Life in Culebrón

There was an advert when we went to the cinema this afternoon for Coca Cola. It is about the people responsible for the success of Coke in Spain over the past 65 years. The funny thing in watching it was just how "Spanish" it looked. There is, for instance, a shot of a door with a polished aluminium door knob. The wood veneer, the colours, everything looks, and is, Spanish. It's the same with the men walking up the road in their fluorescent and grey overalls. I've seen those very same blokes getting the set meal in scores of restaurants in Spain. I've opened that door. So how did those Coca Cola people make the advert look so Spain? After all we live in Spain but I don't think that anyone could argue that our microcosm represents the totality of Spain. The very first time I went to Madrid I wasn't that impressed. There didn't seem to be anything notable in the Coliseum or Eiffel Tower "must see" mould. There were plenty of interesting b...

I was listening to a learn Spanish podcast called Notes in Spanish today. The podcast is produced by an Anglo Spanish couple Ben and Marina. They plan what they're going to talk about but the actual conversation is unscripted so that it's more spontaneous. Until this new series, which has just reached its third week, it's been a few years since they've produced any podcasts. I hadn't cared for the content of the first couple of these latest recordings but this one was much better. They were responding to the question as to whether Spain could still claim to be different from other European countries or whether it has been "globalized". They talked about how some of the symbols of everyday Spain are disappearing - for instance the way that family restaurants are being taken over by corporate hotel and catering groups. They chatted about the new transport solutions like Cabify (a company that uses chauffeured cars to provide an alternative to conve...

One of my shorter pals had relatives who were horny handed sons of toil. Generation upon generation of farmers. They lived, as I recall, on the edge of the English Lake District. When the Ordnance Survey began to mark scenic viewpoints on their one inch maps (my long term memory is still fine) suddenly lots of cars began to pull up at the top of the farm lane to have a look see. The family turned this to their benefit by setting up a stall selling fresh eggs. We were in Madrid for the weekend. We went on the AVE, the high speed train which, as usual, was on time both there and back. I only saw the indicated speed on the carriage displays once during the journey, a disappointing 296 kph. We stayed in some really nice hotel close to Alonso Martínez underground station. For some reason they gave us a junior suite with two washbasins, two tellies, a sofa and a king sized bed. Straight off the train we dumped the bags and walked across the road to the Reina Sofia Museum - well museo i...

Everyone knows that Brits in Spain wear socks with sandals, go bright red in the sun and swill beer. One of those conversational topics, designed generally to use comparatives in English, with students is about countries. We always agree that one difference is on the Tube. In London everyone keeps to themselves, reading or simply looking grim faced. In Madrid on the other hand the babble between passengers is drowned out only by the occasional impromptu musical jam session. I was in Madrid the last couple of days and I'm sad to report that everyone on the metro is now glued to their mobile phones. For business suits and skaters alike their thumbs are dancing across screens catching or killing things. Earphones are everywhere to block out the surrounding world. Mobile phones, the great leveller. Madrid looked very green too. Trees all over the place and that's without going anywhere near the Retiro. Busy of course but then, if you lived in Culebrón, most places would seem bu...

A normal looking car park.? I suppose it depends what you expect a car park to look like On a clear night we can watch the aeroplanes spiralling down towards Alicante airport some 55kms from Culebrón. Last night there were four or five, their lights twinkling, waiting their turn to land. It was a warm night, still close to 30ºC at around 10pm and I was sure that the new arrivals would be well pleased as they headed for their hotels or apartments on the coast. Beaches and sun, that's what they'd paid for and that's what they were going to get. We've just been on a bit of a jaunt ourselves. We had a shopping list of things to do. A couple of Royal Palaces, a provincial capital that I'd never visited before and a deep river valley that had won the " Best view in Spain " on a TV programme. Most of our destinations were vaguely within the circle of towns that circle Madrid though we also went a bit further North and East into the province of Soria. We ...