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
On the issue of returning to normal in the UK. . . . Many politicians fear being pulled up for calling for a herd immunity strategy last year, and they feel they have to make up for it by going for a zero-Covid strategy now. Despite the fact that - as with flu - it's unachievable. As I’ve said a few times, Covid responses have always had more to do with politics than anything else. And will go on doing so for a while yet. Not just in the UK, of course. Bureaucrats aren’t known for relinquishing control. And this is The Age of the Bureaucrat. Nowhere more so than in the EU. If technocrats can be considered bureaucrats. Which they surely can.
Cosas de España
Later than any reasonable person would have expected - and possibly stimulated by the plague of Frenchfolk coming here for Easter - Spain has imposed a Covid test requirement on those coming by land. I don’t know about boats but suspect not.
HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for this item on a ‘hippie’ village up near the León-Galicia border.
A couple of my neighbours are spatting about an issue I think I mentioned a while ago - not enough parking spaces in front of our houses. Which spotlights the question of whether one can park in front of a gate which, in theory, is used for garage access but which doesn't have on it an official No Parking sign(un Vado) rented from the local council. I was planning to raise this at the next meeting or our Comunidad but will now wait on events.
En passant, Spanish friends all felt it'd be a waste of time getting a community-wide 'agreement' not to park in front of each other's gates, as this would be ignored both by residents and their visitors. The only practical solution, they insisted, was to pay for a vado and then call the police, if it was ignored. Which might well be a valid view but not one which will ensure good neighbourly relations. But, then, neither does the current stand-off. And maybe I'm being too 'British'.
Talking of cultural norms . . . A friend who's recently begun to teach English privately has had her first taste of Spanish 'informality' - the failure to advise that the pupil won't be coming this week. This is so common an occurrence that tyros are always advised by experienced colleagues: If at all possible, get your money upfront and never give any back for lessons missed. And never compensate with a replacement lesson. The worst example of this lack of consideration/thought-less-ness happened to my daughter, when an excellent weekly pupil simply stopped coming after months of lessons, without saying anything at all. A high-level businessman, to boot. Whom you might have thought would have a degree of courtesy. But, anyway, one gets inured to it.
Cousas de Galiza
Maria's Tsunami: Days 55&56
Germany
It seems that the country’s poor vaccination performance is down to its excessive efficiency. Which I guess is counter-intuitive
France
Ambrose Evans Pritchard has harsh words to say about Macron, ending with The European political order as we know it may soon be over.
Quote of the Week
Vaccines were supposed to liberate us, not expand the surveillance state.
Finally . . .
Since November 2019 there's been a place in Madrid called La Pollería. Or 'The Prickery'* which sells phallic-shaped gofres, Now there's one in Valencia too. Ironically enough, very near Plaza de la Virgen.
*Or maybe 'The Cockery' . . . Pollo: Hen. Polla: Cockerel; Cock: Penis (in case you hadn't twigged).