On fame

Maggie and I keep trying to learn Spanish and one of the methods we use is an intercambio. It means exchange and the idea is that we meet with a Spaniard or Spaniards who want to improve their English and are happy to help us improve our Spanish. We natter a bit in each language.

Anyway, we met with a young couple yesterday. He, César, works as a technician and cameraman for the local town television station and she, Esther, works as a presenter for a different local radio station, Radio Aspe.

We joked about her being famous as she does the morning 8-9 slot which is, presumably, an important time slot. It's not such a big leap is it. She sits in front of a microphone and says things, talks to people, introduces music etc. and pushes buttons on a computer screen to make the technical stuff happen and she's not very famous at all.

I suppose Terry Wogan does more or less the same thing and he's dead famous, or at least he used to be when I lived in the UK. I suppose all the famous journalists, TV presenters, actors etc. start small and get noticed or not in time.

About as exciting as it gets

I forgot to renew my library book yesterday so I popped in today to return the book ready to pay the overdue fine for one day. "No, it's not overdue said the librarian, I saw you hadn't renewed it so I did it for you." How's that for service?

High Noon, Culebrón

Our village isn't exactly a hotbed of activity. This is the main street at about 2.30pm. True it's a Bank Holiday Monday but it looks like this at rush hour too. We were on our way to get lunch from Eduardo's Restaurant; they're the buildings on the right.

Not the stuff for your boots

I've just watched this weeks episode of Desperate Housewives on the tele, on La Primera or TVE1 to be precise.

RTVE is the State broadcaster. They run two TV channels La Primera and La Dos, TVE2. There is an almost direct comparison between TVE1, TVE2 and BBC1/BBC2, except for the ads. Like the BBC, RTVE also operate a series of Radio stations. Radio 1 is a mixed talk station, Radio 3 is a strange pop station full of music from Mali, Radio 5 is a rolling news channel jammed with soft features and reported news but with nothing in the way of hard interviewing or critical analysis. There's a Classical station too.

Anyway I digress. I was thinking about dubbing when I started.

Back in Franco's time all foreign films and TV programmes were dubbed. The main reason for this was to cut out anything that didn't fit the politics of the time. If a film was a bit foul mouthed, or left leaning or too liberal then a quick rewrite of the script sorted that problem and whatever the voice actors said was what the Spanish public heard. There was also the more immediate problem that a lot of the Spanish population couldn't read anyway so subtitles would have been a bit tricky. A nice little spin off was that the dubbing industry produced quite a few jobs. So Spaniards got used to having their films and their TV dubbed and they still expect it.

There are a few "Original Version, subtitled" films to be seen at the pictures but they are not very popular except in some of the major cities. This makes it quite an odd experience going to the pictures. Imagine Jack Nicholson without that "aaahh" or Judi Dench without the clipped vowels - it just doesn't sound right. So whilst I may manage to follow the plot of a dubbed Spanish film I miss the voices of the people I know.

Now Desparate Housewives and Lost started in the UK after I'd left so I didn't know what the characters sounded like. I watched them on tele and I associated the characters with Spanish voices. I enjoyed both series.

DVDs of US and English language films come with the original soundtrack as well as the dubbed one and all the variations of subtitles etc. So, when Maggie got the boxed set of Desparate Housewives as a gift or when we borrowed Lost I was looking forward to the original voices being so much better and so much more in tune with the personalities. To be honest I was disappointed; I'd got used to the Spanish dubbed voices and the American sounded a bit wrong somehow.

Monte Sal

Monte Sal, Salt Mountain, is one of the highest hills in and around Pinoso. Apparently someone pumps fresh water down into the ground where it dissolves the rock salt. They then pump the brine out of the ground and send it, via a pipeline, to the coastal town of Torrevieja for procesing. The picture shows one of the well heads.

Of Madrid and mortality

We went up to Madrid for the weekend with a few of Maggie's teacher pals. We went by train, stayed in cheap digs, drank far too much in expensive bars, took in a couple of exhibitions and generally soaked up a bit of Madrid street life.

Maggie has a real soft spot for Madrid, as she lived there for three years, but I never think of it as one of Europe's outstanding cities. The weather wasn't that great (we were forced to sit out one hail shower in the bar of the restaurant we were just leaving), we were a bit disorganised and tended to drift a bit but we still managed to have a decent enough time.

When I got home an old pal, someone I've more or less lost touch with, had sent me an email to say that his sister had died of a brain tumour. She and I stepped out when we were both younger. Sobering and horrid to think that she will get no older.

Lifesaver

This is a Eurocard. It's one of many telephone calling cards I can buy here in Spain. I think you can get something similar in Tesco's.

By dialling lots of code numbers it's possible to make a phone call using, what I suspect, is voice via internet technology. I have to pay 6€ for the card and from the first time I use it I have up to 800 minutes call time from my own phone or 45 minutes from a call box and 45 days before it expires. In the call box there are no other charges but from my home phone the call also has to be paid for at the equivalent of the lo-cost call rate in the UK.

When the car was broken into, when I first got here, and I had to spend nearly 50 hours on the phone this card saved me a fortune. The best thing about it though is that it allows me to keep in touch with pals back in the UK at a reasonable cost and without all that rigmarole involved with computer based phone calls.

Hallelujah! Christ is risen, pass the beer!

We saw the last of the Easter precessions in Pinoso today. The various groups had all dispensed with the pointy hats and this time the parade was in daylight so the snaps are a bit better.

One excellent thing about Easter Sunday from my point of view is that I've not been drinking alcohol for the whole of Lent (I'm sure one can of Heineken doesn't count!) The aim was to prove to myself that I'm not alcohol dependant. Good job, well done; now to go and see if I can cram 40 days drinking into one!

I'm just popping down the bodega for some wine luv

It perhaps sounds a bit more romantic than heading off for Tesco's or popping down the offy but the truth is that most of our local bodegas are a bit dreary and their general aspect is definitely agricultural industrial.

Take our local bodega, Bodega Brotons, actually in the village of Culebrón. One of the brothers who owns it, Roberto, is usually around and he's very pleasant with us but the bit of the Bodega we go in is quite dark, smells a bit musty and simply has four or five bulk storage tanks and a bunch of industrial shelving for the bottled stuff.

There is usually a pyramid of wine in five litre plastic containers by each of the bulk tanks but if there isn't they will just fill a container through a rubber hose from the tank. Indeed you can save yourself 50 centimos from the price of 5 litres by taking your own conatiner; most of the locals use old water bottles of varying sizes. Five litres of Dormilon, with container, costs a staggering 5.35€. As you might imagine plastic bottles and rubber hoses all help to maintain the mystique of fine wine served in perfect conditions.

That said, most of our visitors really like the Culebrón Merlot and when we tell Spanish people where we live thir first comment is usually "good wine - very strong". Thanks to the demands of the US Military, you can check out what the bodega has on offer, and their English, at www.vinosculebron.com

Our bodega is a bit different to most of the others in that it produces olive oil and lots of people refer to it as an oil press rather than a winery. Within a radius of say five miles there are a couple of bodegas in Maña, the co-operative bodega in Pinoso, one out at Rodriguillo and one out towards Cañada del Trigo. There are lots more in every direction epecially out towards the wine town of Jumilla and of course the predominant scenery around here is vineyards.

It's hard not to think of burning crosses and lynchings

All over Spain Holy Week is celebrated with processions. In general associations, usually called Cofradrias or Hermandades, parade through the streets. Each one has a particular costume and is related to a saint or some such. They walk at a snails pace rocking from foot to foot in time to a drumbeat provided by a cornet and drum band. The groups carry, or wheel, statues of their Saint or Jesus or some other Christian symbol through the streets moving it from somewhere to the local church. The majority wear pointed hats, capuchones, or more correctly capirotes and that's why they look like the KKK. I presume that the mask is to hide their identity and a show of humility.

We have processions every night in Pinoso and the whole town seems to be out to either parade or watch. Fortunately, as with all things Spanish, the Spaniards are irrepresible. So although they shuffle along in a solemn and dignified way they occasionally throw back their face masks to greet their friends as they pass them by. The children are dressed up too down to the babies in the pushchairs and as the procession passes by the participants delve deep inside their robes and pull out handfuls of sweets to hand out to the bystanders.

One of the features of the Pinoso set up is a group called Centuria Romana who base their costume on the Roman soldiers from the film The Robe. They parade solemnly with the rest but when the parade gets to the town square they suddenly become all showbiz and do a bit of formation marching.

Is this one OK Claire?

When we were in Altea with our chums I took a fair few photos. Claire said I wasn't to put any horrid photos of her on the Blog. Claire's not the one in shorts, that's Maggie. John is the one with the hat.