At the Flicks

We're just back from the cinema in Petrer. Maggie persuaded me to see something with Meryl and Tommie Lee Jones. Big mistake as a film but always good to get out to the cinema.

Spanish cinemas are just like modern cinemas everywhere.* Ten, twelve, fourteen screens built alongside some shopping centre. Worldwide the building design is similar. Always the ticket office is placed so that people standing in the queue to pay get tangled up with the people grasping their tickets and those milling around the foyer looking for friends or returning from the outrageously overpriced drink, popcorn and pic 'n' mix stand. I suppose the new trend to combine the sales of tickets and snacks at the same counter will either exacerbate or improve that situation depending on your view.

There are still a few cinemas that are single screens with a slightly musty smell and two week old films. They're usually in small towns - we used to go to a great on in Ciudad Rodrigo - they're cheap, have normal sized bags of sweets and sell popcorn at reasonable prices. Their days are obviously numbered so if you are ever in Caravaca de la Cruz on a Monday evening take the opportunity. Their creaky floorboard theatre is a treat.

In a standard multiplex tickets cost around 7.50€ and on one of the duff days of the week, either Monday or Wednesday the cinemas usually knock a couple of euros off the standard price.

Films are generally either Hollywood or Spanish with TV company money. Very occasionally there is a European offering. You might expect a reasonable number of Latin American releases but generally they don't make it out of Madrid and Barcelona to the provinces. I suspect that has something to do with the generally negative feeling that Spanish people have about hearing Spanish spoken with Ecuadorian, Mexican, Chilean, Argentinian and other American accents.

Titles are strange. The Road, for instance was called "The Road (La Carretera)" using both the original title and a direct translation. The Sound of Music though translates as Smiles and Tears and the one we saw today "Hope Springs" came out as "If You Really Want To." I prefer the titles to be in Spanish because then I can say the words reasonably easily. Trying to produce the Spanish pronunciation for an English title is really hard.

There are almost no subtitled films outside the art house venues in the biggest cities. Films are dubbed. This is very strange if you know the actor's voice. Imagine Morgan Freeman speaking Spanish and not sounding at all like Morgan. Or "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow" but without Lauren Bacall. The voice actors who lip sync the Spanish voice versions of various stars usually stick with them through their career. So at the Madrid premiere of a new film there will be the voice star too - Michelle Jenner (English descent, Spanish born) was the voice of Hermione Granger in the first four Harry Potter films for instance. Ernesto Aura did Schwarzenegger for years. "Hasta la vista, baby" the line from Terminator 2 isn't quite so amusing for a Spanish audience and very few Spaniards know that Ernesto's "Sayonara, baby" was just for them.

One very strange side effect of this dubbing is when a Spanish star like Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas or Javier Bardem makes a film in English. They get dubbed back into Spanish for the Spanish market but not with their own voices. It must be very confusing for a Spanish person who knows what Penélope sounds like hearing her with someone else's voice. 

I should say that the newer digital film formats do allow a third option to subbing or dubbing which is playing a dual soundtrack. This allows the listener to choose between the original language or the dubbed language. I know of a cinema in Torrevieja where you can put on cordless headphones to listen to the Hollywood soundtrack whilst the general audience gets the dubbed version.

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*Obviously I've not been to cinemas everywhere but I have been to similar complexes in the USA, France, Portugal and Mexico so I'm willing to take the risk of guessing that they are all the same.

Busy doing nothing

When we are in Culebrón we don't do much. We avoid the cleaning. Eddie goes out to slaughter small animals but still demands lots of Whiskas. We usually catch up with our British pals and we luxuriate in a comfy sofa to watch the telly.

The Saturday morning ritual includes going into Pinoso where the one key job is checking our PO box at the the Post Office. We've done that today - Post Office, newsagent, supermarket, greengrocer and Chinese shop. About as ordinary and as boring as ordinary and boring could be.

Tasks done, arm stretching carrier bags dumped in the boot of the car we set out to get a cup of coffee. On the way we bumped into a couple of acquaintances who dance in one of the local folk groups - the Spanish may be halting but we nattered about cutbacks in medical services, incompetent politicians and life. Two hundred metres later it was Ernesto, the ex lorry driver, he supports Arsenal and asked, as he always does, for Maggie's football alleigances. She's Liverpool through and through and the 1971 Cup Final still rankles.

We finally got a clear run and headed to Oasis to have that coffee. The Uruguayan waiter was as pleasant as ever. Outside, in the warm sun Maggie commented how the dry and sweet smelling air of Pinoso was infinitely superior to the stickier and more industrial air of Cartagena.

Not at all bad.

August in Culebrón

These are the official weather figures for Pinoso in August.

The hottest day was the 10th of August when the temperature reached 44ºC. The coldest night was on the 5th when the temperature dropped to 14.5ªC.

Averaging out daytime highs and nightime lows the average temperature across the month was 27.6ºC.

There were 28 cloudless days and it only rained on the 30th when we got 19 litres per square metre.

Just a little post script. We're back in Cartagena now and the maximum minimum thermometer I left here shows a high of 32ºC and a low of 24ºC for all the days from early July to the end of August. That's quite different to Culebrón.