The Local lists ten things foreigners moving to Spain can’t help but pick up. I especially like this one:

Northern Europeans are used to living the majority of their lives under a haze of light drizzle, but it rains so seldom in most parts of Spain, a bit of precipitation is more than enough of a reason for Spaniards to cancel their plans to leave the house.

A new survey found 47% of Britons would favour having a final say on Brexit once the terms of the Britain’s departure are known, while 34% oppose reopening the question.

A mass protest gathering closer to a million people is held on Sunday in the Greek capital, where I am at the moment. The cause is the ongoing name conflict between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Local journalist Dina Liossi from the Virginia newspaper tells me that the conflict has strong religious and ethnic grounds because there are different orthodox approaches in the two countries and Macedonians are the largest ethnic group in Greece.

The protests also include slogans against parliamentarians who earn more than €7,000 a month while all others Greeks have been forced to save money, youth unemployment is sky high, and many educated people move to other EU countries.

Liossi states that representatives from all parties participate in the protests because it’s impossible not to. Everyone has some Macedonian in the family.

The neighbouring country consists of Slavic people who arrived in the ninth century from the north and have no connection with the Greek kingdom of Alexander the Great. The new republic north of the border has no cultural ties to the Greek Macedonians and the province in the north called Macedonia.

In the mass protest, people from all walks of life participate. The podium is shared by activists from civil society and the church. Uniformed militants participate in the protests.

The government leaders are still in charge of proposing a candidate for commission president, but on Wednesday, the parliament adopted a text which said that the parliament would veto any candidate that had not been a top candidate, Peter Teffer of the EU Observer reports.

I loved Girls and has really missed it. Unlike many who write for television, Dunham has this special talent for making real-life drama without extremities. Now she’s back, James Hibberd of Entertainment Weekly reports.

Another autocratic leader steps down. Good news!

When the tech nerds give up on dating apps, you know they suck. Drew Harwell of the Washington Post writes:

Kate Chan, a 30-year-old digital marketer in Silicon Valley, first approached dating apps with a blend of curiosity and hope that they’d help her find a great guy.

But after six months of dead-end mismatches with guys she thought were boring or work-obsessed, she has gone back to what she called “meeting the old-fashioned way”: without a screen. She now meets guys at do-it-yourself crafting meetups and her rock-climbing gym.

“I didn’t want to rely on the algorithms anymore,” she said. “When it comes down to it, I really have to see that person face to face, to get that intuition, that you don’t get in a digital way.”

A lethal case of trial and error.

Machiavelli’s example might be something worth consideration in the Swedish debate on NATO membership:

Antiochus went into Greece, being sent for by the Aetolians to drive out the Romans. He sent envoys to the Achaeans, who were friends of the Romans, exhorting them to remain neutral; and on the other hand the Romans urged them to take up arms. This question came to be discussed in the council of the Achaeans, where the legate of Antiochus urged them to stand neutral. To this the Roman legate answered: “As for that which has been said, that it is better and more advantageous for your state not to interfere in our war, nothing can be more erroneous; because by not interfering you will be left, without favour or consideration, the guerdon of the conqueror.” Thus it will always happen that he who is not your friend will demand your neutrality, whilst he who is your friend will entreat you to declare yourself with arms. And irresolute princes, to avoid present dangers, generally follow the neutral path, and are generally ruined. But when a prince declares himself gallantly in favour of one side, if the party with whom he allies himself conquers, although the victor may be powerful and may have him at his mercy, yet he is indebted to him, and there is established a bond of amity; and men are never so shameless as to become a monument of ingratitude by oppressing you. Victories after all are never so complete that the victor must not show some regard, especially to justice. But if he with whom you ally yourself loses, you may be sheltered by him, and whilst he is able he may aid you, and you become companions on a fortune that may rise again. (The Prince, Chapter XXI, Project Gutenberg, 2006.)

From The Economist:

The customs issue is bound up with another Brexit headache, averting a hard border with Ireland. The European Commission has released a draft legal text of the Article 50 withdrawal agreement, whose principles it hammered out with Britain in December. The paper spells out the fallback option for avoiding a border, which is to keep Northern Ireland in a customs union and in full alignment with single-market rules. The implication is that there might be a border in the Irish Sea, precisely the idea rejected by the Democratic Unionists, whose support Theresa May’s government relies on.