Bread and Vinegar

Even insomnia has its plusses. Being wide awake before the crack of dawn in Alfacar allows you to experience one particular sensory treat which, while not unique to this town, has a special significance here.

It is the aroma of freshly baked bread that fills the early morning air every day of the year. On bitterly cold mornings such as today, with temperatures plummeting well below freezing and a hard frost brewing that will linger through until dusk in the shadiest corners, the alluring perfume is muted by the chill. But as Spring turns into Summer, the mild still nights enable it to spread and mingle tantalisingly with the perfume of jasmine and that special blend of herbal aromas that wafts down from the hills and joyfully shouts "Mediterranean" at you.

Probably every town in Andalucia has at least one bakery, but Alfacar is different, because here there are well over thirty of them - pretty impressive when you take into account a population of not much more than 5,000. Take an early stroll around the town and you realise just how central bread is to life here. Open doors offer fascinating glimpses of floured tables and the brick-built arches of ovens, of racks and racks of loaves and a flurry of workers in white overalls, toing and froing as they load up the delivery vans that supply half the province of Granada with its daily bread. Bakeries are everywhere - there is even one in the basement of the complex that I live in!

The breadmaking tradition here has its roots in Islamic Al-Andalus, before the Catholic Reconquest of the Kingdom of Granada in the late 15th Century. Back then, Alfacar was known for the manufacture of pottery, an industry dependant on the water that rises from the adjacent hills of the Sierra de Huetor and comes to the surface in the form of several springs including the most famous of them, Fuente Grande (which, incidentally, is home to an extremely rare species of water snail!).

In fact, the name of the town is thought to be derived from the Arabic Al-fajjar - the potter's homestead. Not a great deal remains from those times, but after the Reconquest the pottery kilns were converted into bread ovens. Over the centuries the bakers of Alfacar have perfected their skills using the exceptionally pure water from the springs, special yeast cultures and wooden containers for proving the dough. Many bakeries here still use wood-fired ovens and people have come from as far afield as Japan to learn the techniques of the master bakers of Alfacar. Recently, the product has been granted Protected Geographical Status, which means that only bread produced in the town using traditional methods can be called "Pan de Alfacar".

I can't imagine what a tough life that of an Alfacar baker must be, though, having to get up in the middle of the night year round. And the hours! This year I was invited to a Christmas Eve dinner which as is usual, went on well into the early hours of the morning. My neighbour, a baker, was there and after a while he was falling asleep at the table, at which point his wife explained to me that in the run-up to Christmas, a 16 hour working day was not unusual.

The subject of bread makes me think of an amusing little anecdote that I heard not long ago. One of the Alfacar bakers, and his bakery, is called Vinagre (vinegar) and the story of how he got this rather unusual nickname goes like this. Vinegar must now be well into his eighties but when he was born, there was a vinegar seller who would go from door to door selling... well, vinegar. This local vinegar seller was particularly ugly and when the infant Vinegar emerged into the world he was not a pretty baby. So, of course, his poor mother had to put up with the teasing of family and neighbours, words to the effect that this particular tradesman had been supplying more than just vinegar to the household!        

Trouble In Paradise

It's a risky business, passing critical comment on one's adoptive country, and it is not something that I do lightly.

However, as families across Spain prepare for the traditional Noche Buena dinner my thoughts turn to rather more disquieting matters. Yet as I do so I can be certain that, while not breaking any confidences, I am simply reflecting the worries and opinions expressed to me by my Spanish friends - but with which I happen to agree wholeheartedly.

Spain is a nation wearied by the constant bludgeoning it receives from high profile corruption scandal after high profile corruption scandal. Misuse of public position and funds is not unique to whatever party is in power, or course, and it is certainly not exclusive to Spain. Consider the scandal over politicians claiming public resources to maintain their luxury second homes and ornamental duck ponds that rocked Westminster some years back. But in Spain it is the ruling right-wing Popular Party that has in particular been actively bent on rubbishing its own reputation, or so it seems.

Couple this with the perception here that politicians are not in any way answerable to the public for their actions and add to this a widespread loathing of the Spanish banking system and the painfully drawn out complexities of a legal system that often does not seem to serve the victims of wrongdoers, and this all begins to make for a toxic brew indeed.

Let's throw another ingredient into the witches' cauldron. Claiming that it is in the public interest, the PP Government of Mariano Rajoy is currently in the final stages of bringing in legislation that will seriously curb the right to peacefully protest, a move that is raising worried eyebrows here and around the world due to its far-reaching nature. Now if there is something that the Spanish love to do, it is to protest; whether many of these street demonstrations actually achieve anything is debatable, but the fact remains that protest here is a way of life.

Ocassionally, however, something more coherent grows out of these protests, and the new kid on the Spanish block is the recently formed political party, Podemos ("We Can"). Podemos was surprisingly successful in the last European elections and has both brought hope and raised concerns, depending on which side of the political fence you sit on. Big business and the banking powers are, of course, predicting doom if this infant party should ever win a general election. And with just such a test of the nation's mood coming up next May, they are set to increase their mud flinging bombardment tenfold.

My personal jury is still out with regards to Podemos. Perhaps they will flare briefly like an exploding rocket before going out, just as the "15th of May Movement" here several years ago. Maybe they will build on their early success and adopt all the trappings of the traditional parties - beaurocracy, greed, corruption and all. Or maybe, things will be different this time.

Whatever, I am quietly satisfied at the level of concern and negativity heading in the direction of Podemos from the bastions of traditional politics and business. If they weren't worried, they would just ignore this young upstart that has so blatantly strutted into their midst. Indeed, Podemos could use this to their advantage.

We will see... I'll finish for now with a saddening example of how politicians can so easily loose the human touch. Not that many months ago, a Granada fireman wrote to the local newspaper to describe an incident that had quite rightly concerned him deeply. On being called to tackle a fire at a well-known building in the city, the passage of the firefighters had been impeded by the bollards surrounding the entrance.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt. At this point, in stepped the right-wing Mayor of Granada with a letter to the same newspaper in which, incredibly, he stated that if this firefighter was unable to do his job then he should go and sell ice-cream instead.

Arrogant, offensive and completely out of touch with reality - this astonishing response was all of these things. But all too often, such is the way of those who are entrusted with the public good but get things so dismally and embarrassingly wrong.
       

Death On Two Wheels

I hate cyclists.

Uh-oh. Stand back, Peter. Wait for the very large boulder you have just hurled to go crashing through the placid surface of the lake, and brace yourself as the waves of indignation rise like wrathful dragons defending some bicycle-shaped Sacred Chalice. For I have violated Holy Ground.

Cycling is one of the sacred cows of the modern age, what with its supposedly green credentials and associations with health, vigour and the outdoor life (we won't speculate about what odious, eco-wrecking chemicals might be going into all that glossy paintwork, and as for the tyres...). Don't touch cyclists. They are hard-done-by yet irreproachable, victims of the supreme Car God but all of them fine upstanding members of society who through their decision to spurn the internal combustion engine are helping to create a better world for us all.

So perhaps I should qualify this outrageous assertion, especially as I am something of a lifelong environmentalist myself (and at this, I hear yet more gasps of shock and dismay and shouts of "traitor" rising from the stave-bearing mob as it closes in on me).

Actually, I don't have an aversion to all cyclists. For those who haven't studied the genus in detail, let me give you a brief guide to just two of the more common species. One of the most conspicuous members of the family is the colourful, super-silky, super-expensive fabric clad cycling fanatic (I tread on ground riddled with treacherous mires and buried incendiary devices here, for my very own brother-in-law is of this self same variety). They frequently displace to new territory in rather orderly packs, seldom pausing to hunt as they go and speeding by so fast that precise identification of the sub-species is often problematical. They are relatively harmless, except for the assault on one's vision affected by all that rather silly gear they wear (oh dear, I believe I have just dug myself several metres deeper into this pit of sacrilege that I have been so casually excavating).

Then there are the solitary predators, and it is these alarming beasts that I wish to draw your attention to. These can be incredibly difficult to identify because of their astonishing diversity, which would seem to indicate great genetic variability. But something they share in common is their ability to masquerade as one of the other types, a harmless, bumbling, herbivorous sort of cyclist that likes nothing so much as to potter and amble its way through life, ignoring and being ignored by everybody else. But as with this innocuous animal, some of the carnivores wear fleece jackets, some have waterproofs, backpacks, child seats, and a few even sport suits and ties. They might have dreadlocks, plaits, bobs, curls, purple rinses, ponytails - you name it. Some even have no hair at all. But what they all do masterfully, is to disguise themselves as conscientious road users and there is one reason and one reason only for this; to kill prey.

And this is what terrifies me about them because as a lifelong pedestrian and proud of it, I am their number one target. Here, in Granada, they have several primary hunting grounds. One of these is a particularly busy pedestrian crossing at the beginning of Gran Via, one of the main city centre arteries. And it is here that they gather as surely as those enormous crocodiles in Africa that are drawn hungrily to the river crossings that the hapless masses of migrating wildebeest and zebra have no alternative but to use in order to gain fresh pastures.

The solitary predator cyclist is exceptionally cunning, because - like the clever Japanese crows that have learned to play the traffic lights in order that passing cars might crack the nuts they have gathered and dropped there - it has learned to strike when the little man turns green. Several times during the last few weeks, I myself have almost fallen victim to a cyclist attack and it is only by sheer luck that my gory remains are not at this very moment being fought over by a litter of ravenous infant cyclists, somewhere in their dark, bicycle-chain-lined den.

But the carnage doesn't end here, for it seems that by utilising this very same predatory species, the Spanish Government has embarked on a biological pedestrian control programme. A few years ago, it was decreed that cyclists could ride on pavements wider than X number of metres, further invading the territory of an already endangered mammal - otherwise known as me. They have taken to this new habitat with great gusto but then, many of them had already colonised this promising territory, so abundant in slow-moving and defenceless food. The precise number of X-es seems to make little difference either as they are especially fond of narrow sidewalks and bottlenecks caused by road-works. Easy pickings for the hunters, and woe betide their prospective lunch...

But I will end on a note of defiance, for my species is fighting for its very existence and we will not go down without a fight. So heed me, you who yet proudly utilise that most venerable and ancient form of transport - The Foot. Let all who walk or skip or gamble or totter or stride shout out, "I am a biped, not a bicycle! I will not be run over!"

Pedestrians of the World, Unite!


  

Great Little Cakes and Italian Olive Oil That Isn't: It's time to celebrate Spanish Cuisine Part 2

Living next to the town's olive oil co-operative, my days at this time of year are enlivened late into the evening by the surprisingly reassuring clatter of conveyor belts and other miscellaneous machinery. It is olive harvesting season and throughout the day, trailers of all shapes and sizes stream into the depot to unload their harvest for crushing and pressing to make that most versatile and important of foodstuffs - olive oil.

Some years ago, I wrote an article for an online magazine about the Spanish olive oil industry which focussed on the problems associated with the export of Spanish olive oil to Italy, where it is labelled to look (and sound) suspiciously like a genuine Italian product, and is marketed accordingly (even though EU law does insist that all labelling should clearly state the country of origin).

I am sure that many international consumers of olive oil, and specifically extra virgin olive oil, would associate this product most intimately with countries such as Italy and possibly Greece. It may therefore come as a huge surprise that one single province in Andalucia - the Province of Jaen, not far from my home in Granada - produces more olive oil than the whole of Italy. And we are talking quality here, delicious, health-giving, green-gold quality, as good as anything from the fabled "olive groves" of Italy or Greece.

So why don't we associate Spain with quality? Well, it's easy to blame General Franco and the rapidity with which Spain was opened up to the outside world as a cheap package holiday destination during the 1960s and 70s, but there may be some truth in this little theory of mine. For decades, the words Spain and cheap have been sinonimous in the minds of many a holidaymaker, and indeed, many tourists lamentably treat Spain and the Spanish people in a cheap and disrespectful manner. And I have a notion that this lack of regard may be far too easily transferred to all other things Spanish, including the country's fabulous and largely undiscovered cuisine.

How wrong this would be! A thousand food experts will be casting scorn on the following assertion, but Spanish cuisine is every last bit as good as that pretentious, sauce-laden French stuff and the supposedly quintessential Mediterranean fare of Italy. And on the subject of Italian food, while the highly commendable Slow |Food Movement had its origins in Italy, in Spain slow food never disappeared and is very much alive and healthy, despite the inexorable proliferation of KFCs and Burger Kings.

In conclusion, I'd like to give one example of an aspect of Spanish food that may once again come as a huge surprise to the uninitiated yet one that is seasonally appropriate - Christmas sweets. Forget those dried up little bags of rather uninspiring German biscuity efforts that cram the shelves of so many UK supermarkets in the run-up to Yule. Disregard that most disgusting of British traditions - Christmas Pudding (a more revolting conglomeration of traumatised and abused ingredients, I cannot imagine...).

Because here in wonderful Spain you will find decadently calorific mantecados, polverones that crumble mysteriously but delightfully into dust when you bite into them, hojaldrinas as light as air, dusted with icing sugar and delicately flavoured with orange. There are a dozen different kinds of turron (in Spain, they do things with almonds that you never imagined were possible!), roscos flavoured with wine and anis and elaborated with care by the sisters of convents all around the country, And at this very moment I am enjoying an alfajor from the famous Casa Pasteles in Granada's historic Albaicin district and attempting to identify the subtle and skillful combination of flavours - almonds, definately; cinnamon too and a crunchy but not overwhelming coating of sugar. But there are other things in there that my taste buds are unable to put their collective finger on and I'll simply go on enjoying and delighting in the mystery.

So, who was it that said Spanish food was nothing more than paella and chips and a soggy butty in the airport on the way back to Blighty? If it was you, then think again!

Snails for Supper? It's time to celebrate Spanish cuisine! Part One...

Having just carried a 7-foot high bitter orange tree down the road from my former abode to adorn my spacious new terrace, my thoughts naturally turn to matters culinary (if you haven't yet grasped the connection, it's bitter orange = marmalade), and to something of a rite of passage that I went through some weeks ago now. For I, Peter Ashby, he who has been heard to assert on many an occasion with vigour and determination that never would such a comestible pass his lips... I have finally succumbed and eaten snails!

How did this extraordinary turn of events come about? Well, it happened like this. Disembarking one Friday evening from the Granada bus after a tough afternoon's labour at the rock face of English teaching, I ran into some good Spanish friends of mine who insisted that I accompany them to the nearest watering hole. Naturally, I vigorously declined this invitation, which is how I found myself a very few minutes later in a riotous bar surrounded by a varied collection of partying witches, zombies and vampires (this being Hallowe'en, you understand).

Maybe sorcery was truly in the air that fateful eve, for long before the witching hour came to pass, my life had changed forever and I had taken one mighty stride along the road towards "hispanisization" (oh, give me a break, word check! Per-lease!). For on the menu that night were caracoles (snails), and not the almost unobtrusive little ones that slip almost un-noticed into many an Andalucian broth. These were great stripey-shelled monsters, proudly reclining in a miniature sea of steaming russet broth with their broiled feet hanging out enticingly, begging to be skewered on cocktail sticks and devoured.

I'll spare you the intimate and gory details of how I impaled not one, nor even two but three of those grey and wrinkled molluscan bodies on my little wooden spear, removed the vaguely disgusting oozy bit at the end as instructed, and swallowed them down without chewing. But I did it and have endured to tell the tale. And I have to say that the accompanying broth, made with hot paprika and ground almonds, was delicious.

Snails are common fare in Andalucia and indeed throughout Spain, although they are by no means universally popular. Whenever the subject of food crops up in my English classes, I can guarantee that two out of three of my students will recoil at the idea of eating snails while the remainder extol their gastronomical virtues and recommend such and such a bar in Granada that does the best snails in the city. Every country has its culinary oddities and while snails may not be particularly unusual in European spheres, there are some local Spanish dishes that certainly cause the eyebrows of the uninitiated to raise - such as, for example, the raw sea urchins eaten in Cadiz or the sugared sheep's feet (I kid thee not!) from the villages of Aragon.

But it's easy for us Anglo-Saxons to home in on the extreme end of gastronomy as "something that foreigners do" (even though many a Scotsman - sorry, you're Celts and Picts, aren't you? - swears by a concoction of oatmeal and veg shoved into a sheep's stomach and boiled, does he not?) and to remain ignorant of the delights that await discovery just beyond the virtual electric fences and gun turrets that shackle the minds of many a tourist of the sun-sea-sand brigade. If you have never ventured beyond the stereotypical, package holiday versions of paella and chorizo (and these are often not the real McCoy) then you are missing out on a fabulous cornucopia of tastes and textures and sensations that in my books, rivals anything that all of that faddy, fiddly French cooking has to offer, and can hold its head up proudly as an equal to anything the Italian dinner table can boast of. Here you will find pungent and aromatic sauces laden with herbs and spices and garlic, a selection of fish and other seafood unrivalled anywhere in the world (Spain is, after Japan, the greatest international consumer of fish), jamon serrano from the dehesa of western Andalucia to knock the spots off any Parma ham, refreshing cold soups such as salmorejo, warming winter cocidos and a host of wonderful cakes and sweets inspired by Spain's Arab legacy... I could go on and on but I have a lifetime's blogging, not to mention a Part Two, in which to emphasize the point.

And the point is? The point is, that Spanish cuisine is every bit as good as that of France or Italy or China or India. But I throw down the gauntlet to you, oh bold gastronomical adventurer, and I present you with the following challenge. Next time you visit New York, London, Sydney or the like, count the number of Italian restaurants you see there. At the same time, keep a tally of the Spanish restaurants you come across and I am pretty sure that you will very quickly become aware of a certain imbalance on an order of (at the very least) several dozen to one.

Why should this be so? Well, my typing fingers are in need of a rest so that is a question I am going to leave until Part Two. In the meantime, happy eating wherever you are.  

 

Barking up the Wrong Tree

As with humans, there are certain dogs that I thoroughly dislike. Take the seemingly placid, pale fawn Labrador cross that lives in Plaza de Iglesia just a minute's walk up the road. This seemingly mild-mannered canine sits and observes passers-by as if butter wouldn't melt in its mouth, watching them dwindle into the near distance before lauching a lightning pursuit of snarls and gnashing canines. Or the small brown effort that hurls itself with audibly clicking teeth at my ankles whenever I pass through its territory... No, I do not like these dogs.

However, I myself am owned by a dog. Bruce has been in my life for almost three years now, since the day I rescued him, hours old, from a bag of household rubbish that had been tossed into a skip. Yes, that's right. He and his five siblings had been removed from their mother straight after birth and thrown live into a sack of melon rinds and other household garbage, then tossed into a container to smother or await death by maceration when the rubbish truck arrived.

Notwithstanding this narrow escape from a horrible end (that sadly claimed the lives of all his siblings), Bruce has matured into the most loving fellow imaginable. He adores people, has an endless appetite for fun, and likes nothing so much as to curl up into a little ball of dog on the sofa in a spot of sunlight, or on his very own quilt on the bed.

These anecdotes help to illustrate some of the canine related issues, not just in Alfacar but in Spain as a whole. First, the problem of perros callejeros - street dogs. The small brown effort that attempts to sink its gnashers into my flesh is not a true  street dog insomuch as she has an owner, but she is left to roam free for a large part of the day and therein lies the problem. There are many true ferals in Spain and they cause no end of problems, from killing livestock to interbreeding with the critically endangered Iberian Wolf, thus threatening the genetic purity of this iconic animal. It is unlikely that these dogs - and there are many - have ever heard of Barbara Woodhouse or the Dog Whisperer and as a result, they are also a serious threat to traffic, cats, ankles, and public health due to the amount of excrement and urine that they so lavishly deposit on the streets.

But don't blame the dogs, because Spain has a problem. Spain has the unfortunate distinction of being the European Union member that abandons more dogs and cats than any other. This shameful distinction can no longer be put down to traditional attitudes to domestic animals, because Spanish dog owners love their dogs every bit as much as the supposedly animal-loving English. And consider the growing number of refuges and animal rescue charities around the country, dedicated to rescuing and rehoming the carelessly abandoned.

However, the darker side of dog ownership in Spain is truly that - dark, horrid, sordid. Take the case of hunting dogs. Bruce is a podenco, one of the traditional hunting dogs of southern Spain. Leaving aside the moral maelstrom of hunting for now and focussing on the dogs, podencos are lithe, fast, prick eared and sharp nosed, and are reknowned for their intelligence.

Of course, there are many conscientious owners and breeders of podencos and galgos (lurchers and greyhounds) who ensure that Spanish law is complied with by vaccinating and microchipping their animals, and who keep their dogs in clean and happy surroundings. But for every one of these, there is probably at least one man - and it is men who hunt, after all - who regard their dogs as things, pieces of equipment to be kicked when they don't work, and thrown away when they are no longer needed.

Take the recent case of a dog farm in Murcia. When animal welfare rescuers were tipped off and located the spot, it was to find the place littered with the emaciated bodies of galgos and podencos that had starved to death; others were barely alive and tragically, it was not possible to rescue all of the surviving animals on this occasion. Consider also the fate of many unwanted podencos at the end of the hunting season. Countless thousands of them are rewarded by their "masters" by being drowned, shot, poisoned or throttled, their bodies no doubt dumped in some disused, forgotten well. Many are hung from trees; they even have a name for this, the typewriter death, because of the sound of the dog's scrabbling claws on the ground as it dies...

It is not my intention here and now to wonder at the inner workings of minds that will throw live puppies into a rubbish skip or slowly throttle a dog to death with as much indifference as they might toss a half-eaten burger into the trash. Nor do I want to single out Spain as being an especially cruel country. Consider, after all, the millions of dogs killed around the world each year for meat, for supposedly scientific research and out of sheer, raw sadism. But the next time that small brown dog hurls herself at my vulnerable ankles, I will remember that she and my Bruce are among the lucky ones. And part of me inside will weep at the magnitude of Man's betrayal of his erstwhile "best friend".      

Alfacar - Battered but not Beaten!

Mmm! It is one of life's little pleasures to have a quince-scented living room at this time of year. These lovely great golden fruits (and we are not talking about the little spiny shrubs of many a suburban English garden here - these are the trees of fame and antiquity) are not only the raw material for making the firm, sweet, sliceable paste called membrillo (excellent when taken with a slice of cured cheese) but with their at times almost overwhelmingly fruity, perfumed fragrance, are the perfect air freshnener for car and home.

Today, Alfacar is basking in brilliant, unimpeded sunshine. I have lived here long enough, however, not to be fooled by the town's proximity to the Med in terms of what to expect from the weather. We are at altitude here - real altitude compared with just about anywhere in the United Kingdom. I'm sure that the majority of my English brethren, those who have never visited this part of Andalucia, do not believe me when I say that the wonderful view from my terrace is dominated by the Sierra Nevada mountains (the original Sierra Nevada, not those North American impostors!), which for five months of the year are covered with snow and indeed host Europe's most southerly and very successful ski station. Nor, I am sure, do they believe that we experience more days of settling snow than ever I did in my previous home in northwest England, and probably more sustained frosts too.

For those who are not in the know, Alfacar is a moderately sized town with a population of five thousand and something, 7 kilometres north west of Andalucia's pride, the city of Granada with its dazzling history and culture and world-reknowned architectural legacy in the shape of the Nazrid palaces of the Alhambra. Alfacar itself is famous locally and has even hit the international headlines from time to time; locally, for its centuries-old breadmaking tradition, and internationally as the disputed resting place of the eminent 20th Century poet, Federico Garcia Lorca, assassinated by the fascists in 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

Ascending from gently rising, olive-covered undulations that overlook the fertile plains of the Granada Vega to the steep flanks of the Sierra de Huetor, Alfacar occupies a privileged position. From its ancient routes (Neolithic remains have been discovered here) and its medieval importance as a summer retreat for the Moslem Zirite monarchs of Islamic Al-Andalus, it has spread out from its ancient Arabic centre - a physical process which has not always benefitted the town. It is not only "incomers" like myself who mourn the fate of many of the beautiful old buildings here, which have either fallen into disrepair or just plain fallen down to be replaced by ugly rubbish-filled vacant plots or hideous, faceless modern apartments. Many of my Spanish friends feel exactly the same about the slow rot that has consumed the heart of this and many similar towns in Andalucia.

Look no further than local administration - and again, it's not me saying this! As a resident of a mere five year's standing it would be very presumptious to be so outspoken (even though that's exactly what I am going to do in this little blog of mine). But friends tell me of how Plaza San Diego, or some other part of the old heart of Alfacar, has lost its soul as a result of the cynical and greed-driven speculation of construction firms, aided and abetted by successive town councils. There are still narrow, shady alleys and splendid ancient homes with cool inner courtyards here, paths and smallholdings and fountains and unexpected corners filled with joy and delight to be discovered, and I pray that some enlightened administration will save such vanishing treasures before it is too late.

Local politics in Spain is rather different from the quaint, ye-oldy-worldly, Vicar of Dibley stereotype associated with the green vales and church spires of Merrie Englande. Here it's sometimes a pistols at dawn, bash your political opponent before he does the same to you kind of affair. And speaking of affairs, it is not on occasion without a fair squeeze of juice and a hint of spice. Rumour has it that last year, the former right-wing, absentee Mayoress of Alfacar was caught in flagrante in the municipal seat of power itself, giving one of her male parishioners more than merely parochial guidance... Her replacement right-wing Mayoress scarcely seems to have inspired the populace into ecstasies of rapture, either, going by the number of fliers for one protest meeting or another, that one sees posted around the town with persistent regularity.

 And with the rise of Podemos ("We Can"), the latest political force in Spain who have as one of their central tenets the fight against political corruption (more of them another time, I am sure), we'll see if this new kid on the block changes the local political landscape in next May's general and municipal elections.

Until next time... hasta luego.