterday, a short trip to and from a garden centres involved at least 10 changes in the limit. Perhaps someone in the town hall has a relative in the sign-writing business.
• A propos . . . There's more here on our corrupt ex-king. From a Spanish journalist in the NY Times. Extract: The same political class, business community and courtly press that draped a mantle of impunity over the king has come to his rescue. What should be a question of decency and accountability is instead a polarized debate for and against the monarchy. 
• David Jimenez is one of those nuisance journalists who questions the way things are done here, as in his last book on the media, El Director.      
• The abandoning of dogs has long been a feature of Spanish society, though I have to say I've rescued far fewer in the forest behind my house than years ago. Anyway, the numbers have (inevitably?) risen during the Covid crisis.  
• Maria has recognised that times are not merely abnormal but actually dystopian. Here's Day 1 of her new Chronicle. (I'd been wondering when the title would change . . .)    
• María mentions supermarkets . . . I went to mine at 8.30 last night and found the shelves totally empty of vegetables and of most fruit, and virtually so of meat. I hadn't realised until very late, of course, that it was a holiday today.

The UK

• The turning of the screw.  Fines of up to £3,200 for failure to wear a face-mask will be introduced as part of new curbs on risky behaviour. On-the-spot penalties of up to £10,000 will also be levied on the organisers of illegal parties.  But will they be applied? 

The USA

• Laughter is the best medicine. Though someone has suggested today that mocking Fart will only help him win in November  . . .  But as I doubt that many of his base read this blog, here’s Video 1 and here’s Video 2.     

The Way of the World/Quote of the Week 

• Effie Deans: I watched Tootsie when it came out in 1982. I am astonished by the change that has taken place since then. . . . Everybody smokes indoors. Men flirt with women, kiss them without asking permission or signing a consent form. Everyone in in the film is white. There are no gay characters, but homosexuality is mildly mocked. There are no disabled characters and no ethnic minorities at all apart from in the background. There is no political correctness whatsoever. This was a mainstream popular movie from 38 years ago, but it couldn’t be made today. It includes so many micro-aggressions that a snowflake would immediately become a snow drift and then melt in fury. It might as well be a film about the middle ages.  This is from this article on the much wider subject of identity.    

Finally . . .  

• It's said that a property owner is someone who's always coming out of a DIY/hardware store. Or, in my case, paying an endless succession of técnicos to deal with water leaks, dripping toilet cisterns, non-functioning doorbells and broken blinds. And that's just this month. I look forward to downsizing to a rented flat, where I can badger the landlord about attending to things like this. At his/her cost.
• A fascinating analysis of a famous Titian work.   

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