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Showing posts from 2018

Romería 1982 - festivities at the Santuario

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In 1982 the American social anthropologist Jerome Mintz, who spent a lot of time in this part of the world, made this short film at the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de los Santos during the festivities of the Romería (pilgrimage).  It is subtitled in English and gives us a real flavour of the event - dancing, singing, families picnicking in the olive groves, drinking sherry and making the famous gazpacho caliente  in a huge wooden bowl (which was, it seems, once used to wash small children in). The most fascinating aspect for me is that, apart from the clothes and the cars, it is all pretty much the same today.  The Romería in September and the Fiesta de San Jorge in April are when the alcalaínos and alcalaínas let their hair down.  May that never change.

R.I.P. Paco Pizarro, 1936-2018

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When we first came to Alcalá, the main watering-hole for the small colony of Brits was Pizarro's, or Pizzies as it was usually called.  These days the Paseo de la Playa is full of bars and cafes, but back in 2005 there was very little choice.  One of the reasons we liked to go there was the charming owner, Paco.  He was still cooking then, and used to bring us out little plates of food to try, often sitting down for a chat, listening patiently to our broken Spanish.  He loved meeting people, especially foreigners who had elected to visit or move permanently to his home town. So it was with great sadness that we learned of his death last week, at the age of 82.  He'd been ill for a while, but would still come down to the bar occasionally for a game of dominoes.  Just two weeks before he died, I drew a picture of him and was wondering how to give it to him as I hadn't seen him for a while... Paco Pizarro may be the best-known Alcalá resident of all time, by virtue of havi

Defecating on deities: Willy Toledo and the right to free speech

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Swearing in Spanish involves a fair amount of shit. Me cago en la leche (I shit in the milk) or me cago en el mar ( I shit in the sea )   are   fairly mild expletives, along the lines of "Oh fuck".    Me cago en tus muertos/tu puta madre  (I shit on your dead relatives/whore of a mother) are stronger, and more likely to get you into a fight.  Me cago en Dios (I shit on God) is in the first category - vulgar, certainly, but not likely to get you arrested. But Spanish actor, theatrical director and left-wing activist Willy Toledo went too far for some people when he posted on Facebook last year:  "Yo me cago en Dios. Y me sobra mierda para cagarme en el dogma de la santidad y virginidad de la Virgen María"  (I shit on God, and have enough shit left over to crap on the dogma of the holiness and virginity of the Virgin Mary). This outburst was in response to the reopening of the case against three women who in 2014 had paraded an enormous vagina around the st

Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, the Spanish David Attenborough

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The municipal park in Alcalá, next to the Paseo de la Playa and site of the new tourist information office, is named after one Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente.  But few visitors from outside Spain have a clue who he was. Félix was born in 1928 in Poza de la Sal, Burgos, into a middle-class intellectual household.  During the Civil War (1936-1939) he was home-schooled, and spent a lot of time outdoors where he developed a deep passion for the natural world.  At the age of ten, he was sent to a religious boarding school and lamented his lost freedom, but on a summer holiday in Santander he apparently witnessed a hawk taking a duck in flight, which led him to become interested in falconry. At a falconry exhibition in 1955 After leaving school he went to the University of Valladolid to study medicine, at his father's insistence, but he was more interested in environmental issues and was never a good student.  It was there that he met and became influenced by the biologist José

A history silenced: What we were not told about the Civil War in Alcalá

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This is a translation of the results of detailed research into Alcalá's municipal archives by historian Ismael Almagro Montes de Oca and his colleagues, on events which took place here during the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39.  The original articles, in Spanish, can be found on the blog Historia de Alcalá de los Gazules: La Historia Silenciada I La Historia Silenciada II Summary:   Although there were no battle-fronts near Alcalá during the Civil War, the overnight regime change in the government of the town immiediately after Franco's military coup affected everyone's lives.  The elected representatives and civil servants who supported the Republic were quickly replaced with Falangist sympathisers, and many were imprisoned or executed, along with other prominent Republicans. Streets were renamed after Francoist generals. Rights and freedoms were curtailed and private property was confiscated, often to the financial benefit of the new regime.  All forms of protest, such a

Exhibition by Alfonso Barrera

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Local artist Alfonso Jiménez Barrera will be exhibiting some of his paintings at the Santo Domingo cultural centre this coming week.  Visitors to the flamenco bar on the Plaza Alta will already by familiar with his signature work, a stunning townscape of Alcalá, painted in photographic detail, which hangs in the dining area. The exhibition is organised by the alumni association of the Sagrada Familia school (SAFA), and is open from 8 pm starting Saturday 11 August. Born in Alcalá de los Gazules in 1959, Alfonso has always been interested in the arts, especially painting and drawing.  Over the past few years he has dedicated himself full-time to his artistic works, and is well on the way to making a name for himself across Spain, winning various awards and participating in exhibitions in Barcelona and Madrid. Alfonso is self-taught, and is now passing on his techniques to local adults and children in classes held his own workshop.  His skill and patience as a teacher bring out

Alcalá wants its bronze back!

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Alcalá has made news this week by submitting a formal request to the Louvre museum in Paris for the return of the Lascut Bronze , an ancient Roman relic discovered here in 1866. The tiny bronze tablet was sold to the Louvre in 1868 by a Polish engineer, who had acquired it for next to nothing from some local labourers who found it on some land just outside the town, an ancient settlement known as la Mesa de Esparragal (or so the story goes). Dating from 189 BC, it is one of the first Latin inscriptions to be discovered on the Iberian peninsula, freeing the inhabitants of Lascuta from servitude as a gesture of gratitude for their assistance in crushing a rebellion in Astia Regia, near what is now Jerez. The first attempt by the Alcalá administration to retrieve its treasure took place in the 1980s, when local councillor Gabriel Almagro wrote to the Louvre.  They didn't refuse outright, but said there was no way they could comply at that time.  They offered instead another