If you've been to Spain you know how that one-dimensional bull stands sentinel over the roads and motorways of the country. If not, maybe you have friends – they may not actually be good friends – who have brought you back the mug with that black bull firmly astride the red and yellow (or gualda) of the Spanish flag.
The bull silhouette was designed by a bloke called Manolo Prieto for the Osborne company. For Spaniards, the name is pronounced a bit like "Osborni", and there is a vague irony in the fact that this unofficial, but instantly recognisable, symbol of Spain was designed to advertise the brandy of a company originally established by a Briton – Thomas Osborne Mann – in the 18th century. I suppose Prieto was influenced by the fascination that Spaniards have always had for bulls, from the Palaeolithic cave drawings in Altamira to Goya's 19th-century series of etchings depicting various bullfighting scenes. Or maybe he got the idea when he was bought one of those bullfighting posters, where his name appears as the big star, by the same sort of friends who bought you that mug!
Manolo never said he was fed up with the monster he had created, but he would have acknowledged, if he'd known who they were, that it's a bit like Slade being remembered for "Merry Xmas Everybody"and not for "Far Far Away". There was a time when everyone in Spain knew that Manolo Prieto had designed the bull, and that is what they would talk to him about at cocktail parties or when he was recognised in the street. Nobody ever talked to him about his other campaigns, or his book covers, even though those were nearly as famous in their day.
The bull first hit the streets in 1956. The silhouettes, placed on hillsides all over Spain, ranged from the original wooden ones, which were just four metres high, to metal ones measuring either seven or fourteen metres. They spread like wildfire throughout the land until there were around 500 of them dotted across the Spanish provinces. They originally had the words "Veterano Osborne" – the brandy they were advertising – blazoned across the sign, but, in 1988, legislation about roadside advertising meant that the words had to be removed or the bull signs taken down. By then, the signs did not need the words; everyone knew what they were advertising. In 1994, new regulations meant that the bulls would have to go, but there was a public outcry – long before Change.org or Instagram made it easy to whip up public opinion. There was debate in parliament, the Congress of Deputies, and the bulls were declared to be part of the country's cultural and artistic heritage and given stay of execution. Somebody must have appealed that, because the Supreme Court later ruled that, as, they (the bulls) had exceeded their initial advertising purpose and had been integrated into the landscape, they should remain for their aesthetic and cultural significance.
Strangely, I cannot tell you how many bulls are still out there. I am certain about the one just past the Monforte del Cid turn going down to Alicante, by Alenda Golf, because I saw it two days ago. I'm pretty sure that the strangely placed one, just outside Santa Pola on the salt flats, the one in the photo, is still there. Less than a month ago, the one just off the motorway near Benidorm remained in place as well, but, those aside, I rely on outside intelligence and, surprisingly, Google, Perplexity and Gemini do not know. They all tell me, repeatedly, that there were 92 still extant in 2022. I am not even sure if the one that became famous in the film Jamón, Jamón, which is near Peñalba, in Aragón, is still there.
Maybe it's a bit of a project for someone to go and count them?
