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
So, might is not right, after all. Germany has rowed back on its vaccination plans and will wait until after EU official regulatory approval on 29 December.
BUT: Stop-press: The European Union is to bring forward its meeting to approve the vaccine to next week amid public anger in Germany over the delay. The European Medicines Agency announced the move on Tuesday as Angela Merkel’s government faced a growing backlash over its insistence on waiting for EU approval. A leading German economist warned the delay could cost thousands of lives, and the country’s highest-selling newspaper asked “Why the hell don’t we start vaccinating and saving lives?”
Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain
Now that the ex king has 'exposed' his wrongdoing to the Hacienda and paid his fines and interest, they're going to treat him like what he is, just another citizen. They are going to take him to the cleaners.
I wrote yesterday of hash-dealing in the centre of Pontevedra the day before. A little later I wrote of the trail of 22 people for drug dealing in one of the gypsy settlements in my barrio of Poio. The 4 leaders, it's reported, are all women. Progress, then. But possibly only because their partners are already in the clink.
I've written of Galicia's feismo, or ugliness. I was reminded of it when looking out of the window in a café above our seafood market and seeing this scene:-
The blue building is the back of a pazo, or mansion, the magnificent facade of which opens onto a small and quiet square. The rear used to look over the medieval walls and then the river. But not now.
Here's María's Riding The Wave Days 31&32
The UK and` the EU
Oh, great: Brexit wrangling to go on for another 12 months, warns Theresa May's former adviser. The UK and EU, he says, will only feel like they are in a "completely different relationship" in 2022.
The USA
So Barr has gone, his earlier arse-licking not being enough in the final analysis. Wonder what his book will be called.
The Way of the World
After Google’s hour-long' outage' on Monday . . . Could this be one of those small indications of huge vulnerabilities that, looking back one day, we may see as so much more significant than (say) bickering about Brexit, but that we hardly noticed at the time? For “Google” read “any global IT network on which we’ve unwittingly come to depend”. Imagine if this happened to GPS. Planes might not literally drop from the skies but the disruption would be incalculable. Digital technology has stolen into the very heart of our lives, barely noticed. Monday’s outage was but a tremor of the potential shock.
Finally . . .
A very old English folk riddle. What is this?
Flour of England, fruit of Spain
Met together in a shower of rain.
Put in a bag, tied round with string,
If you'll tell me this riddle,
I'll give you a ring.
The answer: A plum pudding. But some think it's a reference to the (unpopular) marriage of Mary Tudor to Philip of Spain. They first met during torrential rain and Mary very publically sent Philip a ring, as a love(?) token. Take your pick. But watch out for the coin or ring in the Xmas pudding.
Talking of which . . . I was surprised to hear the words 'figgy pudding' in an episode of Family Guy last night. A medieval forerunner of plum pudding. But, then, Americans do often surprise me . .
* A terrible book, by the way. Don't be tempted to buy it, unless you're a very religious Protestant.