La Vida Alcalaína

¿Cómo se llama?  (what´s your name?) is one of the first phrases used by most people learning Spanish (after "two beers please" and "Where are the toilets?").  This innocent enquiry does not, however, prepare you for the complexity of the Spanish system of personal nomenclature. Surnames The Spanish have two family names or surnames, called  apellidos .  A married woman does not take her husband's name, so there is no such thing as a maiden name. A child takes the first apellido of each parent, so the offspring of Mr Pérez Romero and Mrs Rodríguez García will become Pérez Rodríguez.  In 1999 a gender equality law allowed the mother's name to appear first if desired, provided all siblings adopt the same order and it is recorded in the Registro Civil. SPAIN´S COMMONEST NAMES With so many very common names, or in small communities, the maternal and paternal apellido can occasionally be the same.  This, combined with the custom ...

The Spanish are avid gamblers.  They will bet on anything from backstreet cock-fights to Premier League football, and spend more of their income on betting than almost any other country - around 15%, an average of €480 per person, totalling €1.9 billion a year.  Nothing as trivial as an international financial crisis puts them off.  Maybe it's some sort of Catholic fatalism; it is often observed that Spaniards believe their destiny is shaped by luck rather than by careful planning (although the Germans spend almost as much, which would seem to quash that theory). While some forms of gambling are outside the law, the State is in control of the most popular form, the Lotería Nacional . Tickets are sold at face value at official outlets of Loterias y Apuestas del Estado  (ours is on the Calle Real), or via street-vendors who get 10% commission.  A recent  proposal to privatise part of the operation was abandoned after the government realised that the...

Earlier this year I wrote a post about  Quesería El Gazul , which makes delicious cheese and yoghurt from the milk of Alcalá's extensive goat population.   At last week's  World Cheese Awards , held at the BBC Good Food Show in the NEC Birmingham, one of Jorge Puerto's gourmet products was judged one of the world's  Fifty Best Cheeses .  The competition is the world´s largest, and the shortlist was selected by two hundred international judges who sampled over 2,500 submission from 34 countries. Jorge Puerto with cheeses from the El Gazul range In all, twelve Spanish cheeses appear in the top 50, compared with eight from England (including last year's winner from the Cornish Blue Cheese Company), eight from Switzerland, six from Italy, six from the USA, and only three from France.  The conventional wisdom that the French make all the best cheeses seems to be up for debate - though they did produce the overall winner, Ossau Irati AOP...

It is well known that the poor give proportionally more of their income to charity than the rich do , probably because they are more attuned to the needs of others.  This was demonstrated beautifully in Alcalá yesterday when, despite the economic crisis, alcalainos of all ages thronged the Paseo de la Playa  for the town's third Día Solidaria. Our "Typical British fare" went like hot cakes Although solidaridad translates literally as "solidarity" it has a wider meaning in Spanish, embracing sharing, community, empathy, compassion and equality.  The English equivalent would be "charity", but in Spain  caridad is more usually associated with aid offered by religious institutions. The Playa was lined with stalls offering goodies for sale, the proceeds going to various fundraising activities.  The Fair Trade (Comercio Justo) stall had bottles of 40% proof Cuban rum nestling amongst the organic chocolate bars, and the nuns from the Beaterio ha...

It can't have escaped your notice that the Spanish economy is in a right mess .  Unemployment is 21% and rising, and under-25s have barely a 50-50 chance of getting a job.  The interest rate on government bonds is approaching Italy's, making us the S in PIIGS.  Some cities are so deep in debt they can't pay their staff. Government spending cuts are biting deeply into health and education services, and public employees have had their salaries cut.  Families who took out mortgages during the boom years and have now lost their jobs are being evicted at the rate of 15,000 a month, while up to two million dwellings stand empty.  Small businesses are going to the wall on a daily basis, especially those dependent on public contracts. In last Sunday's general election, the voters demonstrated unequivocally who they blame for this sorry state of affairs. The PSOE (Partido Socialista de Obreros Españoles), which has been power since 2004 under the leadership of Jose Lui...

I've just finished writing a short biography of a woman who first captured my imagination after I read an article about her in La Luz Magazine a few years ago.   She lived in a palace in Sanlúcar de Barrameda and although I am not normally a fan of duchesses I have become rather fond of this one, as she swam against the tide all her life. Luisa Isabel María del Carmen Cristina Rosalía Joaquina Álvarez de Toledo y Maura, Isabel to her friends, was the 21st Duchess of Medina-Sidonia, one of the oldest aristocratic families in Spain. She left her husband  after having three babies in quick succession and then deposited the children with her grandparents while they were still small.  She became known as the Red Duchess ( la Duquesa Roja ) because of her political convictions.  She organised strikes amongst fishermen and vineyard workers, campaigned for compensation for locals affected by a nuclear accident, was imprisoned under the Franco regime, gave away property ...