Warts and all

One Friday, ages ago, at the monthly few minutes of silence organised by the Plataforma El Pinós contra la violència de gènere I got talking to a couple. The bloke was a patent and trademark lawyer and he wanted to learn a bit of English.  We swapped phone numbers and later arranged to meet in a bar every week to speak to each other for a while in Castilian and for a while in English. Oh, and just in case your Valenciano is a bit rusty, a clumsy translation of the event would be The Pinoso Platform Against Gender Violence.

It's important here that I say Castilian or Castellano and not Spanish because there is no doubt that Jesús does not consider himself to be a Castilian; he's Valencian. He identifies as Catalan. At first that caused a bit of tension. He's really quite vehement in his nationalist views, but over the months it has become just one of those things that we are able to joke about. As he explains some Catalan point of view to me I am often reminded of that Clark Gable film where Mr. G ends up in a drinking match with the crew of a Russian patrol boat. Toasts along the lines of "Cheers, to Marconi, the inventor of radio", are countered with "Nostrovia, to Alexander Stepanovich Popov, who really invented radio".
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After 84 days of linguistic abstinence we will be meeting for a chat tomorrow.

It's strange about Spanish, the Castilian, world Spanish variety, not the localised Catalan Spanish. I often complain that my Spanish is crap. I use that word. It is. I make a mistake in every sentence – errors which I recognise a nanosecond after uttering them. I curse my mistakes and mentally self flagellate. Yet my Spanish is reasonably good, well it is for an old fat English bloke who doesn't mix much. I can listen to the radio, read a novel or a newspaper article and, given the opportunity, I'd be overjoyed to get back to the cinema and see a film dubbed into Spanish. I can't though listen to the radio, read that novel or newspaper article or watch that film as easily in Spanish as I can in English.

It could be interesting tomorrow. I have had even less reason to speak Spanish over the last twelve weeks than my pitiful usual and I'd be amazed if Jesús has kept up his English. I know he's been swotting for exams. I'm rather expecting a pidgin and morale sapping session. The chilled beer will though, I'm sure, be excellent.