Knobs and knockers

I didn't use to notice English much. Maybe it came as a bit of a surprise when the radio alarm burst into life and I hadn't the faintest idea what Brian Redhead or John Humphrys was saying to me for the fleeting seconds of semi consciousness before I woke up. Then that was a long time ago. The fact that there were still clock radio alarms proves it.

I'm very aware of language now. For one thing I live in a place where speaking easily isn't, like breathing, just second nature - it's something that has to be striven for. On top of that, my students, well the ones who don't shout all the time, ask me questions about English. They seem to want rules. They want rules of grammar. I'm not a big believer in grammar. A set of rules invented after the fact to make sense of something that is essentially random in my opinion. I don't know a grammar rule without exceptions and, in many cases, the exceptions are much more common, in everyday speech, than the regular stuff. If language weren't illogical then Arabic speakers, French speakers, Chinese speakers and English speakers would obviously have chosen the universally correct word rather than using بيض, œuf, 雞蛋 and egg to describe the same thing.

Students aren't happy when I tell them that, for quite a lot of things, the answer as to why we use this formula or that expression is because we do and there is no rule they can learn to remember it and no better explanation to be found.

Lots of the people I have worked for have told me that I should always speak English when teaching. Generally, I try to but, to be honest, when it is a direct swap and I know the Spanish I just give the translation. How long would it take to describe an egg? How many other words would you need to describe along the way? And I don't think that saying huevo is the Spanish for the English word egg is going to spoil anything. After all, when all the the roundish reproductive bodies produced by the female of many animals consisting of an ovum and its envelope of albumen, jelly, membranes, egg case, or shell, according to species translation is over the typical Spanish speaking student is going to remember, or forget, huevo.

I always think that things, in the sense of nouns, have a direct translation. Logically things like car, boat, bone must have direct translations. Some things, the less solid things, may have cultural differences built into the language so that we need to add a bit of interpretation to find an equivalent or useable word. Take an idea like nice, agreeable, pleasant and you will guess that the English variations lead to other variations with differenet nuances in Spanish.

I've run into a couple of odd cases recently though. Spaniards don't seem to have a single translation for door handle. That's a standard house sized door with a standard household handle sort of door handle. Hook came to my attention again recently too. You'd think that a hook, in the sense of a reduced size version of a Captain Hook like hook bought from an ironmongers, as an option to a screw or a nail, would be easy enough but, in a class with just six students, there was no one word that was acceptable to all of them.

Funny old world isn't it?

The annual census figures

If you live in Spain you are supposed to register with the local town hall. Lots of people don't for one reason or another. For instance when we worked away, but still owned the house here in Culebrón, we couldn't register with two town halls at the same time. People who don't have their papers in order don't usually register (though they can) just in case it causes them problems. For EU Europeans it's reasonably easy to avoid registration so many simply don't bother.

Based on this registration, Pinoso, our home town, the one that "owns" Culebrón, had 7,654 residents at 31st December 2015. That's a tad down from the 7,912 on the same register at the end of 2014. The town hall website says that those 156 men and 102 women fewer are "mainly" foreigners. In the December 2015 figures 6,609 are Spanish and 1,045 are foreigners.

The 1,405 foreigners are made up of citizens from 43 countries. We Brits are way out in front with 489 of us. Morrocans next with 112, Ukranians 69, Ecuadorians 63, Dutch 32 and Bulgarians 30. That leaves 250 people for the remaining 37 countries.

If you are ever in Pinoso you may get the impression that there are more Britons than the figures suggest. The town halls only register their own of course. Only a few hundred metres down the road from our house is the border with Monóvar. Pinoso is in Alicante province but just 3kms away is the border with Murcia and the towns of Abanilla, Yecla and Jumilla all have frontiers with Pinoso. People living in those municipalities don't get counted in the Pinoso figures but for many of them Pinoso offers the nearest supermarket, bar or restaurant.

Writing the hind leg off a donkey

I listen to a documentary programme on the radio. I listen because, often, it gives me a bit more insight into Spain. Sometimes the programmes are a bit esoteric. It's fine when it's something like the history of the Galician whale hunters of the 17th Century but less so when the title; is Who was Elena Fortún - the author of Celia?

There was a programme a couple of weeks ago about Zenobia Camprubí. It took me a couple of days to get around to listening to the podcast. It didn't sound like the acoustic equivalent of a page turner. In fact it turned out to be a pretty good programme. Zenobia was most famous for being the force behind her husband, a Spanish poet called Juan Ramón Jiménez, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1956 just a couple of years before he died.

I recognised the name - the Juan Ramón that is - because the school where I work is named after him.

I  did a bit of research, well I skimmed the Wikipedia entry about Jimenez. His most famous piece is called Platero y yo. Platero and me. Platero is a donkey and the poem is about rural life and the friendship between a boy and a donkey. I read the fifty odd page poem the other day though most of it was way a bit too flowery for my rudimentary Spanish. And suddenly I understood why the school incorporates a very squared up drawing of a donkey in its paperwork.

It reminded me of that James Burke programme from the 1970s - Connectons.

Double standards

It's not been as cold this winter in Culebrón as it usually is. Outside, as so often, it's lovely. Blue skies and reasonable temperatures - usually a pullover versus jacket sort of choice. Hardly ever a raincoat. Inside it can be perishing but not so much, so far, this winter. Because it wasn't so cold in the bathroom I use and because I don't teach on Fridays I was dawdling a bit over the toothbrushing, hair combing, wrinkle examining ritual this morning and so I heard more of the tertulia, the round table discussion, on the morning radio news, than I often do.

Spanish politics is a bit in limbo at the moment whilst the four big and biggish parties circle around each other suggesting this and that deal to form a Government after last month's indecisive General Election. So Rajoy is still President but until things are sorted out most things are on hold. Up in Cataluña there was a similar impasse for several months about forming a new regional government until the old President stepped aside in favour of a chap called Carles Puigdemont. I'm sure that you know that there is a movement in Cataluña to become independent of the rest of Spain. Rajoy has often being criticised for not being willing enough to talk to the Catalans.

Anyway apparently some Catalan radio station made a hoax call to the acting President Mariano Rajoy. They got through too and somebody pretending to be the Catalan Premier had a chat with Mariano. It seemed like a perfectly reasonable conversation to me. A comfortable conversation. Rajoy said he was happy to talk, that his diary was pretty clear at the moment given the situation, he reminded "Carles" that they had met during the opening of a new rail line etc. When the call was revealed to be a hoax he was still pleasant enough asking about the radio station and the programme. He seemed far from concerned about it. I approved. I'm not a big Rajoy fan but he came across well in my opinion.

Interesting enough little story but pretty run of the mill. I onced phoned Willie Whitelaw as Home Secretary and got through so it didn't seem that odd to me. When I said to Willie that I was surprised to be able to talk to him directly he was very forthright in his reply. "Why do you think I have a phone on my desk if it isn't to talk to people?" he asked. But the pundit on the radio was going on about how the staff close to Rajoy should have screened the call, what a terrible lapse it was, how heads should roll and why people should be resigning.

I was indignant. This country has been and probably is riddled with corruption. Low level corruption is everywhere and it's often not seen for what it is. I suggested on a Guardia Civil website that they should maybe not use be using official vehicles for collecting food for charity and they simply couldn't understand why I thought there was any problem. Lots of top politicians, big names, have sidestepped accusations that seemed well founded to me without problems. But, for some reason a professional natterer thinks that somebody should resign for a harmless prank that actually made Rajoy seem just a little bit more human.

Advertising for Expat.com

I am returning the favour to a site that hosts my blogs so if you are not interested in a website dedicated to Expats then I suggest that you read no farther.

I've been writing a blog since January 2006. I like the idea that people read it but, to be honest, it's probably more for my own entertainment than yours. Nowadays I always add links back to my blog from Google+, Facebook and Twitter and, every now and again, I do a bit of half hearted promotion. Sometime in the past that included getting the blogs that I was then writing registered on another website called Expat Blog. It was Expat Blog that asked for an interview about me and Spain for instance.

Recently Expat Blog changed its name to Expat.com. Today I got five or six emails from them asking me if I could help promote their new website. Fair's fair I thought. You scratch my back and all that.

If you got this far why not have a look?

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.

On being privileged

Sometimes it's surprising the things you don't know even close to home. A while ago we were watching the telly and there was a featurette about Murcia. The cameras visited the Ricote Valley which is some 65kms from Culebrón. One of the villages in the valley is Blanca. It's a small place of around 6,500 inhabitants. We didn't know, but we learned then, that it had an art gallery, the Pedro Cano Foundation. "We must go and have a look one day," I said to Maggie. Today was the day.

As we walked through the door the woman on the desk greeted us in English "We must look very English," I said, in Spanish. "No, but you're the person who phoned yesterday, aren't you?" Now that was true but my instant reaction was then that either they get so few visitors that they remember every phone call or we must look very, very English just like I'd said.

The gallery was really good. A nice light airy building. Interesting and well executed paintings with different themes well explained on each of three floors. On the third floor, the fourth exhibition space, there was a temporary exhibition of some perfectly nice water colours. Not as good, in my opinion, as the permanent stuff but interesting.

Somewhere as we went around I asked Maggie if she knew whether Pedro Cano were still alive. She said she hoped so as the woman on the desk had said he was coming to do a guided tour at midday. My Spanish is so good that I'd heard the bit about the guided tour but not understood who was doing it. To be honest I was for running away before he showed up. He might say something in Spanish, I would splutter and the whole of our Island race would be found wanting and stupid again.

Too late though. As we got to the front desk that guards the door he was there. We recognised him from a video. He held out a hand. He asked us simple things. He asked us if we painted. Other people arrived to divert the conversation. He turned out to be a lovely, lovely man. He radiated pleasantness. He was passionate about his work and about the foundation. He gave us a completely different perspective on the paintings. I often enjoy exhibitions but I haven't had as much fun in an art gallery since the late 70s when I was a member of Leeds City Art Gallery and bumped into Richard Long and Joseph Beuys under similar circumstances.

Underwear, grapes and bubbly

I missed out on the red underwear last night. I forgot all about it. Blue and grey I think. And when I was looking for some background on the underwear I came across another New Year's tradition that I didn't know about. It makes sense though and ties in with a famous Christmas TV ad. And, of course, the grapes, the grapes.

Anne Igartiburu and Ramón García were last nights presenters as the camera focused on the clock tower of the 18th-century Real Casa de Correos in Madrid's Puerta del Sol. Numbers in the square were limited for the first time ever. Just 25,000 people. The ball in the tower slides down, the clock begins with the quarter chimes - not yet, not yet — a pause then the twelve chimes. On each chime we have to pop a grape into our mouth. One for each month of the year. The grapes have pips. The grapes, well nearly all of them, come from near us from the valley of the Vinalopó. Eat them all before the bell tolls fade away and you will have good luck for the year.

The story goes that the tradition of the grapes is a marketing ploy invented by the wily grape growers of Alicante after they had a bumper harvest about a century ago. There are other stories that tie the tradition to rich people from Madrid copying a French fad. Whatever the origins the lucky grapes - las uvas de la suerte - are now as symbolic of New Year as Auld Lang Syne is to Britons.

The typical grapes are white Aledo grapes which are harvested in late November and December. They are protected by Denominación de Origen or D.O. status which means that there are specific rules about how the grapes can be grown and harvested. When buds first form in June and July they are wrapped in paper bags and kept covered as they ripen. Originally this was done to keep off a plague of moths but nowadays the growers say it maintains the flavour and concentrates the aroma of the grapes as well as slowing down their maturation.

We had proper grapes this year because we were in a restaurant and they supplied them but sometimes, when we've not been sure where we are going to end up at midnight we have taken the precaution of buying a small can of ready peeled, de-pipped grapes so that we are ready when the time comes.

We should have been wearing red underwear too and to do it right the underwear should have been given by someone else. I've heard it said that this is a general good luck charm and that the tradition started because red was such a vibrant life affirming colour. Nowadays it's often associated with good luck in love. I'd have thought that might have had more to do with underwear being removed.

Grapes for general luck, underwear for luck in love and gold for luck in things financial. After eating the grapes, Spaniards, and Britons in Spanish company, generally drink cava, the sparkling wine most of which is produced in Catalunya. Apparently we should drop something gold into the glass of bubbly, drink the entire glassful in one go and retrieve the gold to assure our financial success in the coming year. The Freixenet Cava telly ad always features lots of gold

We didn't get a cotillón in the restaurant. A cotillón is a a fun bag with party poppers, paper hats and suchlike. I only mention it here because I was amused by the name for the thing that has a curled tube of paper that flicks out and screeches when you blow into the mouthpiece. I don't know if we have a consistent name for them in English as my Googling produced party horn, screamer, tweeter, squeaker and noise-maker but in peninsular Spanish they are called matasuegras - mother in law killers. Ho, Ho.

Happy New Year.

Life in Berlin

We've just got back from a few days in Berlin. Like Passepartout I left the gas fire on all the time we were away!

Comparing Culebrón to Berlin would be a little unfair. One is the capital city of of one of the most powerful nations of the last two centuries with a population of three and a half million and the other has a postbox. I wouldn't presume to compare two countries either. I have around a hundred hours recent experience of Germany, glimpsed through the distorting mirror of a capital city, against eleven years in Spain. So these are no more than personal impressions of limited interactions in a strange language at an odd time of year.

People in Germany don't like serving other people. We've had some very abrupt service indeed and, with two notable exceptions, very little helpful, friendly or even indifferent service. Indifference would be how I would pigeon hole Spanish service. The waiter, the person in the shop, the doctor says hello, asks what you want and gives you it. Not effusive, gushing, subservient, friendly or hostile. A transaction. In Berlin the reaction seems to be slightly antagonistic bordering on confrontational. As though we are a nuisance asking for things on the menu or wanting to spend money. I suppose I must be misinterpreting the body language or something. This is quite at odds with the general treatment we have received - mostly people have been very pleasant and helpful. One Syrian family connected to Google maps to help us out, a young man gave up his seat to Maggie on the bus and everybody seems able and willing to speak to us in English

.

Berlin feels much more modern than Spain. Now this is a difficult comparison. We live in a rural Spanish backwater but Murcia and Alicante are biggish places and it's not as though we've never been to Madrid or Barcelona. Just your average coffee shop or shopping centre or cinema seems a bit more with it there. I can't really justify the feeling. The ticketing system on the trams in Murcia is very similar to the system on the tram in Berlin, the cars are similar, half the shops have the same name but, nonetheless, that's my impression.

One of the big things we tourists do, other than get footsore, is to eat and drink. This place is like the UK. "foreign" food is everywhere. There are the inevitable burger chains of course and all the other US foodie stuff like fried chicken, doughnut and ice cream places. After the Americans, almost as inevitably, come the Italians with pasta and pizza. Not much of a difference so far then but there is Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese and Indian on every corner. If I'd recorded them I would remember more but I have seen French, Turkish (not just kebabs), Lebanese, Mexican, Greek, Korean, Arabic, British (well a chip shop) and stacks more. Very little German food in the sense of German cuisine except currywurst and schnitzel which I think is German, though it may be Austrian. So it's much more like the UK with food from everywhere. In Spain it's still very much Spanish cuisine as the principal offer. It's like the UK too in that the food has been plentiful but very, very ordinary. Best by far as a meal was the Vietnamese though the home grown pastries, sandwiches and sweets have been good.

Far too many times in Spain, following someone on foot down the street or in the car, they will hurl rubbish to the floor. I have seen exasperated parents snatch packaging from children's hands and toss it on the floor. I suspect that such behaviour would be unconscionable here. The place may be a bit grey but it certainly isn't dirty. People throw rubbish into rubbish bins and clear tables in places without waiter service. Oh, and for the record it isn't cold either. I saw Bridge of Spies a few weeks ago where Berlin looked very cold so I brought layers of coats, gloves, scarves and hats. It's been a bit chilly but nothing worthy of remark and I keep thinking that maybe Spaniards were wearing more wintery clothes in Alicante than the Germans are in Berlin.

I know we're poor. We're pretty poor even in Madrid with our provincial wages. We are paupers in Paris and we're poor in the UK too though there we're a bit more clued up there about the potential bargains to be had. We're relatively poor in Berlin as well. Four or five Euros for a beer and another three or four for the sandwich isn't exactly bank breaking but the same deal in Murcia would cost me half the amount. My money is disappearing at an alarming rate. About twice as expensive seems to be the norm on transport, food drink, entry fees. All things we tourists do. There is a definite difference too in prices in the tourist haunts as against more ordinary bits of town.

I was going to say that it seems pretty multicultural too but I think the World is now. If there are 42 rationalities in Pinoso how many more in any big town particularly the capital city of an economic superpower? So it is but that's not really remarkable.

Bit disappointing on the car side. I've only seen six Porsches in three days and one was a seventies classic. One Lambo, one Bentley, one of those fast Mercedes (is it an SLR?) and one Maserati. Hardly capital city stuff in the Chief I Spy mould. Lots of nice modern buildings, lots of rebuilt older stuff too. Nothing of note about the Berlin fashion sense. Maggie pointed out though that there were very few fat people, in comparison to the UK or Spain, which seems at odds with the potato eating and beer drinking reputation. The steadfast way in which people stay on the kerb at traffic light controlled crossings until the green figure shows fits in with my idea of German discipline though.

At Alicante airport as we waited in the afternoon sun for the car park bus and I listened in on peple around me talking in a language I can just about understand I felt very pleased to be home.

Feeling left out

As I abluted this morning - is it a verb? - I listened to the radio as usual. The, apparently intentional, forest fires in Asturias apart the only news was about the General Election which is taking place today

I don't get to vote of course. Perhaps I should throw some tea into the harbour or something.

So, as I sat looking at the computer screen pondering on the outcome - PP (Consrvatives) to win I suspect with PSOE (Labour) coming a distant second in some places but generally being ousted by Ciudadanos (Liberalish sort of tinge) and Podemos (talk the talk leftist bunch) a disappointing fourth and with a couple of other national parties being annihilated - I wondered who I would be voting for if I were able to vote.

The voting system in Spain is a list of candidates for each party. So, if we were talking something similar in the UK the list would be headed by Cameron with  Osborne second then May, Hammond, Grove, Fallon etc. and for Labour Corbyn, McDonell, Eagle etc. All the names by the way are from UK websites - apart from the top two names I don't know what these people look like.

It wouldn't actually be one list as the constituencies are based on the regional divisions or autonomous communities and the various provinces that make up those communities. To push the comparison there would be a list for London and there would be lists for Regions like the West Midlands or Yorkshire and Humber. The provinces would be similar to divisions such as Herefordshire and Shropshire. So Cameron might be at the top of the London list and Osborne at the top of the Shropshire list with no chance whatsoever of not being elected.

So I thought I'd have a look at the lists for the region of Valencia and the province of Alicante to see if I recognised any of the politicians. There's been a bit of murmuring because Podemos have a black woman at the head of their list in Alicante and she will almost certainly be the first black deputy in the Congress. I had heard nothing about the other candidates. Indeed it actually took me ages to find the lists. There were plenty of press reports mentioning the people heading up the lists but actually finding the full lists with the twelve candidates and three reserves for Alicante took some doing. It just shows how different the named MP system in the UK or the named representatives in the US are to the party system operated here where personalities are much less important.

I thought I recognised three names but, in fact, I was wrong about two of them. The current Foreign Minister heads up the PP list for Alicante and him I recognised. I thought Toni Roma was a defector from UPyD which is a party that, I think, will disappear at these elections but I was mistaking him for Toni Cantó or maybe for the chicken place in Benidorm. I was really surprised to see the name Ana Botella too. The one I know is the ex Mayor of Madrid and the wife of the ex President of Spain José Maria Aznar. Surely she was a member of the PP - why was she on the socialist list? The answer of course is because it's a different Ana Botella.

There are also elections for the Senate today but nobody cares about those except the potential senators and their families.

My prediction, by the way, is that there will  not be a clear cut result and the face of the next Government will depend on the horse trading that goes on over the next few weeks.

Sunday night addition: The votes are nearly all in. It's a PP win with the PSOE second Podemos third and Ciudadanos fourth. Wrong order from me then but the prediction about horse trading as right as right can be. The pundits are drawing little pictures on the telly to show a left right draw. Now the fun begins.

Stamping the Christmas cards

I went to the Post Office to buy some stamps for my Christmas cards but there was a big queue. Now it can take fifteen minutes for Enrique, the guy on the Post Office counter, to shift two people so five or six people and I thought maybe I should carry food. Alternatively I could go to a tobacconist and buy the stamps there. I chose the second option.

In Spain there is a price for normal mail and a different price for what must be classed as abnormal mail. I mentioned this to the woman selling me the stamps in the tobacconist. She thought it was so much nonsense and limited herself to selling me stamps at 42c for national delivery and 90c for stuff to the rest of Europe. The other side of the world cost just 10c more.

I wrote my cards but before I stuck on the stamps I checked what constituted normal and abnormal mail. The price differential was substantial and most of my cards were definitely abnormal. Being an honest sort of bloke I thought the best bet was to explain myself to Enrique and use my tobacconist stamps plus extras from the Post Office to make up the difference. All I had to do was to find a time when the Post Office was empty.

Being old and stupid I forgot to take the stamps with me when I went in to the Post Office very early one morning so I ended up buying all the stamps there.

Maggie was writing her cards after I'd done mine. I offered her my unused stamps. She wrote her cards and started sticking stamps. She asked me about a stamp for sending a card within Spain. It was then I realised that she had put the national stamps on all the internationally addressed cards.

She hadn't recognised the Christmas tree design in the photo above as a sheet of six stamps. "I thought it was more useless Christmas information you'd brought home," she said. I laughed like a drain.