The dragon rises!

When you drive along uninteresting motorways every day on your way to school you understand that clouds were invented to give some sort of aesthetic pleasure to a motorist depressed about the journey and looking for anything to give meaning to the daily drudge.

This morning there was a whole cinemascope documentary of “What Clouds Can Do” from the refulgent splendour of orange, pink and burning gold to the dirty brown of shabby scraps of obvious pollution hanging over the city.  It had obviously rained during the night and the sulky sub-fusc colouring of some low cloud looked as though it was thinking of doing the same during the day.  This is particularly unfortunate as we will be outside during part of the day.

Celebrations of St Jordi (St. George) on his day take a time-honoured form in our school.  Firstly, in the morning there is a dramatic representation by members of the sixth form of the epic battle of dragon and maiden and then later in the day there is a ceremony when the literary successes of our pupils in all the languages that we teach are rewarded by the awarding of certificates, books and of course, roses.  In time-honoured fashion this will take place during our free periods.  And today is my duty day as well so one imposition flows seamlessly into another!

As members of staff come it they are putting books in the appropriate pigeon-holes.  I know that I am not an easy person for whom to buy a book, but I hope that whoever has that thankless task they more effort than the person who bought the book for me last year.  Unreadable and it wasn’t even wrapped!

Already the “invisible” part of the book giving is being thrown to the winds as people desperately (and I think that is a well chosen word) try and discover who has given them the book.  I actually like the anonymity of it all, but I am not Catalan and therefore do not share the traditional drives that make this country “tick.”  I think that I probably “tock” – and therein lies the dynamism of my relationship with the country!

I have now got my book and it is indeed an improvement on last year.  It is a recipe book of cakes and pastries some of which look eminently makeable.  There is a lemon and brandy and nut cake that looks particularly enticing and I think that I will make it for the staff to try.  I have made no effort to try and find out who bought the book but I am sure that if I make the cake someone will shyly edge forward and claim to be the inspiration.  Catalans and Spanish are not built to deny responsibility in cases like this!

The person for whom I bought the invisible friend book has left school early pleading illness, leaving behind incipient chaos (as always) and muttering staff indicating that they would have stayed for just an extra few hours to see the day through.

We have had our St Jordi performance where the dragon plagued king phoned Dr Jones and James Bond to help with the eradication but they both wimped out (see above) and it was left to St Jordi himself to come to the rescue and kill the dragon which looked like a green coated terrorist in a small Venetian mask in our version of the story! 

Normal timetable was momentarily resumed until just after twelve when the kids were marshalled down into our assembly hall for the prize giving.  Hundreds of Spanish kids together does not make for a peaceful assembly and there was much hissing to keep them in some sort of semblance of silence.  Which failed.

The prize giving was brought to a tumultuous climax with our homegrown band which played “Sweet Alabama” and other soothing melodies at ear deafening volumes.

This lasted the better part of two periods and so took away one of my precious frees and meant that I had just time to go straight from the hall to the kitchen and dining room to begin my lunchtime duty.

As it is the afternoon I now go into my usual routine of wondering if I have the energy to go and have a swim after school.  As I invariably conclude that I do not in fact have the necessary get-up-and-go to enjoy a swim after a full day at school it is amazing that I ever get to the pool.  I find that there is a sort of inbuilt objective seeker which points me in the right, or at least the most appropriate, direction and by the time my conscious mind has worked out where I am going it is easier to continue on than turn around and go home.

For me swimming can be like banana yogurt; it doesn’t necessarily attract you but you are quite satisfied after you have experienced it!  And I know that swimming makes sense.  It really does.  And I do actually enjoy it, all things considered.

The programme for the new season of opera has arrived and the selection is not quite as demanding as last year – even if they cancelled one production because of the crisis.  This year we have La forza del destino; Rusalka; The Tales of Hoffman; Madame Butterfly; Rhinegold; Il Turco in Italia and L’elisir d’amore.  Two other operas are not in my special ticket – the first is Lucio Silla by Mozart (?) and Street Scene by Kurt Weill which I think I want to see so will have to buy some additional offer.  There are concert performances of Il Pirata by Bellini; Iolanta  by Tchaikovski and Rienzi.  I must admit that I am not tempted by any of these and further concert performances of Wagner are horrifically expensive. 

I must also admit that the idea of sitting through the torment of a concert version of Tristan is something I cannot contemplate with anything like equanimity.  I vividly remember Clarrie (bless her) who threw herself on a bottle of wine in the interval of Tristan in Cardiff and cut herself so badly that I (I fought off any other selfish Samaritans) had to take her to casualty. 

As I had been reduced to counting the number of people in the dress circle as something more interesting than watching the inaction on the stage, you can imagine that I found waiting in hospital a much more exciting and intellectually demanding occupation! 

I am not so ignorant that I am incapable of recognizing that there is great music in the opera but going to see the whole thing for a few moments of pleasure is a little too much to ask a reasonable person to undertake. 

Although, having said that, I knew a girl whose first opera was Tristan and Isolde and that switched her permanently onto the form and she was hooked.  No accounting for tastes.

My first opera was Nabucco and I found that so “difficult” that it put me off opera for years!  I was quite young when I saw it, so young indeed that I was unable to hum along to the Slaves’ Chorus whose tune I knew not.  How times have changed!

It seems that my ticket for a selection of operas is automatically renewed which takes away some of the heartache which is traditionally associated with buying a season of opera tickets from any of the opera houses in the world.  I just have to worry about buying the extra tickets that I need.  Give me strength.

Another day nearer to the meeting about our reduction in wages and I seem to be the only person speculating about what might happen!  If you don’t speculate then you will not be prepared to react to what is offered and, let’s face it I should imagine that the school could carry the whole of the cut by the Generalitat if they wanted to.

There is also, the extraordinary thought that they could, like everyone else in this country, simply raise the fees that parents pay to cover the cut.  It will be very interesting.  What, for example, is the sum of money from which the Generalitat is going to take 3%?  This is not a simple question.  Is it gross or net?  The government has already taken tax from us from September to the present; do they intend to take 3% of the sum they have already taxed or the sum that is left after the normal tax?  Are they going to tax additions to basic pay or just the basic pay?  This could run and run as the first attempt the Generalitat made to take more from our pay over Christmas was an embarrassing catastrophe for the idiots in government so that, having once taken the money they paid it all back again.  There is room for endless variations.  I think that I will ask for a written explanation of what is going on.  I can hardly wait.  It is almost possible to consider the problems from a dispassionate point of view, almost if they were happening to someone else.

But money is very real and surely the supine teachers must react in some sort of positive way.  Surely!

Well, I won’t have time to think about it tomorrow as it is my six period day and teaching will take up the space.

A sleepy weekend

Three days and my fingers have not strayed to the keys to capture my thoughts.  No loss you might think but it does help to clarify my thoughts.

My sacked colleague’s case becomes murkier with each passing day.  It turns out that a teacher’s helper who was directed to assist three years of primary classes, include that of my sacked colleague, is now the teaching his class full time.  She was not in school for a few days at the end of term (when my colleague was actually being sacked) but magically appeared at the start of the next term as the new teacher.  Toni, ever faithful to his lowest common denominator approach to the Human Condition, immediately asked if the replacement teacher had friends among the management of the school.  Something to think about; something to find out about!

I feel that this case is going to end in tears.  I’m just not sure which “side” will be weeping!

It is a case that continues to upset me and I fear that what I will hear on Wednesday will combine with my existing fears about the school and boost them to another level.  However, this really is a case of “wait and see” – though that never precludes speculation!

Friday saw me taking Toni up to Terrassa to watch the ill-fated match of Barça and Real Madrid.  My return to Castelldefels was an occasion for me to gently sink into the comatose thinking of the morrow.

Saturday was a trip to Barcelona to meet Irene and share worries, fears and hopes.  We also managed to visit (for Irene) revisit (for me) the spectacular Goya and Delacroix exhibitions.  It was also an occasion for me to reconsider my rejection of both catalogues because of their expense.

Some years ago I had made a resolution to steel myself to buy the catalogue for each exhibition that I visited.  They were usually reasonably priced, often subsidized and they gave me a concrete reminder of what I had seen.  I staunchly held to this resolve until things changed.

I don’t know when it was that curators of exhibitions decided that their individual exhibitions had to be justified not only with a physical reminder of what the exhibition was about but also with an academic treatise on the subject.  The catalogue becomes more like a work of reference and authority than a simple reminded.  And the price rose!  My how it rose!

My resolve was modified to include buying the catalogue of every “significant” exhibition that I went to see.  It was only a matter of time before “significant” was modified to apply to artists that I liked or respected.  The catalogue worthy of purchase then had to have colour illustrations of each of the paintings and full information about each.  The introductory essays in these catalogues, some of which are easily of book length, were deemed generally irrelevant as they were obviously curators producing a precious “publication” to ensure that they kept their jobs and gave them an academic tickets to a better position.  Or perhaps I am being too cynical.  Anyway, the general price of these publications has continued to rise and so I was faced with a dilemma with the two exhibitions I visited on Saturday.

Goya and Delacroix are both artists I like, admire and respect.  In my view Goya is the best artist that Spain has produced.  But the catalogue for the exhibition was €45.  Delacroix, the great Romantic painter I have liked since I was in school but the catalogue for his exhibition was €58.  So both catalogues would come to over €100!

We had coffee then visited the Goya exhibition.  We tried to have lunch after the Goya but everything was booked up so we put our names down for a table and went on to the Delacroix and then ate.

Our exit was via the gift shop where the catalogues were on sale and so I looked at both of them again.

Eventually I settled on buying the Goya and hoping that the Delacroix would be in some gallery sale in a few years time.  I can wait.

The book by which I had decided to fulfil my obligations as an invisible friend for a colleague in school I was able to buy in the bullring which has been converted into shops – this is Catalonia after all and we are not barbaric.  A further purchase in the Barça shop and I was more than prepared for St Jordi on Monday.

In FNAC (the best bookshop) I was also able to pick up a hardback book on Goya for under €15 which is profusely illustrated with explanations (in Spanish) but seems absurdly cheap for what it is.  I even had a further reduction on the reduction because there is a special offer to encourage people to buy their St Jordi books (book giving is a tradition on St George’s Day in Catalonia) in their shop.  So, all in all I have done quite well.

The Barça game in the evening was a disaster with Barça playing badly and losing 1-2 at home to their hated rivals Real Madrid!

This means that Real Madrid are virtually assured of the League title and Barça will have to put their hopes in the King’s Cup and the European Cup.  If they play as they did yester there is no chance of either.

There were very long faces when I went to pick up Toni from Terrassa and his mother was wearing a Barça shirt which commemorated their European Cup win in Wembley which she said she was wearing in a spirit of Masochism!

The weather is suitably dull and a grey sort of depression has descended on the country!

Next week we shall find out how the school is going to play the reduction in our wages.  I think that I have thought of every variation possible about how to do this, but I am sure that I will be surprised at what they have actually decided to do.

I can hardly wait.

Wait and see!

Going from purely literary sources, I feel that school at present is experiencing a sort of “Phoney War” there is a sense of anticipation, though of what we are not entirely sure.  We are waiting for things to clarify themselves though what things and what sort of clarity we are looking for we are not certain of.

I think that things will become more concrete after the meeting next week about our salaries.  This should of course provoke an outcry because 3% of your salary being ripped away is something to be slightly upset about.  But I have my doubts about what my colleague will think of doing.  Which is to say that I don’t really doubt at all and what they will do is precisely nothing.

In much the same way that I feel impotent to help my sacked colleague I think there will be a mass groan of realization and then stolid acceptance!  Such is life.  Or, if the management act as I think that they might, then there could even be an expression of thanks about our not having to pay as much as other schools.  I wait to see what happens, - but not in pleasurable anticipation!

I should now be doing work for my class of Making Sense of Modern Art – but I am not in the mood – but I do have just over an hour to get into the necessary mood somehow and produce something intellectually stimulating and provocative for my lesson.

Well, the mood did change and 150 years of artistic development in four pictures from a still life by some obscure German in 1850 to a pseudo-abstract from the year 2000 by some Spanish sounding guy were duly printed out and a sheet of instructions fabricated to go with them.  I always work best under stress, but I’m not sure about the cost to my blood pressure readings!

Although they are a highly selected chosen quartet of paintings to represent the century and a half I do like the idea behind them (however false a picture of artistic development they might give) and it is really designed to give a sense of progression and allow kids to make connections and contrasts over an historical period.  We didn’t of course get as much done as I would have liked, but we are well set for the next lesson.  I hope.  And that should reduce the tension of my normal teaching by at least one notch!

I am now stuck in school for three hours before the start of the Literary Prize Evening.  It is not worth my while going home as I have to start off at such an early hour to get through rush hour traffic that I gain more by staying in school than trying to get home and then return.  But it does make for a day in this place which will turn out to be some thirteen hours long.  Too long by any sane teacher’s standards!

I am now sitting in the staffroom with Mozart’s 41^st Symphony for company debating whether to go to the kitchen and see if the cooks have put out scraps for we “peons” who are left to while away the hours before we swell the numbers for the audience for the festivities.  We have been told that we can go to the kitchen and have something before the cocktail party begins which is the start of the official VIP reception for the evening.  And it’s started raining after a glorious afternoon which I had the merest touch as I left one classroom to go to another.  ‘Twas always thus!

I have now been interrupted on a number of occasions and each time I have got involved in conversations way beyond my linguistic ability (in Spanish I hasten to add!) to play the part that I should.  I have to say that all my colleagues are equally patient as I mangle their language to try and make myself understood!  From teachers to kitchen staff and cleaners they all smile at me with that patient resignation that I have come to recognize so well as they disentangle my shattered Spanish syntax and make some sense of what I might have been trying to say!

The Literary Prize evening was not as painful as expected with an unexpected bonus in that the guest speaking was a world famous author, Paulo Coelho whose most famous book is probably The Alchemist which has, to date been published in over 70 languages!  This multi-million-book seller was something of a coup for our school and, as I left the Russian mother of one of our pupils was holding out a copy of The Alchemist in Russian for the man to sign.  His speech was short and to the point.

The end of the evening was a truncated concert with out kids singing a couple of songs.

My attempt to escape was delayed by a couple of parents who wanted to meet me and say thank you!  A rare enough occurrence to be a pleasure!

As Toni and I had agreed to go out for a meal of some sort after the presentations we went to an old haunt of ours near the flat we used to live in.  We had tapas but up-market ones and, although the meal was expensive I think that it was worth it – and anyway I deserved it after the long day I had had!

And tomorrow is Friday.  After all.

Full days

Barça are one goal down in the pouring rain in Chelsea.  I do not have a good feeling about this game, but there is most of the second half to go and we shall see what happens.  I find typing good displacement activity to cope with the tension in what is a very exciting game.  If a little wearing!

Further colleagues in school have told me how shocked they have been by the recent sacking.  One teacher was bitter and angry about how it was done, but most of the others are strangely reticent about it all, probably thinking who will be next. 

I feel as if I should be doing more to help someone who seems to have been summarily dismissed in a way which invites suspicion and leaves all the rest of the staff vulnerable.  But there seems to be a very real limit to what I can do.  Everyone I know accepts what has happened as unfortunate but irreversible.

The meeting next Wednesday when we will be given the details of the reductions in our salaries will further concentrate minds and close lips!

I’m not sure that teachers in our school have actually realized that they are going to have a cut in their incomes.  They know it as a concept but I don’t think the reality has struck them and will not until the actual money disappears from their pay packets – and as this will not happen until teachers are actually on holiday they will have the whole of the two months off to forget that it happened and then they will be equally surprised when the money is taken from their December pay packet!

In Spain at the moment we are truly living in “interesting” times and I think that there is much, much more of that “interest” which is going to play itself out over the next year or so

There is a lot going on in school at the moment and there will be in the near future and the partial relaxation of the summer term (the “saving lie” of the teaching profession) has yet to kick in.

As soon as we have a breathing space the paranoia about exams will pop up and the setting, marking, evaluating process will begin again.  But at least we have started on the real countdown to escape!

And Barça have just lost 1-0 to Chelsea – but it is not over yet.  Chelsea have to come to the Nou Camp.  We will see.

Still lots to learn

All set with two boxes of chocolates and a packet of biscuits as inter-active visual and gastronomic aids I was rather looking forward to my Media Studies Class this afternoon.  Armed with photocopies and a firm idea of what I was going to do I looked forward to a “fun-filled” couple of hours.

So much for an experienced teacher’s expectations!  I had, as usual not counted on the selfish, egotistical bloody mindedness of smug, self-satisfied, pampered, inadequate, adolescents.  Or the lessons were wrong.  But one child said thank you, how often does that happen!

In spite of my years of experience and the thousands of pupils that I have taught, I still find it difficult to believe that the things that I find interesting do not fascinate all pupils.  And therein lies the central problem in all my teaching (I mean apart from the arrogance inherent in what I have said): if any individual pupil is not taken with what I am doing then I cannot count the lesson a success.  And even though, logically, I know that to “capture” a whole class is difficult to impossible it is still what I want.  Or need rather.

In a six-class day, one should not take the last two hours of a long, long day as the key point.  But I did and I remain dissatisfied with what I did.  Back to the drawing board.  The ideas, at least, were good they just need a little more work.  As always!

I talked to two more colleagues from Primary and Infants and they are just as much mystified about the sacking at the end of last term as I am.  The more responses I get the more unhappy I am with what has happened.  But things must take their course and I hope that the situation will be a little clearer in the near future.

In the nearer future I am looking forward to revisiting the Goya exhibition with Irene on Saturday, but before then in the even nearer future I have to stay in school to support a colleague who helps organize an International Literary Competition based in the school by staying for the prize giving. 

So Thursday is going to be another school day extending into the night.  But the counting down to the end of the teaching part of term continues.

Another day

To celebrate only 42 working days with the kids left in this academic year our Head of Department was immediately absent!  Immediate chaos: not because we cannot operate without our Beloved Leader, but rather because there was no suggestion that any substitutions (let alone a supply teacher) would be used to cover her classes.  We are working so near the limits than any absence is a potential catastrophe!

I have six classes (6!) tomorrow so I would heartily recommend any member of management to keep well clear of the space that I have in my overlong timetable if they are think of utilizing me to fill any lessons.

As it turned out I did not do any more lessons than my allocated number but classes were collapsed and everybody was tense.  Perhaps this is a sign of how things are going to be in the future with everything kept to a minimum and the school constantly hovering on collapse.

At the moment we are living in a state of expectation while we wait to discover how the school is going to cope with our reduction in wages.  Since our colleague has been sacked there is an air of resignation about what is to come.  As a fellow member of the English Department said this morning, “They can just sack us whenever they want to, can’t they?” 

I felt like replying that of course they could and oh, by the way, what exactly did you do in the General Strike.  It is truly depressing to see what has to happen to intelligent people before they realise that they are in the firing line and perhaps ought to do something about it.

Steve from the Union has sent me an email and asked for a chat.  It will be good to hear what progress, if any has been made towards a more reasonable settlement with the present government.  Or at least to talk about what might happen in the future.

I have given up with the waterproof earphones and pink mp3 player as I found it impossible to swim more than a length before I had to readjust the damn things.  Today I swam with ordinary earplugs and had a proper swim.

I also called into my “new” swimming pool but the woman at the desk said that it was not yet open, in other words the administration to certify the place is not yet in place and to my asking how long it would be before this happened she did not give a specific answer. 

Ah, Spain!

Taking the sun

I’ve had my most British, nay, English morning since I arrived in Spain.

Getting up with little expectation of fine weather, I was galvanised into action when I saw fragments of sunshine among the leaves of a tree lining the street.

I therefore hastily assembled a tray and soon I was on the Third Floor eating toasted scones with Robinson’s strawberry jam and that revolting (but delicious) cream that comes in a pressurized can.  Even as I ate I could sense my mind wondering how I would pronounce those Irene cooked deliciousnesses.  I usually pronounce scones as “sk-ò-nz” but I think that my natural pronunciation at the parental knee would have been more like “sk-ough-nz”.  Good thing that I was alone and the Mitford crisis passed in silent contemplation!

These delights were washed down with my own particular blend of China tea.

For the first time since University, I think, I recently had a cup of Lapsang Souchon tea.  Toni described it as smelling like a box containing a pair of newly bought shoes and it does have a taste which makes one think irresistibly of varnish.  A tea to add a tang to another blend, rather than one to drink by itself.  Even with milk as I drank it.

My blend this morning had a base of Earl Grey with a generous sprinkling of Oolong and just a pinch of Lapsang Souchon - delicious.  I also had it in my individual tea maker which is a machine of quite unnecessary complication with a red button tea release system from an internal reservoir which gives me pleasure each time I use it!

Breakfast over it was necessary to evaluate the sky.  It was not raining which was a good thing.  It was not exactly sunny which was a bad thing.  But I am, after all, British – and we are prepared to suffer in the cause of personal enjoyment.  It was, at best, hazy – but tucked away on the terrace and away from the wind it was warmish.

So I lay out on the sunbed and thought of those rough days in Gran Canaria when I had stretched myself out on the sands in inclement weather because I had paid far too much to be there to ignore any opportunity when it wasn’t actually snowing to get a tan.  I remember one Christmas actually lying in the rain willing the sun to come out again.  Which it did.  But I did get very wet!

It was not unpleasant lying there on the Third Floor except when vindictive clouds filtered the rays quite unnecessarily causing me to squint an accusatory glare towards our nearest star.

Lunch was in St Boi where we had gone to buy a Barça shirt for Marc’s Name Day present.  We went to a very large restaurant which appears to be in part of an industrial unit and only has one window onto daylight.  The main dining area is box-like and the lack of daylight is compensated for by the number of truly hideous paintings they have on the walls.  The food however is better than the art.

The red wine we had was a trifle rough but the Casera made it drinkable.  We were brought small sausage roll like pastries filled with a smear of paste or a taste of cheese as an appetizer.  My first course was scrambled egg with potato which was hearty rather than subtle and had overmuch salt for me.  My second course was chunks of tender pork cooked in a very mild mustard sauce with some undercooked rice; this looked like a curry but was of a inoffensiveness to pander to the Spanish taste for the non-spicy.  I chose to have iced coffee rather than the dessert.  €9.70.  A bargain.  Unspectacular, but a bargain.

Before the rain started hammering down in the evening I did manage to get a very little time on the sunbed though that was through gritted pores as it were rather than unalloyed sunshine!

I trust that our climate is getting the rain out it its system so that tomorrow can be a day to give me the necessary vitamin D boost that I need to get through the looming week.

And this week, a working week of five days rather than the three we had last week.  Though the collective exhaustion of the staff on Friday bore no relationship to the amount of time that we had spent in school!

I am going to count the number of days to the end of term.  A bad idea but one I need to do on a need to do basis!

And Barça have won the worst game that I have seen them play for a long time!

Who cares, it's Friday!

Cold, damp, grey – not the sort of weather conditions to inspire me with joi de vivre at some ungodly hour of the morning!  And, although I am in danger of repeating myself, the level of driving this morning was beneath the primeval sludge from which various motorcycle drivers have not yet fully, or in some cases not even partially, emerged.

In the continuing saga of What Is Going On in terms of employment, payment and representation in our school, I have one or two lines of approach which need to be cautiously explored today.  One of the great imponderables is just who to trust in this place.  We are a gossipy school and while that it itself is no evil thing, the direction of gossip is.  There are too many people here whose only concern is themselves.  And that concern expresses itself in a quiet gossip to those in power so that job security (!) becomes the motivating factor in ethical behaviour.  Just like always!

As I collate responses from various sections of the staff it becomes increasingly obvious that not everyone is telling the strict truth and I am getting fairly irritated by the jostling queues of people trying to wash their hands of all responsibility and knowledge of anything and everything that might be considered to be significant knowledge.

It has also become increasingly obvious that my dear colleagues are not going to do much to improve their own situation; they are not going to ask any difficult questions; they are going to be grateful for what they are presented with – and I am going to lose my temper again!

I am continuing to keep the discussion alive about our departed colleague and the lack of comprehension about his abrupt departure should be a condign lesson to my colleagues – but it isn’t.  One comment, “Well, I expect we will learn about all this in the long run.”  Which is another way of saying that we are not going to be concerned about the here-and-now and will wait for the dust to settle and then reminisce about those stirring times when we all managed to keep our jobs while one poor unfortunate sap got his comeuppance.

I have just had a class switch foisted on me, but I am not too concerned about it.  It is my Current Affairs class and I think that I shall talk about Police Brutality – that should get the kids talking!

The lesson didn’t quite work out like that but it went well enough and got me through to lunchtime.

My last lesson of the day was with the 1ESO, the youngest of the secondary pupils and Fridays are reading days, which of course I love.  The book we are reading at present is “Holes” and part of the delight is being able to read it without the inevitable innuendo of a normal group of sniggering British schoolchildren towards a book with such a title!

The weekend promises to be rubbish as far as the weather is concerned, but I live in hope that Castelldefels is not the same as the wet Barcelona!