La Vida Alcalaína

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

" 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