FLYING THE FLAG

Wearing a Union flag T-shirt in Barcelona is considered quite cool, but in Britain it would encourage a self righteous Fair Trade enthusiast with a bad haircut to berate you as an evil imperialist oppressor / anti-European facist / a Klu Klux Klan member with a side line in child sacrifice. (Delete dependng on your expereince.)

In shops across mainland Europe, all manner of household items area decorated with the Union flag.

I have seen this enthusiasm for the British flag elsewhere in Europe. I am sure people just like the design as a fashion item and the association with the swinging sixties, Cool Britannia and all that, but dig a bit deeper and you find an altogether more interesting explanation.  

The abiding European interest in Brutishness is an amalgam of many things, including history, heritage culture and attitude, but mainly that Britain is something a little apart, a little dangerous and maybe even a little arrogant. Britain has “bad boy” appeal.

While British liberals wail at the moon with anger and misery whenever our politicians refuse to kowtow to Brussels, Europeans quietly cheer them on, wishing that their own passive politicians were made of sterner stuff and who would similarly stand up for their own. 

Britain is seen as the global breeding ground for youth and pop culture, starting with the swinging sixties and continuing with heavy metal, punk, two-tone and latterly Britpop.

Older people still see Britishness has a symbol of quality, an association that advertisers are all to keen to exploit.

Interest in the British Royal family continues unabated, and with a Jubilee in the offing that interest will continue to grow.  

 

Paradoxically Britain is also known for not being too deferential, we will let Lemmy take it from here:

BY GEORGE

St. George, or St. Jordi as he is known hereabouts, is the patron saint of many places: England, Egypt, Bulgaria, Romania, Ethiopia, Greece, India, Iraq, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, Serbia, Ukraine and Russia, and also Catalonia, and in particular Barcelona. 

Not bad going for a bloke who was never actually canonised and whose main claim to fame is the slaying of a beast that never existed (and if it did, I am sure dragon slaying would be frowned upon nowadays by the animal rights brigade).

The Roman soldier and early Christian martyr apparently did make a miraculous intervention during the crusades, but by and large it is the dragon slaying made him famous. 

His feast day, April 23,  is celebrated in many ways. The English like to paint their faces and drink lots of beer, while in Barcelona the tradition is to give books and roses, in prodigious quantities. 

The tradition has gone global in the guise of International Book Day.

All over the city little street corner stalls spring up, all decorated with the colours ot the flag of Catalunya. 

Strangely given the fuss that that is made of the event, St. Jordi’s Day is not actually a holiday, so it is not until the evening that crowds throng to the city centre where authors pitch their tents to sign copies of their works, and all manner of rose themed knick knacks are available.

Amongst the jostling and commerce there is also a distinctly romantic air to the day, as St. Jordi serves a similar role to the Catalans as St. Valentine does elsewhere.

DRINK BEER, SMOKE FAGS, DRIVE FAST CARS

Guinness and Rizla, now that is the sort of sponsors you do not see too often today. The safety Nazis do not allow you to see such dangerous images.  

The Espiritu de Montjuic historic festival at the Circuit de Catalunya provides a glimpse of how motor racing used to be, when cars and motorcycles screamed around the old street circuit at Montjuic in Barcelona.  

The weekend meeting featured F1s, GTs, Can Ams, sportcars, touring cars and motorcycles, all hitting the tarmac in anger.

For any motor racing fan, there was the great selection of truly historic cars to spot, including my personal favourite the F1 JPS Lotus. 

 

Pretty much every famous marquee was represneted, with a particular preponderance of Minis, and, inevitably, Ferraris, old and new for the track and for the road. (Is it just me or are Ferraris beconing common and cliched?) 

For those who do not quite get the appeal of man and machine in balletic battle with opponents and physics, the paddock featured a goodly variety of distractions including classic car displays, a smal fun fair, a Beatles tribute band, stalls and the opportunity for some period posing.

Too rare these days, the pits were open for the public to go gawp and kick tyres. 

The old Montjuic circuit is too dangerous for a large scale revivial, but the Espiritu de Montjuic festival, looks set to become an annual event. It perhaps lacks the gloss and depth of some other historic racing festivals, but for easy-going openess I do not think it can be beat.

THE ATTACK OF THE 30 FOOT CRUSTACEAN

It isn't a Rock Lobster

It’s a big plastic lobster with a silly smile near Port Vell.

It used to sit on top of a sea food restaurant; the eatery has gone, but the lobster remains to amuse, bemuse and confuse.

(And yes, that is a Roy Lichtenstein work in the background.)

  

The Lobster is the work of Javier Mariscal, aka  “the Peter Pan of Spanish design”.  The Barcelona based artist, also designed "Corbi", the mascot for the 1992 Olympics. 

Perhaps a nod in a direction of Dali's experiments with crustaceans?

  ...and an excuse to link to a B52's video. (Lift the phone.)

STREET LIFE, EASTER MONDAY

Random pictures with a small camera:

(click smaller pics to enlarge)

A couple dance to a jazz band busking in Avenida del Portal de l'Angel. The band are called the New Orleans Pussycats and are available for weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and funerals.

Mr. Happy gets a shoeshine

High heels in low places, Raval

The audience arrives at the Teatro Tivo

Japanese tourists, getting their bearings.

IT’S NO SMALL BEER

Size matters when it comes to beer in Barcelona. 

In most bars you can order a small or large beer. A “pequeño cerveza” is usually anything between .25 litres to .33 litres, an unpretentious and innocuous little refresher.

A “grande” is half a litre, and is often served in some preposterously shaped glass that is supposed to enhance the “experience” of the particular blend of water, hops and fermented grain juice that you have selected.

However if you go into one of the many English and Irish bars and ask for a grande cerveza the bar staff will usually respond: “you mean a pint”, and a pint you get in a traditional British pint glass. No truck with the new fangled metric system in the theme pubs!

Generally the price of beer is reasonable. Cheap even, by taxed-out British standards.

But beware; wander down to the tourist trap bars and restaurants at the bottom end of La Rambla and the system changes. Here small means a half litre and a large is a full litre, served in the sort of glass that is usually only to be seen photographed against the bosoms of buxom wenches in Munich during October.

The price, rarely advertised in advance, is also considerably larger, pushing €13; which suddenly makes the €12 set menu (excluding drinks) a lot less value than it looks at first glance. By the time the bill comes the happy holiday makers are usually too tipsy to put up an argument.

It is a tourist rip-off that has invoked the ire of the local newspaper ‘La Vanguardia’. Not that the restaurateurs are paying attention.  

If that is a bit rich for your wallet, there is always supermarket larger at a very reasonable 25 cents a can. 

IS JACK SPARROW HIDING OUT IN BARCELONA?

A mysterious black ship has tied up in Port Vell.

The official line is that it is a recently completed recreation of a 16th century Spanish ship the Nao Victoria, moored in Barcelona for educational purposes and tourist visits organised by Fundacion NaoVictoria.

In 1522 the original Nao Victoria became the first ship to circumnavigate the globe, and the only one from a fleet of five vessels commanded by Ferdinand Magellan that completed the voyage.

However fans of the Pirates of the Caribbean films might think differently. The ship bears more than a passing resemblance to the notorious Black Pearl.

Is it possible that Jack Sparrow is engaged in some supernatural time travelling escapade and is in Barcelona to conduct a belated raid upon the treasures of the Spanish Main?

After all there are parts of the city where the Black Pearl’s flamboyant camp captain and motley crew could pass without attracting attention. 

BABYLON’S BURNING

Well not really, compared to Kreutzberg on May Day, or Belfast most weekends, the rioters in Barcelona are lightweights. 

But then again only the poor bloody infantry were put into the field today: the garden variety trade union shouty types, whitey-dread crusties and old hippies. There was no sign of the hardcore Black Bloc elite anarchists.

There were a lot of firecrackers, whistle blowing and half hearted shouting but when the more adventurous fancied a bit of agro the police clamped down fast and hard. The particularly brave, or stupid, received an old school pelting with baton rounds. (That is going to hurt in the morning.)

At 8.00 o’clock everyone knocked off and went home for dinner. It was rather amusing that the strikers / protesters were moaning that they had to wait longer than usual for a train.

Spain’s general strike and day of protest, which had been well flagged up in advance, turned out to be a bit of a non-event. 

There were attempts to block roads during the morning rush hour, but everyone just had a bit of a lie in and a long breakfast before dandering into work around 10.30.The Metro and buses were running, albeit with a reduced service, and the big stores were open for business.  

Apart from the odd Belfast-style street barbecue (quite nostalgic driving over burnt tarmac) and a few scuffles most people went about life pretty normally. The riot police are becoming a tourist attraction. Only the small shops seemed to really suffer.  

Given the scale of the economic mess in Spain it is hard not to have some sympathy with the frustrations of unemployed, but you have to wonder what this achieved except to inconvenience those trying to get the local economy back on its feet.

Despite the graffiti and posters, recent elections have demonstrated that the protests do not have popular support and trying to wreck the joint is not going to make them any more friends. 

WENT TO THE APOLO

…you should have seen them go, go go.

It was one of those random tings, I picked up a CD a while back by a band called The Pepper Pots, because I liked the album cover.  The music was brilliant, sort of Motown meets Northern Soul.

For the last couple of months I have been puzzling as to where The Pepper Pots came from: Philadelphia? Camden? Detroit? Whitby?

It turns out they are from just up the road in Girona, so I popped along to the Sala Apolo in Barcelona when they were in town topping the bill for at the Soul Train Fest. Sala Apolo is a splendidly shabby music hall, and just the place of this old school soul show.

There were three bands on the bill, and what a show is was, but the night belonged to The Pepper Pots. The ten piece combo is as tight as a duck’s arse and as sharp as a Savile Row suit. They lay down the sweetest of sweet soul peppered with a dash of ska with rampant sax attacks and some beautiful guitar work all driven along by bloke with a throbbing organ. 

Out front three girl singers dispense broken hearts and the sort of sounds and show rarely seen since Diana Ross left the Supremes.

The Pepper Pots are touring the UK soon. Catch them while they are fresh – you won’t regret it.

Here's another video >>>

THIS FRIEND IN NEED IS AN ADDRESS TO ADD TO THE SPAM LIST

You may at some stage in the near future receive an email from a friend who has been mugged in Barcelona; and who urgently needs you to come to their assistance. They will provide instructions as to how to send them the necessary, and generous, funds to prevent them from perishing horribly.  

Hit the delete button. 

Most of all, do not send me an email asking me to go the rescue your stricken acquaintance. 

Yes, Barcelona does suffer from a infestation of a breed of mouth breathing parasites who prey on careless tourists, but be assured that your friend is in all probably not in Barcelona and certainly does not need you to send money to the rather odd location that they say is really the only possible way that you can come to their aid. 

However you should give them a call and tell them that their email account has been hacked by some knuckle dragging techie scum and they need to invest in some PC security software. 

THREE KINGS REIGN

Christmas in Barcelona is less intense but more drawn out than in Britain. The streets are lit and decorated, and it is done tastefully, but not to the extent that they are in London, Berlin or even Nice. You get a distinct sense that Barcelona would like to keep the season simple and dignified, but is being pushed into adopting the whole none yards Christmas celebrations with extra Jingle Bells on.

Santa Claus’s are few and far between and there is a distinct absence of drunk girls roaming the streets wearing cute little reindeer antlers. 

Christmas Day, December 25, is a bit of a non-event, and what local traditions there are tend towards the scatological and are perhaps best glossed over.

 

The Big Day her is January 6, “Twelfth Night” or Epiphany, which celebrates the visit of the Magi – the Three Kings - to Bethlehem and the revelation of the newly born Jesus as the Messiah, either that  or a convenient way for the Christian Church to eclipse Jewish Hanukkah celebrations. The theologians amongst you can argue that one in your own time.

The celebration of the three kings begins on the 5th, with their arrival at Port Vell, from where they proceed by car to Parc de la Ciutadella for the parade.

The parade is a spectacular event that progresses through the city for about three hours, with dozens of floats reflecting Barcelona’s distinctive brand of the surreal, and the all too real.

The brigade of mounted police and musicians had a small fleet of street sweeping vehicles following the horses.

A popular feature of the parade are the millions of sweets that are thrown into the crowds, often with the aid of large medieval style catapult devices, sending the kids and a few adults scrambling. 

They are damned hard those sweets and I was glad I was wearing a hat. In the UK “elf and safety” would have put an end to this practice long ago. 

Some things do not change through, no sooner had the last hard boiled sweet bounced of somebody's head in Placa Catalunya than the shops had were preparing for the sales, which are only allowed to start after Epiphany. 

THE SAND-GRADA FAMÍLIA

   Beach life in Barcelona does not stop in the winter!

MANCHESTER & LONDON, BARCELONA.

With the Stone Roses reforming to bring loved up harmony back to the baggy trousered masses, it seemed appropriate to pay a visit The Manchester Bar in Plaza Milans, in the Barrio Gotico district.

The Tardis-like venue, much larger inside than the outside suggests, is themed around bands and music from the Mad-chester era.

 

Dominating the bar is a picture of Ian Curtis and the sound system plays back to back baggy anthems, all night, every night.  It is a bit of a celebrity hang out to, with Mani known to drop by and do a shift behind the bar between tours with Primal Scream, The Stone Roses and Freebass.

James says The Mnachester it is a great place to meet ladies

Mani was not in town the night we visited, but James Elliot of cult Belfast alternative popsters, Emily Ryder, was to be found practising his best enigmatic poses by the door. 

So why a Manchester bar in Barcelona. 

Who Knows? And who cares? As Ian Brown (is alleged to have) once said: “It’s not where you are from; it’s where you’re at.”

Things are a bit more easy-going in the London Bar on Carrer Nou de la Rambla, in Raval. 

Originally a haunt for circus performers who would gather there after hours, the bar still stays open until 5am, this historic watering hole became famous as a hangout for artists and writers including Miro, Dali and Ernest Hemingway. 

It is a charmingly unpretentious bar; in part rough and ready, in part historical treasure chest with circus and other memorabilia scattered to be found around the place. 

Popular with the more relaxed type of ex-pat it is one of the few places where locals and visitors seem to mingle comfortably together. There is a great blues duo on Friday nights.