Dawn

Dawn

Tuesday, April 09, 2013

El País gave Mrs Thatcher was given 9 pages today, albeit tabloid size. Plus a leader. Not bad for a left-of-centre paper. I haven't read them all but I doubt they contain as much invective as a single page of The Guardian's (predictable) response to her passing.

They say that, if you can remember the 60s, you weren't there. Likewise, those who demonise Mrs Thatcher can have no idea of just how bad things were in the UK before she came to power. I recall negotiating back then with some Belgians who were amused at the thought that Britain, the world's first industrialised country, was now the first country of the First World to be passing beyond industrialisation, to become “the first country of the Fourth World.” She made mistakes, of course, and her legacy is not all positive but, by God, she was needed.

Mrs T isn't the only lady octogenarian being mourned this week. There's also María Montiel, a famous Spanish film star of the 50s and beyond. Born in 1928 of peasant parents, she was christened María Antonia Alejandra Vicenta Elpidia Isador Abad Fernández but rightly conclded this might be a tad too long for Hollywood. Where she came to prominence alongside Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster in Veracruz. Ten or eleven years ago, I picked up her autobiography in El Corte Inglés and I recall being surprised both at her beauty at the number of men she claimed to have seduced, including all her co-stars. Frankly, getting them all into bed can't have been much of a challenge. At least, not one at a time. Anyway, here's a still from Veracruz and here's the entire film. Try around minute 50 for her entrance. More recently, here she is performing with Alaska. And here she is filming in Pontevedra, in the movie Esa Women. They must have used a lot of hoses to get the rain effect as it never pours that hard here. Honest.

The local tax office – the Hacienda – has decided to put its old offices – themselves an ex-convent – on the market. By pure coincidence, you can see them behind Ms Montiel in the Pontevedra reel.

Finally . . . Something completely different:- Reader Miquiztil has sent me this poem by José María Millares Sall, entitled Liverpool, Oh, Liverpool. If anyone is willing to essay a good, poetic English translation, this would be much appreciated.

Sobre vuestros curtidos rostros de paloma endurecida,
sobre vuestras sonrisas de sal y vino agrio, ya sobre los duros cristales de la niebla,
está mi alma, están mis ojos, amigos,
y sobre el último dolor de la tierra,
y sobre el último dolor de mis manos, tanteando el duro cemento de una puerta vacía,
y sobre la última agonía de las aguas está flotando mi corazón, señores, mi corazón.
Por favor, abridme paso, dejadme cruzar este túnel de plomo,
que quiero ser el primero en llegar con mi sangre a los muelles de Liverpool.
Amigos, vosotros que os perfiláis como aletas de pescado
sobre las últimas esquinas de los buques;
vosotros que de cada rincón saltáis de una bodega a otra
como sapos de azufre ardiendo, como tristes pezuñas de lagarto,
para husmear el rojo carbón de las calderas,
para darle vida al hierro como al alba le dais su fruto,
para darle aliento al agua que se aleja para siempre de la tierra,
del polvo que tanto amáis tras unos ojos,
decidme que puedo soñar en vuestros rostros de ceniza
y en vuestras sucias calles de alquitrán, y en vuestros hogares de nata corrompida,
y echar la raíz de mi sangre como un ancla sobre vuestras jurisdicciones marítimas,
porque además de ser un hombre como vosotros, soy un poeta,
y un poeta es un corazón más sobre la niebla del mundo.
Por favor, abridme paso, que quiero ser el primero en saludar con mi sangre vuestras sonrisas de azufre,
vuestras mujeres de estopa. Por favor, abridme paso.

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