We have had some summer storms where the rain punches the streets and the clouds growl like tigers. I like the feeling of siege that a summer thunderstorm provokes. There is something elemental and primitive in it. We need the storms in Madrid because from now until October we are more or less permanently beneath blue skies and a Dalek sun that grates ‘Exterminate!‘ every time you step out of the door.
Being slap bang in the middle of the peninsula means we do not enjoy the moderating effects of a large body of water. When I lived in Donostia the summers were cooler and the winters were milder. The idea of a summer residence makes sense.
I am working a lot in July and so I will be too busy to notice. But come August and a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of ice. It is unbearable. When you get a 38 celcius you can’t sleep. So you wake up tired. And hot. I try to emulate Lawrence of Arabia who, when asked what the trick to tolerating high temperatures was, replied ‘The trick is not to mind’.
That fits in with my general position that it is not what happenes that makes us unhappy but rather our opinions about what happens. Change your mind, change the unhappiness. Summer in Madrid, however, really separates the Masters from the disciples.
It’s been ages since I made a blog entry. Is that due to some creeping muscle disease that paralyses the two typing fingers? Of course not. Is it a reluctance to engage again with you, Dear Reader? Come, come. Perhaps an irresistible ennui born of routine and low achievment? Ach no! We shall have none of that. No. I have been what all self-employed people, be they chefs or charlatans, plumbers or ploughmen, seek to be. Busy. I have been running around like a flying insect of azure posterior giving residential classes to the high and,more often than not, mighty.
I can not, for reasons of the utmost discretion, reveal who my clients are but I can let slip that we have studied the English for the successful exceution of negotiations, meetings, conference calls, presentations, public speaking, social English, economics and some other stuff that is TOP SECRET. So TOP SECRET we had to forget about it after we’d studied it.
I have made and mislaid friends since last we met here, Dear Reader, and I have had confirmed my agreement with Socrates’ position that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living‘. And so I have examined my life and, do you know, on the whole it has a high degree of sunsets and banana sandwiches. That is reassuring.
Next month…in two weeks actually..I go to visit that lovely old relic, England to celebrate my mother’s 90th birthday. Rejoicing shall be unbounded and so may a few things more. Watch this space.
The floating mountains held with bound vegetation were pure Dali. And the anti-exploitation/invasion sentiment was pure Anti-American sentiment. Odd that it’s a Hollywood blockbuster then, innit? It is, as others have said, Pocahontas meets tall hippy smurfs but it was beautiful in parts. The plot was typical myth structure. Yet it was good to see a hero who was disabled even if his deeds of derring-do were accomplished in another body.
The much talked about 3-D was not at all invasive and it was kind of the director not to shoot us in the eye with an arrow or throw rocks at us. It seemed a coming of age of sorts. The technology was almost not the real protagonist of the film and it made me hopeful for cinema maybe two or three years down the line when 3-D becomes commonplace and we don’t feel like a 1927 audience watching ‘The Jazz Singer“.
Last weekend my girlfriend took me on a mystery trip. All I knew was that it was within a two hours drive from Madrid and that on the Saturday there was a special activity. So, off I went on Friday afternoon to my class with the creative agency Patito Feo full of that tense joy that comes from knowing that something good is going to happen but not knowing what. A Christmas morning for Grown Ups kind of feeling. After my class, in which we discussed the possibilities that could materialise, I was picked up and whisked away via Alacalá de Henares (birthplace of Cervantes), Guadalajara (difficult to pronounce) to the mediaeval town of Pastrana in Castilla – La Mancha founded in the 13th century as a bastion after the final expulsion of the Moors. We arrived, less than two hours later, at the small hotel Palaterna next to a beautiful 16th century fountain called the Fuente de los Cuatro Caños. Apparently the symbolic meaning of the fountain’s decorations have been lost to memory.
On Saturday morning we walked to the Iglesia Colegiata which began life as the local parish church in the 14th century. It harbours the gothic tapestries of Alfonso V of Portugal. I always light a candle for my late father when I visit churches and, alas, this ancient temple has succumbed to the blight of having electric lights that switch on when you drop your coin in the box. Where, I ask you, is the sanctity in that?
We visited the Ducal Palace that dominates the village square. Apart from some tiles and roof carpentry the building has no sense of it’s Spanish Renaissance history thanks to the disembowelment perpetrated under the name of restauration by the University of Alcalá. The tour guide seemed less than excited as she told us about the one-eyed Princess of Eboli and her legendary amorous adventures with Felipe II. The building is now Spain’s Observatory of Sustainability. Go on, weep.
After a hearty lunch of migas and roast lamb the moment of truth arrived as my girlfriend revealed that the afternoon’s mystery activity was a visit of Pastrana’s wonderful spa. She knows that I am a big spa fan after seeing me spend a week in a jacuzzi in Cadiz a few years back. The people who work in the spa have it perfectly calibrated and we enjoyed the cascading spa pool followed by hydromassage, exfoliation, turkish bath, cool room and aroma therapy in a relaxation room to balance our energies. Bliss it was to be alive that afteroon but to be 48 with your partner was very heaven. Very.
In the evening we hit the road to seek out nearby villages and tap into their rural vibe. All we found though was a badly hidden nuclear power station , a small one like hobbits probably have, and so we turned around and drove back to Pastrana to dine at the Cafe de Ruy . Carmen was not feeling too hungry and so had a ration of ham and a salad. I opted for roast beef washed down with a nice bottle of Cuné . The wine is 80% tempranillo grape and then equal parts of the mazuello and garnacha varieties. Delicious! At the bar afterwards we sank a couple of mojitos and so to bed.
The next day we had the great pleasure to meet a guide who was truly connected with her subject. We visited a convent established by Saint Teresa of Avile and St John of the Cross. Our guide showed us paintings and relics now on display in the cloister and church. One could tell that the guide felt some pride in what she was showing us. Her appreciation of the paintings was palpable and it was a joy to be in her company. It is worth a visit just to see the Via Crucis series of paintings that have a remarkable modernity of composition and light.
After buying some postcards we hit the road and drove through Castilla, wending our way back to the big city refreshed spiritually and physically. Saint Teresa said
“Each of us has a soul, but we forget to value it. We don’t remember that we are creatures made in the image of God. We don’t understand the great secrets hidden inside of us.”
Well, thanks to my girlfriend’s mystery weekend, we certainly tried,
It was a long weekend where the Spanish who care about such things celebrate the Spanish Constitution. Spain is one of the most interesting countries in Europe when it comes to politics. It boasts a new democracy risen from a bloodless transition from fascist dictatorship engineered by a monarch who the leader of the Communist party admitted was the most radical agent of change at the time. The Spanish Congreso de Deputados – House of Commons if you will – is just up the road from the statue of Neptune and a stone’s throw from Madrid’s central Puerto del Sol. I went there on Monday.
I queued for four hours in the cold and the rain to get a look at the building where on 23th February1981 Antonio Tejero Molina tried to stage a military coup. You can see the bullet holes where he shot into the ornate ceiling. What a prat!
When we arrived at the entrance after joining the queue at Calle Alcalá and going all the way down to the Paseo del Prado and then up and around Calle Zorilla, they photocopied my passport and gave me a plastic cup (one of the cosy foamy ones) of soup. There were no guides. Just blue arrows with the word ‘Route’ on them. It was all very lush carpet and oil painty throughout. There was a fancy table given as a gift by some very important dead person to another very important dead person and a room with clocks. There was a modern looking tribute to the men who drew up the Constitution 40 years ago. The contrast between the modern paintings of these guys with the oil painted portraits of Pre-Franco times highlighted how young modern Spain is.
The debating chamber is beautiful to look at but uncomfortable to sit in. Little wonder they are so grumpy most of the time. Every diputado has an electrical voting system and a computer monitor. Although they look a bit Windows 3.1, they’re more on the ball than the Brits who have to shuffle out and in again to vote.
The debating chamber is a lot smaller than it looks on the 9 o’clock news and I can imagine the atmosphere gets a bit tense at times. In the English House of Commons MPs are separated by a space the distance of two sword lengths. Here they inhabit a classical semi-circle.
I was given a rucksack, gloves, scarf and a woolly hat when I left. I imagine that is so I can be identified as a solid citizen who has done the democractic Haj to the Congreso. I was also given a copy of the Spanish Constitution. I shall read it too.
On Friday we will hear if Madrid has been awarded the 2016 Olympic Games. We deserve the Games. We want the Games. But what we don’t want, are the professional cheats.
Athletes are supposed to be role models for children. At least, when I was a child they were. They represented the triumph of will over adversity. Work hard, be faithful and you will, if not win, at least compete with dignity. That was the message.
How things change! The Olympic ideal of ‘mens sana in copore sano’ is as laughable as a bald man’s comb
There have always been cheats – people who confuse crossing the line first with winning. But it was in 1988 when ‘doping’ became an international issue. Ben Jonson, in the 100 meters race in the Seoul Olympics, used steriods to win a gold medal . He was supposed to use his legs.
Cycling may never fully recover from the shock of the entire Festina team being banned from the Tour de France for having suitcases of doping material with them. There were rumours of doping in that race for many years before.
Such is the effect of these elite cheats that doping is now appearing in amateur sport. School students are finding that steroids are cheap and easily obtainable. In the USA 4% of teenagers (mainly boys) have used anabolic steroids in the past year.
We are used to cheating in football. Every time a player falls down pretending to be fouled we get angry (if it’s their player) or shrug (if it’s ours). Football stopped being sport a long time ago.
But the Olympic Games are supposed to be noble. We’ve all seen “Chariots of Fire”. Surely we all know the story of the Jamaican bobseligh team who fought against all ridicule and technical problems after their first Olympics Games in Calgary? They went on to beat the USA and Russia in subsequent competitions. No drugs. No cheating.
And they don’t even have snow in Jamaica!
But what can you do? Now some athletes take ‘masking agents’ which hide illegal substances. For every drug test developed there will be some cheating chemist finding ways round it.
But it is not the chemists who take the drugs. Nor the team doctors. Nor the trainers.
The sole responsibility to take drugs out of sport lies with the athletes themselves. It is question of restoring sporting values.
In English a person who enters into the spirit of things is called “a good sport”. If you do something against the rules you are “not playing the game” and “it’s not cricket”.
Doped sportspeople should be ashamed of themselves. If they are not, we should make them be. Honesty is not something to flirt with. We must be married to it.
It should start in the home, continue at school until it eventually regains its place on a podium in an Olympic stadium. Maybe a podium in Madrid.
On Saturday I attended the first meeting of the Irish in Spain. Well, I suppose there must have been thousands or millions of meetings of Irish in Spain over the years but not a big, official one of the Irish in Spain where we have a look at ourselves and see what we’re all about.
I was lucky enough to get invited to read some poems such as the deeply beautiful Lake Isle of Innisfree by WB Yeats.This is one of my favourite poems of all time as opposed to just one of my favorite poems. The latter chop and change according to internal weather systems but the all-timers are as fixed as the North Star. Have a read and see how you can see twinkly stars in the second stanza and hear the lake in the third .
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
I will arise and go now,
And go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there,
Of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there,
A hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there,
For peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning
To where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer,
And noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now,
For always night and day
I hear lake water lapping
With low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway
Or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
A million years ago in Manchester I used to perform poetry with the Live Poets Society (motto: Poetry So Good You Can Actually Understand It) and it was with that happy band of poets that I learned the difference between poetry on the page and poetry on the stage. You need to lift the language from the paper and get it flying around the room. Poetry isn’t literature! It is sound. It is physical.
This Yeats poem is perfect for reading aloud. It is joyous and reverent and decided.
Anyhow, the Irish in Spain event was great. I hope the Madrid Irish can get some regular meetings going and that we have a national event at least annually. Good craic so it was.
This weekend Madrid hosts a massive party, parade and jolly good time all round to celebrate Gay Pride. As usual, some MTPs (Missers of The Point) have been resuscitated and wheeled into television studios to question why gay people get to have a festival using local council money when they have nothing to protest against any more. I suppose they feel the same about Martin Luther King Day, Mothers’ Day and Christmas.
I am not gay but I am proud. I am proud that after centuries of brutal repression, the likes of which we still see in countries such as Iran, it is my generation that has realised that love is the only thing that matters. Not who you are, not what you look like, not who you want to be with or how. There are some of us who thought this message was available about 2000 years ago but Biblical interpretation seems to have become a dangerous game of manipulated Chinese whispers. There is an excellent book called A Question of Truth by Gareth Moore for anyone who wants to know more.
Lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual people have spent years being rejected by most of society. Even now there are a great many places where they cannot show their affection publicly as can heterosexual couples. They have been punished for loving. Shamed into leading double lives and having secret friends. The true shame falls on all of us who have been part of that!
It is 40 years since the Stonewall rioters said enough is enough. But we need to keep saying it. Until everyone can go everywhere and show love without fear. Then we can all feel proud.
We have had some summer storms where the rain punches the streets and the clouds growl like tigers. I like the feeling of siege that a summer thunderstorm provokes. There is something elemental and primitive in it. We need the storms in Madrid because from now until October we are more or less permanently beneath blue skies and a Dalek sun that grates ‘Exterminate!‘ every time you step out of the door.
The floating mountains held with bound vegetation were pure Dali. And the anti-exploitation/invasion sentiment was pure Anti-American sentiment. Odd that it’s a Hollywood blockbuster then, innit? It is, as others have said, Pocahontas meets tall hippy smurfs but it was beautiful in parts. The plot was typical myth structure. Yet it was good to see a hero who was disabled even if his deeds of derring-do were accomplished in another body.
Last weekend my girlfriend took me on a mystery trip. All I knew was that it was within a two hours drive from Madrid and that on the Saturday there was a special activity. So, off I went on Friday afternoon to my class with the creative agency 
On Friday we will hear if Madrid has been awarded the 2016 Olympic Games. We deserve the Games. We want the Games. But what we don’t want, are the professional cheats.
This weekend Madrid hosts a massive party, parade and jolly good time all round to celebrate Gay Pride. As usual, some MTPs (Missers of The Point) have been resuscitated and wheeled into television studios to question why gay people get to have a festival using local council money when they have nothing to protest against any more. I suppose they feel the same about Martin Luther King Day, Mothers’ Day and Christmas.
