Diabetes, death and talking dogs

 We are starting along the N-420 in the mist of November 2024. It will pass and we be in the summer sun of the same year soon.  The N-420 begins 36km east of Cordoba and runs 803km to Tarragona.  It is another Five Things sort of a day, but in honour of Cervantes I will take my inspiration from his life, albeit in a barely related sort of way.

Cervantes was born in 1547.  That was the year of the Expedition to Mostaganem [me neither]. Count Martín Alonso Fernández de Córdoba Montemayor y Velasco, Viceroy of Navarra and Governor of Oran set out to take Mostaganem [NW Algerian coast]. Having fired 100 cannon shot at the place and learnt only 42 Ottoman troops were in the place he ordered a breach in the walls be assailed.  While successful at first, the defenders rallied and threw back the Spaniards. A relief force arrived and the Spanish withdrew.

Cervantes died in Madrid in 1616. It only became the capital of Spain in 1561, its central position being its main appeal.  At the time it only had about 20,000 inhabitants. By 1600 it had about 100,000 - suggesting the place smelt of damp plaster and the air was full of brick dust.

Cervantes was buried in the Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians. The Order was approved of by the Pope in 1198.  The Order was Reformed in the 16th century and the Barefoot Trinitarians was established in Valdepenas [in Ciudad Real Province] thanks to the work of St John Baptist of the Conception [1561-1613].

People have matched Cervantes symptoms to having diabetes. Spain has the second most diabetics in the EU - numbering 5.1 million. This may explain why you can get a decent number  of sugar-free sweets.  Britain take note!  About 10% of Spaniards have diabetes, compared to 9.9% in Italy and 8.2% in the UK.  https://idf.org/europe/our-network/our-members/spain/

Sigmund Freud claimed he learnt Spanish to read Cervantes in the original.   He was a bit keen on The Dialogue of the Dogs (El coloquio de los perros), in which two dogs, Cipión and Berganza, share their stories From 1871 to 1881, Freud and his chum Eduard Silberst wrote letters to each other, using the pen names Cipión and Berganza.

That’s it for the day.