Sounds good

Apparently, at the University of Jaen, you can study for a Masters Degree in Olive Oil and Health.

Long time no post

We've been doing things. As well as various visits to the UK to do the grandparent thing, we spent three weeks in Madrid at a very good language school (Ele=madrid) which specialises in more mature students-including some even more mature than us! It had a fantastic cultural programme, including visits, conferences, films and an opportunity to meet ordinary Spanish speakers i.e. not teachers. We met an ecologist who advises the government on environmental issues (very interesting) and a judge who took our breath away with her lack of experience of life. She was very young-maybe 30- and her training had consisted of learning by heart laws and constitutional documents. Apparently judges do not have to have had experience as lawyers in Spain. Who knew?

Now we are back in La Barrosa and the big debate is whether there are more or less tourists this year than last and whether they are spending less, eating in more etc. Not as parochial as it might seem as the economy is the big issue here as elsewhere in Europe and the US. Unemployment is rising and the construction industry is falling apart-although there still seems to be plenty of building work going on in Chiclana, it is hard to imagine who is going to buy it. Zapatero (who won the election incidentally although not with the overall majority he wanted) thinks it is a matter of opinion as to whether there is an economic crisis, but has called a conference of economists to write a report for him (favourite Spanish pastime) and Solbes, the economics minister seems to be revising the growth figures downwards. For now government strategy seems to be to whistle a happy tune (not necessarily a bad thing in itself) and promise more social spending. Getting to grips with Spanish bureaucracy that works against entrepreneurship and the diversification of industry might not be a bad idea but there is no signs of it. As for our own little local economy, we are worried that the town council, whose stated aim is to promote Chiclana as a gastronomic centre of excellence, has produced a new tourist leaflet in which Telepizza is listed as one of the restaurants......

I take it all back!

Well, at least some of it. Last night we watched a wonderful programme about Welford Primary School in Handsworth where the children speak 17 different languages as their first language and the number is rising all the time as families arrive in the area from eastern Europe. The head master, who should be knighted immediately, said this wasn't a problem. It was in fact both part of a process that had been going on for centuries and something that enriched the community. Everybody seemed pleased to be there and to feel themselves to be or to be becoming British as festivals, customs, food and languages were shared. Oh yes, and the older children were learning French as well!

The night before we saw a programme about the hard working Polish immigrants to Peterborough who also seemed pleased to be there and put the workshy, benefit dependent spotty adolescents of the town to shame. It was a nice moment when a random interviewee complained that more rubbish was being thrown onto the street. "Eastern Europeans?" inquired the interviewer. "No, the English" was the reply.

Both programmes should be compulsory viewing for all those who think that Britain is going to hell in a hand cart.

Watching the Telly

Spanish TV is dreadful. Even the good bits are amateurish compared to British TV. The news, for example does very little analysis, especially of international events (I am told that radio is better and I must admit we do like listening to the classical music programme on Radio Nacional de Espan(y)a which is like a less snobby version of Radio 3). Items are accompanied by film of the utmost banality with only a loose connection to what is at issue. Alternatively we get gruesome shots of dead bodies, body parts or-if all else fails-traces of blood smeared across pavements or walls in the wake of a crime.

But what is happening to the BBC? We have just watched two of the programmes in the White Series which, I guess, must be about the impact of immigrant culture on the white working class. The first was a programme what centred round a working men's club in Bradford and its struggle to stay alive as the world changed around it. Your heart had to bleed for the utter hopelessness of the committee members but what sentimental nonsense it was! We were encouraged to believe by the voiceover of the producer/director/interviewer that what was being lost was a golden age of social cohesion and working class warmth. In fact these communities, not of the white working class but more accurately of the unskilled white working class, were always narrow and bigoted. If you fitted in you were fine but woe betide anyone whose opinions, lifestyle, sexuality, aspirations etc. etc. etc. were different from the majority. Last night we watched a play about a young girl who fled her chaotic drug taking, alcohol abusing white family and converted to Islam, taking refuge with her Muslim next door neighbours. It was beautifully acted but traded in stereotypes-white family life in ruins, Muslim families cosy and warm with food on the table-and easy answers as at the end when the white mother divorced her brutal husband by repeating "I divorce you" three times, as far as I am aware not an option available to Muslim women. We look forward to the programme about Polish immigrants tonight!

It's March!

And here are some of the flowers in our garden. Actually, today has been quite cold out of the sun because of an unusual wind coming from the north, but it turns towards the end of the week and we are back to summer!

A whole new meaning...

This photo gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Shop till you drop." I didn't take the photo....but I did buy the hat!

Who knew?

Being grandparents is good fun and time consuming. It is not that we have to do much nappy changing and pram pushing, although we did a fair bit of both on our recent trip to the UK. It is more that we spend a lot of time looking at photos, showing photos to others (Mike is a demon now that he has worked out how to download to his ipod), anticipating and reminiscing about skype calls and generally reflecting on the overall wonderfulness of Jessica and Billy, as confirmed by this photograph. It is all as it should be.

I shall be back to the UK soon for some more hands on, but meanwhile here we watch with interest the Spanish general election campaign and that in Andalucia. Spanish TV had a debate on Monday night between the two main candidates for the presidency, Zapatero of the PSOE, who is the current holder, and the Partido Popular challenger, Mariano Rajoy. It seemed to us that it was much more personal than general elections in the UK, perhaps because they are electing a president, although also the MPs, and much more direct. Rajoy accused Zapatero of telling lies, particularly about negotiations with the Basque separatist group ETA and Zapatero accused Rajoy of lots of other nasty things-using terrorist attacks for political gain, lack of policies, obsession about immigration, dividing Spain, amongst others. Rajoy is not a handsome man and his nervous habits, which are probably nothing more than that, come across as shiftiness on TV. To us too he seemed to be offering fewer policies and to more interested in reasserting past values. So, all in all, we felt Zap, as we have come to call him, probably just shaded it. Another thing is noticeable though. There seems to be no coherent manifesto from either party so there is none of the costing of the various promises that both sides are making and, consequently, no one asking how all of these wonderful plans to support and extend mortgages (PSOE) or increase pensions (PP) etc etc etc (and there are a lot of them) are going to be paid for. March 9th is the big day.

Last night we went to see the film Atonement, dubbed into Spanish as Expiacíon at the local cimena in Chiclana-4 euros a ticket, so the total cost for an evening out including a pizza afterwards and a glass of wine/beer came to about 20 euros for the two of us! Although we normally prefer our films in voz original, the advantage here was the dubbing of Keira Knightly's extremely annoying voice. It is a puzzle to me as to why she was nominated for an oscar for her role as Cecilia Tallis. She only has three expressions at the best of times, but in Atonement she used only two. The Dunkirk scene however, which was rather like a painting by Bosch come to life was amazing.

It's Andalucia day tomorrow-a bank holiday in these parts-and the weather is fabulous, so we expect an influx of visitors who will arrive tonight, take Friday off as well (the puente or bridge, as it is called) and stay till Sunday. Not that it interferes with the tranquillity of our little part of Andalucia!