SPANISH
SOCIETY
Paella:
I see that Jamie Oliver claims it was a Spanish grandmother
who gave him the idea of putting chorizo in his paella. Name
her and shame her, say I.
SPANISH
POLITICS
What It
Takes: My suspicion is that, if you have a good historical
understanding of 1. 19th century Spain, 2. pre-civil war Spain, 3.
the civil war itself, 4. the Franco dictatorship, 5. the Transition,
6. the last 20 years or so of bipolar politics, and 7. the rise of
Podemos and Ciudadanos, then you might just have a good chance of
understanding what's going on at present. And why the PP party is
staying in power despite its institutionalised corruption. Failing at
least most of these, you should probably give up, sit back in awe
and just watch the spectacle.
THE UK
Holidaying:
It's reported that 85% of Brits don't want to be near fellow Brits
when they go abroad. This is the exact opposite of Spaniards. Who
love to aggregate. And talk. Which is why I love them. Usually.
London:
There's an allegedly very good Galician restaurant called L'Oculto
in Brockley. No, I've no idea where this district is either.
ELSEWHERE
Portugal:
I'm off today to eat roast lamb in Monção in North Portugal.
Searching for information on the net, I came across a paper entitled:
Chemical characterization of the
Portuguese gastronomic specialty 'Lamb from Monção'.
Which wasn't exactly appetising. And then I found something else and
Google gave me the first paragraph as: The
taste and the name, the Lamb of Monsoon fashion, known as "Fuck
the Monsoon", is an obligatory reference on the local
gastronomic tour. 'Monsoon',
it seems, is their rendition of Monção. I can't yet explain the
other phrase. Even less so the final paragraph: The
term was popularized so that the dish came to be called, locally, as
'fuck'. So that it is frequent, at festive times (Easter, Corpus
Christi, Lady of Sorrows and Christmas or New Year's Eve) to hear
women say:“Mary, have you screwed the fuck?".
I will report.
GALICIAN
STUFF
Nice
Videos: Here's one which is said to be a trip along the Miño
river border with Portugal but the first minute and a half features
Pontevedra. And here's another one in which Pontevedra comes in at minute 5.53. If you're
quick enough, you'll see my house, on the top of a hill.
Gallegas: The grand
total of people who've asked to see the list of the principal
characteristics of Galician women is precisely nil. I'm not at all
sure what this means.
LOCAL
STUFF
Inditex:
This is the amazingly successful parent company of Zara and various
other retail outlets of the group, whose HQ is in La Coruña. One of
the outlets is called Pull and Bear. Does anyone have any idea
why? A typo for Bull and Bear?
FINALLY
English
Football: I had the misfortune last night to watch the second
half of England's match against the minnows of Malta. Any decent team
would have scored 5-10 goals in the first half against a team which
included a café owner and an airport check-in clerk. But England had
only managed 2. And got 2 fewer in the second. More than 81,000
people had paid to watch this game at Wembley, which surely defies
belief. To say the least, the irrelevant, boring commentary was
unlike its Spanish equivalent. I've been listening to the former for
decades and have concluded that the only qualifications are:- 1. To
speak English, and 2. To know the names of all the players and subs,
plus some irrelevant background on some of them. Even these are not demanded of the studio pundits, who are all
ex-footballers and, therefore, can't speak good English. Except for
the foreign ones, who are excellent at both speaking and punditing.
But at least it wasn't a complete waste of time; I got my ironing
done during the 45 minutes. And I didn't listen to the pathetic
post-match commentary. I switched off when one expert said that, in
the second half, the pitch wasn't quite big enough. BTW . . .
Why someone hasn't shot Glenn Hoddle in the last 20-30 years is a
complete mystery to me. I dread to think what he gets paid for his
banalities.
Sorry to go on but this is how the Daily Telegraph opened its report this morning: It remains a puzzle whether it is more remarkable that 81,781 people will come on a Saturday afternoon to watch the dysfunctional bunch that is the England team play the 176th ranked nation in the world, or that some of them turn up to boo Wayne Rooney.
THE
GALLERY
More examples of Finnish/British nightmares:-
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