Well it was long time since my previous mail - I was moving house and still do not have internet connection at home. This week's song is called Long Time by Sergent Garcia. Hope you enjoy it (my kids love it).
Kirill
18 diciembre 2006
03 diciembre 2006
La canción de la semana #75
Looking around for traditional Mexican music, I came across this unusual collection called "Yu-Mex" ("Jugoslovanska Mehika" in Slovenian). To quote:
In 1948, the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito broke up with the Soviet leader Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin. Yugoslavia was suddenly between the two blocks.
Yugoslav authorities had to look somewhere else for film entertainment. They found a suitable country in Mexico: it was far away, the chances of Mexican tanks appearing on Yugoslav borders were slight and, best of all, in Mexican films they always talked about revolution in the highest terms. How could an average moviegoer know that it was not the Yugoslav revolution?
The Mexican influence spread to all of the popular culture: fake Mexican bands were forming and their records still can be found at the flea markets nowadays.
So, here it is: Paloma negra sung by Nevenka Arsova. (It seems/sounds that Paloma negra are the only two words not translated from Spanish.)
Kirill
26 noviembre 2006
La canción de la semana #74
This is flamenco piano: Fiesta el la plazuela played by Pedro Ricardo Miño, from his album Piano con duende.
Kirill
18 noviembre 2006
La canción de la semana #73
...is Cuando Llegue A Nueva York by New York-based Colombian band Folklore Urbano. Read more here.
Kirill
12 noviembre 2006
La canción de la semana #72
...is Tiempo de Solea by Ojos de Brujo. Check out their UK gigs!
Kirill
05 noviembre 2006
La canción de la semana #71
This week, music from the part of Latin America I know very little about. Niraü Hagabu, sung in Garifuna language, by Honduran singer, composer and guitarist Aurelio Martínez, from his album Garifuna Soul.
Kirill
04 noviembre 2006
Velázquez @ The National Gallery (until 21 January 2007)
"For the first time in Britain, a major exhibition traces the career of one of the very greatest painters — Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599—1660)." Read more...
Kirill
30 octubre 2006
Que veinte años no es nada
This is one of the verses of Gardel's tango Volver. This line has stuck in the Spanish language as a common saying about the fleetingness of time. Here you can read the whole lyrics. ¡A gozar, que veinte años no es nada!
Elena
28 octubre 2006
La canción de la semana #70
No, it was not Penélope Cruz singing Volver in the latest Almodóvar movie. (Which I enjoyed very much.) It is actually sung by Estrella Morente (also the star of La canción de la semana #7) and appears on her latest CD Mujeres. Watch the video of live performance.
Kirill
16 octubre 2006
La canción de la semana #69
(Sorry I did not publish any new song last week, but then there was an extra song posted by Elena.) Anyway, here's a new week and a new song. Maybe not a real song but an impressive piece of music anyway. It's conga solo by the great Cuban conga player Miguel "Angá" Díaz, who died unexpectedly on 9 August 2006.
Kirill
08 octubre 2006
Volver de Almodóvar en Saffron Walden
Creo que lo mejor sería reservar las entradas para Volver en Saffron Screen. Yo puedo ir el viernes 27 de octubre. ¿Quién se apunta?
Elena
Elena
Otra canción para esta semana
He aquí otra canción para esta semana. Ricky Martin canta con La Mari de Chambao el tema Tu Recuerdo. No está mal.
Elena
06 octubre 2006
04 octubre 2006
Yasmin Levy en Cambridge
Tomorrow, Yasmin Levy performs at The Junction Shed in Cambridge. Yasmin was the star of La canción de la semana #11 and La canción de la semana #59.
Kirill
30 septiembre 2006
La canción de la semana #67
...is Eva by Ozomatli.
Eva quita tus brazos |
Kirill
28 septiembre 2006
Spanish Diary: Gatos, cabras, poleos y martinis (with a twirl)
We have an eccentric neighbour who insists on feeding all the strays in the area. Not surprisingly, word has spread in the cat world and 24 turn up for the daily free food bonanza. A minor difficulty for her is that she is only here for 2 months of the year, so what to do about the other 10 months when the poor dears would certainly starve to death without her? No problem. Cue Antonio our batty next-door neighbour. For the rest of the year she has persuaded this poor soul to trot over every day and feed them for her. How about that for low-maintenance conscience salving! He is so starved of company that he is more than glad to do it, after all it means he can talk to Herminia all the time she is here and she can't complain! (If he can get a word in edgewise that is – she does like to talk.)
As there is not really room for 24 cats in her garden, they tend to commandeer the houses on either side as well - though the house where Byron lives does not seem to have too much of a problem. I wonder why? After all he is only a playful 100lb rotweiler.
Not surprisingly, the neighbours get a smidgeon upset when they find a cat on the spare bed with its young. They got so upset this time she thought she may have to have them put down. (It didn't occur to her that the cats may well have a loving family home just around the corner!)
The cats didn't seem like this idea very much so they bit and clawed and scratched their way to freedom as her husband tried to capture them; they simply vanished until things settled down. Anyway, the cats are all still there, Herminia has toddled off to Barcelona until next Easter and Antonio is still feeding them for her – so nothing new there! She thinks the locals are ignorant brutes that hate all animals and that she is the one with a social conscience – me, I'm not quite so sure…Any bets on the number of cats that will be there next year?
I have often wondered why Continental brand names are not used more in the UK. I can quite understand why Paqui Supermarket (In Spanish it is the feminine diminutive for Francesca) may not be acceptable but Nestle Bonka coffee seems perfectly innocent to me.
As I no longer drink tea, I looked for an alternative herbal infusion locally and came up with poleo menta. It has a rich minty flavour and goes down very well. "I wonder what it is called in English?" It's pennyroyal. So then I looked at what pennyroyal is used for…to promote blood flow in the pelvic region, menstrual flow and self abortion. It doesn't seem to taste quite the same any more.
We were sat quietly in the only bar for miles, sipping our drinks, when hunger pangs struck. "Can you do us something to eat? "You can have an omelette sandwich." "OK." There was then much scurrying about when they realised they didn't actually have any bread so the son went round the corner to get a loaf. Eventually, with a flourish, the barman proudly stepped through the swing doors of the kitchen, which promptly swung back and knocked one of the sandwiches from his grasp. "I'll make you another one", he said. Now, we knew he didn't have any more bread and anyway it only took him a moment or two to reappear with the "new" sandwiches. Which one is the good one? We compromised and shared them both between us.
We have always thought that the Spanish were absolute philistines for keeping red wine in a chiller; after all red wine is supposed to be kept at room temperature, everybody knows that! This summer we realised that room temperature in Spain in the summer can be 30C which is a tad hot for any wine. It still feels a bit odd to drink red wine chilled to18C but when you think about it that is room temperature in the UK.
We have sampled two other new culinary delights! You take some stale bread, soak it over night, ring it out and then fry it in olive oil with garlic. You then proceed to eat it with fresh melon – lovely! Or you can savour the delights of freshly-made pork scratchings served as a delicacy. If you ever want to try it it's called cochifrito.
We tried these wondrous dishes on a trip through Extremadura and Castile y La Mancha. If you ever get to Spain, forget the costas and head inland. Mérida has the most wonderfully preserved Roman hippodrome, amphitheatre, theatre, and aqueducts plus a brilliant museum. In Trujillo the Moorish castle has an eerie timeless quality about it. You look out over a plain that has remained unchanged for two thousand years or more. Add to that Don Quixote's windmills and you have an exquisite mix of interest.
We went on the trip to avoid the village fiesta which is four days of non-stop noise from midnight to dawn. As we live in the main square, so we are close to the epicentre and the house quite literally shakes continuously to the beat of the music. We booked our hotels on the internet and most of them were excellent, though we did have a grumpy, unhelpful, receptionist in one of them so I took the opportunity to practice complaining in Spanish! A couple of the hotels had swimming pools so we took a dip. After a few moments we realised that you couldn't actually see the bottom clearly and the water had a funny taste. Then we looked at all the kids in the water and wondered if they had anything to do with it… We now look very carefully before dipping.
On our travels, strolling the streets of Salamanca we noticed an old guy in front of us with a step ladder, a small dog…and a goat. Suddenly he stopped, set up the step ladder in the middle of the pavement and the goat hopped up onto the small platform and proceeded to do pirouettes, with the old guy acting as ring master! It takes all sorts.
Pam decided it would be a good idea for us to paint the window bars and the garage door. For us read Rod! That's 360 fancy cast iron decorations and dozens of bars – upstairs - on the tiled, sloping roof or on a platform. Whilst doing this the local village idiot came along and stood for 1½ hours just watching me paint. (It's better than cuddling parked cars like his brother does, I suppose. Yep, really. Well, I've only seen him trying it on parked cars. Come to think of it I haven't seen him lately. You don't think…?) Rafael has a colourful turn of phrase, so we were treated to just about every swear word in the Spanish language as he passed the time of day with us – and watched paint dry.
The garage door proved quite a challenge as it is galvanised and paint doesn't stick too well. I rubbed down then undercoated and top coated. Victor came over and said "Do you know you have drips on the front?" Whoops. Quick as a flash I picked up the nearest rag and wiped it off – unfortunately the rag was soaked in paint stripper. So I stripped the four ruined panels back to bare metal and started again. Pam said "I like the different colour. Can we have it as a random pattern?" So we now have a garage door with some of the panels painted in a darker grey than the rest of the door. Still, it's a talking point. By the way the garage door took me five days using 5kg of paint – proper job.
We went out for a stroll recently, one hour down the road. I was all for coming back the same way but Pam had other ideas. "I'm sure that track over there will get us back the pretty way", she said. "It's the wrong side of the river", I said. "It'll be OK," she said. So we set off walking east, when home is north. There wasn't a bridge and we walked for 1½ hours in the wrong direction. When we got to Fuente Vaqueros, we found that the buses were only running every 2 hours instead of hourly. So we walked an hour to the next town and hoped for the best, we were (finally) in luck and caught a bus home. So much for a quiet stroll!
We looked out the window the other day and there were four workmen setting up a huge crane which needed tons of gravel in a hopper as ballast to stop it tipping over. They had a JCB but unfortunately only one shovel between them so it took quite a while to spread the gravel out. When I say four workmen I mean one doing the work and the other 3 supervising; come to think of it one of them did spread the gravel around a bit with his foot.
Poor Andrea fell victim to drinking with Pam. As the bar had no tonic, Pam suggested they use Martini Bianco as the mixer with their gin. Andrea drank three of these lethal cocktails and was doing fine until the landlord offered us all an extra free drink – I'm sure he only did it to see how Andrea would cope; badly as it happens. Andrea seemed to lose the plot a little (and probably a lot of brain cells). She rang the next day, from her bed, to ask if Pam was OK. She was, of course, fine! "I seem to have fallen over and cut my lip," Andrea said, "but I'm not sure when." She later remembered dancing in her front room and doing a rather too ambitious twirl…
Rod
As there is not really room for 24 cats in her garden, they tend to commandeer the houses on either side as well - though the house where Byron lives does not seem to have too much of a problem. I wonder why? After all he is only a playful 100lb rotweiler.
Not surprisingly, the neighbours get a smidgeon upset when they find a cat on the spare bed with its young. They got so upset this time she thought she may have to have them put down. (It didn't occur to her that the cats may well have a loving family home just around the corner!)
The cats didn't seem like this idea very much so they bit and clawed and scratched their way to freedom as her husband tried to capture them; they simply vanished until things settled down. Anyway, the cats are all still there, Herminia has toddled off to Barcelona until next Easter and Antonio is still feeding them for her – so nothing new there! She thinks the locals are ignorant brutes that hate all animals and that she is the one with a social conscience – me, I'm not quite so sure…Any bets on the number of cats that will be there next year?
I have often wondered why Continental brand names are not used more in the UK. I can quite understand why Paqui Supermarket (In Spanish it is the feminine diminutive for Francesca) may not be acceptable but Nestle Bonka coffee seems perfectly innocent to me.
As I no longer drink tea, I looked for an alternative herbal infusion locally and came up with poleo menta. It has a rich minty flavour and goes down very well. "I wonder what it is called in English?" It's pennyroyal. So then I looked at what pennyroyal is used for…to promote blood flow in the pelvic region, menstrual flow and self abortion. It doesn't seem to taste quite the same any more.
We were sat quietly in the only bar for miles, sipping our drinks, when hunger pangs struck. "Can you do us something to eat? "You can have an omelette sandwich." "OK." There was then much scurrying about when they realised they didn't actually have any bread so the son went round the corner to get a loaf. Eventually, with a flourish, the barman proudly stepped through the swing doors of the kitchen, which promptly swung back and knocked one of the sandwiches from his grasp. "I'll make you another one", he said. Now, we knew he didn't have any more bread and anyway it only took him a moment or two to reappear with the "new" sandwiches. Which one is the good one? We compromised and shared them both between us.
We have always thought that the Spanish were absolute philistines for keeping red wine in a chiller; after all red wine is supposed to be kept at room temperature, everybody knows that! This summer we realised that room temperature in Spain in the summer can be 30C which is a tad hot for any wine. It still feels a bit odd to drink red wine chilled to18C but when you think about it that is room temperature in the UK.
We have sampled two other new culinary delights! You take some stale bread, soak it over night, ring it out and then fry it in olive oil with garlic. You then proceed to eat it with fresh melon – lovely! Or you can savour the delights of freshly-made pork scratchings served as a delicacy. If you ever want to try it it's called cochifrito.
We tried these wondrous dishes on a trip through Extremadura and Castile y La Mancha. If you ever get to Spain, forget the costas and head inland. Mérida has the most wonderfully preserved Roman hippodrome, amphitheatre, theatre, and aqueducts plus a brilliant museum. In Trujillo the Moorish castle has an eerie timeless quality about it. You look out over a plain that has remained unchanged for two thousand years or more. Add to that Don Quixote's windmills and you have an exquisite mix of interest.
We went on the trip to avoid the village fiesta which is four days of non-stop noise from midnight to dawn. As we live in the main square, so we are close to the epicentre and the house quite literally shakes continuously to the beat of the music. We booked our hotels on the internet and most of them were excellent, though we did have a grumpy, unhelpful, receptionist in one of them so I took the opportunity to practice complaining in Spanish! A couple of the hotels had swimming pools so we took a dip. After a few moments we realised that you couldn't actually see the bottom clearly and the water had a funny taste. Then we looked at all the kids in the water and wondered if they had anything to do with it… We now look very carefully before dipping.
On our travels, strolling the streets of Salamanca we noticed an old guy in front of us with a step ladder, a small dog…and a goat. Suddenly he stopped, set up the step ladder in the middle of the pavement and the goat hopped up onto the small platform and proceeded to do pirouettes, with the old guy acting as ring master! It takes all sorts.
Pam decided it would be a good idea for us to paint the window bars and the garage door. For us read Rod! That's 360 fancy cast iron decorations and dozens of bars – upstairs - on the tiled, sloping roof or on a platform. Whilst doing this the local village idiot came along and stood for 1½ hours just watching me paint. (It's better than cuddling parked cars like his brother does, I suppose. Yep, really. Well, I've only seen him trying it on parked cars. Come to think of it I haven't seen him lately. You don't think…?) Rafael has a colourful turn of phrase, so we were treated to just about every swear word in the Spanish language as he passed the time of day with us – and watched paint dry.
The garage door proved quite a challenge as it is galvanised and paint doesn't stick too well. I rubbed down then undercoated and top coated. Victor came over and said "Do you know you have drips on the front?" Whoops. Quick as a flash I picked up the nearest rag and wiped it off – unfortunately the rag was soaked in paint stripper. So I stripped the four ruined panels back to bare metal and started again. Pam said "I like the different colour. Can we have it as a random pattern?" So we now have a garage door with some of the panels painted in a darker grey than the rest of the door. Still, it's a talking point. By the way the garage door took me five days using 5kg of paint – proper job.
We went out for a stroll recently, one hour down the road. I was all for coming back the same way but Pam had other ideas. "I'm sure that track over there will get us back the pretty way", she said. "It's the wrong side of the river", I said. "It'll be OK," she said. So we set off walking east, when home is north. There wasn't a bridge and we walked for 1½ hours in the wrong direction. When we got to Fuente Vaqueros, we found that the buses were only running every 2 hours instead of hourly. So we walked an hour to the next town and hoped for the best, we were (finally) in luck and caught a bus home. So much for a quiet stroll!
We looked out the window the other day and there were four workmen setting up a huge crane which needed tons of gravel in a hopper as ballast to stop it tipping over. They had a JCB but unfortunately only one shovel between them so it took quite a while to spread the gravel out. When I say four workmen I mean one doing the work and the other 3 supervising; come to think of it one of them did spread the gravel around a bit with his foot.
Poor Andrea fell victim to drinking with Pam. As the bar had no tonic, Pam suggested they use Martini Bianco as the mixer with their gin. Andrea drank three of these lethal cocktails and was doing fine until the landlord offered us all an extra free drink – I'm sure he only did it to see how Andrea would cope; badly as it happens. Andrea seemed to lose the plot a little (and probably a lot of brain cells). She rang the next day, from her bed, to ask if Pam was OK. She was, of course, fine! "I seem to have fallen over and cut my lip," Andrea said, "but I'm not sure when." She later remembered dancing in her front room and doing a rather too ambitious twirl…
Rod
24 septiembre 2006
La canción de la semana #66
...Ingá performed by the Afro-Peruvian singer Eva Ayllón. Taken from the album Eva! Leyenda Peruana.
Kirill
15 septiembre 2006
La canción de la semana #65
No, I did not run out of Spanish/Latin repertoire. But this week I fancy something completely different. Here it is, Коррида из деревни Заборовье (La Corrida de pueblo de Zaborovie) by the all-girl ethno-punk-ska-rock band Iva Nova (spelled Ива Нова) from St. Petersburg. More of their music here.
Kirill
11 septiembre 2006
Volver de Almodóvar
En el cine de Saffron Walden pondrán Volver de Almodóvar a finales de octubre.
Creo que es un jueves por la tarde, no estoy segura. ¿Alguien lo sabe? En cuanto me entere, os lo digo.
Elena
Creo que es un jueves por la tarde, no estoy segura. ¿Alguien lo sabe? En cuanto me entere, os lo digo.
Elena
Lessons at Newport Grammar School
I'd like to let you know that this term I will be teaching again at Newport. It's the year 3 course on Thursday night that, as you know, starts on the 21st of September. The course is divided in 1 and 1/2 weekly lessons. We will be following the Access Spanish book, and we will be looking at the daily routine.
Anyone interested, please contact the college as usual.
See you there.
Elena
Anyone interested, please contact the college as usual.
See you there.
Elena
09 septiembre 2006
La canción de la semana #64
...is an (in my view, immensely beautiful) theme from Hable con ella by Alberto Iglesias. Taken from this page of music from movies of Pedro Almodóvar. I hope they will add the music from Volver soon.
Kirill
26 agosto 2006
La canción de la semana #63
Now for some jazz. One of my favourite jazz musicians is the Argentinian tenor sax player Gato Barbieri. This week's song is Viva Emiliano Zapata, from his 1974 album Chapter Three: Viva Emiliano Zapata.
Kirill
20 agosto 2006
14 agosto 2006
Spanish Diary
Hi all,
I haven't posted the Dear Diary for a while. There are some chapters still to upload, but here comes the latest. As you can see, Rod is having fun down there in sunny Granada.
Regards to all.
Elena
Byron, anís and Spanish cowboys
We left our garage door open again and Byron came to call. No, not the ghost of a long-dead poet but a very large, very live, rotweiler. His arrival was preceded by a loud scream of terror from a visiting neighbour as Byron squeezed through the small gap between her and the car. He was closely followed by Alicia screaming "Byron!" at the top of her voice. Byron ignored her completely and proceeded to explore the garden and pee on every wall to mark his territory. Then he decided to go into the house. "Oh, great," I thought, "Pee on all the furniture as well." and unwisely followed him into the kitchen to shut the door to the rest of the house. Unfortunately this put me between a very large, trapped, dog and the only exit to freedom. I'm not sure if Byron got nervous but I certainly did as 110 lbs of muscle passed by my flabby, trembling frame. He left the garden when he was good and ready and not a moment sooner. I let him take all the time he wanted. At least he didn't decide to take a dip in the pool.
Pam went to visit a local British girl who doesn't drink at all. She was offered a choice of coffee or a glass from an unopened litre bottle of Anis (the Spanish equivalent of Pernod and just as vicious). Pam, of course, chose Anis. Three quarters of a bottle later…Pam came home bright as a button and apparently sober - what a gal - the unfortunate neighbour was by turn paralytic, unconscious, dragged to bed and then closeted in a darkened room for three whole days! The same Brit, surprisingly, asked us along to the local bar to celebrate her wedding anniversary. This time Pam wisely stuck to beer but her mate just chose a liqueur at random from the shelf…and drank the bottle dry! Again we didn't see her for several days but she assured us she had enjoyed herself enormously, had had an upset stomach but had not been sick – a major achievement apparently! When we offered to show her and her husband around Granada she had learned her lesson and took the precaution of swallowing a box of Imodium prior to going out with Pam. A wise move I think, especially as we were gong to try a Chinese meal. This time all went well with no apparent mishaps.
Heard in a local restaurant: "I don't perspire through my legs so they come up in a (sweat) rash." Or, "Yes, we tried paella when we were in Greece."
I was offered a caffeine-free Pepsi Cola light with no sugar and zero calories – what's the point of a drink with all the vices removed? And Pepsi instead of Coke to boot! "Lovely," I said to my host; what a hypocrite I am!
Another time in the bar - honestly, we only go there when we have visitors – there was a great hulking Brit, covered in tattoos with rings or studs in all visible orifices and appendages (and, he proudly assured us, in some that were not visible). During the course of the conversation he said he worked as an "insolvency practitioner". As I know someone with a similar job title I tried to equate his appearance with my degree-qualified relation who works in a highly civilised business environment. It did not compute. Later, we wondered what his job title would have been before political correctness intervened and came up with "bailiff" - as in he enjoys breaking down doors and taking away all the furniture, yep that definition works!
When Pam's sister Mary came to stay I was convinced she would provide an entire Dear Diary all on her own but not a bit of it. She was good as gold and a pleasure to be with. She ate and drank everything put in front of her both at home and in the bars – including an ice-cream on top of 4 glasses of beer, complete with tapas. Mind you…she is convinced she is allergic to eggs after a trip to Scotland some while ago. Apparently the fish she was given wasn't fresh and tasted funny but it was coated in egg and breadcrumbs. Two hours after eating the meal she was ill. Me, I'd have plumped for the fish being off but Mary no longer eats eggs but does eat fish!
Pam took up my offer to teach her how to reverse a car into parking spaces. Rather than cause carnage in the street we went to a plot of open land just outside the village at 07:30 in the morning. The aim being to avoid onlookers as we slotted red broom handles into dustpans, weighted them down with bricks and set them out in a pretty pattern on the waste ground. As Pam set off in reverse for the first time the audience started to arrive and seat themselves on a nearby wall to watch the floor show. She did very well, considering, so a couple of days later we moved on to the square close to our house. We used the Council plastic wheelie bins as cars and not surprisingly gathered another gaggle of interested onlookers. The lesson went really well until one of the locals came up the road with a rubbish bag looking for the communal bins, found them down the street and determinedly moved them back to their proper location. What a cheek, we thought as we sneaked off home, you've nicked our cars. Then we went for broke. We went to Granada airport, paid our 40 Cents for the carpark, and Pam practiced backing into a single gap between two cars as I kept a look-out for Security! The guards saw us but took no notice whatsoever. Result!
Securitas do things differently in Spain; dress code is a bit more flexible. It goes without saying that they all carry automatic pistols but the one I saw wore a gun belt stuffed with bullets. I think they were just for show but over here you can never be sure. If I'd realised the guards were such cowboys I wouldn't have been as confident of commandeering the airport car park for a driving lesson.
Pam has a habit of putting things down and never being able to find them again. One morning she muttered under her breath as she opened the washing machine, took everything out and sifted through it. "What are you doing?" "Looking for the camera," she said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do. She eventually found the camera stuffed inside a shoe in the kitchen doorway - where else would it be?
The new British family bought their house from a UK agency with offices in Spain. The first agent showed them the house and told them the price. When they showed an interest his mate turned up and told them that there had been a mistake with the price and it was in fact € 12,000 more. He rolled up to tell them this in a shiny new Porsche 911. I wonder where he gets the money from to run a car like that?
The daughter of the same family is coming over here to live. She and her husband have both already given up their jobs and sold their house in the UK. They plan to put their two children in the local village school. They will need a mortgage from a Spanish bank to pay for their new house. To get a mortgage you need to demonstrate that you have residency and a regular income. They are both confident of "picking up a good job" as soon as they get here but neither of them speaks a word of Spanish. Without papers it is impossible to get an official job…It takes 6 months to get residency. I think they are in for a nasty shock.
Rod
I haven't posted the Dear Diary for a while. There are some chapters still to upload, but here comes the latest. As you can see, Rod is having fun down there in sunny Granada.
Regards to all.
Elena
Byron, anís and Spanish cowboys
We left our garage door open again and Byron came to call. No, not the ghost of a long-dead poet but a very large, very live, rotweiler. His arrival was preceded by a loud scream of terror from a visiting neighbour as Byron squeezed through the small gap between her and the car. He was closely followed by Alicia screaming "Byron!" at the top of her voice. Byron ignored her completely and proceeded to explore the garden and pee on every wall to mark his territory. Then he decided to go into the house. "Oh, great," I thought, "Pee on all the furniture as well." and unwisely followed him into the kitchen to shut the door to the rest of the house. Unfortunately this put me between a very large, trapped, dog and the only exit to freedom. I'm not sure if Byron got nervous but I certainly did as 110 lbs of muscle passed by my flabby, trembling frame. He left the garden when he was good and ready and not a moment sooner. I let him take all the time he wanted. At least he didn't decide to take a dip in the pool.
Pam went to visit a local British girl who doesn't drink at all. She was offered a choice of coffee or a glass from an unopened litre bottle of Anis (the Spanish equivalent of Pernod and just as vicious). Pam, of course, chose Anis. Three quarters of a bottle later…Pam came home bright as a button and apparently sober - what a gal - the unfortunate neighbour was by turn paralytic, unconscious, dragged to bed and then closeted in a darkened room for three whole days! The same Brit, surprisingly, asked us along to the local bar to celebrate her wedding anniversary. This time Pam wisely stuck to beer but her mate just chose a liqueur at random from the shelf…and drank the bottle dry! Again we didn't see her for several days but she assured us she had enjoyed herself enormously, had had an upset stomach but had not been sick – a major achievement apparently! When we offered to show her and her husband around Granada she had learned her lesson and took the precaution of swallowing a box of Imodium prior to going out with Pam. A wise move I think, especially as we were gong to try a Chinese meal. This time all went well with no apparent mishaps.
Heard in a local restaurant: "I don't perspire through my legs so they come up in a (sweat) rash." Or, "Yes, we tried paella when we were in Greece."
I was offered a caffeine-free Pepsi Cola light with no sugar and zero calories – what's the point of a drink with all the vices removed? And Pepsi instead of Coke to boot! "Lovely," I said to my host; what a hypocrite I am!
Another time in the bar - honestly, we only go there when we have visitors – there was a great hulking Brit, covered in tattoos with rings or studs in all visible orifices and appendages (and, he proudly assured us, in some that were not visible). During the course of the conversation he said he worked as an "insolvency practitioner". As I know someone with a similar job title I tried to equate his appearance with my degree-qualified relation who works in a highly civilised business environment. It did not compute. Later, we wondered what his job title would have been before political correctness intervened and came up with "bailiff" - as in he enjoys breaking down doors and taking away all the furniture, yep that definition works!
When Pam's sister Mary came to stay I was convinced she would provide an entire Dear Diary all on her own but not a bit of it. She was good as gold and a pleasure to be with. She ate and drank everything put in front of her both at home and in the bars – including an ice-cream on top of 4 glasses of beer, complete with tapas. Mind you…she is convinced she is allergic to eggs after a trip to Scotland some while ago. Apparently the fish she was given wasn't fresh and tasted funny but it was coated in egg and breadcrumbs. Two hours after eating the meal she was ill. Me, I'd have plumped for the fish being off but Mary no longer eats eggs but does eat fish!
Pam took up my offer to teach her how to reverse a car into parking spaces. Rather than cause carnage in the street we went to a plot of open land just outside the village at 07:30 in the morning. The aim being to avoid onlookers as we slotted red broom handles into dustpans, weighted them down with bricks and set them out in a pretty pattern on the waste ground. As Pam set off in reverse for the first time the audience started to arrive and seat themselves on a nearby wall to watch the floor show. She did very well, considering, so a couple of days later we moved on to the square close to our house. We used the Council plastic wheelie bins as cars and not surprisingly gathered another gaggle of interested onlookers. The lesson went really well until one of the locals came up the road with a rubbish bag looking for the communal bins, found them down the street and determinedly moved them back to their proper location. What a cheek, we thought as we sneaked off home, you've nicked our cars. Then we went for broke. We went to Granada airport, paid our 40 Cents for the carpark, and Pam practiced backing into a single gap between two cars as I kept a look-out for Security! The guards saw us but took no notice whatsoever. Result!
Securitas do things differently in Spain; dress code is a bit more flexible. It goes without saying that they all carry automatic pistols but the one I saw wore a gun belt stuffed with bullets. I think they were just for show but over here you can never be sure. If I'd realised the guards were such cowboys I wouldn't have been as confident of commandeering the airport car park for a driving lesson.
Pam has a habit of putting things down and never being able to find them again. One morning she muttered under her breath as she opened the washing machine, took everything out and sifted through it. "What are you doing?" "Looking for the camera," she said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do. She eventually found the camera stuffed inside a shoe in the kitchen doorway - where else would it be?
The new British family bought their house from a UK agency with offices in Spain. The first agent showed them the house and told them the price. When they showed an interest his mate turned up and told them that there had been a mistake with the price and it was in fact € 12,000 more. He rolled up to tell them this in a shiny new Porsche 911. I wonder where he gets the money from to run a car like that?
The daughter of the same family is coming over here to live. She and her husband have both already given up their jobs and sold their house in the UK. They plan to put their two children in the local village school. They will need a mortgage from a Spanish bank to pay for their new house. To get a mortgage you need to demonstrate that you have residency and a regular income. They are both confident of "picking up a good job" as soon as they get here but neither of them speaks a word of Spanish. Without papers it is impossible to get an official job…It takes 6 months to get residency. I think they are in for a nasty shock.
Rod
29 julio 2006
La canción de la semana #61
This week's piece of music is nothing less than Maurice Ravel's Bolero as performed by Jorge Pardo, one of the greatest flute (and sax) players I've ever heard. This track is taken from Jorge Pardo's album Mira. Es fenomenal.
Kirill
23 julio 2006
La canción de la semana #60
...is Narigón by Daniel Melingo (courtesy Mañana).
Narigón |
Kirill
16 julio 2006
09 julio 2006
La canción de la semana #58
Continuing with instrumental music. In this way, our 'La canción' does not have to be in Spanish, as long as there is some connection with Hispanic music.
I would like to introduce a Russian flamenco guitarist Ivan Smirnov. I first saw and heard him live some 20 years ago in Moscow, when he was in a line-up of (then) Soviet jazz-rock outfit Arsenal (!). Tonight's song, Rendez-vous, is taken from this website containing 16 complete audio tracks. I hope you like his music.
Kirill
02 julio 2006
La canción de la semana #57
25 junio 2006
La canción de la semana #56
The summer is here, and so are the World Cup, holidays and other things that interfere with my good intentions to post one song every week. But I will try.
For this week, I chose one of the most popular Spanish-language songs of all time. Maybe the most popular song of all time. Naturally, it is Bésame Mucho, written some 65 years ago by the Mexican composer Consuelo Velázquez. This Russian web site provides a good selection of interpretations of Bésame Mucho (including The Beatles, Placido Domingo, Ray Conniff, Dave Brubeck etc etc.) My tonight's choice is The Charlie Byrd Quintet version.
Kirill
10 junio 2006
01 junio 2006
La canción de la semana #54
...is Sur o no sur by the Alaskan/Argentine singer-songwriter Kevin Johansen. Warning: it's a kind of song you listen once and then hum all day.
| Me voy porque acá no se puede, me vuelvo porque allá tampoco Me voy porque aquí se me debe, me vuelvo porque allá están locos Sur o no sur... |
Kirill
27 mayo 2006
La canción de la semana #53
...es Verano Porteño de Astor Piazzolla. Aquí encontrará varios videos de Piazzolla y su música.
Kirill
21 mayo 2006
La canción de la semana #52
... is Dame Cinco by MamboMania. Music by Ludwig van Beethoven (Fifth Symphony), even though the credits say 'Musique and arrangement Marc Vorchin'.
Siempre estoy pensando |
etc. By the way I found the link to this track here.
Kirill
14 mayo 2006
La canción de la semana #51
Tonight, it is Tamacun performed by Dublin-based Mexican guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela. This instrumental opens their new album which went "straight to the top of the Irish charts" in March. They will play at The Junction in Cambridge on 24 May.
Kirill
05 mayo 2006
La canción de la semana #50
Well, I think we need something really special for La canción de la semana número cincuenta. This week's choice is A La Orillita by the Mexican band Los de Abajo, from their latest CD LDA v The Lunatics.
Kirill
28 abril 2006
La canción de la semana #49
Taking silence for approval, I am continuing with tango nuevo. Today it is Xavante by Fernando Samalea, bandoneonist-drummer-composer, naturally, from Buenos Aires.
Kirill
23 abril 2006
La canción de la semana #48
...is Diferente, from the new album by Gotan Project, Lunático.
En el mundo habrá un lugar
para cada despertar
un jardín de pan y de poesía
Porque puestos a soñar
fácil es imaginar
esta humanidad en harmonía
Vibra mi mente al pensar
en la posibilidad
de encontrar un rumbo diferente
Para abrir de par en par
los cuadernos del amor
del gauchaje y de toda la gente
Qué bueno che, qué lindo es
reírnos como hermanos
Porqué esperar para cambiar
de murga y de compás.
Kirill
12 abril 2006
La canción de la semana #47
Since nobody apart from me posts anything, I allow myself to introduce one more song by my favourite singer. This is Cumbia del Mole by Lila Downs, from her new album La Cantina. I hope you like it.
Last week, we went to see Lila Downs @ Barbican. Great, as expected, and more than expected!
Kirill
01 abril 2006
La canción de la semana #46
...is Gringo #1 (where "Gringo" stands for Grieg + Tango), bythe Norwegian outfit Tango for 3 (a quartet, actually). Weird, and marvellous too. Give it a try.
Kirill
24 marzo 2006
La canción de la semana #45
...is Chacarera De Las Piedras by Jairo with Atahualpa Yupanqui. This track is taken from La página del Folklore Argentino.
Aquí canta un caminante
que muy mucho ha caminado
y ahora vive tranquilo
y en el Cerro Colorado
(complete lyrics here).
Incidentally, today marks the 30th anniversary of the military coup in Argentina.
Kirill
17 marzo 2006
La canción de la semana #44
... is Amanecer by an extraordinary guitarist Juan Carmona. More free music here and here.
11 marzo 2006
La canción de la semana #43
...is Ladino Song, performed in both Ladino and English by London-based klezmer fusion band Oi Va Voi. The band's violinist, Sophie Solomon, will perform tomorrow (12 March 2006) in Cambridge Fez club.
Kirill
03 marzo 2006
La canción de la semana #42
Last week, the winners of the 2006 BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music were announced. In Americas category, the winner is none else than Ry Cooder. Listen to this politically incorrect song, Chinito Chinito (check out the lyrics).
Kirill
24 febrero 2006
La canción de la semana #41
...is Fuerte from Salsa Celtica's album The Great Scottish Latin Adventure. Their new album, El Camino, is out in March. The track is taken from this blog.
Kirill
La Linea 2006
"The London Latin Music Festival: La Linea - has been defining and re-defining contemporary Latin music for the past six years. "
Kirill
18 febrero 2006
La canción de la semana #40
The March 2006 program of fRoots Radio features (among other tasty stuff) the song Me Voy Lejos from the new album of Amparanoia, La Vida Te Da.
Kirill
12 febrero 2006
La canción de la semana #39
...finally, it's time for La Bamba! There's far too many versions of it, but this one, sung by Aiko Kitahara, is charming. (I took if from the yumeki.org "Tu comunidad de J-Pop" website.) The real song, of course, has many more verses than us foreigners can master. Read the article La Bamba Explained or The Music of Veracruz by Janice Carraher.
Kirill
05 febrero 2006
27 enero 2006
La canción de la semana #37
Me toca contribuir a la sección "La canción de la semana". El periódico español El Mundo publica un especial sobre el cantaor José Mercé, con algunas de las canciones de su nuevo disco y una especie de diccionario sobre los términos flamencos. No os lo perdáis. Podéis acceder mediante este vínculo.
Elena
22 enero 2006
La canción de la semana #36
...is not really a song but I post it anyway: Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Francisco Tárrega. Here you can hear (and see) this famous tremolo piece played by Australian guitarist Sal Bonavita. If you are interested in learning flamenco guitar techniques, go to this page containing short and useful video clips. And if you can read sheet music, here is the thing, courtesy of (check it!) Classical Guitar School, Iceland.
15 enero 2006
La canción de la semana #35
...es el reggae Sud' Americano interpretada por Mariana Montalvo (de CD Piel de Aceituna).
Henchido como luna llena Con todo el saber del pobre Tallado en sus propias costillas Suda el sudamericano suda, suda Suda el sudamericano suda, suda |
Kirill
13 enero 2006
Cortos para los Goya
Aquí podéis ver uno de los cortos que compiten en los Premios Goya de este año.
12 enero 2006
08 enero 2006
La canción de la semana #34
This tune is called Hoy es Día de Placer and appears on the album La Noche Buena: Christmas Music of Colonial Latin America by San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble (SAVAE).
The recording takes listeners on an intriguing and often unexpected musical journey into the cathedrals of the Spanish colonial frontier. The Nativity story is told here through music that captures the lively cultural exchange between Indigenous, African, and Spanish voices. European motets appear alongside Afro-Spanish guarachas on the recording.
Read more, and listen to more early music in strange languages, here.
Kirill
Suscribirse a:
Entradas (Atom)
