*Bloggers Note: Please consult the useful glossary by scrolling down to the bottom.
Veils, curtains and frontiers, divisions and barriers of different kinds; many of them have something in common. While some are physical and can be touched or at least seen from a distance, others exist purely in the thoughts of the creator, but few are really what you might term impenetrable.
The word "veil" inspires a mental picture of diaphanous cloth, silk or damask, a delicate fabric of one or many colours wafting in a perfume-scented dusk. A veil can be used to separate the mundane reality of life from the desirable yet unobtainable - just think of all those clichéd movies from the fifties and sixties with their swashbuckling mariners lusting after exotic Oriental veil-clad dancers. A veil can give a glimpse into another, forbidden world, but weave it from a coarser thread and it can also create an illusion of separation, of distance between us and what we want to see and something on the other side that is not quite as desirable.
Maybe by now you're wandering where I am going with this rather obvious metaphor. So to raise the veil a little, let's take a brief trip through two starkly contrasting aspects of Spanish society. Had Marx been alive today, he might be saying that celebrity gossip, not religion, is the opium of the people. Gossip magazines and programmes are not of course unique to Spain, but they are up there, loud and brash, in-your-face, as blatant and unavoidable a part of modern Spain as bullfighting and corruption.
I often ask my students if they watch programmes like the excruciating "Corazon*" and inevitably they throw up their hands in horror: "No way!" "Really...?" I probe further with a vaguely cynical smile. "Well, maybe, if there's nothing else on..." These juicy tidbits are like the proverbial forbidden fruit; you just can't resist nibbling away at the buffed and plasticised lives of the pijos*, the elite and the famous-for-being-famous with their flippant affairs and tedious separations, their time on the beach or the yacht, the first day at school for their children... even though after you've stuffed yourself to the gills with such sickly fare you are often left with that feeling you get when you have eaten something vividly coloured that is full of refined sugar and an arm-long list of additives with names that sound like industrial waste.
Worse still are those fly-on-the-wall series that follow the day-to-day lives of people like "Alaska and Mario"* or "The Kardashians"*. I personally find it hard to believe that anybody would - willingly and in their right minds - indulge in such visual equivalents to what I imagine the experience of drinking bilge water to be like. But then, there is seldom any accounting for taste.
Enough said about celebrity gossip for the moment. Tragically, but as in too many countries around the world, Spain is not protected from the evils of child abuse and child murder. In the last few years, a number of shocking cases have occupied the headlines. One of these is that of José Breton, a father from the Andalucian city of Cordoba who murdered his two young children and incinerated their bodies. Closer to home there is the little boy who was thrown to his death from the window of a high-rise flat in Granada, the victim of a feud between families.
I am not a parent and there are times when I get more than a little annoyed at having to endure the over-indulged misbehaviour of children while trying to enjoy a civilised meal in a local restaurant. My middle-aged grumpiness aside, Spanish families dote on their youngsters to an extent that I was not accustomed to seeing in the UK. It is, therefore, an uncomfortable eye-opener when a child is physically chastised by its parent in a public place. This, of course, is a purely hypothetical situation. Of course.
But before the accusatory finger is raised and the words, "Why didn´t you say something?" are hurled, consider this. How many of us turn a blind eye to what is going on around us, in plain view if we choose to see it? We don't want to get involved: our lives are too hectic, it's not our business, we might become victims of persecution ourselves. Our justifications are as numerous as they are ultimately unjustifiable. Yet who hasn´t done it? Who hasn´t pulled the veil over their eyes, leant on their hands, averted their gaze? And how many warning signs go "unnoticed", and how many more José Bretons has the world spawned because we so often choose to immerse ourselves in the trivia on our side of the veil, rather than confront the issues that will not go away simply because we collectively pull a curtain between them and ourselves?
After all, it's far easier to watch Kim Kardashian getting a $7,000 hairdo than it is to save a life. But it would be grossly unfair to point individual fingers of accusation. This sadness is the collective responsibility of society, a media that deals up tasteless, nutrient-free pap, and the modern mantra of "Pass the Buck."
Glossary of Terms:
Corazon: A televised celebrity gossip magazine.
Alaska and Mario: A celebrity couple; Alaska came to prominence as a singer and part of the new-wave 1980s "Movimiento Madrileño".
The Kardashians: A wealthy celebrity family, primarily famous for being famous.
Pijo/pija: Spanish pejorative meaning posh, snobby, rich and/or spoilt.
domingo, 9 de octubre de 2016
Alfacar Autumn
A week or two back my neighbour, a Master Baker, came to my door with a gift. We'd chatted in the town square a few days before, he asking me as usual when I was going to give him some English lessons before the topic turned to torta de La Virgen, a sweet pastry that is traditional in these parts and especially at this time of year. In fact, I have lived in Spain for long enough that the association between torta and Autumn has become pretty well established.
What he presented me with was a vast oval pastry, apparently several yards across, topped with crunchy sugar and filled with a rich and sticky concoction made of walnuts, spices, raisins and the key ingredient, cabello de angel. This latter is a conserve made by boiling down the flesh of a particular variety of squash with sugar to make a substantially textured clear jam. When all of these components come together in the hands of a true maestro like Pepe the baker, the result is heavenly.
Given the altitude here, not to mention the fact that the year is hurtling towards its termination, one might be forgiven for wondering exactly where Autumn is hiding itself. Even the imminent Autumn fair in the centre of Granada, where torta de La Virgen by the hundreds go on sale (none, I'm sure, as good as the one I was recently gifted!) does not seem to be enticing Autumn to show its full colours.
I live at an altitude that falls just short of that of the highest mountain in England and from my home I have a fine view of the Sierra Nevada, the loftiest peaks in Spain if you don't include Teide in the Canary Islands. Forget the proximity of the Costa Tropical, Torremolinos and Marbella - this is real upland country. Granada boasts a ski centre (the most southerly in Europe) and a unique alpine fauna and flora with species of plant and butterfly that are found nowhere else in the world.
But try telling that to the thermometer. The nights are a little fresher and it is possible to use bedding again after a long summer of enforced nudity, but during the day the heat builds up to an uncomfortable something in the high 20s or low 30s. And it is a pernicious heat pervades ground, air, everything. Come the early hours of the evening it has created an oppressive mantle that wraps itself around you until the dark hours are well advanced. You are listless, yet restless. You can´t settle to much, you find yourself wondering from room to terrace and dreaming wistfully of frosty mornings and torrential downpours.
This is not the complete story, because in reality the season is getting on with its work regardless of the heat. I have never seen so many pomegranates on the tree just down the lane from home, and there is a bumper crop of huge, fragrant quinces (membrillos) while the persimmons (kakis in Spanish) are still green but likewise are set to break records when they turn that unique translucent golden orange and are briefly edible before turning to mush. Walnuts, too, and since I discovered just how good this super-food is for you I have been filling bags with them and spreading them out on the terrace to dry. Hopefully, they and all their wonderful oils, vitamins, minerals, proteins and antioxidants will see me through the winter.
The birds too are abiding by their age old imperative and finally it seems that the last of the swallows and house martins have departed. Parties of starlings feed in the valley below the terrace in the afternoon, flocks of dazzling bee eaters flash their colours briefly as they pass through, and now and then a pair of booted eagles revolves in casual, lazy circles overhead as the great raptors head south for a winter vacation in Africa. As for the smaller creatures, the influx of several species of mantis (welcome, fascinating guests to the living room!) is over and I am sure that the rather dozy gecko I saw attached to the wall just outside the patio doors a few nights back will soon be tucking itself away, deep in a crevice until next May is well advanced.
Soon, I have no doubt, the fogs will rise each morning from the Granada Vega, then the clouds will come down from the mountains to meet it and Alfacar will be trapped in the middle, the soggy and unappetising filling of some vast meteorological torta de La Virgen.
So perhaps I should try a little harder to enjoy this Verano de Membrillo (quince summer - the Andalucian verson of an Indian summer) while it lasts.
What he presented me with was a vast oval pastry, apparently several yards across, topped with crunchy sugar and filled with a rich and sticky concoction made of walnuts, spices, raisins and the key ingredient, cabello de angel. This latter is a conserve made by boiling down the flesh of a particular variety of squash with sugar to make a substantially textured clear jam. When all of these components come together in the hands of a true maestro like Pepe the baker, the result is heavenly.
Given the altitude here, not to mention the fact that the year is hurtling towards its termination, one might be forgiven for wondering exactly where Autumn is hiding itself. Even the imminent Autumn fair in the centre of Granada, where torta de La Virgen by the hundreds go on sale (none, I'm sure, as good as the one I was recently gifted!) does not seem to be enticing Autumn to show its full colours.
I live at an altitude that falls just short of that of the highest mountain in England and from my home I have a fine view of the Sierra Nevada, the loftiest peaks in Spain if you don't include Teide in the Canary Islands. Forget the proximity of the Costa Tropical, Torremolinos and Marbella - this is real upland country. Granada boasts a ski centre (the most southerly in Europe) and a unique alpine fauna and flora with species of plant and butterfly that are found nowhere else in the world.
But try telling that to the thermometer. The nights are a little fresher and it is possible to use bedding again after a long summer of enforced nudity, but during the day the heat builds up to an uncomfortable something in the high 20s or low 30s. And it is a pernicious heat pervades ground, air, everything. Come the early hours of the evening it has created an oppressive mantle that wraps itself around you until the dark hours are well advanced. You are listless, yet restless. You can´t settle to much, you find yourself wondering from room to terrace and dreaming wistfully of frosty mornings and torrential downpours.
This is not the complete story, because in reality the season is getting on with its work regardless of the heat. I have never seen so many pomegranates on the tree just down the lane from home, and there is a bumper crop of huge, fragrant quinces (membrillos) while the persimmons (kakis in Spanish) are still green but likewise are set to break records when they turn that unique translucent golden orange and are briefly edible before turning to mush. Walnuts, too, and since I discovered just how good this super-food is for you I have been filling bags with them and spreading them out on the terrace to dry. Hopefully, they and all their wonderful oils, vitamins, minerals, proteins and antioxidants will see me through the winter.
The birds too are abiding by their age old imperative and finally it seems that the last of the swallows and house martins have departed. Parties of starlings feed in the valley below the terrace in the afternoon, flocks of dazzling bee eaters flash their colours briefly as they pass through, and now and then a pair of booted eagles revolves in casual, lazy circles overhead as the great raptors head south for a winter vacation in Africa. As for the smaller creatures, the influx of several species of mantis (welcome, fascinating guests to the living room!) is over and I am sure that the rather dozy gecko I saw attached to the wall just outside the patio doors a few nights back will soon be tucking itself away, deep in a crevice until next May is well advanced.
Soon, I have no doubt, the fogs will rise each morning from the Granada Vega, then the clouds will come down from the mountains to meet it and Alfacar will be trapped in the middle, the soggy and unappetising filling of some vast meteorological torta de La Virgen.
So perhaps I should try a little harder to enjoy this Verano de Membrillo (quince summer - the Andalucian verson of an Indian summer) while it lasts.
viernes, 7 de octubre de 2016
Ferrari Versus Ferraria
I am one of those exceptionally fortunate people who owns a Ferraria.
I keep my Ferraria on my east-facing terrace here in Andalucia. Rather, I have a whole collection of Ferrarias, much to my extreme joy. They remain largely under cover during the chilly and unpredictable Granada winter but come Spring - wow and gosh and yippee! They're a thrill a minute.
Oh... apologies if you are scratching your head and wondering about the glaring spelling mistake. Did you think I meant Ferrari? If so, then perhaps I had better clarify something.
A Ferrari is a very expensive and luxurious Italian sports car, typically available in red and not much else besides - or so I believe because I don't really know a lot about such matters. A Ferraria, on the other hand, is a plant. To be precise, a curious South African relation of the globally familiar irises.
We´ve established some basic differences between the two, then. Is it really necessary, therefore, to labour the point? Well... yes. I think so, at least.
Plant first, car second. A Ferraria sleeps under the soil all summer, safely tucked away from the baking heat in the shape of a curious stack of storage organs known as corms. But come the Autumn rains, an incredibly complex series of biochemical and other processes (happenings that we still barely understand), creates a miracle. The miracle of growth. Of life. And, depending on the species, the waking Ferraria produces a set of linear or strap-shaped leaves that stack one-upon-the-other throughout the winter, burgeoning, expanding, forever changing if you have an eye to observe and a spirit to wonder at this fascinating process.
Then the flowers. Extraordinary. As dark and as lustrous as a moonless night or pale as silk shot through with the first light of dawn, and a host of exquisite colours and combinations of colours at all points in-between. Petals that flounce and crisp and curl so outrageously that a flamenco dress looks like a crumpled rag in comparison.
The Ferrari (that's the car, in case you'd forgotten), either goes or doesn´t go. And that's all that it does (or, for a great deal of the time, all that it doesn´t).
The Ferraria, depending on the species, can be picked up for a couple of euros/dollars/pounds on eBay.
The Ferrari - apparently (I don´t have the details to hand) - will probably cost you anything along a steeply ascending scale that rockets upwards from a mere $140,000.
The Ferraria is, I would imagine, completely unknown to the vast majority of the world´s inhabitants.
The Ferrari, thanks to the all-pervasive and insidious entity that is Western culture, is undoubtedly an iconic representation of uber-wealth, style and exclusivity familiar to billions across the globe - just possibly with the exception of the residents of North Sentinel Island and a few as-yet unviolated scraps of Amazonia and New Guinea.
The wild Ferraria, depending on species, is under serious threat along with its astonishingly bio-diverse and breathtakingly beautiful southern African habitat. Once gone, it is gone for eternity.
The Ferrari can be recreated at any moment according to whim and wealth.
What to buy your loved one, then, as a token of your undying love, a representation of love that will outlast this brief mortal sojourn? Ferrari versus Ferraria? The car, or maybe (in your loved one´s name) an acre of the most exquisite flower-rich land on earth, to be cherished and protected in-situ and in perpetuity?
Dilemmas, dilemmas. I'll leave you to ponder on what we truly value, and why, as I potter around my humble terrace and spend a few minutes of pure joy as I contemplate the emerging shoots of my little collection of Ferraria plants and think of the priceless floral extravaganza to come.
I keep my Ferraria on my east-facing terrace here in Andalucia. Rather, I have a whole collection of Ferrarias, much to my extreme joy. They remain largely under cover during the chilly and unpredictable Granada winter but come Spring - wow and gosh and yippee! They're a thrill a minute.
Oh... apologies if you are scratching your head and wondering about the glaring spelling mistake. Did you think I meant Ferrari? If so, then perhaps I had better clarify something.
A Ferrari is a very expensive and luxurious Italian sports car, typically available in red and not much else besides - or so I believe because I don't really know a lot about such matters. A Ferraria, on the other hand, is a plant. To be precise, a curious South African relation of the globally familiar irises.
We´ve established some basic differences between the two, then. Is it really necessary, therefore, to labour the point? Well... yes. I think so, at least.
Plant first, car second. A Ferraria sleeps under the soil all summer, safely tucked away from the baking heat in the shape of a curious stack of storage organs known as corms. But come the Autumn rains, an incredibly complex series of biochemical and other processes (happenings that we still barely understand), creates a miracle. The miracle of growth. Of life. And, depending on the species, the waking Ferraria produces a set of linear or strap-shaped leaves that stack one-upon-the-other throughout the winter, burgeoning, expanding, forever changing if you have an eye to observe and a spirit to wonder at this fascinating process.
Then the flowers. Extraordinary. As dark and as lustrous as a moonless night or pale as silk shot through with the first light of dawn, and a host of exquisite colours and combinations of colours at all points in-between. Petals that flounce and crisp and curl so outrageously that a flamenco dress looks like a crumpled rag in comparison.
The Ferrari (that's the car, in case you'd forgotten), either goes or doesn´t go. And that's all that it does (or, for a great deal of the time, all that it doesn´t).
The Ferraria, depending on the species, can be picked up for a couple of euros/dollars/pounds on eBay.
The Ferrari - apparently (I don´t have the details to hand) - will probably cost you anything along a steeply ascending scale that rockets upwards from a mere $140,000.
The Ferraria is, I would imagine, completely unknown to the vast majority of the world´s inhabitants.
The Ferrari, thanks to the all-pervasive and insidious entity that is Western culture, is undoubtedly an iconic representation of uber-wealth, style and exclusivity familiar to billions across the globe - just possibly with the exception of the residents of North Sentinel Island and a few as-yet unviolated scraps of Amazonia and New Guinea.
The wild Ferraria, depending on species, is under serious threat along with its astonishingly bio-diverse and breathtakingly beautiful southern African habitat. Once gone, it is gone for eternity.
The Ferrari can be recreated at any moment according to whim and wealth.
What to buy your loved one, then, as a token of your undying love, a representation of love that will outlast this brief mortal sojourn? Ferrari versus Ferraria? The car, or maybe (in your loved one´s name) an acre of the most exquisite flower-rich land on earth, to be cherished and protected in-situ and in perpetuity?
Dilemmas, dilemmas. I'll leave you to ponder on what we truly value, and why, as I potter around my humble terrace and spend a few minutes of pure joy as I contemplate the emerging shoots of my little collection of Ferraria plants and think of the priceless floral extravaganza to come.
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