There’s a brand new Spanish cuisine podcast from Marina over at our sister site cuisinefromspain.com.
And don’t forget to join the all new Notes from Spain community forum (read about it in the post below!) 🙂
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New! The Notes from Spain Forum
We thought it was about time to start a Notes from Spain community forum, to share all our (and your!) thoughts and questions on Spain. The idea is to make a wealth of information easy to find, searchable, and above all, open to input from all you other ‘Spainophiles’ out there on the net.
We really hope you’ll use it to put questions on Spain to us and the community, to share YOUR travel notes from Spain, to comment on Marina’s cuisine, and praticar tu español!
Head on over and check it out, and don’t forget to pop in from time to time to see what’s going on! (Remember to register in order to post and reply.)
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The Motorcycle Diaries
Not directly about Spain, but certainly in Spanish and more than worthy of a mention here. The Motorcycle Diaries is the wonderful tale of the transformation of Ernest Guevara, the young, ambitious doctor specialising in Leprosy, into the inimitable Che of Cuban fame. Crossing South America from bottom to top on a classic Norton motorcycle with his friend, Alberto Granado, the scenes of social injustice he witnesses effect profound changes on his character.
This is a deeply inspiring film (you’ll either feel like changing the world, or traveling it on a motorbike by the end), with fine acting from the two protagonists, and stellar appearances from the stunning South American landscapes.
Pick up a copy at:
Amazon.co.uk (Europe)
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Books on Spain is back
We have finally got round to a complete overhaul of booksonspain.com – about time too!
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A favour: anyone read my book?
Having paid 30 bucks to get my book, Errant in Iberia, listed on Amazon.com, it would be really useful for it to have a review. I could take the sneaky route and write one myself under a pseudonym, but I think that would be kind of dishonest… So, if any of you have actually read it, would you mind taking 2 minutes to add a quick review to the amazon.com site? Click here to get to the page.
Many many thanks in advance, Ben
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Macho politicians
The majority of female politicians walked out of the Spanish parliament on Wednesday after remarks by PP spokesman Eduardo Zaplana towards the deputy prime minister, Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega.
Referring to her donning traditional African costume as part of an official visit to Mozambique, he said, ‘How much parliament would gain if you, as one who is so fond of dressing up from time to time, would for one day, even just a day, dress up as the deputy prime minister and do your duties.’
What amazed us though, is that despite the very reasonable demonstration by the women in the face of this chauvinist diatribe, not one male politician had the ‘huevos’ to get up and leave in support as well. It’s obviously still very much ‘us and them’ in Spain, even when there is political gain to be made…
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The Macro Botellon
Those naugthy Spanish teenagers are planning a macro-botellon (mass outdoor drinking session) across Spain tonight as a two-fingers up to the authorities. These ‘botellons’ were outlawed several years ago after complaints from residents that were fed up with raucous behaviour, and vomiting and urinating all over their neighbourhood plazas and parks.
Police are ready to fight back with 300 Euro spot fines and the parliarment is even considering an emergency change in the law to ensure the minimum drinking age is set to 18 all over Spain. But is this all media hype? Only tomorrow’s papers will tell…
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Estreaker
OK, So this is almost ‘off-topic’, but the commentary is in Spanish:
PRI’s The World has some great reports from Spain that you can listen to over the net. I particularly liked these short reports on: El Gordo Lottery, Flamenco (in Boston!), Electric cars in Cordoba, and, my favourite, human castle madness (photos here).
Thanks got to Beth for letting me know about these. Remember, if you know about any interesting material on Spain, please contact me and hopefully I can spread the word on the blog.
The Guardian has an interesting article on the repercussions of the March 11th bombings two years ago. I wish we had been podcasting then. We were living 100 m from Atocha station when the bombs went off, without doubt the most shocking few days of my life… and I was just an unaffected bystander…
Notes from Spain by Ben Curtis 