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Showing posts from 2012

Belenismo - A Spanish Christmas tradition

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In Spain, as in many Catholic countries, the Christmas nativity scene goes way beyond a stable and a manger. The belén (from the Spanish name for Bethlehem) often recreates in miniature an entire Palestinian village, and examples can be seen in shop windows and public squares as well as schools, businesses, churches and homes.  The custom is thought to be over seven hundred years old, and even has its own name - belenismo . A lovingly-prepared Belén in the backstreets of Alcalá The little figures are often hand-made, with incredible attention to detail, and there are entire markets dedicated to selling them. We came across one in Seville yesterday: the Feria del Belén  is located outside the cathedral and has been going for nearly twenty years.  It  has over 20 stalls selling everything from miniature mechanical blacksmiths, complete with moving hammers (€149), to tiny eggs and vegetables to put in tiny wicker baskets (from €1 each). . The Feria del Belen in Seville

The Republican Urinal

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Visitors caught short in Alcalá will search in vain for a public convenience, but ´twas not ever thus.  During the short-lived Second Republic of the 1930s, the town's socialist administration provided the good people of Alcalá with a number of facilities previously lacking: a museum, a covered market, a library, and a public urinal.  However, it was nearly as short-lived as the Republic itself. Here is its story (an abridged translation of an article by Jaime Guerra Martinez on the Historia de Alcalá de los Gazules blog). The hexagonal public conveniences, a short hop from the bus stop What disappointment was suffered By the sons of our city Over the public urinal Built opposite Bernal's This verse, sung by a band of street musicians during Alcalá's Carnival in the 1930s, reflected the popular reaction among the less prudish citizens to the introduction of a charge for using the recently-opened public urinal in what was then the Paseo de la Repúblic

Suicide or murder? Spain's other banking crisis

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Last Friday  a 53-year-old woman in the Basque Country threw herself out of the window of her 6th floor flat while the bailiffs were coming up the stairs to evict her for failing to keep up her mortgage repayments to La Caixa.  She was a former councillor, married with a 21-year-old son.  None of the neighbours were aware of the family's financial problems. On 23 October a young man threw himself off a road bridge in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, after losing his job, his girlfriend and his home in quick succession. On 24 October a 54-year-old man in Granada hanged himself in his patio after receiving an eviction notice from BBVA.  He had lived in the area all his life, and bought out his brothers' share of the property when they inherited it, but could no longer afford the repayments from the little he earned running a street kiosk. On 7 July a 56-year-old disabled woman facing eviction threw herself out of the window of her eleventh-floor flat in Málaga city.  She got cau

Alcalá online

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It is often observed, not without affection, that Alcalá is thirty years behind the times.  People still say hello to strangers, prefer corner shops to supermarkets, and have conversations in the middle of the street as if traffic were some newfangled nuisance they haven't got used to yet. Yet when it comes to online social networking,  the Alcalainos are right up there. " ¡Eres mi amiga en Febu! " exclaimed a middle-aged lady one day in the street, grabbing me by the arm.  I had no idea who she was.  "You are my friend on ..."  Febu???  It was a few seconds before the penny dropped.  Round here they don't pronounce the letter S and they ignore those pesky final consonants.  Try again ... I started using Facebook when we moved here in 2008, to keep in touch with friends and family in other parts of the world, but soon started to receive friend requests from unfamiliar Spanish names. They came from all age groups and all walks of life, from the road-swee

Is Spain falling apart?

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" In Spain, separatist fever rises in time of crisis ", proclaimed the Washington Post yesterday.  " Independence for Catalonia? Over my dead body … and those of many soldiers!" retorted Francisco Alamán, a serving colonel in the Spanish army.   "Is Spain on the verge of another civil war?"  pondered Paul Mason, Economics Editor of BBC Newsnight, referring to the growing desire for independence in Catalonia and the Basque Country as well as huge wave of anti-austerity protests sweeping the country. A million and a half Catalans clamouring for independence Under the Franco regime, regional identity was brutally repressed and languages other than Castellano (Spanish) were banned in order to achieve a unified Spain. When the country returned to democracy after his death, the 1978 Constitution defined Spain as a single indivisible unit made up of seventeen "autonomous communities", but with varying levels of autonomy.  For example, Catalon

Romería 2012

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It's that time of the year again, when the people of Alcalá pay homage to Nuestra Señora de los Santos ( Our Lady of the Saints) at the nearby Santuario .  This lovely little video from ArteVisualCadiz captures the moment beautifully.  Thanks to Rosa Almagro Montes de Oca for permission to include it here.

Death in the Afternoon - back on TV

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Televisión Española (TVE), the state-funded Spanish TV network, is to start broadcasting live bullfights again in September, it was announced last week . This practice was stopped in 2006, under the centre-left government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, because it was feared that children might be upset by seeing a matador killed or seriously injured in the ring (and because TVE were being priced out of the market for the major festivals by private broadcasters).  The edited highlights were broadcast late in the evening. Last year TVE pulled bullfighting from its schedules altogether, saying it contravened its code of conduct for programmes before Spain's late evening watershed hour.  Bullfights mostly start at 6 pm, falling into children's viewing hours.   (Interestingly, there is no age limit on children attending the events in person.)  Furious fans accused the broadcaster of shunning a key part of Spanish popular culture. "This means that TVE, which belongs to us

The Gallery Trail

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Last week, coinciding with the 8th Festival Internacional de Música , Alcalá had its first Paseo de Galerías. It was organised jointly by the Town Hall and the Painting in Spain art school. Local artists and craftsmen from all over the region of La Janda were invited to display their works in bars, restaurants and empty shops around the town, for the public to drop in, enjoy a drink and  tapas, and hopefully purchase a painting or two. Despite taking place in one of the hottest Augusts on record, and the failure of some of the participants to show up, the event was reasonably successful with several paintings sold, and was enjoyed by locals as well as visitors. Here are some of the exhibits. Watercolours by Benito García Morán on the Calle Real: Acrylics by yours truly in the Peña Madridista (Real Madrid supporters club), hanging amongst the Cristiano Ronaldo shirts and trophy posters: Oils by María Gómez in the San Jorge Hotel: Oils by Car