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'*
Note: To avoid a possible months-long lockdown in Madrid, my daughter and her 20 month old son have come to live with me in Galicia. So . . . My mornings - while she home-works - are no longer my own. If you’ve expected to date to be able to read my posts before midday, now is the time to suspend this anticipation . . .
A HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for one or two of today's items.
Covid
Is it really true that silk masks are the most effective? For reducing virus risk, of course. Not for attracting admirers.
Living La Vida Loca in Spain/Galicia
The New York Times: The incompetence of Spanish politicians can be as deadly as Covid-19. The citizens did their job, accepted the confinements and followed rules such as the use of masks. Politicians fought each other, broke promises and repeated the mistakes of the first wave of the virus. Richard Ford wasn't too impressed by Spanish politicians either.
The current left-of-centre government is trying to remove all references to Franco and his generals and ministers from Spanish life. In retaliation, the far right Vox party - with the support of the right wing PP party and the 'centrist' Ciudadanos party - is arranging for the names of Republican ministers of the 1920s and 30s to be removed from street names in Madrid. This tells you a lot about Spanish politics.
It’s clear that Spain - over the years - really hasn’t tried at all to solve ‘the Catalonian Question’, opines Lenox Napier. Correctly, as far as I can see.
Smack on the first day of autumn (21 September here in Spain), the chestnut seller re-appeared in Pontevedra's main square. Things can be very traditional here.
María's Falling Back chronicle Day 17
The USA
That (un)presidential 'debate' . . . The whole thing was a live re-enactment of social media wars: shouting over one another, refusing to listen or engage in nuanced debate, hurling insults and operating under the illusion that who shouts the loudest should be heard the most.
You'll recall Sacha Baron Cohen's 'breathtakingly offensive' mockumentary Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Well, now he's made another one about Trump’s achievements of the past 4 years. To be screened around the world days before the US election on November 3. Should be fun.
The Way of the World
‘Influencers’ are being paid by UK universities to plug degrees they never took, at places they never set foot in.
Finally . . .
Believe it or believe it not, there used to be a real ‘numbers person’ called Al Gorithmi. Really a 9th century Arabic mathematician called Al Khwarizmi.
* A terrible book, by the way. Don't be tempted to buy it, unless you're a very religious Protestant.