Hither and thither

I like to do things, to go places, to get out to Spain. To concerts, to parades, to fairs and fiestas, to restaurants and landmarks, to open days, exhibitions and guided walks. There always seems to be lots going on all over the place. I've never been quite able to decide whether this is because there are a lot of things on offer or because I've got into the habit of hunting them out. It may be a combination of both. It may also be because of where we happen to be based. Pinoso is surrounded by other towns and, as everywhere does things, the cumulative effect is impressive.

When we first got here there were a whole load of new cultural experiences to tap into. A lot of the information came from posters. It was both comical and frustrating that the posters often failed to give basic information - when or where - for instance. That's because the posters were a gentle reminder to a local audience. As the event hadn't changed in years, everyone who mattered, the locals, knew when, where, what, why and how. The posters weren't for bewildered foreigners. This was in the days when I used a bit of paper and a pen to remember the forthcoming events. Now I'm much more likely to take a photo of the poster. More usually though the information bypasses the poster and comes in a different way. Everywhere has a website, an Instagram account, a Facebook page or a WhatsApp channel. I've signed up to lots. Some of them are so prolific that I feel overwhelmed with the amount of information they pump out - Alicantelivemusic, for instance, sent me 12 Telegram messages yesterday. I do read them, well, not always, but generally. The alternative inertia might be an even more alarming alcoholic obesity achieved by never leaving my armchair in front of the telly.

Each week, well most weeks, I do a bit of a search. I have a long list of webpages, and especially Facebook pages, to check. I'm not particularly rigorous about the list; I skip some, I double up on others and there are reams of emails to check from concert promoters, festival organisers and any number of town hall tourist offices. The truth is it's deadly boring. It's painstaking and it's dull. I enter the events on my online Google calendar so they travel with me from laptop to mobile phone. I know, even as I one-fingeredly type the entries into my calendar, that I will never go to the Haydn concert, because it costs 35€ and it's on in Moraira, nor will I go to the new and up-and-coming band because they're on at eleven at night in a noisy club full of people fifty years younger than me. But, despite moaning, constantly, about what a pain it all is, every time I look through my photo albums and see some mad fiesta, the reminder of some guided tour we did, the incredible costumes, the photos of hundreds of people escorting or carrying on their shoulders a sumptuously dressed wooden doll kilometre after kilometre to some hillside chapel then I know that the search is a small price to pay for the experiences.

Just to give you some idea, this is the basic weekly checklist I start with: 

Pinoso, Alicante Telegram, El Buen Vigía Alicante, Trips in Murcia, Fundación Mediterránea, Fundación Paurides, Los secretos de la fachada, La Llotja, Paranimf Alicante, Eventos Murcia, Museo de la Universidad de Alicante, Turismo Región de Murcia, Bancatix Murcia, Teatro Romea, Gran Teatro, Teatro Chapi, Teatro Principal,Teatro Concha Segura, La Romana, Villena, ADDA, Yecla, Cigarreras, Agenda Cultural Alicante, Petrer, Elda, Monóvar, Jumilla, Teatro Vico, Elche, Aspe, Novelda, Alcoy, Sax, L'Escorxador, Facebook in general, and Instant ticket.

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If you don't know what I'm talking about, or you don't believe me, my photo albums are accessible at the top of the page. On PCs and laptops underneath the subheading about an old, fat man. On my Android mobile phone, the albums seem to be listed in a drop-down menu called home. Either way, they are clickable links named for the month and year.

Ars Gratia Artis

Luis Garcia Berlanga was a Valencian born, Spanish film director who made some 19 films between 1951 and 2002. He was born on 12 June 1921, 100 years ago give or take, and his centenary is being celebrated all over Spain through lots of screenings, exhibitions and new books. I went to see one of his films, el Verdugo, The Executioner, at the Fundación Paurides in Elda on Wednesday evening. 

Now Elda is our nearest large town so I know it reasonably well but I'd never heard of the Paurides Foundation. The bit of town it's in didn't seem particularly salubrious. The woman who dragged her three kids past me as I was locking the car gave me a very fierce look as though I didn't belong. I double checked that I'd locked up securely. Google maps, on my mobile, refused to speak and was almost invisible in the bright 7pm sun as I searched for the venue. I found it though. The Paurides Foundation turned out to be a neighbourhood based arts and culture centre with a nice little auditorium of about 60 seats and a maximum Covid audience of 30. There were about 20 of us there to see the film. The screening was free as were the film notes.

There was an intro from the bloke who seemed to be in charge which I think was mainly to give the latecomers time to arrive - Spaniards call it courtesy time, Brits call it lateness. I missed some of the little jokes in the film, not all of them, but I had no problem keeping up with the main plot line. I winced as the end of film discussion was hijacked by one of those blokes who is keen to prove that he knows more about the film/director than the organisers. All very much par for the course for any film club type event. With a bit of luck I'll be back next week for at least one of the other two titles they are showing.

What was most remarkable about this event was that it was completely unremarkable. As I was driving away, in my unscathed motor, I though how I've got used to there being quite a lot of free or inexpensive cultural events going on left right and centre in nearly all of the towns, large and small, round and about. Even here in Pinoso, a town of only 8,000 people, we have, from time to time, free concerts, cheap or free theatre, book launches, poetry and writing events, guided visits and almost anything else cultural you could think to shake a stick at. I've heard lots of complaints that arts and culture are underfunded and undervalued in Spain but I actually find the opposite. What I don't like is finding out, after the event, that I missed something I really would have liked to see. You have no idea how guiltily happy I was that Yo Yo Mar had been Covid cancelled in Alicante; imagine if I'd missed him because I didn't know he was on until after the date!!

See you in the usual place

I bought a book, second hand, from the Spanish Amazon site. The book is in Spanish but it was sold by a bookseller in the US, I think. It's called Plazas de España, Squares of Spain. I was rather expecting a version of a treatise on the architecture, development and use of the public square in Spain suitably dumbed down for a plebeian audience. It had a bit of that, in the introductory pages, but the bulk of the book is a selection of photos of some of the more impressive squares with one of those factual and instantly forgettable descriptions. "This square, built in a Rococo style with Neoclassical additions ordered by Carlos III, is one of the most ornate of all Spanish squares." It reminded me of some of the terrible guided visits we've been on - to your left a crucifix from 1752 inspired by Michael Angelo and, over the fireplace, a scene from the Battle of Lepanto painted by Plácido Francés y Pascual in 1871 - now if you'd follow me we'll move on to the onyx fireplace.

I looked at the pictures in the book, read the captions and parked it on the bookshelf next to James Herriot's Yorkshire so that it could get on with it's predestined role of collecting a thick layer of dust.

Squares though are very common here. In the same way that the UK is strewn with lovely green spaces and parks, places to play football or cricket, listen to the band or buy an ice cream Spain is littered with squares. Places to watch the world go by, places to meet people, the place for the weekly market, the annual fiesta, the outlet sale or the book fair. Spanish squares are open, public, spaces woven into the everyday life of most Spanish towns.

I know that there are squares all over the world. Trafalgar and Leicester Squares came to mind instantly. Not far behind I remembered Times, Red and Tienanmen and that enormous Zócalo in Mexico City. Come to think of it the car park behind the public baths in Elland, where I grew up, was called the Town Hall Square. But I think there is a difference. It's the way that the Spanish Plazas Mayores, whatever their name, are an everyday, a constant in Spanish life and not just a gathering point for pickpockets, nor for kissing strangers on New Year's Eve, to give your Easter blessing or to parade those ever so green shiny missiles.

The Spanish Plaza Mayor, the main square, the principal square is where you need to head to if you are looking for the old centre of town. The Town Hall is almost certainly there, partly due to an edict from the Catholic Monarchs in 1480, the ones who sponsored Columbus to go West. It's where the SatNav will take you if you give it nothing to work on except for the town name. If you don't have a TomTom or whatever the main square can be pinpointed by looking for the church tower. It'll probably be just next door. Civil and ecclesiastical power are usually close by in Spain.

I managed to cock up our going to the homage to Julian Bream concert in the Petrer Guitar Festival yesterday evening so I suggested we go and have a look at the Moors and Christians in Hondon de las Nieves instead. We didn't know quite where the parade would start but we headed for the square by the Town Hall, the Plaza de la Villa, and there it was.

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I've just realised that I wrote this same blog back in March. I bought the book because of the programme. But if I didn't remember then probably you didn't either and anyway you've read it all now so no going back!

Having fun

All the time we've been here and we've never been in Sax Castle before. It's only just down the road too, maybe 30 kilometres. We remedied that today with a theatralized visit. I saw the poster somewhere, sent an email and I was told to email back on a specific day as the visits were always oversubscribed. I did as I was told and got a couple of places. The story the players acted out was about the second Marquis of Villena taking possession of the lands around Sax Castle. When they were telling the story I realised that this particular Marqués de Villena was the one who lost the family the lands around Villena, another local town. He backed the wrong side at the time of the famous (in Spain) Catholic Monarchs, the ones who sent Columbus off to find some spices. There is still a Marqués de Villena, the twenty first. The eighth one set up an institution to protect the purity of the Spanish language which now produces the Spanish dictionary of reference. The Villenas are a bit like those Shakespeare characters - the Northumberlands, Gloucesters and Norfolks who are still very much there. It was a nice visit. The sun shone, the Spanish seemed easy enough and the price was right. It cost nothing. We were talking about that as we walked away. Lots of things, visits, theatre pieces, concerts and the like are free in Spain. Not all of them by any means but a significant number. Education for the masses and all that I suppose.

It's coming up to Easter. With my British hat on Easter was a few chocolate eggs and a long weekend with the Friday and Monday off work. Easter in Spain mobilises towns. Semana Santa, Holy Week, is a big thing. There are brotherhoods all over Spain who work all year to get themselves sorted out for Easter. Some of the parades are simply enormous. Last year I was in  a bar when the Foreign Legion, a famous Spanish regiment, were parading the Cristo de la Buena Muerte, the Christ of the Good Death, in Malaga. The volume on the telly was turned up and people stopped talking to watch.

Last night we went to something titled Incienso y Mantilla, Incense and Mantilla (those lacy shawls worn as headgear) at the theatre in Jumilla. I bought the tickets in the last week of January and even then there were no tickets left in the stalls. It was a complete sell out unlike the Karl Jenkins or the Chopin and Liszt concerts that we also bought tickets for at the same time. Now my knowledge of the Easter goings on is both limited and quite extensive. I've seen it a lot but, then again, I'm not Spanish, I'm not a Catholic and I'm not a believer. I know something of the brotherhoods, I know something about the various religious floats, some of the iconography and how things are organised. There are things though, like saetas, that I know but I don't know. The saeta is a religious song that gets sung during Semana Santa. If I hear one I know it's a saeta but I don't really know what they are. Then again I couldn't give you much of a low-down on Christmas Carols either.

Anyway, so we go to hear Joana Jiménez and her incense and mantilla thing at the theatre. The crowd were in raptures. Right from the start the cheering, the clapping the shouts of olé were in full flow. I've never seen roses actually thrown on to a stage before. Who takes roses to a theatre? Presumably that's why Tom Jones gets knickers. At one point the photo on the backdrop was a famous Easter carving, used in the processions in Seville, called the Jesús del Gran Poder literally Jesus of the Great Power. I was a bit surprised but I recognised the image. So did everyone else in the theatre because they cheered and applauded the photo! The singing and dancing wasn't really flamenco but, as most of we Britons think that long tight dresses, with flounces at the bottom, for the women and tight trousers and slicked back hair for the men, along with lots of tap dance type stamping, equals flamenco then it was flamenco. I have no idea how a knowledgeable Spaniard would name it.

Maggie said she took some people to see a house in Jumilla. She was along with a Spanish agent who had limited English. Maggie was telling the people that Jumilla has impressive Easter processions and the agent understood. He agreed. There are a lot of believers in Jumilla he said. We met some of them last night.