Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*
Covid 19
A cold dose of reality? Let’s get real. No vaccine will work as if by magic, returning us to ‘normal’. See here.
The UK: Sounds familiar . . . A steep rise in new infections pushed daily recorded cases of coronavirus to almost 3,000 yesterday, a rise of more than 1,000 on Saturday. This has led to fears of an uncontrolled resurgence in the disease, driven in part by a growth among younger adults. Said someone wise: It's very hard to unpick the ‘why’ , and probably multiple reasons are contributing. A bigger question is ‘what do we do next in the UK?’”
Living La Vida Loca in Spain/Galicia
The disgraced ex-king . . . HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for this bit of recent news that says a lot about modern Spain: The spokeswoman for the right-wing PP party was fired last week by the party's leader, who said that no one in the PP will be allowed to criticise the actions nor seek explanations of Juan Carlos I, currently self-exiled to Abu Dhabi. Meanwhile, over 70 ex-ministers and senior figures have signed a letter in support of Juan Carlos. These include 'barons' from both the PP and the left-of-centre PSOE parties.
Is Cataluña to be the new Galicia? Or perhaps only the new Campo de Gibraltar?
Bull taunting we could all enjoy.
María's Dystopian Times, Day 23
The Way of the World
Some actress made more than a million dollars in 24 hours by offering revealing fotos of herself on a site for fans willing to pay for them. I suspect I'd get rather less.
Jessica Krug, an associate professor of history at George Washington University (GWU) lived for years under an assumed race and ethnicity until she disclosed the truth on September 3. Having assumed identities such as that of a Bronx-bred Afro-"boricua" (Afro-Puerto Rican), she wrote: “I have eschewed my lived experience as a white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City under various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim: first North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness." The editor-in-chief of RaceBaitr, a website where Krug had published articles, said she had only come forward with the revelation because her deception was about to be revealed. GWU said it was "looking into the situation".
Note that 'black' can/must now be 'Black' in some circumstances.
English/Spanish
Another 3 (less well-known?) refránes:-
- Abundance engenders disdainfulness: La abundancia mata gana.
- After dinner rest a while; after supper walk a mile: La comida a reposar; y la cena a pasear.
- A soft answer turneth away wrath: Cortesía de boca gana mucho a poca costa/Cortesía de boca mucho consigue y nada cuesta.
Finally . . .
Checking further on the word prenda, I somehow arrived a site for a store called Liverpool which offered sweatshirts at more than 1,000 dollars. I eventually discovered that the sign for the Mexican peso is the same as that for the UDS dollar . . .
* A terrible book, by the way. Don't be tempted to buy it, unless you're a very religious Protestant.