It gets even better than my Flickr/Map post below. Andrew left a comment pointing to Wikimapia, which is slowly annotating the entire world. Isn’t the internet great these days? Madrid is already coming on nicely – browse/drag yourself around the image above – or see the whole map on-line: trip to Valencia anyone?
Click though to Flickr to see the enlarged version of this photo, then hover over it with the mouse to see the added notes. Did I miss anything? Is there somewhere in Spain you could annotate in a similar way? Any additions to the NFS Flickr group are very welcome!
Marca: “Same as ever. Spain is the master of creating excitement then destroying it all just as easily.”
Time to watch the second of these videos again perhaps…
La Farola is one of Spain’s answers to the UK’s Big Issue – a magazine sold by the homeless to help them get off the streets. From the two Euro cover price, €1.20 goes to the seller and €0.80 to cover editorial, printing and distribution costs. Content covers youth culture, social issues, health, the latest films etc… This is all very well in practice but as far as I can tell it isn’t working in Madrid. Why?
1. The vendors usually have various different editions of the magazine. This makes it hard to decide whether the magazine is ‘current’ or follows a set publishing schedule.
2. Vendors seem reluctant to actually hand them over once you’ve given them some money – ‘you want the magazine?’ This makes sense – they can ‘sell’ each copy twice over, but gives the impression that the content isn’t very good (it’s not bad).
3. The Spanish attitude is not helpful. The photo above, of a young Sudanese seller, was taken outside our local supermarket. As I approached, an old lady walked past, glanced at the man and his paper, and said, ‘Ponte a trabajar, majo’, get a job instead, mate.
Is that the general attitude of the Spanish to the homeless? I suspect it is common at least.
Have you seen La Farola on sale anywhere else in Spain? There is no website, the publisher ‘Georges Mathis’ resides in Italy, and the only reference I can find to the magazine on-line is from a four-year-old article in El Pais that claims “La ONG Alicante Acoge responsabiliza al periódico de Mathis de traer rumanos ilegales a España” – the paper is blamed by an NGO in Alicante for bringing illegal Romanian immigrants to Spain. I’ve e-mailed a copy of this post to lafarola@hotmail.com (the contact details in the paper), to see if whoever is at the other end can shed any light on this puzzling publication.
Update: the e-mail never got through, a ‘message delivery failed: mailbox unavailable’ message was returned instead.
“A YEAR after legalising gay marriage, Spain is now seeing its first gay divorce, complete with a custody fight over the couple’s dogs.”
Full story in The Daily Telegraph
With tomorrow’s Spain-France World Cup clash looming, it was obvious that before long some journalist was going to resuscitate Spanish manager Luis Aragonés’s unfortunate 2004 comments about French Star Thierry Henri (he called him “that black shit” in a training session with Henri’s fellow Arsenal player Reyes).
When questioned again about the incident in today’s pre-match press conference, he relied on his famed powers of eloquence to set the record straight:
“I’ve got friends of all races, blacks, gypsies… I’ve even got an intimate Japanese friend who’s a chicken sexer. When he saw what they were saying about me [in 2004], he didn’t understand it either. He supported me. His job is to decide whether a chicken is male or female and he gets it wrong twice in every thousand. If he gets it wrong, he gets the sack.”
Will the Japenese chicken sexer please step forward – the press would love an interview!
“June 23rd is celebrated in Barcelona as the night of Sant Joan, one of the shortest nights of the year… One of the biggest traditions is the fireworks display held by diables (devils) from local towns.”
Another great Flickr set from Greg Gladman.
Huge kudos is the prize at stake for anyone that can answer all 4 questions in the forums correctly (they aren’t all about Madrid!)
Here’s a taster: Where is the bar pictured above? Clue: it is located in a central Madrid square that has only just re-opened after a complete refurbishment designed, in part, to drive the drunks away from the Plaza. Flower stalls are soon to appear in the open pedestrian spaces.
This article from the Times nicely sums up something Marina and I are oft complaining about in the podcasts – the dreadful state of Spanish TV, and its increasing reliance on Telebasura (TV-rubbish).
“- Antena 3 Televisión, which produces two of the most popular trash TV programmes, recorded profits of €54.3 million (£37 million) in the first quarter of this year — a rise of 42 per cent from the same period last year
– ….. telebasura shows go a long way to capturing audience share — crucial to attracting advertisers”
Unfortunately, if trash is this profitable, they’re going to keep making it!
The BBC’s Melvyn Bragg takes on the Spanish Inquisition in this week’s edition of the excellent ‘In our Time’ series (which can be downloaded as a podcast). Thanks to Marbella in the forums for the tip!
Notes from Spain by Ben Curtis 