Life in Culebrón

The current Spanish Government is a coalition between a slightly left of centre political party, the PSOE, and a much smaller and much further left party, Unidas Podemos. The other week the leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, a Government Vice President, said, a couple of times, that the democracy in Spain was flawed. As you may imagine this caused a bit of a fuss. Then, a couple of days later, a talentless rap artist was sent to jail for suggesting in his songs that terrorists were jolly nice and our King was jolly nasty. People protesting the incarceration took to the streets and did a bit of burning and looting whilst they were there. Podemos was mealy mouthed in its condemnation of the street violence.  My own opinion is that Spain has a bit of a problem with some aspects of democracy. For instance a woman, who tweeted some old jokes about about ETA, the Basque terrorists, blowing up the admiral Carrero Blanco in 1973, was sentenced to a year in prison (time that she would never...

I used to visit Spain as a tourist long before I lived here. Usually I'd just buy a plane ticket and then find a hotel/pension when I got to wherever. Travelling around was done by public transport.  I've always liked trains. For tourists cast adrift in a foreign land, they have the big advantage, over buses, of going to stations that have name plaques. Provided you know the name of the place you're going then it's just a case of being able to read. Of course this is long before trains, trams and buses began to speak or you could GPS track your position. Now Spain isn't bad at signing things but it isn't good either. Signs are apt to be missing when you most need them. Sometimes they are there but not obvious. They lurk. Not big enough. Not in your eyeline. Not right somehow. Once you get the hang of it they are more noticeable but that's when you don't need them. When you're in a hurry, flustered, weighed down by kilos of baggage etc., they never se...

My latest book is a political biography about the bloke who was President of Spain, on the losing side, in the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War. I heard it reviewed on a podcast I listen to. Normally, when I read or hear about a potential book to read I download a sample to my eBook or save it to a wants list so that, when the time comes to buy something, I have a few queued up ready to compare and contrast. Like all the books I read in Spanish I will forget the title and author. Spanish names just don't stick. I've often had conversations with Spaniards asking if I've read something. I deny all knowledge but then, as they describe the content, I have to admit that I have. I'd heard mention of a book by Benjamin Black on the Spanish radio; it was being offered as a competition prize. It turns out that Benjamin Black is a pen name for the Irish writer John Banville. I had never heard his name before yet I have no trouble at all remembering it. Why do I remember John Banville ju...

I bought some porridge oats the other day. The supermarket ones were missing from the shelf so I shelled out double the price for some branded ones, Oatabix. There was a label on the side of the packet. It was a bit like the label you get on electrical goods to show how energy efficient they are. The one on food is called Nutri-Score. I'd never seen it before but it's simple enough. Green is good, orangey yellows are okey dokey and red is a certain ticket to purgatory. Apparently the French invented the label using some UK Food Standards Agency scoring system. It uses seven indicators: energy (lots of calories) -bad, sugar -bad, saturated fats -bad, sodium -bad, fibre - good, protein - good. So far, so good. It's not that hard to see the sense. Obviously it's an oversimplification but that's the idea; to make it simple and fast. I think it's a good idea. Now, imagine you're Spanish and you think that the Mediterranean diet is the bee's knees even though ...

When I do my online Spanish classes I talk about things that have happened to me in Pinoso. One of my teachers is obviously quite taken with this bucolic existence. He seems particularly tickled by some of the names - the Angustias, Hilarios, Artemios, Pompilias and Laureanos, - but he also likes the little stories about the more mundane names, the Virginias, Remes, Juancos, Elsas and Enriques. I think it's the idea that, even as a complete outsider, I still use names to describe people. The plumber isn't the plumber he's Lucrecio and the optician is Elsa and the bloke who sells me gas is Quique. I was reminded of this by a literary reference to an esquela. An esquela tells you that someone has died. I occasionally hear an esquela on the local radio to say that Don or Doña such and such has died aged whatever and that the service will be at 11am this morning in such and such a church and that his or her family are upset. More commonly though I see a piece of A4 paper pasted...

I presume that Spaniards know what Coplas sound like. I don't really. No, let's be honest I don't at all. I know it's a sort of poetic metre and, having Googled it, I now know that the copla is a form with four verses and four lines in each verse. Coplas have a musical form too. Again, remembering that I am probably wrong, think of an overwrought Spanish waily sort of song and you probably have it. On the other hand you may be thinking of something a bit too Flamenco. Andalucia is the part of Spain that supplies nearly all the clichés - the frocks, the hats, the dancing, the horses, the sherry, the bulls etc. and a strong and regularly mimicked accent. I think coplas are Andaluz too. Not to let detail get in the way of a post there was a big, blousy woman called Lola Flores who was famous for singing coplas. I've half looked at a couple of videos and she does a lot of lifting her dress off the floor and stamping as she sings. Lola was famous for her performances on ...

Over the weekend the wind blew lots of branches off our fig trees and uprooted a two metre high aloe vera plant that I've never much cared for. It took me three trips with the wheelbarrow to haul the remains away. At least the wind means that it's not quite as cold. When we first bought the house one of the few good things about it was the tree lined drive. We still have the trees despite the sport practised by so many visiting vans and lorries of reversing in to them - usually serially. In fact, rather as you would expect, they are somewhat taller now than when we first moved in. I was listening to the two big pointy ones nearest the house creaking in the wind. Culebrón, like Skegness, can be bracing.  The tree alongside the house is at least 10 metres tall, a plumber warned us against it. Roots under the house, blocking up the drains, he threatened. The tree a bit further away, possibly a larch, is even taller and heavier. They probably won't blow over but they might. I c...

Here they are called Borrascas, I'm not sure what they are in English but something like storms or maybe Atlantic Lows. The storms that come in from the Atlantic and nowadays, just like hurricanes, have alternating and alphabetically arranged female and male names - Ana and Bertie, Charlotte and Derek. A little over a week ago Filomena, brought lots of snow which caused problems all over central Spain, particularly in Madrid, and low temperatures everywhere. When it gets cold, and more so when it gets hot, Spain uses more electric. This is not a great surprise. The nuclear power stations never go offline but all the other forms of electricity generation have ups and downs. You can't pull so much from wind turbines if there is no wind, the solar panels don't work so well at night and even the hydroelectric stations are affected by droughts and rainstorms. When all else fails the gas and oil fired power stations are brought on line. The power generated from these fossil fuel...

The dancer's dark eyes flashed. Arching her back she twisted her lithe body so that her brightly coloured dress, tight at the hips but loose below her knees, swirled around her mimicking the movement of her bright blue wrap. She stamped her feet, she clapped her hands and her olive coloured skin shone with a fine patina of sweat. Spanish cliché time. As real and yet as unreal as Morris Dancers outside the pub on the Village Green. I've just finished a book by a Spanish author. The basic premise is that her main character moves to London looking for work and ends up working in a bookshop where her life takes a turn for the better. It was an enjoyable, if slight, read, a bit like one of those US Christmas films where the hero rediscovers the joy and warmth of small town life. What struck me most about the book was that it was loaded with Spanish clichés about England and that it repeatedly and wantonly ascribed Spanish habits to Britons. One of the principle things, that turned u...

There are ways of doing things in Spain. If you want a lunch in a restaurant don't go in much before 2pm or after 4pm. If you go out drinking then, to fit in, you need to start on the spirits and mixer drinks after around 11pm. Drinking a hot drink whilst you eat food, with some leeway for breakfast toast and pastries, is tantamount to treason. Don't start filling your car with petrol or diesel before you've given someone the opportunity to come and do it for you as the majority of filling stations still have attended service. When your everyday doctor refers you to a specialist expect another appointment in the specialist department before you actually get to see the oncologist, cardiologist or whoever. In the bank or at the post office don't be too surprised if each person takes ten to fifteen minutes to get served (even if they are only buying stamps or paying a bill) and expect the employee behind the desk to look confused as they prod at the keyboard and stare in a...