Nothing and nothing else

I haven't done anything very interesting for a while but that won't stop me.

I went to stand outside the Town Hall yesterday evening. Every first Friday of the month at 8pm - a reminder that violence against women needs to stop. I've done it a few times. Nobody notices but I should be there. Afterwards the group often puts on a film. I haven't been to that for ages but I did go last night. The film was called Frances Ha and it wasn't bad at all. The interesting thing was that it was introduced by a couple of young women who I think were still at school. They were speaking in Valenciano which means that I caught about as much as I would if I were in a Belshill pub late at night talking to an 80 year old local who was a boxing contender in his youth. The young women talked about similarities in style to Jim Jarmusch and Woody Allen, about the handheld camera movements and the framing of the scenes. I was impressed. I don't think the majority of the students I've encountered across the years would know who Jim Jarmusch is or be interested in finding out.

I spent a bit over six hours in Elda hospital the other day. The friend of a friend had a terrible stomach ache. The local health centre sent her by ambulance to the nearest big hospital and I met her and her partner there to do the Spanish. It's the fifth time I've been to Urgencias, A&E, in the time I've been here either as patient or companion. Everything followed the "normal" pattern, the one I've seen every time, stabilisation, admission, a first consultation with a doctor who decides a course of action in this case a bunch of tests. Then a bit of a wait. This time that became a longer wait. Then they needed the emergency bay and my couple had to wait with her wheeled bed parked in a corridor. The staff were grumbling and complaining about the situation but all that NHS, abandoned in the corridors, stuff came to mind. Not that there weren't a bundle of staff around all the time but it was a corridor.

I listen to a podcast called ¿Qué? done by a couple of people who work on the English edition of el País, a Spanish newspaper in the same class as The Guardian and the New York Times. The podcast is in English and they welcome feedback. I've tweeted them, I've emailed them. I've been mentioned in the podcast a couple of times. In fact I listen to a number of podcasts and several broadcast radio programmes. I sometimes comment on those too. Last week, when a Saturday morning programme was talking about punctuality I made some comment about the late running of Spanish TV. As they read the comment out the presenter said Chris has written again. It's the same with a few podcasts and radio shows, multiple responses, "Hi Chris, nice to know you're still listening". Twitter and Facebook and email and what not almost persuade you, one, that you, one, knows these people as real people rather than disembodied voices.

Pinoso against gender violence

The first Friday of every month the Pinoso Platform against Gender Violence "el Pinós contra la violencia de gènere" stages a silent protest on the steps of the Pinoso Town Hall. It's a low key event with a few tens of people turning up. There's a banner to stand behind and usually someone reads a poem or says a few words.

Someone told us tonight that it's been going on for nearly five years. I have to admit that I've only stood there on about six occasions.

More often than not there is a film shown afterwards with an appropriate theme.

Gender violence - attacks on women by their partners and ex-partners - is a recurring theme on Spanish current affairs programmes and news reports. Spain is not proud of its record on women's deaths. No death goes unreported. The 016 report and helpline is well publicised.

I had a look to see how the numbers compared between Spain, 47 million population. and the UK, population 64 million population.

In Spain from 2009 to present the worst year saw 73 women killed. The "normal" figure is in the mid fifties. Reports of "gender violence" are generally in the 120,00 to 130,000 range. 2015 was a "good" year with around 62,000 reports. 2016 has started badly - three women killed so far.

It was much, much more difficult to find similar statistics for the UK. I did get some reasonably consistent figures for UK deaths. 126 in 2012, 143 in 2013 and 150 in 2014. I didn't find any stats on official UK complaints/reports though there was lots of  horrible information based on surveys and estimates. The only figure I found was one that said there were 887,000 police interventions in 2013/14 in cases of domestic violence which I presume means reports of men attacking women.