Hello and Welcome!

No sooner arrived than fed.  Our first action was to have a menu del dia as soon as possible to refresh the hardy travellers.  And the Maratime did not disappoint as starters of mussels were devoured with relish and Ceri was able to have his much anticipated rabbit as a main course.

The short walk along the beach paddling our way past the hordes of holiday makers was one of the rare times that I actually got sea water on my body.

The real irritation was that the print of Venice was not hanging in place to greet Ceri and Dianne.  To rub salt into the wound Mary phoned up to say that her print had come back from the framers and was looking splendid!  With one of those touches of irony that almost never happen outside of the pages of badly constructed novels my framer phoned up almost immediately afterwards and we two went post haste to get it.

Ceri approves of the frame (which is a relief!) and it now hangs in the living room – directly opposite the large charcoal of the cleft in the rocks.  Most satisfactory!

Our late dinner was in the Argentine restaurant after a frustrating period of trying to find a taxi.  We went through the entire (six entries) list of taxis in Castelldefels before we found one firm that was prepared to answer, let alone provide a vehicle.

We sat at a table for four – the only available table for four – and were able to watch others turn up and find nothing.  Considering we did not book we took a certain risk but our luck held.

Which is more than can be said for the venue.  I have been here twice before the first time with Irene when our appreciation of the food was limited by the amount of cigarette smoke.  We appeared to be the only people in the place not to indulge.  We vowed never to go there again.  And that vow would have stood but for the enlightened legislation in Spain which banned smoking in enclosed places.  We ate our next meal exultantly, secretly sneering at those around us as we imagined their frustration at being unable to blow their noxious fumes about!

Imagine my horror when I noticed an ashtray on the table!

The restaurant has responded to the legislation by opening up the entire roof!  The material had been concertinaed to one side and therefore the restaurant was officially outside and consequently smoking was permitted.

I think that their action frustrates the intention of the act and makes a mockery of the legislation.  Luckily only a few inconsiderate people smoked, but I will still be disinclined to go back there.

After some discussion of the advisability of having starters we decided to go straight on to the main meal.  I have to say that it was a bloody good thing that we did so.  Certainly in my case.

For the first time for years I ordered veal (putting firmly out of my mind the way in which it was produced) covered in breadcrumbs and then further covered by layers of ham and cheese.

When the dish finally arrived I was flabbergasted.  I am tired of hearing people describe the largesse with which they have been treated in restaurants one has never been to.  We are told that an expansive feast awaits us as they describe the amount of food that they were given with all the enthusiasm of a mendacious angler.

I now find myself in that position.  Ceri and Dianne had steaks in a creamy sauce and Toni had ribs.  When they arrived they were positioned on the plates and they looked appetizing and fully edible.  When my dish arrived it was impossible to see the plate as the meat extended from one side of the plate to the other and then overlapped the sides.  It was impossible to carry the plate other than by putting the fingers underneath.

For the first few moments I merely stared at the food and gazed at the sheer expanse of cheese covered ham.  In the space where there might have been a space it was actually filled with chips.

For almost the first time in my life I was unable to finish my meal and was grateful for Toni taking all the chips which were not “tainted” with cheese and Ceri for eventually finishing off what would be a normal portion of the meat in any other restaurant which I was unable to eat!  A truly extraordinary meal.

It reminded me of the sort of meal which you can get in some restaurants where if you can eat all of the meal you can have it for nothing.  I would have paid!

After the taxi ride home we were ready for bed and Ceri informed us that we should not be worried if he woke early and went for a walk along the sea front.  He told us that he often woke as early as 4.30 am and could never get back to sleep.  We explained the keys to use to get out and went to bed.

I put it down to the combination of white, red and Cava that Ceri did not leap up to greet the dawn and made a sheepish entrance at some advanced hour of the morning!

As Ceri is looking forward to a “gastronomic experience” the day started with fresh coffee from the Nespresso and much discussion about whether to purchase one to take back to Cardiff.

We visited (I need little encouragement) our local branch of MediaMarkt and looked at the various machines available.  The girl in charge of the section turned out to be an English speaker and directed us to a Nespresso bar where they were giving away a “free” drink.  As I tried to emphasise to Dianne as she looked impressed at the gentleman in front of the sleek commercial enterprise with elegant backdrop and Modernist décor that was distribution centre for the coffee, to buy a Nespresso coffee machine was to buy into a life style not just a drink maker.

Having visited the Temple of Coffee in Barcelona which is the marble clad sanctum of Nespresso I can vouch for the fact that drinking coffee is perceived as an exciting life-affirming event nowadays not just imbibing a hot dark liquid for a quick boost!

Lunch (life does seem to be a series of meals now) was in the new Basque restaurant.  Drinking in the middle of the day does demand a siesta.  Which I had and much enjoyed – almost as much as the meal!

Our dedication to the Ruta de las Tapas only resulted in one extra tapa stamp being entered on Irene’s sheet – we went to La Fusta and had our usual round of “proper” tapas and had a thoroughly satisfying meal.

At some time or other I will have to do something other than wake up and then start eating – no matter how delicious the temptation may be.  To say nothing of drinking too!

When the sun is shining

Another glorious day albeit with scattered cloud: perfect for swimming and lazing and reading.

All of which seem like better alternatives than getting down to the messy and barbaric work of going through my book collection. 

I make the fundamental mistake of looking into each of the books over which I intone, “Thus with a spot I damn it!” - misquoting as usual, but near enough to Julius Caesar to make it lugubriously pretentiously appropriate. 

Each time I actually read part of the condemned book I seem to find something in it that is worth saving.  One book, “The Oranging of America and other stories” by Max Apple was about to be consigned to oblivion when I opened it, read a paragraph and then read the whole book.  Vastly enjoyable a series of eerily perceptive satires on American life with moments of real humour and some pathos.  And to think that I was about to get rid of it!  What other crimes are waiting to be perpetrated by my callous hands!

But I must be strong.  Some books are thick with dust (a slight exaggeration there) where they have stood un-consulted since they were placed on the shelf.  But that is not the point.  I might not look at a book for years and then suddenly need to find it.  And just knowing that it is there on the shelves, somewhere, is a comfort in itself.

 

But the somewhere is the problematic point.  Where is my “Stalky and Co” and “Froth on the Day Dream” and “Knots”?  I know that I have them all, but where the hell are they?  Sometimes finding a book like “The Oranging of America” is insufficient to make up for a chaotic collection.  So what I am doing now (or largely failing to do) is, in the long run going to add to the value of all my books by making their position in my collection more coherent.

As you can tell all of the above is merely a sort of displacement activity and a exhortation to myself to get a move on and do something irrevocable.

Perhaps not at this precise moment as I have to get ready to meet Irene and talk to her Proficiency student to gauge his level of competence ahead of his taking the oral examination – and then after he has been returned to his house a further exploration of the world of tapas in our local Ruta!

So tomorrow definitely something will be done.  But what about the visitors and the final preparations for their arrival!

Thank god for prevarication.  Probably.

Consideration

SUNDAY 31st AUGUST 2011

Smoking is a great comfort to me.

Not of course that I smoke myself: disgusting habit.  No, it is because of my revulsion and rejection that it is a comfort. 

One of the major sources of addiction; ill health; poverty and rapidly increasing social exclusion – and I am free of it! 

I spend not a penny on this justly reviled compulsion – which means of course, that I can justify the spending of money on other and less noxious things.

All of this is by way of preparing the way for the appearance of another camera to be delivered courtesy of Amazon, possibly tomorrow.  Yet another camera.

Toni has never really recovered from seeing the unbelievable number of cameras that I was able to produce before I left the UK.  I gathered them all together in a sort of pile and stood guard Fafner-like over them all. 

A whole history of the camera from the 1950s was there with each new fad or system represented by one, and sometimes more, machine or machines.  Disk cameras, cassette cameras, Polaroid cameras, box cameras, SLR, instamatics – you name it, they were there!

Most of them were sold in Splott Market in Cardiff before I left for what were risibly small sums of money - but money nevertheless.  I ended up with Dad’s SLR – which was Camera of the Year in the days before the invention of the laptop – and a couple of serviceable cameras which were unspectacular but, most importantly, small.

As long as it fits in a pocket I will use it; if it doesn’t (like Dad’s SLR) I admire it and never use it.  Anyway, who buys actual 35 mm film nowadays!

I like Canon cameras and have two excellent ones including one with a x14 optical zoom with reasonable manual control which fits into my shirt pocket!  But for the new one I have returned to an old love – Olympus.

In the days of 35mm film I had an Olympus Pen-EE which took half-frame photographs (there’s a concept from the past!) thereby giving you 70+ exposures from an ordinary film cartridge.  It was an excellent camera but it went the way of all flesh when digital came into favour.

The new camera is digital (or course) with a x24 optical zoom and other bits and pieces which sound like fun.  To me.

It is going to be difficult to justify – but there again, I don’t smoke do I, so . . 

This morning is glorious with azure skies and wispy clouds for decoration rather than obstruction.  We shall see what the afternoon brings in the topsy-turvy conditions that we have been treated to recently.

A glorious day spoilt only by the number of people enjoying it!

Lunch was from our local chicken place and was as tasty as usual.  I am sure that Ceri will be expecting rabbit from the same place as he enjoyed so much the last time.

It looks as though Clarrie and Mary will not be able to come out this summer as Clarrie now has two meetings in the days when she said that she might be able to visit: and to think that I had bought replacements for the “drinking Champagne” goblets one of which was broken in the party.  Not by me, I might add!

I have bought a book (surprise!) which purports to teach you basic Spanish in 30 days.  I have decided to work my way through it religiously so that I revise the things which I am supposed to know already.

It is the sort of book, produced by an official branch of the literary establishment and fairly obviously demands a degree of previous knowledge of the language if it is to be successful.  So it might be just right for me.  And I am working on the “Anything is better than nothing” basis for progress!

I am now trying to persuade Toni to come out on the Ruta de las Tapas so that I can cross off more of my 24 remaining tapas before I can submit my form for the competition!

MONDAY 1st AUGUST 2011

Riddle: When is the morning not the morning?

Answer: When you are a Catalan plumber.

It was not with a great deal of surprise that we failed to greet the promised plumber before the magic hour of twelve.  We were assured that the gentleman would appear in the “morning”; the morning having gone we phoned to find out why he had not appeared.

The morning, we were told, stretches until 2.00 pm.  Now there is a clue in the use of “pm” which might, to the educated, indicate that it is, to all intents and purposes, the afternoon.  But the learning of plumbers obviously works at a much deeper level of Old Time than that which governs the rest of us!  It is now a quarter past twelve in the afternoon (!), which means that there are one and three-quarter hours of “morning” left for plumbers!

 

On a much more interesting note my new camera, the Olympus SZ-M30, has arrived: thrown over the fence by the oh-so-considerate delivery service without so much as a touch on the bell to let the recipients know that it had come.  I heard the arrival of a van and then the characteristic thump of careful delivery while lying in bed and was able to put one and one together and search out the brown parcel lying on the pine needles - which hopefully softened the fall of the piece of delicate machinery!

Considering how much the new camera does it is very light and compact.  It sits in the hand better than most small digitals and the screen looks brighter and easier to see in sunlight.  There is, alas, no viewfinder – but I have given up hope of finding my ideal camera in much the same way that my watches always have to be compromises.

The x24 optical zoom looks excellent and, more importantly, the image stabilization system that comes with it looks as though it copes with mere humans holding the camera at those sorts of magnifications rather than tripods and gives more than reasonable results.

The gimmicky shots named “magic” on the menu seem less enchantment and more of a waste of time – though it is fair to say that I have hardly tried out the system very much so these are initial judgements rather than exhaustive analyses.

There is a “3D” shot option – though god knows how these can be shown and the “landscape” feature will take some getting used to.  There are prompts when you change the shot options but they contain just enough information to be thoroughly frustrating – at the moment!

The basic (how strange that word seems when compared with the instamatics of one’s youth) camera looks very decent indeed and I am looking forward to using it throughout the month to capture shots of The Visitors for inclusion in a book at the end of the month – and indeed part of the next so that The London Boys of September can be included!

With a tenacity unheard of in my approaches to foreign language learning I have made it to lesson 2 in my new book!  This means that at the end of today I will be 1/15^th of my way through it with complete fluency awaiting me at the end of this month!

On a serious note the book does seem to be purpose-made for me because it assumes all the scraps of Spanish that I already have are just about in place.  It combines the insulting with the realistic which may just have a marked effect on my level of competence!  I live in hope.

The plumber now has just over an hour of the morning left to make his promised appearance.  I think I will start lunch as such nervous tension demands food!

30 minutes left.  Toni has pointed out that all the plumbers are the same so that my idea of cancelling the present one at precisely 2.00 pm (the “end of the morning”) will achieve nothing, except to transfer the same level of nervous tension to a new set of layabouts!  He might be right, but it is frustrating to be held captive in your house by arrogant, uninformative workers who seem unable to use the mobile phones which make communication so bloody easy. 

Where are all the Polish plumbers when you need them?

As part of the RT of L the man who was supposed to be coming to repair the wayward toilet arrived in his little white van and immediately departed without doing anything - without even knocking!  I meanwhile went to the bank to get some money to pay him and found that my bankbook didn’t work.

In Spain you have a bankbook for your current account in the same way that you sometimes were issued with a book for a deposit in a building society in the UK.  This book you feed into the Hole in the Wall and eventually you get your money with the transaction printed in your book.

 

As it didn’t work I had to go into the branch and wait in line.  The people in front of me invariably seem to be settling the monetary affairs of a small country and take up an inordinate time – of course any time spent in an activity as mundane as getting money is intolerable.  However I bided my time in simmering resentment and then found out that the incompetent cretin who had issued my new book had failed to input the account information onto the magnetic strip.

That done, I could go outside and wait in another queue for the Hole in the Wall to become available.  To those who ask why I didn’t get the money from the clerk behind the desk I would reply it is better to wait and see that the thing works than assume (as I did previously) that everything would be fine.

As was inevitable the person in front of me looked not only as though he had never used one of these machines before, but also that he had only recently learned how to read.  He did what I hate in particular: he took his book out of the machine and then re-inserted it.  Having done that he adopted a meditative pose whenever the screen changed as if philosophically considering each of the excitingly different opportunities offered before making his choice.

When he finally emerged (to a look of frozen hatred from me) he sensibly avoided eye contact and the next person in line scuttled in.

As this person laboriously got down to business, the young manager who let me in after hours to purchase bonds in the bank, looked as though he wanted to push in with a lady client.  There was not a single hope in hell of that happening but I engaged in the usual talk about the weather that passes for conversation in these parts.  As it is overcast today there was much talk of the lack of sun and I was treated to an extended monthly analysis of climatic conditions in Catalonia.  Luckily the last person vacated the Hole in the Wall booth and I managed to escape and complete my business in a matter of seconds and make my escape.

The “ten minutes” that the plumber gave as his ETA is now 70 minutes awry and counting!  Ah, the delights of living in Spain.  Though, to be fair, I seem to remember much the same happening in the UK.  There should be a reprint of the  I-spy book of Waiting for Workmen (price 6d) to give us something to do in those periods of quiescence when nothing is happening – and aggressively so!

The plumber now seems unable to come at all after spinning an unconvincing story about why he did not call in or let us know that he would be late.  I really and truly do not know what the estate agents do for their money because they certainly do nothing for their clients!

Our disgust with our agents took us to the parade of shops where we used to live and a lively and competent young man assured us that we would have a plumber on Monday.  He had honest looking eyes (surely rare amongst plumbers!) and we were prepared to believe him on the rebound as it were from the inefficiency of the agent.

As we were in the area and as it was almost lunchtime (when isn’t it) Toni wanted to sample one of the tapas from the Ruta de las tapas in Castelldefels that I tried last night.  It was as good the second time around and the glass of Cava which accompanied it for me was surely a sign of sophistication and maturity.

Lunch today, however was in the restaurant in which Irene and I ended up last night.  I liked the food and the ambience and wanted to see what a full meal was like.

My selection of risotto with mushrooms topped by a pungent cheese, followed by cod with garlic mousse and potatoes and ending up with a cheesecake was an excellent meal.  The wine was also surprisingly good but the price at €14 was a little steep.

As we were eating I noticed that one of the restaurants on the other side of the road had changed owners and had a name that was vaguely familiar.  Consulting my Ruta de las tapas map I saw that this was another venue yet to be ticked off so when we had finished the meal we went over to investigate.

As we approached the menu we were greeted by the owner who was someone we knew from a Basque restaurant in town which had closed down.  We were delighted to see that he was still in business and he invited us to have a cup of coffee and look at the menu properly.  This is a place to patronize in the future, as the menu is reasonably priced and reasonably extensive.

On a much more melancholy note I have started the winnowing of the books.  I have reasoned that all the Cole notes and York notes and assorted critical texts will not be needed and can be the first casualties in the Grand Reckoning.

I can say no more.  The pathetic piles of rejected books are monolithic monuments of reproach.

I have not actually got rid of them yet.

Actually.

The Pathetic Fallacy has swung into operation today, Saturday, as if in sympathy with the criminal attitude to books that the lonesome piles indicate the rain is falling.  The heavens themselves are crying over the desecration of reading matter that is being planned.

Who am I to fight against the clear indication of sorrow at the intended action of book destruction!

The weather is performing flip-flops: after an afternoon of brilliant sunshine we have now had thunder and lightning and torrential rain.  And The Visitors are immanent!

 

I am steadily adding tapas to my total in the Ruta de las Tapas, with one which is now second from bottom of my list of likes and another which is near the top – and I still haven’t reached double figures.  It is rapidly becoming addictive!

Roll on the weekend

Before the performance of Carmen last night we three (one colleague, a friend from Sitges and me) went for a snack in a Basque pinchos bar near Santa Maria del Pi.  As this place is just off the Ramblas and near the Liceu it is a tourist haunt and therefore the “trust” that usually obtains in such places has been modified. 

The usual form is for punters to wend their way along a counter filled with plates of different pinchos, choose what they want and then, at the end of the meal have the waiter count up the number of sticks used to keep the good stuff on the bread and compute the bill.  As this was a bar only some of the pinchos were available for customer selection the other were kept behind glass and were available on request.

We were also told what to do which, as experienced pinchos eaters, we found a little de trop - with the other two speaking in complicated Spanish to reinforce the point!

There were delicious and washed down with Basque wine more than acceptable.

When we came out of the performance after 11 pm the Ramblas was heaving with people the vast majority of who were foreigners.  This mass of people must be a pickpocket’s delight and I walk down the Ramblas like some sort of soi-disant sheriff with both thumbs hooked securely into my pockets thereby ensuring the safety of wallet and other valuables – though leaving my mobile phone in my shirt pocket woefully vulnerable!

Yesterday it did rain for part of the day but today is gloriously sunny which is, of course good, but does encourage the children in the area to indulge in play which necessitates communication which isn’t allowed to fall below the level of scream!

Yesterday was also the taking back of the faulty but expensive luggage.  Having parked in the underground car park of El Corte Ingles in Cornella I took out the offending piece of luggage with a flourish and the handle (the offending item) worked immaculately.  Having used modified brute force on the handle in the UK and more selective violence in Spain I was, at least touched by the irony of the situation.

Not one to waste a parking space we walked into El Corte Ingles as I wanted opera glasses and a wallet.  The former want was only satisfied in Barcelona itself and the latter has been a problem for some time.

I have to carry not only by driving licence with me but also my NIE which is my official identity card in Spain.  This is not actually anything as sensible as a plastic credit card sized document but is rather a full sized A4 page with my official residential identification number on it.  This can be asked for at any time and it is always advisable to carry it.

The two documents together are bulky as my driving license was issued in 1967 and (although repaired) looks like some sort of ancient piece of vellum and even folded up takes up space.

My last purchase of a wallet was from a key cutter in Anec Blau (that sounds like the opening of a fairy story) and although it appeared superficially to be idea was far below what was necessary.

Basically, with what I carry around, I need not a man’s wallet but something more like the commodious article carried by women.  After a few unsatisfactory offerings the ladies of El Corte Ingles came up with exactly (almost) what I wanted.  It is, of course substantially more expensive than the last one, but at least I have been able to recycle that one as it has replaced Toni’s dilapidated one.

This evening: the meal with Irene because it is not Tuesday.  Sometimes my sense of time passing is a little flexible and it gives certain elasticity to my keeping of appointments!

Our evening out was a resounding success.  At my instigation Irene volunteered to join the route of the tapas and start her own list of stamped restaurants.

The first we visited was one in which we apparently saw Zadane - which has changed hands at least twice since we last ate there.  The tapa was one of meat pinchos and a large succulent prawn.  I had my customary glass of Cava to wash it down and we moved on to the next location.  Which happened to be on the other side of the road.

This establishment was the first restaurant that I visited when I first arrived to scout out Castelldefels – it also happened to be the most expensive!  The tapa here was a solid chunk of smoked salmon with a mustard sauce with salad.  Delicious and looking more like a starter than a tapa.

We then made the fatal move to a restaurant which seemed to be unusually crowded and full of youngish people.  A noisy live band was playing and the tapa was a mini hamburger and was also disgusting.

Our final port of call was the most interesting.  This was a restaurant which had changed hands at least twice since I last ate there and provided us with the most interesting tapa: frozen gazpacho with anchovy in a filo pastry nest with a salsa.

It was so good we decided to stay for a little more and we were given the menus in Spanish and atrocious English.  The English was so bad that Irene volunteered to translate the menu to avoid further violence to the sensibilities of English speakers!

One of the most interesting items on the English menu was “Roach in oil” not to mention the “dry sausage” that was offered in another part.  We were given another English translation to look at and we convulsed in laughter at the unreal use of English it contained.  Irene produced a pen and we commenced to provide a more convincing translation that the one which was printed.  It was just like the last days in school all over again with the struggle to produce something readable in English for the web page of the school!

All in all and excellent evening and I still have only completed 6 of the 30 tapas in the competition.  20% done 80% to do.

I welcome the challenge.

The summer is filling up nicely with visitors and I expect the weather to respond by being uniformly brilliant with glorious sunshine – or I shall withdraw my money from the Generalitat which, as is generally acknowledged, is entirely dependant on my largesse to keep going!

I have no wish to be alarmist but I am not going for my early morning swim because of the downpour that is hindering normal life.  It is not a convincing downpour as the sky is quite bright and the rain has petered out already – and has restarted.  It is going to be one of those days where the weather plays cat and mouse with the poor pedestrian!

Today is my first opera visit of the year to Carmen, easily one of the top five operas in terms of performance and popularity and of course (not forgetting the hapless contemporary critic who dismissed the opera for its lack of tunes) sheer hummability!

As the director of this performance in the Liceu is Calixto Bieito we can expect a controversial or at least challenging production.  From the stills that I have seen this production has his trademark electric car (in which terrible things were done in his booed version of Don Giovanni I saw in ENO) and of course it is in modern dress.  I am looking forward to it – but given the quality of our seats I will have to find my opera glasses first!

Considering that the house is fairly small it is amazing how many places something like opera glasses can be which are not where you would think they should be.  Never mind, one of the great advantages of looking for something like that is finding all the other things that you assumed were lost that you find in the search.  Hopefully.

As is usual with things that are lost “I have an idea” of where they might be.  This I think is the defining element which distinguishes the optimist from the pessimist (or realist, depending on your level of cynicism) by the way that the individual sets off on the search.  When the optimist fails to find the object in the most obvious place he does not despair but is slightly buoyed by the realization that he has eliminated one place so it must be in one of the fewer remaining places; for the pessimist if its not there it’s nowhere.

As long as one considers searches to be voyages of discovery for the purpose of revisiting old friends long thought to be irrecoverably lost then they can be rewarding.  It is only when you factor in the element of time that they become a little wearing and life denying.

On another positive note: the opera season proper does not start until the autumn, so a search for the glasses now could be looked on as a very timely action for the future!

The search has been up to this precise moment - futile.  The opera glasses are still securely located in an appropriate space that I have still not found.

So it gave me an opportunity to buy new ones in the old fashioned shop opposite Fnac in Barcelona which sells all sorts of optics. 

A lazily bored but efficient young bearded man served me and proffered two sets of opera glasses one in white with fixed focus and another, more than double the price in a more masculine colour with variable focus.  Need I go on?

Carmen!  What an opera!  Melodramatic it may well be but there is steel underneath all the posturing that the director Calixto Bieito did his best to bring out.  This is a story of sexual betrayal and the prostitution of body and soul.  There are no nice people in this story, even Micaela, a somewhat thankless role beautifully sung by Maria Bayo was portrayed a calculating woman who played the sentimental emotional blackmail card with some precision and who was not above giving Carmen a dismissively vulgar gesture of triumph when she finally managed to get Don José (indifferently sung by Fabio Armiliato) from the clutches of Béatrice Uria-Monzon’s underpowered Carmen.

When the major singers are not fully in control of their roles then the evening is not going to be a complete success.  Of the major characters only Kyle Ketelsen’s Escamillo came anywhere close to matching the power of the music with the strength of his singing and acting.

Musically the direction of Marc Pioliet of the orchestra and José Luis Basso of the chorus were excellent and they provided the true highlights of the evening.

But a Bieito production would not be acceptable without certain controversial element or elements.  Nudity we had with a young man stripping off and making a few matador gestures; cars we had – ten full sized cars on stage at one time; sex we had with various sexual activities being graphically presented on stage and so on.

Some of it was purely gratuitous but other aspects worked rather well.  I liked the presentation of the traditionally tedious brigands cave as a gathering of gypsy cars to make a contraband marketplace; the use of the chorus was always inventive and exciting, especially at it was augmented by a number of muscular young men stripped to the half to provide eye candy while the rather more prosaic looking guys did the singing!

 

One particularly effective piece of scenery was a gigantic representation of the Osborne bull which is a symbol of Spanish Spain.  When the lights went up on it there was a growl from the Catalan audience.  When in a later scene the bull was toppled the man sitting next to me clapped!

This was a lively production let down by the singing of the two major characters.  Although they grew into their roles they never, in my view filled them.  A lost opportunity.

 

Roll on next season.

There I was listening to one of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances on my postage stamp sized umpteenth generation iPod when a voice, quite a vulgar voice I thought, suddenly broke in and said something. 

For a moment I thought that someone in the recording studio had had a joke at my expense and I was truly shocked. I didn’t know that the machine had an independent voice function so I took more notice of the intrusive stranger than the information he (for it was a he) was giving me.  I eventually worked out that I had been told me that the battery was low.

This precipitated the frantic search for the appropriate power lead.  These were gathered together for the voyage to Britain and have not yet slithered their serpentine way to their appropriate lairs in Castelldefels again.  What is especially depressing is that I know that I have at least seven or eight of the appropriate leads lurking somewhere – but not, as it were, to hand.

To the Basque restaurant last night for a little something as my reckoning of days was a little askew and so I did not go out to dinner with Irene, where I was charged €3 for a bottle of fizzy water, or £2.64 in the debased coinage of my savings!  When I first came to Spain that overpriced bottle of water would have cost a measly £2.10 at the rate of exchange I could have got then.  But no riots from people in this area as El Crisis ravages the rest of the land!

We are working our way towards the Dead Month of August when Spain officially goes on holiday and everything closes down – well, not everything, but the attitude of those who are left to soldier on display such resentment that they are still in work while everybody else in the world is on holiday that they may as well not bother.  So, there are 5 days left for people to get everything they need doing done, because the next date for action will be September!

Obviously in a seaside town things are up and working, but I am still astonished at the number of businesses and restaurants that take a break in what one would have thought was the most profitable month of the year.  Ours is not to understand foreign logic!

My “swarm over Death” approach to the weeds in the garden seems to have been a signal failure.  If anything they seem to have become more vigorous and their hardiness pours scorn on my determined chemical herbicidal attack.  Perhaps I should have watered the plants to get them to take the poison to the roots, but the description of the gunk said that it was “systemic” so a touch of death on any part of the plant should have caused the bloody things to wither on the vine, so to speak.

I suppose I could read the instructions more fully or I could purchase something that I have always wanted to possess: a flame-thrower.  Not, unfortunately, the real thing, but the horticultural equivalent which is a Gandalf-like staff spouting fire at one end.  I suppose that I could get a sugar caramelizer and link the garden with the kitchen and justify the expense by versatility!  Or I could merely squirt the damn things again and hope for the best.

At long last what Stewart described as “your garden shed suitcase” has been totally emptied and then filled with other suitcases in the approved matryoshka fashion with one nesting inside the other.  This is fine and dandy until you want to use one of them and have to go through all the palaver of extracting the one you need – which is always in the centre.

My vastly expensive cabin luggage has failed after one trip with the extendible handle not.  I am furious and not only with the failure of the most expensive single piece of luggage that I have ever bought but also with the prospect of a search for the bloody receipt.  However, as I bought the damn thing in El Corte Ingles I expect service which will go beyond the mere production of a scrap of paper.  I hope!

Lunch today produced the unexpected result that Toni noticed the Ruta de Tapas was still operational.  This is a selection of bars and restaurants offering a tapa and drink for €3 as part of a competition to find the best tapa in Castelldefels. 

You are provided with a map and list of bars and tapas with a space to have the bar’s stamp in the requisite place to show that you have sampled their tapa.  There are 30 establishments taking part this year and so far I have sampled precisely one tapa washed down with a glass of Cava.

There is a section on the map/menu for you to nominate your favourite tapa – and thereby hangs a philosophical question.  Who should be allowed to nominate?  Do you have to try all to select one; or can you choose your favourite out of the ones you have tried?  If the result is dependent on popular choice then it is fairly meaningless of friends of one bar can sample the tapa and declare it superior.  Are all votes equal or does the opinion of someone who has sampled over half count for more than someone who has merely sampled a handful?  At the end of the day one could say that for god’s sake this is a tapas competition in a small Catalan seaside town, who cares?  I do.  I think about such things and worry.  Slightly.

This competition stretches over the whole of the rest of the summer so that is less than one tapa a day to get through the whole 30.  The impetus to complete the whole series is entry to a prize draw which entitles you to a special civic meal.

I think that this is an excellent way to get folk to try bars which they don’t know – though I find it difficult to imagine that there will be many people who try all the tapas – though I am going to make an effort!  An effort I might add that guests might be involved in during their stay.  Be warned!

The Football Season which allegedly ends officially for a few hours some time in the summer now seems to be restarted with a vengeance and be well under way as teams play for ever more esoteric cups.  Shouldn’t they be spending more time with their families or spend time starting them rather than playing interminable games of kick ball and filling up time on the TV?

Still no change with the book situation – but I have bought three more at the instigation of Toni no less!

The sequence of days

Bucking the normal weather trend this morning is fine and that doesn’t bode well for the afternoon as we have been experiencing good weather/poor weather syndrome for the past few days.

As I am at home and this is Monday it is officially classed as a workday and an opportunity for me to get some of those tasks completed that are impossible given the length of our school day.

The two essentials today are a visit to my bank and to a hotel in Hospitalet to check out the availability of a deal for a gastronomic meal for our first visitors of the summer. 

Disturbingly I have tried to get information from the web site of the hotel and I have phoned twice to try and get details and – nothing!  I was transferred from person to person all of whom seemed confused by a concept clearly outlined on their web site.  At some point in the pass-the-parcel approach to enquiries I was asked by one of the people on the other end of the line which hotel I was talking about, so god alone knows where in the world I was at that point.  And we thought it was only British Rail that out-sourced customer enquiries to Mumbai!

It shows what a vitiated life I lead that today, to what depths of depravity I have reached, that today, the 25^th of July is the first day that I have thrown myself into the foaming brine!

As a British swimmer I always (always) expect the shock of incipient numbness to accompany all immersions in seawater.  The Med is a little more welcoming and at this stage of the summer the temperature of the water is hardly horrible and is positively not cold.  Notice that I do not use the word “warm”; having swum off the coast of Mexico I know that some sea water is actually like a tepid bath – the waters here are not!

This evening I am meeting my friend Irene for a therapeutic gossip.  An odd sort of gossip really as we tend not to talk about people but situations – especially The School That Never Was.  This was the dream that a few of us had to found a school in the area and drain money away from The School That Sacked Me (and him and her and us!)  As this didn’t happen, we talk about what might have been and the difficulties of life when one has to be making money at the same time!

At least that would have been true if today had been Tuesday. But it hasn't been Tuesday all day and I would still have been in Tuesday denial if Irene had not phoned up and changed our dinner date from tomorrow to Thursday.  All things work together for good!  In this best of all possible worlds!

The basic problem, which I understand is remarkably common, is that our preferred life styles are not quite in kilter with our present ones.  We feel, with some justice I think that the vast amount of money recently directed towards two Britons went to the wrong ones.  I am not greedy and would have quite willingly settled for a measly 10% of the total sum.  Alas, we reasonable ones are never rewarded for our modest aspirations.

The great disappointment of today is the fact that a British architect didn’t really allow for the heat of a Spanish summer in Barcelona.

It was our intention to go Hesperia Towers and more particularly the flying saucer restaurant which tops this extraordinary building to sample the taster menu from the Michelin starred eatery which is contained inside the sci-fi part of the structure.

We were told that during the summer the heat in the saucer dome is so extreme that they take the restaurant down from the top of the building to a lower floor.  That was fine with us as long as the food was the same.  Then we were told that the whole restaurant (wherever it was) closed for the month of August.  Tragedy!

At least Ceri has expressed an interest in visiting the Argentinian restaurant for a steak and so we have one gastronomic experience to look forward to!

No progress on the books.