Saying nothing

Two or three people have expressed surprise that I haven't written anything about Catalonia. There are a couple of reasons. One is that, in general, this blog is about what happens to us, the things we experience, and, apart from a couple of conversations and listening to the radio or watching the telly, I have no direct experience of what's happening in Catalonia. I also have to admit to having had a couple of disagreeable experiences in Catalonia, because I was a foreigner, and I am probably a touch anti Catalan. That's not a good starting point for a post.

To some tiny degree there is a bit of a reflection of Catalonia in the region in which I live, in Valencia. Valenciano, the local language, and Catalan are similar enough that if I use the Catalan version of Google translate on any items written in Valenciano the translation is at least as good as it is from Spanish to English. Lots of the sources of information I use are turning more and more to Valenciano. I've tried, and I continue to try, to learn Spanish to fit in to my adopted home and I sometimes feel that someone is trying to take that possibility away from me. Going into a restaurant in Barcelona the only menu they were willing offer was in Catalan. The restaurant was saying quite clearly that non Catalans were unwelcome. We took the hint and left. My local town hall producing a magazine or an event programme in Valenciano transmits the same message.

Catalonia was a stronghold for the Republic in the Spanish Civil war and Franco made sure that the Catalans paid for that for the rest of his life. Grandparents who were involved, parents who remembered and today's younger generations of Catalans were shaped by that repression. The feeling in Barcelona that Madrid has it in for them was, and is, a constant in daily life.

Politics in Catalonia for the last several years has been a shifting ground of political parties with the same faces but changing party names. There was an earlier referendum in 2014. That process ran into legal problems, a stand off between the central and local government. As a result of that failed referendum regional elections were held with the clear intention of showing that there was popular support for independence. The politicians who had fomented the referendum lost ground. The only way they were able to form a regional government was to form a coalition. One of the demands of a political group, usually described as anti system, to enter into that coalition was that the old president, Artur Mas should go. His successor was Carles Puigedemont. The main election pledge of the coalition was to hold a referendum and that's what they just did.

There was plenty of opposition to holding the referendum within the various political parties in Catalonia. Several normal procedures were set aside or ignored completely to get to the point where the regional parliament approved the legislation to hold the referendum. Basically the coalition bludgeoned the legislation through. Democracy gave way to expediency. However it was going to be done there was going to be a referendum and that was obvious to anybody.

Spain is basically a federal country. Local regions have lots of devolved powers in things like education, health, transport and lots, lots more. The central government has a hand in everything but it's only in areas like defence and foreign policy where the regions don't have a say. Some regions have more devolved powers than others and Catalonia is one of the regions where nearly everything is under local control. That's why, for instance, there is a separate police force in Catalonia - the Mossos d'Esquadra. The boss of the Mossos has been accused of sedition by the National Court.

So, the Catalan government has said that it's going to hold a referendum. The response of the central government is to say "You can't do that." There were some very half hearted attempts at doing what politicians do, which is to talk, but the Catalan elite said they were only willing to talk about the when and how of the referendum. Instead of finding a way to talk all that President Rajoy and his pals did was to sulk in the corner and repeat over and over again that it was illegal, unconstitutional etc., etc. For years as the process dragged along the central government stuck to that line. Basically they did what we in the trade call bugger all. The other major political parties weren't much help either - one day this, the next day that. As the referendum started to take shape the Government response was to ask the courts to decide. The courts said the referendum was illegal because it was unconstitutional. The courts used their powers, to thwart the illegal referendum. Judges don't go out to sort out the problems on the street. They send the police. Anyone with half a brain could see what was going to happen as boat loads of police from all over Spain were shipped in to stop the referendum. Exactly the same as when police are deployed to protect a G8 conference or a World Trade Organisation summit. The protestors push and shove and shout and throw stones or burn cars or whatever and eventually some police officer or some police commander loses it and answers stones with rubber bullets. Policemen are given big sticks and body armour for a reason and wire meshes aren't put onto police vans to make them easier to drive.

Up to a point then we have a conflict between two groups of politicians. But, as the referendum got closer it all became much more personal. Lots of Catalan towns have local administrations that do not support the ruling coalition. The mayors said they would not open up their buildings for the vote. Supporters of the vote harassed the mayors and their families. There was a telephone campaign to persuade people to vote and people who said they were not in favour of the vote were verbally harangued on the phone. It became the usual round of graffiti, slashed tyres, children told about their traitorous parents. All you have to do is to think about the things that people who identify themselves with one tribe or another, from football fans to terrorist organisations, do to other tribes to know what happened, and is happening, in Catalonia. Well except for deaths, I'm not aware of any deaths yet.

The vote itself of course was a complete democratic fiasco. Almost none of the usual controls to ensure that a vote is fair were in place. Votes were not secret and it was unsafe to attempt to vote no. Anyway the "no" voters simply stayed away. For anyone to suggest that over 90% of Catalans support independence is sheer nonsense. Surveys and polls suggest about 45% of Catalans are in favour of independence but something over 70% want a binding referendum. Eventually, of course, the police waded in and afterwards the Catalan government said that hundreds had been injured. We all saw the violence on telly but how many people were injured is moot. If some Guardia Civil whacks you over the head with a big stick that's one thing but if you become exhausted or hurt in the pushing and shoving, the advances and retreats of an angry crowd that's something different. I have read that just four people were hospitalised after the violence. Either way facts and emotions are different things. Police hitting people with sticks is bad. It's bad press too. It suggests a repressed group kept down by bully boys.

But here's the personal bit. In one of the earlier blogs about corruption I suggested that one of the reasons for so much political corruption in Spain is because of the everyday small scale corruption of Spanish society. The bills without VAT, the wages paid cash in hand etc. There is a parallel in the way that you can appeal or complain to the authorities. For instance, we have been overcharged by several hundred euros in our rates bill. I sent in my appeal about seven months ago and nothing has happened. I can't get an answer. I made a suggestion to the local town hall about the junction near our house using the official process. The response? - none whatsoever. Some pals were charged a tax on the profit on the sale of their house despite actually losing money. The tax is illegal but they were told by a solicitor that it was a waste of time taking it to court. Other friends were mis-sold dodgy shares by a bank and had a hell of a job getting anything back. A couple of years after we first arrived here there was a scandal about a pyramid selling scheme based on stamps and that case is, only now, going through the courts. There is a freedom of information act here but when I tried to ask a public radio station for its policy they simply didn't reply and the ombudsman said it was nothing to do with her. When I tried to ask the interior ministry why Guardia Civil don't wear seat belts in their cars I was told that the will of the people was delegated to central government and that it was not my place to ask such a question.

Britons living in Spain often complain about the bureaucracy. One reason is that when you move from one country to another there is an avalanche of things to be done from identity documents to bank accounts. My personal view is that Spanish bureaucracy isn't that different from bureaucracy anywhere. The problem in Spain comes when something doesn't go to plan because there seems to be naff all you can do about it. Not answering is a remarkably effective technique for making a problem go away.

The Catalans want some changes and they didn't get any answers either. In my opinion it's not surprising that they chose a radical approach. When the King spoke on telly the other night he said that there were democratic means open to the Catalans to express their views. I think he's wrong. He seems like a nice enough bloke, for a king, but my guess is that he normally gets answers if he asks a question. Getting redress, getting answers in Spain for ordinary people is often a tortuous process.

As I said at the start of this I'm a little anti Catalan but if I'd been there on Sunday, and the streets had been flooded with booted and suited police, I may well have been angry enough to go out and vote too.

There's nowt on t' telly

I was just on the phone to my mum. She told me her news. And what have you been up to she asked. Nothing much I said, a bit of gardening, a bit of preparation for my classes. Oh, and I've seen four concerts and I've visited the largest quarry in Europe and been on a bodega tour. I could have listed the things that I've missed too.

When I went to see the Excitements at the Yecla Jazz Festival last night I could have gone to a homage to the poet Miguel Hernandez in Pinoso instead, When I went to see Viva Suecia last Friday I could have chosen to  stay in Pinoso and see the Catalan singer songwriter Cesk Freixas. Indeed just thinking about the events that we've been to in the past couple of weeks, not including going to the cinema a couple of times, we've been to a photo exhibition, missed another poetry event because of the torrential downpour, missed the dressage event at the local riding school plus some event featuring folk dancers and traditional Valencian instruments because we were away for the weekend in Altea. Mind you whilst we were away we saw the local Moors and Christians Festival, oh, and on the way back we stopped off to see the display of banners in Monóvar to celebrate the life and works of Azorín. For this weekend I've not got much in my diary - there's a Roman market all weekend in Petrer and another photo exhibition and, of course, the Yecla Jazz Festival is still on. Next week Maldita Nerea, another band that have regular hits in the top 40, are on, for free, in Petrer as part of their fiestas and down in Murcia there's the Big Up music festival. Just to show that it isn't all music in the rest of the month there's a whole series of talks about recent Spanish history, a couple of book launches, two theatre productions, a bit of lyric opera and a couple of events for Halloween including itinerant story tellers in Pinoso. Pinoso has a population of 8,000.

I wasn't writing the list to show off where we've been but more to stress the "cultural" offer that there is in our local towns. The truth is that I tend to be a bit of a collector of events. The Internet brings me news from all the local town halls and I follow up on the titbits of information I hear on the radio or see in the press but I miss more than I get to see. What suddenly struck me about all these things was how available they are.

We went with some chums to see the first of the Yecla Jazz concerts. They are staged in a lovely end of the Nineteenth Century theatre - all red brocade and gilt. The compere is a radio DJ from the national station Radio 3 and the musicians whilst not been exactly superstars are all well above the run of the mill. It can't be a cheap event to mount. Our pals were bowled over by the setting and by the fact that the concert was free. Also in Yecla, but this time as a part of the September Fair, we went to see Fangoria. The lead singer of the band is a woman called Alaska. She is Mexican by birth, I think, but she's been a star in Spain since the mid 1970s. Alaska and Fangoria will not be a cheap band. This isn't like seeing a band who are unknown to anyone who doesn't have wrinkles and grey, or no, hair.  It's more like seeing The Pet Shop Boys or Tom Jones - someone who has been around forever and who may be past their heyday but who are still big. Fangoria were free too. A few days later I went to see Viva Suecia; this lot are an indie band but they are a band tipped for greater success. The sort of band that, in the UK, would have got a lot of airplay on the late evening and nighttime Radio 1 shows when I lived in the UK but may well be on Radio 6 nowadays. Free again. In fact from all the list above the only paying events would be the cinema.

The cultural offer in Spain is wide and varied and, even when it's to be paid for, it is usually pretty inexpensive. The arts market took a bit of a pounding when the ruling PP party jacked up the VAT rate on cultural events but, as a bit of an example, I just looked how much the three day VIP ticket for the Low festival in Benidorm would be and the answer is 40€ though that is a special "you're paying ages in advance without knowing what the bands will be" ticket and last year the Low Festival didn't drag in many big name foreign bands though they did have 75 bands and lots of them were big on the Spanish scene. Down in Cartagena at el Batel if you want to go and see Sleeping Beauty by the Russian National Ballet the cheapest tickets are 18€ and the most expensive 30€. In Murcia, at the Teatro Romea the best seats for the regional orchestra doing Beethoven's 9th are a whopping 20€. It's not so cheap in Madrid; to see the Lion King for instance you'd pay 96€ for the best seats but that's still a bit cheaper than the £129.50 for the same show in London on the same day.

Not a bad offer though for anyone who's a bit bored with what's on the telly. New series of The Big Bang Theory on Sunday though.

With no added preservatives

I went to have a quick look at the tanganilla competition in Culebrón this morning as part of the weekend long fiesta. Tanganilla, I think, also goes by the name of caliche, hito, bolinche and chito and there seem to be variations of it all over Spain.

Tanganilla isn't a difficult game to organise. A line in the dirt, a 10cm high (or thereabouts) wooden rod and some 7cm across (or thereabouts) metal discs plus some players - maybe a referee. The rod is set up about 20 metres from the line - I understand that one of the variations, and there are lots, says that the distance is 22 strides. Isn't that the length of a cricket pitch? The basic idea is to knock over the rod but from watching there seemed to be other rules about how close the thrown discs were to the fallen rod. Amongst the many regional variations a common one seems to involve placing a coin on top of the rod and then measuring the distance of the discs from the coin once it has been knocked off the rod. Dead easy and complicated at the same time - like pétanque or crown green bowling. I thought that the game was one of the innovations of last year's fiesta but a reader of the blog put me right - apparently it was a feature of fiestas in the past. The reader reckons it disappeared in 2008 or 2009. Obviously as my gut expands my memory shrinks because I don't remember having seen the game in the village before. If innovation isn't correct then revival is and I thought it was a good thing. A traditional game, no cost a bit of fun plus an easy opportunity to drink beer.

The other day in my English class, where I nearly always start off with any sort of Q&A session, to get everybody warmed up, I asked about fast food. Do you prefer burgers, pizza or kebabs? What's your favourite fast food? blah, blah. It's not the first time I've asked similar questions. When someone answers hamburgers I then ask whether they prefer McDonald's, Burger King, Fosters Hollywood, TGB and so on. Then I ask what they order?, what side order?, what drink?, diet or standard? But it didn't go that way with my Pinoso students. They liked burgers OK but they liked the ones from the local butchers or the ones that their Gran makes. It's the first time that I've asked the series of questions outside of a reasonably big town. The Pinoseros were re-assuringly dismissive of the floppy, semi warm burgers that the chains have a tendency to serve up. It was particularly re-assuring because Maggie and I have been shocked recently to see the queues of traffic waiting in the Drive Thru lane at the McDonald's in Petrer as we leave the cinema. Spaniards tend to like and enjoy food and it seems strange that they would queue for burgers.

I suppose the difference is that Petrer, or the side by side towns of Elda and Petrer, have a population of about 90,000 - somewhat larger than the fewer than 8,000 of Pinoso. Tanganilla and home made burgers - symbols of a rural idyll?

A theory what I have

I was asked if I'd ever written a post about learning Spanish. To be honest I wasn't sure. Normally my blogs complain about my inability to construct an error free phrase, which Spanish people understand, rather than anything on the methodology. I had a quick search through the blog and I couldn't find anything specific. So, here it is but, before launching into it, I should say that there are tomes and tomes on the theory of learning languages. People who know how brains work have theories about how to learn languages or language acquisition in general. They know much more than me. They are right and I am wrong. This attempt is going to be, relatively, short. It will contain lots of generalisations and it's a personal and not a researched view. And, of course, you need to bear in mind that my Spanish is rubbish.

Learning a language is easy. The vast majority of children do it. The method is also pretty obvious. The children listen to the words and phrases. They grasp that there is an idea behind the word or phrase. Maybe it explains something, maybe it is to give a command or order or maybe it is to transmit information. They learn the words or phrases and then build on those to express their own questions and views on the world. Later they learn how to read and write.

So, one of my first beliefs about learning a language is that it is just one big memory task. Unless you know some words then you won't be able to speak, read, write or listen. You have to learn lots of words and lots of phrases. This is especially true of idiomatic expressions. I use an example with my English language learners. OK, let's get the lead out, let's get cracking and put this baby to bed. It makes sense to me but it would be a bugger to understand if I were Spanish. The Spaniards do the same. Simple combinations of ordinary words that have completely different meanings to the sense of any of the individual words that they are made up of. They are easy to overcome though, you just have to learn them. You'll know a method that works for you for learning things. It is not a fast process. Learning a language for most people takes thousands of hours.

It's not just knowing the words and phrases - it's saying them adequately enough so that they are understood. It doesn't take much to make a word incomprehensible. For instance a Spaniard, speaking English, once asked me for some un-irons. There was no context to help - the word was onions. We English have plenty of trouble with lots of sounds that are easy for Spaniards. I'm not talking about the ones we know are difficult like the double rr or the y that sounds like a throaty j. Take the letter o and the way that you just voiced it to yourself - like oh. So for our town, Pinoso, we tend to say pin-oh-so when the sound is more like pin-oss-oh. What seem like quite small mistakes to us make words incomprehensible to Spaniards who have been brought up with a language that ties the sound of the letters to the sound of the words. Spaniards have a systematic and almost unbreakable set of rules for speaking Spanish. That's why they have so much difficulty saying would, friends or soap. So that section in your Spanish books that gives you examples of how to say the letters and vowel combinations is really, really important.

There's another little aside to speaking a language that is the rhythm that a language has. Think of the way that Italians sing as they speak or how Australians stress the end of a sentence, the way Swedes sound like the chef from Sesame Street. We have a cadence to English that is confusing for Spaniards. English speakers need to try to mimic the Spanish rhythms and tones. Without doing that you're going to have a lot of trouble, for instance, asking a question. ¿Estás de acuerdo?

I'm not a big fan of grammar. The rules for most languages, other than Esperanto, came after the language existed. Google tells me that the first English dictionary was published in 1604, the year that the Hampton Court conference laid down the rules for the King James Bible. That means the language was pretty well established by then. The first decent English dictionary was Samuel Johnson's in 1755. That's the one that Baldrick mentions in Blackadder, the one without sausages in it. The grammar that gets reproduced in grammar books is a description of the way the language is used rather than the rules from which a language is constructed. A bit like the difference between Common Law, based on societal customs recognised and reinforced by the judicial system, and modern laws which are drafted in intricate detail. I can't deny that grammar is useful. I teach grammatical rules in English and you have to learn the basic rules of Spanish grammar if you are going to speak Spanish. You need to know how verb tenses work how genders agree and hundreds of other things but there is a point when the exceptions to grammar rules, in my opinion, make them almost useless. So, again in my opinion, there is good grammar, useful grammar, and almost useless grammar. In an English context think about Tesco and Sainsbury's who speak good English. Nonetheless, they used, in the past, to have ten items or less tills (countable nouns should use fewer) and McDonald's who also speak good English, say I'm loving it despite knowing that stative verbs aren't generally used in the continuous form. On the other hand the difference between the use of you're (you are) and your (belonging to you) is big grammar. Big grammar is something that Tesco or McDonalds can't play with. 

One of the areas of Spanish grammar that confounds most English speakers is the subjunctive. Old people, like me, still use the subjunctive in English from time to time - it is important that he learn the rules or I wish it were sunny - but the form is definitely on the way out. On the other hand it is very much alive and well in Spanish. The rule says something like the subjunctive is used when the meaning of the main clause makes the events described in the subordinate clause "unreal" i.e. not known to be a reality at the time of the sentence. So, for instance if you see a T shirt with a picture of Kurt Cobain on it in a shop window and go into the shop and say that you want the T shirt with the picture of Kurt on it you use the indicative but if you're not sure that the shop has a T shirt with said picture then you have to use the subjunctive - busco la camiseta que lleva una foto de Kurt (you're sure such a shirt exists, indicative) and busco una camiseta que lleve una foto de Kurt (the shirt may or may not exist so you use the subjunctive). Now you tell me that any ordinary person learning Spanish is going to be able to work that out from first principles in the heat of the confusion of trying to construct a sentence and buy a shirt and I'll be happy to call you a liar. On the other hand most subjunctives come after little set phrases - es posible que - for instance, is followed by a subjunctive as are hundreds of others. If you're willing to slog it out and learn all those little introductory phrases then you will get the subjunctive right as often as most Spaniards. We're back to memorising the language.

So, my advice on grammar is to learn the stuff that you use in nearly every sentence you would ever use. Learn how to use articles, adjectives, adverbs, how to decline verbs and, indeed, learn as much grammar as you like and as you possibly can but, as soon as it seems to be becoming too esoteric, fall back on how children learn language and learn some phrases as the basis for other similar phrases.

Something else I would recommend is that you read things in Spanish and listen to things in Spanish. Spaniards and Britons do not use the same language to express the same idea. What the language learner is after is how to express what they want to say. Most Britons can say "good morning" in Spanish but if they were to overthink it then they're actually saying goods days - "buenos días". I sometimes despair when a fellow Briton is complaining about a Spanish waiter asking "¿Qué te pongo?" because, the Briton says, that the phrase means "What I put you?" Alright, the first definition of poner in the Spanish-English dictionary may be put but it's not the only one and, for heaven's sake, the question is obvious enough. Consider that the idea is "what do you want?" or "what can I get you?" even though there aren't a lot of directly translatable words in the phrase.

Just to finish off here are some disconnected jottings in no particular order and mainly for people living in Spain. I like classes because, once you've signed up, you feel you have to go. The people who employ me in Pinoso at Academia 10 would be very happy to sell you a class. Text books, learn Spanish type text books, vary in quality but most of the modern ones I've seen are pretty good. In Pinoso there is an intercambio session - half an hour of Spanish in return for half an hour of English every Monday evening from 8.30 at the Coliseum in Constitución. Talking to yourself is good because you realise the words you can't pronounce and you can often hear yourself making mistakes. Describing things as you walk around might help. Reading things like signs and number plates as you do the shopping is simple and easy. Five words or phrases at a time rather than the first two pages of your new vocabulary book. Start by watching TV ads rather than feature films. If you like reading Mills and Boone better the Spanish equivalent than starting with Episodios nacionales. Maybe set your phone or Tom Tom to Spanish rather than English. And a long etcetera.

Drawing to a close

As I remember it, In England, Christmas gets off the ground just after the schools start back in September. Nothing frantic but there are unmistakable signs. Displays of trees in John Lewis, re-organisation of the display stands in Clinton's cards. It builds to a crescendo as the 25th approaches. Then a couple of family meals, too much drink, some tedious board games, the DFS 9am Boxing Day Sale and, although you may still be off work, Christmas is over.

In Spain it's different. My sister tells me that in Tenerife there was Christmas all over the place in November but, generally, in most places in Spain, you could miss any signs until December is well under way. Here in Pinoso, for instance, the Christmas lights weren't turned on till the 10th of December. Schools break up a couple of days before Christmas Eve. Families get together on the 24th and 25th echoing that yo-yoing between his and her families of Christmas day and Boxing day in the UK on alternate years. I know, by the way, that times have changed and that not all families are his and hers and that not everyone, even in Western Europe, celebrates Christmas but you'll just have to play along with me here. It is my blog after all.

But Christmas isn't over here. New Year's is also very much part of Christmas and people will be wishing you Felices Fiestas or Feliz Navidad until it becomes Feliz Año (Happy New Year). Then it, sort of, goes back to being Christmas. In fact it builds to a crescendo because, if Christmas really is about the children, then today and tomorrow are the big days.

The pages (servant pages, not pieces of paper pages) have been out all over the country collecting the letters from good boys and girls for the The Three Kings or, as we tend to say, the Three Wise Men. The Kings are the gift givers, working overnight on the 5th January, in much the same way as Father Christmas brought me that orange bulldozer. The Kings as present deliverers has a certain biblical logic given that they turned up in Bethlehem with gold, frankincense and myrrh. In about an hour, they will be parading through city streets all over Spain.

I'm racing with the post a bit. We're staying local this time and going to the cabalgata, the cavalcade, on home turf, in Pinoso. We'd wondered about going to Alcoi (the oldest parade in Spain where the Kings ride in the "wrong" order and where the King's helpers carry ladders to scale balconies to leave presents) or to Elche or Murcia, where the parades are a bit grander, but no. Local it is.

On the telly none of the reporters give the game away. The myth is maintained by hard bitten journalists who explain that the reason there are so many Kings in so many places is because of their magic powers. Children with squeaky voices are interviewed about their gift choices - I want a Nancy, I want a hatchimal - or reading out their wishes that none of the children of the world go hungry. Later tonight on the TV news there will be reports of Kings in helicopters, in boats, on elephants. The shops are still open for those last minute gifts and they will be in Madrid, Barcelona and the like till 10 this evening.

You think it's all over. Well not quite yet.

Labels

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 in Spanish though it's a gallery not a museum for us. Four floors of culture. Although I've been to the gallery a couple of times, at least, in the past, it's years since I've actually been inside. We spent a couple of hours padding around the top two floors along with plenty of other people. There was no hustle and bustle. Lots of space and time to stop and stare. I was enjoying myself but my old feet and legs began to ache. We went for a sit down and a snack but, taken aback by the prices, we settled on a couple of overpriced drinks. We were generally overwhelmed by Madrid prices because of our hill-billy incomes but we got by anyway. The break though was fatal. We realised we were done for so we decided to have a look at Guernica (one must, mustn't one?) and then call it a day. There were a lot more people milling around that floor but there was no element of elbows or jostling; just maybe twenty people gazing in awe at Picasso's famous painting.

Next day and we did more wandering. Maggie was keen to see the Bosco exhibition, that's the bloke we call Hieronymus Bosch. He's a bit of a star in Spain partly because the Prado and Escorial have quite a lot of his work and partly because the paintings are bizarre. So we got in the shortish queue and waited for maybe twenty minutes to get some tickets for later in the day. It was about noon now and later in the day turned out to be quarter to seven. So we touristed away until the given hour and then joined the throng. This time it was a throng. People standing, apparently in raptures, ten centimetres from the surface of a painting and scrutinising the detail, lots of people laughing at the strange elements of the paintings, lots of barging, lots of gentle, art crowd, pushing. Museum staff were milling around to keep an eye on the punters and they were kept busy.

The strange thing is the last time we were at the Prado we went to have a look at the Boscos. That time there was nobody much around. There were a few of us but then it was similar, crowd wise, to having a look at the W. Eugene Smith photos in the Reina Sofia the day before. Not a lot of foot traffic, not a lot of scrutiny by the gallery staff and plenty of time to stand and stare.

My mind wandered to OS maps.

Spanish stereotypes

In the last post about Albacete I mentioned an exercise I use with my students as a conversation starter. It's not my piece, I took it from a Spanish source and translated it into English.

I disagree with a couple of them, I don't whoeheartedly agree with lots of them and I don't actually know what a couple are getting at. But it's an easy post and I rather suspect that at least one of my readers - that sounds posh doesn't it? - will have a response.

Spain: bulls, guitars and flouncy skirts

This is how tourist guides, written in France, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan and Russia describe Spain. The old image of bulls and castanets may have disappeared but are these new generalisations any more accurate?

What do you think?

1 Spain is the European country where the fewest number of newspapers are read and where the most popular newspaper deals only with sport.

2 Spain is a desert for vegetarians and a place where ham is considered to be part of a vegetarian diet.

3 Spain isn't all sun but then again everything is conditioned by the sun.

4 It's the place where breakfast in a bar includes a shot of the hard stuff alongside a coffee.

5 Spain is a country where almost nobody gets drunk in public.

6 Where chocolate is sweet and thick.

7 In Spain body hair on women, particularly underarm or on the legs, is socially unacceptable.

8 Where everything, or almost everything, closes down for the afternoon.

9 Where people parade from bar to bar greeting friends and eating tapas before having dinner.

10 RENFE trains are clean and efficient.

11 Where pedestrians are terrorised by motorists at every junction and every zebra crossing.

12 Where life begins as the rest of Europe dons its pyjamas.

13 Where restaurants still sell a bottle of drinkable plonk for 5€.

14 Where crossing yourself and calling on God is still an everyday part of many transactions.

15 It may be Europe but Spaniards aren't Europeans.

16 Where the toilets are clean but never have toilet paper.

17 A country where it's dangerous to get involved in chit chat.

18 Where everyone is criticised - except for the King.

19 A country whose past is marked by hunger and famine.

20 A country that has no cuisine to speak of.

Souls in danger

It was a  Bank Holiday weekend (of sorts). You could tell this because the day off, the Saturday, was overcast and cool. We went to Valencia or, to be precise, we stayed in Alfafar. We behaved as tourists should. We went on a boat ride on l'Albufera, the freshwater lagoon, with just a dash of salty sea water, surrounded by lots of rice paddies, to the south of Valencia city. We dutifully ate rice cooked in a paella for lunch. We even tried to find the beach.

I'd not booked a room until a couple of days ago so our late choice of hotels, so close to the coast, was a bit limited. I basically took what was left. As the electronic wizadry guided us past IKEA, past Media Markt and past the MN4 shopping centre it dawned that the hotel was in the middle of some gigantic retail zone. So instead of passing our evening wandering the streets of an ancient city centre we strolled the corridors and courtyards of a shopping mall. In fact we went to the flicks, Operación U.N.C.L.E. - passable enough.

No whisky to be had amongst the various food franchises around the shopping centre when we came out so we decided on the hotel bar. As we walked pat Burger King we realised that the tailback for the "drive thru" service was the cause of the traffic snarl up. Inside a queue to be served was so long that it was doubled back on itself. All the tables and chairs we could see through the big glass windows were full, the terrace was heaving with people, there was a lot of noise and everywhere was covered in that usual Burger King detritus of paper cups, torn sachets and crushed chips. The customers were old and young, gangs of friends, families and couples,  - it looked like a Burger King advert; it was so all embracing and so exuberant.

Food is a common and popular topic of conversation here. Spanish people after visiting the UK often comment sadly on British food. I have had conversations with Spaniards about how to tell good ham from poor ham just by looking at it.

But in that Burger King at 11pm I glimpsed the Spanish future. Just like us. Meals served from packets. The family meal, eaten together, gone. Individual food for each person at different times. Waiting for the microwave to ping. Offal served only to pets. Grandma's recipes forgotten. The kids have already started to have obesity problems.

"It's good living here," said Maggie, as we passed through the hotel lobby, "We can get one of those McMuffin things for breakfast". "I like the way they make the eggs the right shape so they fit".

Rather reassuring

It's not Christmas in Spain yet. Not by a long chalk. No lights or trees in the streets. But today, in our house, it suddenly became Christmastime. True we've done a couple of subtle things before today but not so as you'd notice. We bought our lottery tickets for el Gordo Christmas lottery, we finished our Christmas cards in the last couple of days and I bought some more figures for our nativity scene a while ago.

This nativity thing is a personal sort of crusade. A couple of years ago I spent a fair bit of cash on some hand crafted figures for our Belén. The idea was to be a little Spanish and start adding to the nativity scene every year. The marginalised poor in the shepherds one year then the kings to represent the different continents, the wealthy and so on. It didn't go to plan because Christmas was cancelled last year by Maggie's absence in Qatar and our consequent meeting in Sri Lanka. It wasn't worth putting up the tree or the lights in Culebrón  as I avoided the perishing cold of interior Alicante for the much milder climate of La Unión. No tree, no lights, no Christmas food and no new figures. This year though Christmas is on so I got down to the Regional Artisan Centre in Murcia city and handed over 90€ for some kings. Poor people, the shepherds, are good but you never go wrong buying the rich.

The cards were interesting, Well sort of dully interesting. We bought some charity cards from Corte Inglés when we were in Murcia weeks ago but we needed more. Not many cards to be had in Pinoso but one of the local tobacconists had two packets. There were maybe fifty cards and we bought thirty of them. The shop owners were amazed. We explained about the old tradition of sending cards to people we hadn't spoken to for years, about sending cards to addresses that we were pretty sure were no longer correct and about sending cards to people who may well be dead. Nice tradition though - with a different quality to Facebook or email. I love getting cards.

But today we buckled down. It was wreath on the door, Chinese shop Westward leading star with a comet like tail of flashing LEDs fastened to the outside of the house and the tree. 

The tree we got in Huntingdon from Woolworths maybe sixteen or seventeen years ago now. It was bought to grow old along with us. Every time we drag it out of the scruffy box and attach the same wesleybobs (glass baubles to you unless you're old and from West Yorkshire) I always think what a good choice it was. Bit of a change with the tree this year through. We had to change its location because of some furniture changes since Christmas 2012. I took the change in my stride though because I was buoyed up by the inevitability of it all. A nice fino sherry to start then whisky (though I can no longer afford a decent Islay and have to do with blended) helped the process along. Nat King Cole roasting chestnuts on an open fire then a choir from Kings. Como siempre - as always. 

It had been the same outside. There were a series of hooks for the lights, the string on the wreath was the right length to hang it dead centre and the correct height on the door. In truth I'm not a big fan of Christmas. Lot of fuss about nothing in my humble but I do find, as my remaining time shortens, that whereas, in the past, I disliked the annual sameness of the process I now value at least one part of the inevitability of it all. And that part was today.

Valencian Community Day

We live in the province of Alicante. Along with Castellon and Valencia these three provinces make up the Valencian Community.

Back in 1238, on October 9th, King Jaume I to give him his Valencian name or Jaime I in Spanish successfully took Valencia City as part of the Christian reconquest of Spain. The Moorish invaders weren't actually cleared from all of Valencia till 1305 and the last bits of what is now geographically Valencia weren't added until 1851. Nonetheless, when the powers that be were looking for a day to celebrate being Valencian they settled on October 9th.

In the days when public holidays used to take us by surprise our pal Pepa, who is a born and bred Valencian, told us that on this day the tradition is to give little marzipan sweets wrapped in a silk handkerchief. Wikipedia tells me that this is because October 9th is also San Dionisio's day who is the patron saint of lovers (odd, I thought Valentine had that job sewn up). I remember going in to Pinoso back in 2005 to search out the sweets to hand over to Maggie. All I found were locked and bolted cake shops. Apparently San Dionisio doesn't have much sway in Alicante. His patch is Valencia province so there is no confectionery to be had in Alicante.

I work in Murcia so it wasn't a day off for me today, Murcia day is June 9th. But I did pop into Pinoso to have a look at this morning's events. Basically there was a dance troupe "Monte de la Sal", the opening of a revamped play area named for the recently deceased first president of the current democracy Adolfo Suarez and a play for children called something like "Looking for King Jaume."

It was nice if not exciting. I walked up from the town centre to the new play area following the dance troupe and their escort of giants and bigheads as well as the great and the good of the town. A couple of people said hello to me and all around me people were greeting neighbours and pals. There was even a lot of that high fiving amongst younger people. Pinoso certainly doesn't seem to have much of a problem with community with or without a day to mark it.

On Kings

I used to work with a chap who was fond of quoting Denis Diderot “Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest”. I worked with him over thirty years ago so it must have made an impact.

The truth is though that I'm not really bothered by what a bunch of rich toffs are up to. In fact I think it's funny that all the Royals seem quite keen to get married to non royals. At least when they were all marrying their cousins they could claim blue blood, or at least family genetic disorders. Now they're just more canon fodder for the paparazzi like any other celeb.

I must admit I always quite liked those fat ones - Andrew and Sarah. They were exactly what they should have been, a couple of Hoorah Henries going to parties or whatever it is that people with too much money and too much spare time do with their equally vacuous pals. They never tried too hard to pretend that they cared about dolphins or landmines.

An old friend said that he was surprised I hadn't blogged anything about the abdication of Juan Carlos I. Two reasons really. I've always tried to maintain the idea that this blog is about the things, the little things, that happen to me and around me in Spain and since the King stopped me giving blood he and I have not had a lot to do with each other. The second is that I don't care.

Juan Carlos has been a popular bloke. All the stuff around the transition, the way he handled himself then went down well. Also there were lots of urban myths about him helping stranded motorists, popping out to do ordinary things because he thought he was an ordinary sort of bloke. We all laughed when he told Hugo Chávez to shut up when he kept interrupting the then Spanish President in some meeting in Chile. We laughed again when we realised the ring tone on his phone was of one of the grandchildren laughing. Then a couple of years ago all sorts of stories started to pop up about his sexual dalliances particularly with a German princess, Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. (It's like some novelette isn't it?  - a German princess - does she have a hat with a spike?)  I think it was the elephant hunt that did for him though. From then on in his popularity plummeted and for the first time it was ok to have a go at the King. Just recently public opinion gave him 3.72 out of 10 against the 7.46 he scored in 1994.

Anyway. So why am I writing now. The answer is that I was shouting at the radio the other day.

The Spanish Constitution says, in article 14, that everyone is equal before the law. Later in articles 71 and 102 it gives some protections to parliamentary deputies, senators and members of the government to stop them being legally harassed. A later "organic" law dealing with the judiciary gave similar cover to various law officers. The King goes one better, he's above it all, he's untouchable. Those with protection still have to go to court but it takes a lot longer to get them there and they don't have to go along to the local courts. They generally go directly to the Supreme Court. The regional governments have done something similar for their regional deputies and  it's reckoned that there are now about 10,000 people with special judicial protection.

So, the King gives up his job and they are having to write a law to get his boy into place. When he goes lots of things change - like his daughters no longer being princesses - and he stops being above the law. A little side piece to this was that the abdication law should ensure that the present King maintains a special legal protection even when he becomes a regular citizen again. Some radio pundit was giving his very important opinion that it was imperative that this dispensation continue. "Why?" I shouted at the radio, "give me a reason!" Rich and powerful people get away with murder (hopefully not literally) anyway.

There are 1,700 officials being investigated in cases of corruption in Spain, 500 of them have been charged but only 20 people are in prison. The other day four bankers who had awarded themselves pensions of just short of 30 million euros didn't get sent to prison when they said sorry they'd been so bad and gave back the money. Rich gets have already got all the protection they need.

If the local court isn't any good then it should get fixed and if the local court is good enough for me it's good enough for him and for everyone else.

Bring me pine logs hither

Around fifteen years ago, when Maggie and I finally set up home together, we bought a Christmas tree from Woolworths in Huntingdon. We still use the same tree. The lights, the sets of lights that burst into life yet again tonight, came the year after. The first set were very sensitive and gave up the ghost after their debut.

I was adamant about us buying a plastic tree. I wanted something that we would remember each year, something that would grow older and more threadbare along with us. I have fond memories of the tree I grew up with, the tree my dad and I decorated to celebrate the arrival of my new baby brother. I wanted something similar for us.

Whisky, like Nat King Cole, is a part of the ritual of decorating the Huntingdon tree. For years it was a decent malt but times are hard and it was Dewars tonight. Unfortunately driving and scotch don't mix which meant that the tree decorating, the official recognition of Christmas, had to wait until we'd been to see The Pinoso British Choir do their stuff in their annual carol concert in the Pinoso Parish Church.

I mentioned the British Choir a couple of years ago. Since then Spaniards and Brits have sung side by side at Christmas. This year a later date for the carol concert meant that several members of the British Choir would have been missing because of the call of family, turkey and sprouts. It looked as though there would be no British presence in the Parish Christmas celebrations The local priest was having none of that. He suggested a separate British concert. That's what we went to see tonight.

To be honest it wasn't the usual standing room only event in church but, nonetheless. there was a good mix of Spanish and British in the audience. The Priest made a good fist of speaking English and the English chap who spoke for the choir did a splendid job of speaking Spanish. The choir did really well. All through the concert I found myself grinning from ear to ear. It was excellent fun.

As we walked back to the car I asked Maggie if she thought I could use a phrase about the choir on this blog along the lines of "What they lacked in technique they made up for in heart." "Absolutely not," she said," I thought they did really well."

I agreed. So our Christmas has now begun.

Ironmongers and gold diggers

There is a huge ironmongers shop in Villena, a town close to us in Alicante, and being the hosts with the mosts that we are, that is where we were taking our houseguests. What man could resist three, or it may be four, floors of tools, fastenings, machinery and gadgets? We thought we may even have a meal in their canteen afterwards. Our plan was foiled when the place was closed.

Never mind. We did get to see the town Archaeological Museum.

In 1963 a couple of workmen in Villena, found a bracelet in the gravel they were spreading. The foreman hung the bracelet up on the wall so that whoever had dropped it could reclaim it. A bit later one of the workers thought they might just pop it around to the local jeweller to see if it was worth anything. As it was made of half a kilo of 24 carat gold it did have a certain value but the jeweller thought there was something odd about it and suggested showing it to a local archaeologist. In turn this chap recognised it as being 3,000 years old or from the late Bronze Age. Fortunately for the Villena Treasure there were none of the "I Buy Gold" shops that there are now on every Spanish street corner. They'd have weighed it in and turned it into a nice charm bracelet without batting an eye lid.

The archaeologist, a regular Hercule Poirot, suggested they go and have a look where the gravel had come from just in case there was anything else there. They found a clay urn which contained seventy pieces of gold, 9 kilos in all, along with some silver vases and a few other smaller items thrown in for good measure. Not as romantic as Howard Carter breaking into King Tut's tomb but a pretty impressive haul nonetheless.

We got this story from a subtitled version of a No-Do, the Spanish equivalent of the Pathé News. I thought the No-Do piece told the story rather well even though the re-enactment of the discovery of the bracelet by the real life Spanish workmen, jeweller and archaeologist was of about the same quality as my portrayal of a penguin in the St Paul's Cub Scout Christmas Pantomime that same year.

The man from the museum opened the cupboard in which the treasure is kept so we could all have a look.

There is apparently no idea where the pieces come from, how they ended up in Villena or who made them but they really are very pretty.

I really need to get some clips to re-attach that glass shelf to the bathroom mirror and without a new saw how can I trim the palm tree? Maybe any old ironmonger's will do.

Starting and finishing

Many years ago, as tourists in Havana, we were shown the Cuban "kilometre zero" - the point from which all distances to and from Havana are measured. I remember being treated as an idiot when I asked how you would know where the other end of the line would be. Maggie added her scorn to that of the guide.

True enough you can measure to a point form any other point but where do you measure from? The roadsigns say, for instance, 70 miles to London but to where in London? - Westminster Abbey maybe - and if so the door or the altar - or it could be Buckingham Palace or, perhaps, The House of Commons. Apparently, in London, it's to the statue of King Charles I on the South side of Trafalgar Square.

In Madrid it's very obvious. Tourists queue to have their pictures taken standing on or near the Km0 point in the Puerta del Sol. And, yesterday, in Murcia I was shown the point to which all distances to and from Murcia are measured.

So, Cuban tourist guide, I can work out how far it is from London, Murcia or Madrid to Havana but can you tell me how far it is to Culebrón from Havana if you're so smart?

No staying power

There has been lots of press speculation about the King recently. A while ago he had some surgery. The doctors said they had removed a benign tumour but the cancer rumours persisted. The Palace said he was fine except that his hip and knee were a bit dodgy. Not unusual for a 73 year old, otherwise it was just the ailments of old age - "los achaques."  I thought that was an excellent word. It was a word I understood exactly.


Working on the principle that you're never too old to rock we went to see four bands last night. The event was called Ciclo Pop. One of Maggie's ex colleagues is the lead singer for a band called Aardvark Asteroid and the rest of the line up included Fuzzy White Casters, Arizona Baby and Sexy Sadie. Obviously we were keen to support James and his band but I'd wanted to see Arizona Baby for quite a while as well. Two birds with one stone. Even better the venue was only an hour or so from home.

It was a good venue, right in the middle of San Vicente del Raspeig, and the 11€ price tag was excellent for four bands. Nonetheless the crowd was pretty thin - two or three hundred people  maybe. The gig was late starting but we were perfectly fit as we watched James and the other Aardvarks and we were still well in the game for Arizona Baby. By then though the achaques were catching up. We older people have to empty our bladders reasonably frequently. We don't like those little cabin toilets. After 12 hours or so our contact lens had become unbearable. In my case too my mouth is a bit sore and I've had a mild if persistent stomach ache for the last three or four weeks too. The numbness that I get in my hands and feet was exacerbated by the chilly evening. Basically by 1.30am I was knackered and we still had to get home. So we bailed out and came home around 2am. We never saw Sexy Sadie.

Don Juan Carlos had his knee operation a couple of days ago. I'm sure if he'd been at Ciclo Pop he would have stayed the course.

The Battle of Almansa

The Battle of Almansa was an important battle during the War of the Spanish Succession. It was fought on 25th April 1707. Almansa is about 50 minutes from Culebrón.

The commentator was really positive. "Just look at that rainbow, how beautiful, one of the best I've ever seen!" True enough. Mind you he was in a nice cosy and dry caravan whilst we were suddenly in fear of drowning to death sitting in the stands. We found the beauty of the rainbow hard to appreciate.

When the Spanish Habsburg King Carlos II died in 1700 he left no direct heir. There were two rival claims to the throne - the Hapsburgs, through the Archduke of Austria and the Bourbons, through the French King. We British backed the Austrian claim but several European powers weighed in behind one side or the other. Between 1701 and 1714 battles raged all over Europe and in North America and there were even some skirmishes in the Caribbean.

At the Battle of Almansa, just outside Almansa in Castilla la Mancha, the Duke of Berwick, the illegitimate son of James II of England serving in the French Army, beat the French Henri de Massue, leading British troops. Odd eh?

In the end the British were on the losing side but the Treaty of Utrecht signed near the end of the war handed Gibraltar over to the British. We're still there.

According to that same commentator the participants in this re-enactment, still something relatively unusual in Spain, had come from several European countries just as in the real battle. The Russians and Ukranians had apparently driven all the way. The Irish had brought their horses. Shame it rained quite so much.
.

Sent to sleep

There was a time when every Spanish film was about the Spanish Civil War, usually about the aftermath and the rough handling of the losers by the nasty winners. Fortunately that has changed nowadays and we get a good spread plots and genres.

Most Spanish films are made with TV money and with subsidies from film funds. This means that they look a bit like those BBC funded films, quite modest in scale, with production values that betray their small screen destinations. If they have a historical theme (and lots do) they are nearly always shot in a sort of muddy brown colour and use the Spanish equivalent of thou to prove their authenticity. Obviously they are voiced in Spanish or, to be more accurate, Castilian. Actually, unless you're in one of the big cities it's nearly impossible to find a film in its original language - everything gets dubbed into Castilian. Colin Firth, King George VI or el Rey Jorge VI has a nice Madrid accent.

The Goyas are the Spanish equivalent of the Oscars. There were plenty of decent nominations this year in genre as diverse as horror, social drama, black comedy and historical. They were presented the same night as the BAFTAs and, as in the UK, one film swept the board. It was a Catalan film called Pa Negre - Black Bread. The theme was the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. One of the interesting things about it was that it was voiced in Catalan with Castilian subtitles.

We had our doubts; the Civil War- hmm? But nine Goyas; it just had to be good and with the bonus that Castilian subtitles would make it dead easy to understand. It wasn't in Catalan by the time we saw it this afternoon, dubbed just like all the rest of the foreign films. And tedious. Tedious as they come. Obviously the theme had to be grim, the film colouring sombre and everyone had to live in filthy unheated hovels. There had to be Guardia Civil with capes and tricorn hats and if there wasn't a gay character then how could it be true to life? Film making by cliché. Actually I could be wrong, I had great difficulty understanding the dialogue and I couldn't tell one raggedy haired person from the next so I slept through a good part of it. Maybe it was a cinematic milestone after all.

Maggie's take

I just told Maggie the story about the King and the hearing aid shop. She wondered if the shop assistant would take the call from her mother and leave the King waiting just like they do every other customer.

It made me giggle

The Zarzuela palace has confirmed that the King wears a hearing aid. Journalists began to suspect that he did when he was seen leaning close to hear someone speak at a public function.

The hoot though was in the last line of the news story. Telecinco (A commercial TV station) had film footage of King Juan Carlos coming out of a hearing aid shop!

Can you imagine the scene in Buckingham Palace? "Philip, I'm a little fatigued, might you go to the hearing aid shop and purchase a few spare batteries on my behalf?

Villazgo

On 12 February 1826 good King Ferdinand VII granted independence to Pinoso from the larger nearby town of Monóvar. Nowadays, on the most appropriate Sunday nearest the 12th, the town puts on its gladrags, well lots of traditional smocks and frocks, to celebrate the town's coming of age.

The main event centres around eating - as do all Spanish celebrations. In this case punters buy eight tickets which can be swopped at the participating stalls for a drink, a snack or other edibles. It starts slowly but by 2pm the site is heaving with people balancing wine glasses and local delicacies on paper trays as they elbow their neighbours to create enough eating space. Spaniards have a remarkable facility for eating without stopping speaking and the noise level is incredible. As it all starts to tail off the heaps of rubbish and food on the floor become more noticeable and make for an interesting orienteering exercise.

As well as the food there is a traditional competition a bit like horseshoes, there's a stage for local bands and dancers, a street market and stalls by most of the local community associations. Some of the stalls, both from professional vendors and the local groups are really well done and echo ages old crafts and traditions. Pinoso was big for shoe making for instance so one of the stalls encouraged passers by to don the apron and sit amidst the heaps of ancient tools doing their Pinnochio's dad impression.

Lots of photos on the my snaps link or here.