Dawn

Dawn

Saturday, January 21, 2012

The New York Times has published a good article on the Galician wines which are much less well known than those made from the albariño grape. Specifically, the white wines made from the godello grape and the big, fruity reds made from the mencia grape. Of course, as it's an article on wine, you inevitably get prose like . . . "Yet Sorte O Soro has a shivery, lingering elegance, like the cold that settles over O Bolo when the sun sets."

Today's London Times picked up on the Newt Gingrich theme, via not one but two cartoons. The first featured two large newts each with the man's head, one labelled Flaccid and the other Erect. And the second had one newt talking to another and and making the point I made yesterday - I can't believe I'll ever see a newt in the White House. In fact, after a stellar performance this week, it seems that Gingrich is doing what no one thought possible and providing real competition to Mitt Romney.

In an article on the possible building of a runway in the Thames estuary, Simon Barnes made an interesting aside about vanity projects:- There comes a point in every political career when the politician feels an incontinent urge to leave a mark. Rather as rhinos build middens.

I was intrigued to see the by-line of a Guardian article today which claimed "Those who know about seafaring" will take pity on the wretched Captain Schettino. You can read the logic here.

Finally . . . There were 200 bagpipe players in Santiago today for the funeral of Manuel Fraga. You can see many of them here, in national dress.

And, in case you haven't heard it, here's some Galician gaita music. I wanted to give you the actual funeral performance but the link in the Voz de Galicia doesn't work.

The cognocsenti will have immediately identified the major difference between Galician and Scottish pipes; there's one less drone in the former.

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