Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*
Covid 19
The country with the world's strictest lockdown is now the worst for excess deaths - Peru. Which has taken over the top spot in the deaths per million table, from poor Belgium.
At the current growth rate, the USA will next month not only overtake Sweden but also Italy, the UK and Spain. Which the Democrats will surely make something of ahead of the November presidential election.
Pick the meat out of this research, from which the right-wing governments of the UK and the USA and the left wing government of Spain don't emerge well. A taster: In Spain and the USA, about three-quarters of government supporters say their country has handled the coronavirus well but in the UK, the figure is only just over half.
Living La Vida Loca in Spain and Galicia
Our Spanish tourists will all be leaving this this weekend. Normally, we'd see an influx of (Covid-bearing?) foreigners in September but I suspect not this year.
There are signs, though, that Camino numbers are slowly increasing. I might see 5-10 these days. Only a fraction of normal numbers, of course, but more than zero. I'm always tempted to tell them not to go across O Burgo bridge and up the through Lérez but, instead, to take what was a temporary but prettier route along the parallel river Gándara. But I usually don't, partly because it's no longer signposted.
Talking of signs . . . This one is at the top of the down-escalators at Pontevedra's train station.
A better English option would surely have been 'No Entry'. But why check with a native speakers when you can pay your cousin? Or yourself
Pontevedra's red light district . . . from left and right:-
María's Dystopian Times, Days 13 and 14.
The USA
That Republican Party convention . . .With less than 70 days to go before the presidential election, and a catastrophic health crisis that has spiralled out of control leaving 180,000 Americans dead, tens of millions out of work, and the lowest ever recorded GDP in Q2, a sense of delusion hovered over the White House ceremony. Both Mr Trump and Mr Biden have rightly agreed that this election is the most important one in decades. In the end, it will be a referendum on Mr Trump, and his ability to manage Covid-19 and the crises that have accompanied it.
This is somewhat less depressing. Fart on Genesis.
English
A new/rediscovered word: Flummery: 1. Meaningless or insincere flattery or conventions. 2. A sweet dish made with beaten eggs, milk, sugar, and flavourings. Origin: An early 17th century word denoting a dish made with oatmeal or wheatmeal boiled to a jelly. From the Welsh llymru; perhaps related to llymrig ‘soft, slippery’.
English/Spanish
Three more refranes:-
- You can't make bricks without straw: No se puede trabajar sin materia prima.
- You can't please everybody: Nunca llueve a gusto de todos.
- You can’t win them all: Palos porque bogas, palos porque no bogas.
Finally . . .
Canela (cinammon) is also good.
* A terrible book, by the way. Don't be tempted to buy it, unless you're a very religious Protestant.