Life in Culebrón

Artemio is a heavy set bloke who works for Pinoso Town Hall. Usually he has a big cigar clamped between his teeth. I'd prefer not to commit to giving him an age. He drives a Jeep which, he says, is much better than the Land Rover he used to have but, as you can see from the snap alongside, the Land Rover is still with the team. Artemio's  voice is raspy and, until the second or third sentence, when I tune in, I find him really difficult to understand. Artemio is the bloke you call if there is a water leak out in the street, or in our case, on the track. It's a 24 hour a day service. Should you ever need it the number is 656978410. If the leak is on the domestic side of the water meter then you need a plumber but if the leak is on the other side of the meter you call Artemio. Or rather you call his number. He's in charge of the team and he's not always the person who turns up. Most people expect that when they click the switch on the wall the electric light will co...

When I was a schoolboy I was told how the Vikings, the Saxons and the Normans were responsible for lots of English place names; things like  -thorpe from the Norse for a village, as in Mablethorpe, and  -ham is from the Saxon for the same thing, as in Birmingham. In 711AD North Africans invaded what is now Spain and they controlled at least part of the peninsula for the next 700 plus years. Obviously enough, during that time, they made their mark on the land and its people. In the Spanish language lots of words begin with "a" or "al". That's because the Arabic for "the" is "a" or "al".  Over times  the sound sort of fused - like the old advert,  Drinka Pinta Milka Day, or how, when I've finished this, I'll get a cuppa. If you know Spanish you'll be able to think of myriad words that begin in "a" like azúcar, almohada, albahaca or almirante. If you don't know Spanish think of some of the place names tha...