Elciego, Spain -
This is what insecure, sociopathic autocrats do. That is, in addition to murdering, injuring, and otherwise harming countless thousands of innocent people as Putin is doing right now in Ukraine and Franco did here in this country from the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s to his timely death in 1975.
These men are ruthless and cunning, but they and their fawning acolytes are often quite stupid and blinded by their ignorance, fears, hatreds, corruption, and innate opposition to pluralism. They expect people to fawn over them. In fact, they insist on it ... or else. They fawn over bloodier dictators than themselves, however, when doing so helps them. No depth is too low for these characters without an ounce of character.
And that’s why the sun also rises in Spain quite late. You see, pseudo-tough guy Franco wanted to kiss Hitler’s butt so he placed Madrid in the same time zone as Berlin seven decades ago in an effort to ingratiate himself with the Fuhrer. Despite being considerably further west than London, Spain remains one hour ahead of where it should be. They say it's always darkest before the dawn.
Image courtesy of Cra El Jalon