Life in Culebrón

I don't know if you're old enough to remember a short lived comedy series on the BBC called Fawlty Towers but, if you are, you will remember the waiter, Manuel, played by Andrew Sachs. Trading on the popularity of the Manuel character the BBC used Sachs as their guinea pig, a typical Spanish learner, for their beginner's series called Get by in Spanish. In one of the first lessons the word "adiós" was highlighted as a way to greet someone when you didn't have time to stop and speak. So, you see someone you know but you have to be somewhere else, you don't have time to exchange even the most desultory of conversations. You can't possibly simply look the other way or pretend to be inspecting the pavement so you use that one single word to greet, acknowledge and dismiss your friend, or acquaintance, as you speed on your way.  I think "adiós" as a greeting underpins the Spanish attitude to acknowledging other people. Imagine you have ended up in ...

I'm not particularly good with people. I'm not particularly outgoing. I'm terrible at remembering faces (well whole bodies come to that) and I can forget names within a couple of sentences of being introduced. The opening phrases of a greeting are usually banal, sometimes surreal and occasionally bizarre. Greetings take me by surprise. It would probably be better if I stayed at home with a good book. The other day some people that I do recognise on the streets, members of a Spanish family, had one of the older members die. I didn't know what the form was so I didn't do anything. I wondered about going to the tanatorio, I wondered about the mass but a mix of embarrassment, fear of speaking Spanish and my general diffidence meant that I did nothing. As ill luck would have it I bumped into one of the family a few days later. She greeted me, we did the two cheeks kissing, I failed to understand what she'd said to me, I failed to pass on my condolences and as she wal...