¡Olé! ¡Qué arte hija! ¡Arsa!

Last Saturday evening, we went over to Yecla to see a pre-selection concert for the Cante de las Minas flamenco competition which takes place in La Unión, near Cartagena.

La Unión, the town, has a strong tradition of Flamenco, the music more usually associated with gypsies and Andalucia. The link came about because La Unión, which mined lead and silver in Roman times, had a resurgence of mining activity in the mid-nineteenth century. With the liberalisation of certain laws and particularly with new technologies, the mines became potentially profitable for the first time in centuries. The mining industry needed workers. Starving peasants from Andalucia, particularly from Almeria province, saw the opportunity to escape the misery they were living in. They should have known better. Poor people always get it in the neck. They simply replaced the misery inflicted on them by the rich and uncaring farmers of Andalucia for more misery and hardship inflicted on them by rich and uncaring mine owners of Murcia. The miners started to sing songs about their woes in the style they knew, flamenco, and so the song type called Minera was born.

Flamenco has lots of different styles. They all sound the same to me, but if you find someone who actually understands the music, they will be able to clap out the different rhythms, the palos, by clapping, dando palmas, to styles with names like fandangos, tangos, bulerias, alegrias, and lots more.

Back in 1961, Esteban Bernal thought that with the decline of the mining industry, the flamenco style invented there was about to be lost forever. He decided to try to maintain the music by organising a competition for young talent. The competition includes the three main elements of flamenco - singing, el cante, playing, el toque, and dancing, el baile. Competitors for the semi-finals are chosen through a series of heats, like the one we went to in Yecla, and the singers, guitarists and dancers go on to perform in La Unión in the old Victorian-style market hall now dubbed la Catedral del Cante, The Cathedral of Song.

The festival Cante de las Minas, the Song of the Mines, takes place at the beginning of August, this year from 3rd to 12th. For the first four or five nights, there are concerts from established stars of flamenco, and then, from Wednesday on, there are three semi-finals with the big final on Saturday night. The big prize is only 6,000€, but there are prizes for the best this and that, so the actual winner may collect a reasonable amount from a variety of prizes. The real prize, though, is the publicity. Win Cante de las Minas or do well, and the offers of recording contracts or performances will almost certainly come rolling in.

We've been to performances by established stars, and we've done the semi-finals three or maybe four times. It's fascinating and boring in equal measure. If you think flamenco is tight spotty frocks and twirling hands to poppety little tunes then you'd probably be quite surprised by the performances and by the people involved. Tickets are best bought online before the night. The semi finals start at 10pm and go on till very late. When we go we try to be there a few minutes beforehand in order to find and settle into our plastic chairs. Despite our promptness the performance will start the habitual fifteen to twenty five minutes late. When it does get underway the singer will sing and the guitarist will play. I'm impressed. Twenty minutes in and I'm a bit bored. I can't understand the words, and the songs sound very similar (to me). We see someone dance, we see some guitarists, maybe there's a flamenco pianist. The hall is very, very hot. There's a lot of movement of people coming and going to their seats. My bum starts to ache, we're 90 minutes in, two hours. I'm bored to tears and in severe pain. We decide we'll stay till 1:00am or some other agreed time. Finally, we muster the courage to rise from our seats - perdona, gracias, permiso. We push past, we're out and the flamenco stops and we can enjoy the cool of the evening. We say how good it all was, we say how bored we were too. In the square outside the hall, the bars are doing a good trade in food and drink. Maybe we have a last drink before setting out on the 90-minute journey home.

Only the last time we were there did we realize that Spaniards get fed up with sitting on hard chairs in sweltering conditions too. They get a pass and pop outside for a beer or a snack then they go back in so they do their viewing and listening in stints. They don't try to tough it out. Even knowing that I suspect it's a bit unlikely that I'll be able to persuade my partner we should give it another try.

If you haven't done it though consider it. The tickets for the stars aren't cheap and the final usually sells out pretty fast but the semi-finals cost a bit under 16€ this year. Who knows you may fall in love with flamenco. They say people do.

Song of the mines

One of the problems with things starting late is that one never knows how late. Last night, well earlier today too, we went to see the final of probably the most famous flamenco competition in Spain, Cante de las Minas, in La Unión near Cartagena in Murcia. The competition has an overall winner and lots of other prizes based around the elements of singing, dancing, guitar and, new to us, other instruments. We've been to semi finals before and to concerts of established stars during the festival but this was the first time that we'd done the final.

So, a 10.00 p.m. start and we reckoned on about three hours for the event. We abandoned food in a bar because the service had been so terrible it left us with insufficient time to finish up and get into the hall for ten. We knew the start would be delayed, the usual for theatre and music is about twenty minutes, but you can't be sure. Some things do start on time. It's not common but they do.

Twenty minutes would have been good. The event got underway properly at about 10.30. People were still coming in from the street, at least we supposed they were, because the ushers were guiding them to their seats, at 11.30. Presumably they had decided against rushing their dinners. There was a constant procession of people moving around the concert hall going to and fro. Changing positions, moving to an unoccupied seat, having a chat with their neighbour - in nothing that could be described as hushed tones. Our chairs were hard and we had a terrible view. We should have joined the throng and walked around but we are British, and the original announcements had asked us to remain in our seats, so we did.

The programme showed 19 different performances from the various finalists. The singers and musicians did three or maybe four tunes in one go but the dancers did just one dance before going offstage. They came back to do a second number when they had recovered from their exertions and changed their clothes. By about 1.40 a.m. there were still six performances to go so, after a bit more than three hours, we were two thirds through. Maybe another long hour to go. Then of course there would be the judging time and the presentation ceremony. The YouTube video shows that it took twenty five minutes for the prize giving so I reckon that they must have gone on till at least four and maybe five in the morning. We weren't there. We were long gone. When we left we were offered a re-entry stamp which probably explains some of the constant movement. People, as bored as us, going outside to get a beer or a fag and then coming back. In our case though we weren't exactly local. We were an hour and a half from home so we said no to the stamp. As it was we didn't get back home till a little while before 3.30 a.m. by which time my contact lenses were really hurting. Fortunately the overall winner was a woman we saw sing rather than one of the people we missed. I didn't care much for her singing though.

Now I like Flamenco - well sort of, for a while and with a following wind. When I tell people about our experiences at La Unión I usually say that the first half an hour is great, that the second half hour is nice but the seat is beginning to get hard. By something like ninety minutes in there's that moving from cheek to cheek half hour to abate the pain and there always seems to be a problem with my watch running slowly. At about the two hour mark an unnecessary visit to the toilet to restart the circulation is always good. But finally it ends and you get to talk about the bits you liked.

I have a short attention span. It's one of the reasons I like festivals better than single band concerts - short sets, no encores and the possibility of moving from stage to stage. I'm really pleased that the newer albums, the LPs of old, are back to being about forty minutes long after that obsession with putting twenty or more tracks on each CD simply because the technology made it possible. I still remember with horror watching the Rolling Stones, in Barcelona I think, and they just went on and on and on until I'd lost the will to live. I was reminded of that last night!

Chara to Gandía

I never really took to La Unión the small town I lived in last year. One small plus though was that a local firm, operating under the Zafiro Tours franchise, organised day trips by coach.

The model was simple. An early morning start, a guide or guides to show us around before lunch then maybe a bit more visiting in the afternoon before the inevitable dribbling and snoring on the trip back to La Unión. The all in price was usually in the 30 to 40€ bracket.

The first time I did it I thought it would be a bit of a hoot going on a coach trip with a load of older Spaniards. I imagined myself chatting away whilst we gawped at this or that before troughing down on the local delicacy. It never quite matched my expectations. I was always a bit of an outsider but it wasn't because people were unwelcoming. More my fault than theirs.

The trips though were good. Interesting destinations and good guides. So I kept going. Obviously as I no longer live in La Unión the trips aren't much use to me now. However, it just so happened that today's trip to Gandía came pretty close to our house - well it passed through Alicante at least. With a bit of negotiation I persuaded Maggie to give it a go and I talked the coach people into picking us up en route.

The day was fine. The morning guide was pretty good but when a woman in our group broke her thigh bone in a fall one of our two guides had to go with her to the hospital. That left the remaining guide to cope with a group of around fifty people. That caused problems. People who were too far back to hear started to get bored and then to chat which made it difficult for other people.

Lunch wasn't great. We went to a big hotel in the part of Gandía on the coast. To call the food average would be generous. Maggie's broccoli was liquid enough to flow. The buffet style service also meant that we were able to choose a table on our own as were all the other affiliations of familiy and friends. So no new Spanish pals for the day.

The afternoon guide took us to see the Borja or Borgia Palace. If you're old, like me, you'll remember the series on the telly. All sex and poisoning.  The Borja's made their home in Gandía and they gave the world two popes and one saint in that time. Nonetheless our guide decided not to focus on the family and their doings. Her delivery was of the style "And on the left is a wall hanging made from silk and wool by the renowed Valencian artisan José de la Spiga Granja. It was produced in 1589 and depicts the exaltation of Saint Thomas." Reducing the extraordinary to the ordinary.

So it wasn't a huge success. I somehow suspect that even if I wanted to I wouldn't be able to persuade Maggie to go on another one.

Women don't sweat....

The building is an old Victorian indoor market - all cast iron columns and glass ceiling. The air conditioning was going full blast producing a background growl but if the aircon was at full tilt the hand held fans were going faster. Those fans make a distinctive sound as they furl, unfurl and flap and that sound was everywhere. The seats were relatively hard and relatively uncomfortable so there was a fair bit of shuffling. At least twenty official photographers wearing orange ribboned passes kept moving around crouching down like John Ford Indians dancing around the tribal fire with their tomahawks. Despite the fanning, despite the cooling system and despite the shuffling we all glistened.

On stage Estrella Morente was belting out flamenco songs. The name never goes without mention of her late great dad, Enrique Morente who went into a coma after an ulcer operation and died in 2010. She was there to sing in, and we were there to watch, a part of one of the most prestigious flamenco events of the year. It isn't held in the ancestral home of flamenco down in Andalucia nor in one of the big cities. The Cante de las Minas is held in the very ordinary, bordering on ugly, Murcian town of La Unión. I lived in La Union for about ten months so I can have an opinion.

I've mentioned this competition before so no extra details here but it was extra interesting this time. I like this event so I have a predisposition to go. I hadn't read the tickets or the advertising bumph very carefully. It said Estrella Morente and that was enough for me. I've heard her on the radio a few times and she had a song I liked in the Almadóvar film Volver - though it was Penélope Cruz who mouthed the song in the movie. Basically then I had no idea what I was going to see. I sort of expected crossover stuff - proper flamenco breezed up a bit. Like the stuff you get in almost any flamenco show in Spain but a lot classier. It wan't. To my untrained ear it sounded like a variation on the real stuff that the fat men in overtight suits wail out.

Maggie had arrived in Alicante airport from the UK at about a quarter past nine. The concert was at eleven and about 120 kilometres away so it was a bit of a dash. It was only when a woman in a long frock welcomed us to the concert that we realised the second half was going to be el Amor Brujo (the bewitched Love) by Manuel de Falla performed by the orchestra from a local private university. Originally the conductor was going to be Roque Baños, who is quite a famous writer of film scores, a chap who comes from Jumilla just down the road from us in Culebrón, but in the end Roque was doing something more important. I checked my tickets and yes it was all there. Clearly.

I don't care for Falla. I've tried honest. All that Three Cornered Hat and Nights in the Gardens of Spain stuff. It doesn't work for me.

Anyway so there we are shuffling and sweating and a bit surprised that we were watching a bunch of young people on stage producing classical music with Estrella doing the singing parts.

As we filed out into the square it was still only a bit short of two in the morning so we stopped to get a drink and a snack and we talked about the concert. We always talk about the things we go to see of course but usually it's a shortish conversation and this time it was much longer. I strongly suspect that it's not a concert we will forget easily.

Two sheds Jackson and landscapes

I was thinking, as I drove between La Unión and Culebrón, about what I could see out of the car. I decided it was family and friends. You get what you're given. Blood's thicker than water and all that. History and culture from hand to hand and gene to gene over the generations. Alfred and the cakes, 1066, Glorious Goodwood, Cornish cream teas, feet and inches, Ant and Dec. Your friends on the other hand you get to choose. No blood ties, no original shared history. Something you manufacture between yourselves. I watched the dusty, brown grey, scrubby lunar landscape, the almond groves and the vineyards pass by. I looked at the bright blue sky and I thought how lovely it all looked. In the beginning, when I first got to Alicante and Murcia I thought it looked desolate. The sort of place that John Wayne ate beans.

Maggie and I had a great time in my old MGB car driving around the Cotswolds. I thought the Cotswolds were amazing. When we saw Calendar Girls, when it was new and first at the cinema here dubbed into Spanish, I looked at those North Yorkshire landscapes and thought how stunning it all looked

I was reading a piece that turned up on the English language feed to my mobile phone so it was either El País in English or more likely the Spanish pages of the Guardian. The author was a Brit writing from Spain. He said that some survey had shown that expats living in sunny climes were less happy than people living in the British climate. He suggested that British refugees to Spain were likely to be a bit curmudgeonly anyway because most were dissatisfied and were looking for something better. His main thesis though was that what was great as a break for a couple of weeks didn't really match up in the long term. He likened it to some chap who celebrates Christmas every day. I didn't agree with him.

On Sunday evening at about 9.30 I went to get some cash from the bank machine in the main part of town. La Unión is not a pretty town. The chewing gum plastered onto the flagstones looked particularly disgusting and I worried that one of the several footballs being kicked around by small groups of young lads would get me in the head. I turned left into the High Street, I was in shirt sleeves, the town was lively with people. A churros and chocolate van was doing good trade.The comparison with Huntingdon High Street crossed my mind. I often enjoyed a swift pint in the George before the weekend was over during the Huntingdon years. I was rather pleased with myself for being in La Unión.

It's not a comparison. It's a bonus. I got lucky with my family. Some of my friends I've known for over 40 years.

Sixteen tons and a song

One of the chief reasons the Romans invaded Murcia near the present day Cartagena and La Unión was to sieze the silver mines. By 200AD the mines were, apparently, exhausted and fell into disuse but with the new technologies of the late 19th and early 20th Century the lead, silver zinc and iron ores became profitable once again.

Mines need miners; people willing to crawl down dark, dangerous, hot tunnels and hack away at the earth. In La Unión lots of those people came from the depressed rural south, from Andalucia. They brought their singing with them, the style we call Flamenco, and mixed it in with the local song.

They sang about their lives, particularly their lives in the mines.

When the mines closed for good the singing began to disappear so a local enthusiast decided to try to keep the music alive. The competition, el Cante de las Minas, the Song of the Mines, began back in 1961

The modern venue for the competition is one of those big old glass and steel market halls now converted into a performance space. The basic format is a competition for amateurs in three classes, one for singers, one for dancers and one for guitarists. The overall winner gets the Miner's Lamp trophy and, presumably, a crack at fame and fortune on the Flamenco circuit.

As well as the competition there are six days of Flamenco stars - we wondered about going to see Paco de Lucia but baulked at 45€ for the cheap seats. We did pay the 10€ to go to see day two of the competiton though. It was enjoyable in a sort of masochistic way. Three and a half hours of Flamenco without break. Squirming on the hard chairs, aware of aching this and itching that.

Apologies for the photos - long lens, high magnification, low light, moving targets - bad mix.