Life in Culebrón

I was hanging around in the Corte inglés in Alicante the other day. Corte Inglés is a big department store. Like all traditional retailers Corte Inglés has been having a hard time recently but they're still something of a Spanish institution. Anyway, Father Ted like, I, inadvertently, wandered into the women's underwear section. As I averted my eyes, I found myself gazing at small section dedicated to "traditional" clothes from Alicante. I was rather taken with the silk brocade waistcoats but not so much with the 190€ price tag on most of them. I've often wondered where people get their "traditional" clothes from so Corte Inglés was a bit of a surprise. Maybe all the branches in Provincial Capitals have a "traditional" section. I've asked of course and been variously told that some of the clothes are hired, that there are family heirlooms, that lots are made in family, that there are people who make a living by supplying the clothes and, fr...

In the 1970s I wore cheesecloth shirts and loons. I don't now. Looking back I shouldn't have then. In the film Beau Brummel, the one with Stewart Granger and Elizabeth Taylor, Beau caused a bit of a sensation when he appeared at court wearing full-length trousers rather than knee breeches and stockings. Watching the Pinoso Half Marathon it struck me that the competitors were wearing clothes that would have been outlandish at best, and scandalous at worst, not so long ago. Fashions change as they always have. If not I'd be dressed like Francis Drake or Somerset Maughan and Inditex and Primark would be customerless. Despite this constant change lots and lots of events in Spain feature something that we tend to call traditional dress. I was reminded of this when we went to see the start of a romería in Yecla the other day. There was no traditional costume there but it was something traditional, the repetitive, apparently unchanging ritual of rural, and not so rural, Spain. One...

Spain is full of fiestas. Fiesta is an idea that we foreigners living here begin to get a glimmer of but which most of us never quite understand fully. It's not just a street party or a carnival. A proper fiesta is based on traditions, sometimes traditions based on beliefs. Fiestas are a collective expression of a community; it's not about somebody organising something and other people watching. Fiestas are commonplace, often nearly ignored by locals yet usually loaded with symbolism in the clothes, dances, music, songs or other manifestations such as language and bonfires. Recognising, and altering, those symbols is something often passed from generation to generation. Fiestas are periodic and repetitive - with the same basic things happening year after year. There are, within towns and cities, fiestas and fiestas. Some are only fiestas in name because they were designed by tourist boards or trade associations. They don't fit the spirit of the definition above. They can ...

Here are some ramblings from this weekend. Once upon a time Pizza Express used to serve really good pizzas in interesting buildings. The person who launched the restaurant chain was a chap from Peterborough called Peter Boizot. One of his other ventures in the town was to try to restore the old Odeon Cinema to its former glory as a single screen venue. I've not been to Peterborough for ages but I have this vague recollection that the venture failed. People must prefer multi choice cinemas. Spain, like everywhere else, has multiplexes in amongst fast food franchises and out of town shopping centres. The big, single screen cinemas are a thing of the past. Youngish people, twenty somethings, I taught in Cartagena still talked nostalgically of the city centre cinemas so it can't be that long ago that they disappeared. Nowadays the old cinemas are gone, boarded up or used as retail outlets. Years ago, on holiday, I saw my first ever Rus Meyer film in a cinema in central Alic...