Team Tierney on Tour (El Blog)

Still waiting

2010-05-07T16:20:00.002+02:00

The news media are obviously ecstatic at the hung Parliament. Just when they thought it was all over they get to start again, at least for now, although Nick Clegg has said that since the Tories got the majority of seats, they deserve first chance (I wish he would tell that to his Lib Dem party colleagues in Birmingham who persist in keeping a Tory Council, with a minority of the seats, in office). Talks are ongoing. Meanwhile, we are being treated to the views of superannuated politicians, the most sensible of whom seemed to me to be David Steele who managed to explain the constitional position and Gordon Brown's responsibility to continue in office until it becomes clear what the most viable government looks like to a TV presenter who seemed to think that this was all highly irregular. Michael Howard performed his usual "something of the night act" with a disgraceful outpouring of smear and innuendo against Brown and his mental health. no wonder Cameron has kept the rest of his party well hidden from view during this campaign!that there is a better al

See what I mean?

2010-05-03T11:04:00.002+02:00

Yesterday's Observer had a double page spread about tactical voting and the forthcoming election. What caught my eye, though, was a little piece at the bottom of the page which illustrated popular opinion in response to three key questions and the Ipsos MORI poll on overall attitude to the three leaders. The three questions where which of the three party leaders would be best in a crisis, best understands world problems and is more capable. On all three Brown scored highest at 40%,45% and 36% to Cameron's 33%, 23% and 33% and Clegg's 12%, 14% and 17%.Yet when it came to overall attitudes Brown was -28%, Cameron -2% and Cleff +32%. Meanwhile the bullying of Brown by the press continues. It is shameful.

Onward and upward

2010-05-01T15:09:00.002+02:00

Nothing is forever and it seems that on Thursday, when we go to the polls, the Labour Government will come to an end. The best we can hope for, it seems, is a hung Parliament, the worst a Tory landslide so that we can be ruled yet again by our social superiors, David (call me Dave) Cameron and (heaven help us) George Osborne. They are promising us The Big Society, which seems to mean fewer services provided by the state and more provided by us (or should that be Us?)so that we can get the blame when things go wrong. A tough time ahead, I think, and what makes it worse is that Labour have mainly themselves to blame. The Brownites spend ten years whinging about wanting to be PM, but having got their wish, seemed to have no idea what to do about it and have lurched from one disaster, PR wise at least, to another.

So, onward and upward, and for us too. We have decided, after a lovely winter spent in the UK and getting to know the grandchildren, to base ourselves here. We are in Birmingham for now, but will head back to Spain for the summer and then back here again although without firm committments to where and how. We are driving back to Spain via France and are planning a trip to the States in December-hence the change to the title of this blog in order to reflect our shifting location and also the shift in focus to more eclectic offerings. Let's see what happens next!

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2010-05-01T11:57:00.001+02:00

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That's a poke in the eye for me then...

2009-09-23T17:28:00.002+02:00

Maybe the campaign to get the raisins removed from the chicken balti pies on sale at the City of Manchester Stadium, and which I wrote about so sniffily a while back has been successful? In any event, they are clearly back in favour with one person who, at this weekend's match was carrying a placard announcing, "I love you Sheikh Mansour [our owner] and your family and your mates. I want to buy you a pie." And to think that some people go to watch the football.....

Announcing....

2009-09-21T21:13:00.002+02:00

..the arrival of:

Jude Samuel McKay
Born at 11.41 a.m. BST, 21st September, 2009

A brother for Billy (William Reuben) and Jessica Rose (Banana Cake) Trickey

His grandparents adore him already

Take a look-autumn in chiclana by Mike

2009-09-18T19:18:00.002+02:00

Worrying, very worrying

2009-09-02T19:36:00.004+02:00

One of the most poignant memorials I have ever seen was in downtown Buenos Aires. It was so simple we might well have missed it but for our guide, William. It consisted of a small garden with trees and a white stone bench and the markings left behind by the rooms of a building upon the wall of the adjoining building. The wall had been painted a ghostly white. We were told that it marked where the Israeli Embassy had stood before it had been blown up by Iranian terrorists, killing about 20 people (each tree in the garden commemorated one of the victims), and that shortly after this an Israeli community centre in the city had also been blown up. This was all thought to be a campaign against the then Argentinian Prime Minister, Carlos Menem, who had failed to deliver on his promise to support Iran in some anti-sanctions vote in the UN. Menem's son was later killed in an unexplained car accident. Anyway, one of the alleged suspects for the bombings, Ahmad Vahidi, is in line to become the Defence Minister in Ahmadinejad's cabinet.

Meanwhile, here in Spain unemployment continues to rise. It stands at about 19%, higher than in many parts of Eastern Europe. Worse still, the figures for youth unemployment are higher-38% of those under 25 are said to be unemployed.

And now for a little merienda

2009-08-29T19:54:00.002+02:00

Mike has joined a photography group and is also doing a photography course. Last week his group went to Medina Sidonia, just down the road from us, which in the time of Al-Andalus, roughly between the 10th and 13th centuries, when various kinds of Arabs ruled large tracts of Spain, was the cake making capital of the peninsula.
It still is and Mike took this photograph as a souvenir.

You realise that he had to climb into the cake to photograph it? Well, that's his story anyway....

Well I never no.2

2009-08-25T00:13:00.004+02:00

I was a little surprised to read in the online Guardian today the headline, "Labour fightback dashed as Tories extend poll lead" if only because-in fact only because-I was unaware of any Labour fightback. And meanwhile Cameron's sanctimonious Tories present themselves as born again social democrats. Ah well, they say we get the government we deserve and after year's of whinging from those who like to think of themselves as the radical left aided and abetted by the "we are all going to hell in a handcart" journalists of the Daily Mail (it is sometimes hard to tell the difference)it's looking more than likely that the Guardian headline augurs the future.

Meanwhile, here in La B, we are not hanging around. El Presidente has been deposed. Viva Senora Presidente!Yes, a woman! She is a lawyer and, according to my next door neighbour, "una Maravilla". We have been promised speed bumps! We have been promised that the street cleaning man will not wake us up at 8.00 in the morning with his amazing blowing machine! We have been promised that he will not blow dust under our gates so that we have to sweep it out again! We have been promised that the community accounts will be transparent and sent to all owners,not just pushed under the gate, irrespective of whether there is a force 8 gale wind blowing! Oh happy, happy days!

We shall see....

Hola

2009-08-23T10:37:00.002+02:00

One of the things I like to do on Wednesdays when we finish our second and final Pilates class of the week is to buy a copy of Hola to read with my coffee. Hola is the original celebrity gossip magazine and now appears in various versions across the world, each one with its local twist. For instance the Spanish version takes a deep interest in the love life of bullfighters as well as the doings of minor starlets, key members of the Spansh aristocracy (including Franco's grandaughter) and the Royal Family. One of the things I like about it is that despite its obsession with tittle-tattle, none of it is malicious, with the possible exception that they allowed Ana Obregon who claimed to have had an affair with David Beckham to poke fun at Victoria who never became popular in Spain because, it is said, she claimed not to like the food.

Anyway, Victoria Beckham apart, it is all generally good humoured. Last week, for instance, there were photos of the Danish King frolicking on a Spanish beach. Since the said monarch has obviously been at the pies he is, how shall we say, a little corpulent, or, in Hola speak, he has una curva de felicidad-a curve of happiness. How nice is that?

But this week beats it all. A story about Carmen Martinez-Bordiu on holiday with her daughter began by telling us that Carmen is an intrepid traveller and adventurer. Apparently her "espiritu inquieto" or restless soul, recalls those Victorian women who, two hundred years ago, roamed across the most remote and undiscovered areas of the globe (I am quoting here). What follows are 11 pages of photos of Carmen and Cyntha enjoying the 6 star delights of Dubai....

Well I never

2009-08-12T17:28:00.002+02:00

One of the reasons that I like reading the Manchester City forums is that they keep you in touch with...mmm, well, with something.

At the moment, apart from the ongoing saga of whether Everton, or, probably more accurately, David Moyes will sell us Joleon Lescott, to shore up our creaking defence, the big thread(16 pages and rising) concerns the discovery by one fan at the recent friendly against Celtic that the Chicken Balti pies on sale in the Eastlands stadium contained...sultanas. It's an outrage. A campaign has been launched. The name and address of the marketing manager of the pie makers concerned has been obtained and published. Letters and emails have been sent. We will not rest until our chicken balti pies return to their original recipe as passed down, father to son, on saturday afternoons at three o'clock from time immemorial....

Don't you just love them.

2009-07-23T19:39:00.005+02:00

There was a moment today when both grandmas were siting on the porch next door and competing to entertain the children with flamenco singing and clapping, the dog down the road was barking (not our resident dog Howie, he couldn't compete, but one brought from Madrid for the summer), a delivery driver had left his car running outside our gate and Sebastian and his companeros were cutting the grass at our neighbours below while passing each other instructions in the loud voices necessary to attract Sebastian who has a perfectly effective hearing aid but leaves it in the car, whilst preferring to wear an old one that has no battery (he has told me this. I am not making it up). It is a wonder that the workmen who have been digging up random bits of the road on and (fortunately mostly) off for the last 6 months now appear to have finished their work and moved on elsewhere.Auguast, as someone once told me, is the time when the Spanish live outside and annoy their neighbours. Only a week to go then.

That was the week...

2009-07-17T19:24:00.002+02:00

Well, here we are, another week older and we still haven't solved the world financial crisis, found a cure for cancer or even found a way to persuade our gardener,Sebastian, to turn his hearing aid on before we start the conversation rather than half way through by which time half the neighbourhood is hanging on our every (loud)word. Speaking of which (the neighbourhood), there is a scandal brewing in our "communidad". A few weeks ago we got a round robin letter pushed under our gate signed by assorted names, none of them familiar to us, accusing "el presidente" of taking actions under his own initiative without consultation. "El presidente", whom we have met a couple of times and who seems a pleasant enough chap and not at all dynamic (we are unclear as to what these unilateral actions might be, since nothing happens here), has obviously been hurt by this because today Antonio, the community's "empleado", who sweeps up the pine needles and buzzes round the place on a noisy "moto", came round to give us the first of what we are promised will be regular "noticias informativas" telling us what's been done, what's planned and asking for our suggestions. There is a list of do's and don'ts including do NOT take the rubbish containers into your own gardens and when out walking DO pick up your dog poo-when I told Mike this he inquired as to whether we would be provided with a dog on leaving our compounds...!ho, ho! What it doesn't say is DO stop your dog from waking up your neighbours. With Howie in mind,I might send a suggestion to our new community email address. We are very up to date here!

Not much other news. Still meandering on with Spanish. Getting a bit stuck with my homework last week, I went and asked Sebastian and his two "companeros", who happened to be working in our garden at the time, about one of the questions. They gave me three different answers. No wonder we foreigners find it difficult. We went to a tapas evening at the school on Tuesday and out to Cadiz to a concert on Wednesday. The latter was in the cathedral square-very beautiful-and the music was good (Joan Manuel Sarrat, a Catalan singer-songwriter who upset Franco by refusing to represent Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest when he was refused permission to sing in Catalan)but we still, after all this time, have not got used to things starting at 10..00 at night and on finishing after midnight, even though we seem to have adapted to changed eating hours, second breakfasts and such like. Very sleepy for the rest of the week.

Now here's a turn up for the books. Before the concert we wondered through Cadiz, picking up the tickets and finding somewhere to have some tapas. On our route we passed a sports shop and Mike commented through gritted teeth, as he always does, on the ubiquitous Manchester United shirts prominent display... only to be stopped in full flow at the sight of an enormous Manchester City Banner draped in the middle of the window. Perhaps the future really is blue. Or at least more blue than the past.

That was then, this is now

2009-07-13T13:22:00.002+02:00

When we first started to get to know Spain we used to say that the Spanish, unlike the British, don't drink to lose their inhibitions because they don't have any.I still think that is the case and it has its charming aspects. But there is also a downside to this belief that almost anything and everything can be done,discussed and shown without reference to context. This morning while we read the local paper and had our post-Pilates coffee and tostada we came across an example of a step too far. Turning to the back page, which usually has three or four photographs of major local and national news stories, we were presented with a photo of the precise moment when the Pamplona Bull gored to death a 27 year old guy who had been running, for reasons passing at least our understanding,in front of the bulls through the narrow streets of Pamplona in the annual festival. It is not something I want to look at again. Much less so, I imagine, his family and friends.

What do you thnk?

2009-07-10T17:24:00.002+02:00

Is it possible that the person who called his shop in Cadiz, where we went walking this morning, Yellow Rat Bastard understood the meaning of the English words he was using? And, if so, what image do you think he was trying to project? Would I like this person?

Go Lance, go!

2009-07-07T20:25:00.002+02:00

This afternoon Lance Armstrong, the American cyclist and ex-cancer sufferer, failed by an impossibly small fraction of a second to take the leader's yellow jersey in the Tour de France, a race that he won for 7 year's running until he retired a couple of years ago. We have always supported him and have a particular interest in doing so this year. It is not just that he is old -well, in cycling terms anyway- but also because the French health minister issued a "warning" before the race that he would be under very close scrutiny with regards to drugs tests. It is not that we have a problem with any cyclist being tested for drugs, given the shame that drug abuse has brought on the sport over the last few years (and probably before, if only we had known). What annoys me profoundly is the special attention given to Armstrong, who has never tested positive, and the fact that this is from a representative of a country whose own cyclists are hardly models of probity. Richard Verenque, anyone?

The French really need to come to terms with the fact that the Tour de France can be won by an American.

Oh yes, go Mark Cavendish as well!

We're walking....

2009-07-05T13:38:00.002+02:00

It seems perverse to travel to the other side of the world to go walking and then to sit on our bottoms here, so, since our return and now that our summer stream of visitors is over, we have been trying to get out and about more.

A couple of weeks ago we did a walk that we have done before over the headland from Caños de La Meca to Barbate. It's a lovely walk although the terrain is very sandy and walking uphill on what effectively is a series of sand dunes makes it quite tough. On Friday we decided to do visit the National Park Los Alcornocales (the cork oaks) which is about half an hour south of here. We walked for about an hour and a half from the Mirador de los Ratones (although why the mice need a lookout point I don't know!) to the embalse (reservoir) de Barbate and some tombs from the Third Millenium BC. Then after a picnic, we walked back again.

A good part of the way during this second walk was along the old drovers road so, by comparison to Caños to Barbate, it was fairly easy going, but in all the time we were walking we saw only three people, a ranger and a couple of guys working on one of the fincas.Since we are now into high season here in La Barrosa and the beach, especially at the weekend, is tent city, the peace and quiet was amazing.

As well as wonderful views what we also enjoyed are the smells. On the first walk we came across a plant that has a very delicate curry-like scent and on Friday there was a stretch where we were able to smell wild thyme.....

Hablo, hablas, habla

2009-07-02T19:50:00.001+02:00

When we were in South America we tried to speak as much Spanish as we could, even with the guides who were part of the meet and greet service that we organised through Journey Latin America and who had obviously been primed to talk to us in English. One of them, a charming young woman who took us from our hotel in Cusco to catch the train to Macchu Pichu, responded to our attempts by telling us that we spoke very good Spanish and then added, in Spanish, "and you don't have one of those annoying Spanish accents!" We hope this was because by this stage we had decided to drop the lisp on the "c" which is part of castellano in most parts of Spain. However, just to be on the safe side, we are now back in our Spanish classes. Mike is also doing a photography course and has joined a local photography group in order to get the most out of his new camera. So busy, busy, busy....more news soon.

2009-06-28T18:15:00.001+02:00

2009-05-29T14:23:00.003+02:00

Why is it that people keep wittering (?) on about how we are disassociated from politics? The sheer amount and the hysterical tone of much of the debate around the MPs expenses surely reflects the fact that people are interested. Isn't the problem rather that most people have no language and no conceptual framework with which to discuss issues and so can only engage when it comes down to personalities? I think so, and I think it is a part of the general anti-intellectualism of British culture, its glorification of "common sense", which is often no more than personal prejudice and anecdote disguised, and its mistrust of the innovative and the complicated.

Animals and some humans

2009-05-20T18:21:00.001+02:00

3 at Iguazu....

2009-05-20T18:16:00.000+02:00

...and one in Uruguay

You couldn't make it up....

2009-05-20T18:13:00.000+02:00

...but he clearly did.

Buenos Aires-all this and more

2009-05-20T18:09:00.000+02:00

It really is impossible to sum up Buenos Aires. If you haven't been yet, go!

Yes, well....

2009-05-20T17:56:00.000+02:00

I guess a little PR might help...

From one extreme to the other, via Santiago

2009-05-20T17:54:00.000+02:00

We got up close and personal with the Grey Glaciar, which is actually blue but the Lake is called the Grey Lake-in English-because it contains a lot of sediment. And then we got hot and sticky in the Atacama desert. The photo with the black sky was taken just before a storm. In between we toured Santiago which we liked a lot, despite the pollution. Those damned Andes just trap all the air....

4 favourites from Chile

2009-05-20T17:43:00.001+02:00

The view of the sunrise is from our window in the hotel, a photo of which is below. I woke about 6 o clock one morning and this is what I saw. The animal is a guanaco. The photo of the two of us was taken at The Base of the Towers and represents something of a triumph. It was hard and it was cold!

75th time lucky

2009-05-20T17:25:00.002+02:00

According to Mark Hughes, our manager, Manchester City FC has been linked to 75 different players since we became "the richest club in the world" (TM). At last, one of these rumours had made it into the local paper, El Diario de Cadiz, which told us on Monday that we had increased our offer (what offer? we asked), for Diego Forlan. Why he would want to return to Manchester-if indeed he does-after his brief and not very successful spell with the club up the road is anyone's guess. Meanwhile Cadiz CF, which currently languishes in a local third division, won the first leg of the first round of the "eliminatorias" or playoffs by 1 goal to 0. This was the home leg and whether it will be enough is in some doubt. The next game is on Sunday, so next week could be tough in the Cadiz supporting Pizzeria at the top of our road. We will let you know.

Catching up

2009-05-14T18:16:00.002+02:00

We have been back in Spain over a week now and one of the things we have done a lot of, apart from sleep of course, is skype. This is something we missed in South America and although it is far from perfect, it is a good way of at least registering the changes that are going on in the babies. During one of our most recent skypes a game has developed. Jessica likes to give things to people (she likes to get them back as well, mind you!) so she will pass a pen or, most recently, some sunglasses towards the computor screen. Then Naomi will perform a sleight of hand, removing the object, while we pick up the equivalent object here. The sunglasses were great as Mike was also able to wear them, adding to the effect. Anyway, the point of this is that you can tell from the look on Jessica's face that she sort of knows that it can't possibly be happening for real but she wants to keep trying it just to make sure. Mmm my grandaughter the nobel prize winning physicist!

Three cheers for the Miraflores Park, Lima

2009-05-04T00:05:00.002+02:00

We have stayed in some pretty wonderful places in South America, the Explora Lodges in Patagonia and Atacama, Home in BA and the Inkaterra Lodge near Machu Picchu. But of all the standard type hotels (well, 5 star international class!)in which we have stayed, we like the Miraflores Park in Lima best of all. It´s not just the ocean view (someone obscured today by an autumn mist), the enormous bathroom with walk in shower and lots of products or the squishy sofa and armchairs in our living area. What really makes us happy is the quality of service, summed up by our arrival last night. Tired and a bit grubby after our flight from La Paz, we arrived at the hotel at about 11 o clock last night to be met by the smiling duty manager who gave us a seat whilst he checked us in, told us that the cases we had left behind in storage here were already in our room and took us himself up to the fourth floor. To cap it all, they had found the jacket I had left beside the pool on our last stay here and returned it, beautifully folded,lined with tissue paper and with the ribbons at the neck neatly tied. I was sorry it was only a M&S jogging top, as I felt that such devotion deserved a better object. I must remember to lose my better stuff in future!

Today we have been on a tour of colonial Lima, which is stunning and gradually being restored, funded in part by the Spanish government (Do the Spanish know?) and then to the Larco Gallery which is am amazing private collection of pre-Columbian art. Unlike its sister museum in Cusco which displays its objects as works of art with no ethnographic informtion, this is more of a standard ethnographic museum, but beautifully done, funded (as of course was the Tate collection in the UK originally) by a fortune made in the sugar plantations. It left us wanting to find out more of what is truely a remarkable history and one that is till unfolding as more and more archaeological sites are discovered and excavated, now mostly using proper scientific techniques. What was especially amazing, in some ways, was that visitors are given access to the stores,objects that are not on formal display but simply placed in groups on floor to ceiling glass shelves. For every object on display, there must have been a hundred in these cases, emphaising just how rich Peru is in archaeological material.Then we had lunch in the restaurant. That was pretty good too.

Tomorrow we have nearly a full day in Lima and have a reservation for lunch at Astrid and Gaston, meant to be one of the city´s best restaurants. Then,at 4 o clock our car will pick us up and take us to the airport for a flight back to Madrid. It seems hard to believe that this wonderful holiday is coming to an end.....

Downtown and Down in La Paz

2009-05-02T21:59:00.003+02:00

Of all the countries we have visited in South America, Bolivia seems to the the least accesible, or at least that was our experience as we puffed around La Paz today-we have conquered the altitude sickness but this city is still the highest capital city in the world and we notice the shortage of oxygen.

What´s this about? We managed to visit the museums we were interested in-the National Gallery of Art, the Ethnographic and Folk Museum which had brilliant displays of masks, head dresses,capes and other objects made of feathers and a quirky little private museum of musical instruments made from all sorts of bits and pieces, some of which you are allowed to play! We also went into a church and watched a group christening-the street vendors outside were doing a roaring trade in pink and blue rosaries- and back in later, by which time the rosaries had disappeared and confetti and rose petals were being sold from enormous sacks, to watch a wedding. So it is not that we weren´t enjoying ourselves.

However, the combination of the chaotic traffic, especially the taxi-buses whose "conductors" hang out the door and tout for custom as the bus weaves in and out of the traffic, and the steep streets with their cobbled pavements makes walking very hard work. In addition, there seem to be very few tourists here so its hard not to feel conspicuous and out of place-a feeling probably not helped by the fact that the newspaper headlines this morning were proclaiming the decision of the Bolivian President, Evo Morales, "to nationalise the British Company BP." Not least, this is not a coffee, not even a cafe society so we were beginning to feel caffeine withdrawal.

Then we wandered into the Cafe El Consulado and everything suddenly took a turn for the better. The building, we discovered, used to be the Consulate of Panama and is charming. The cafe is a small dining room inside but also, and this is where we ate, a pretty conservatory that looks out onto a beautiful garden with hollyhocks, roses, ferns and-damn it-lemon trees which seem capable of producing lemons, unlike ours in Spain. The food was fantastic- I had a vegetarian plate and a hibiscus juice (yes, the flower-it was delicious). We were also shown the bedrooms which are equally charming and cost 50 US dollars a night, breakfast included. We would choose one of them over our 5 star but utterly charmless Hotel Europa, which is next door, any day, so if you get the chance, do. Then, feeling restored and loved, we checked on the football results (City had won-it always helps!) and went off to buy one of the paintings from an art gallery we had visited earlier in our stay. So all´s well that ends well. Back to Lima tonight for our last two nights.

It´s the cutlery stupid...

2009-05-01T21:20:00.009+02:00

We have discovered that you can tell a lot about the cuisine of a country by the type of cutlery routinely provided in cafes. So here we are in La Paz,Bolivia, munching away on salad and the occasional trout using knives and forks clearly designed to cut up something far more bloody. Neverthless, the trout is very good and quite different from what we are accustomed to call by that name in Europe.In addition, our hotel will make you a very nice cheese (or other type of) omelette for breakfast on a little camping stove set up in the dining room So all is well on the food front, which as you know is very important to us.

We arrived here by travelling from Cusco in Peru by train to Puno on the edge of Lake Titicaca-a 10 hour journey, although done in some luxury as the Andean Express provides an open air observation car, equipped with comfy armchairs, and lunch and afternoon tea on board as well as entertainment. Unfortunately, or perhaps not from our point of view since we feel we have seen a lot of this sort of thing, there was a strike in one of the towns that we passed through and this prevented the traditional dancers from making it to the station in time to board the train so the barman had to step in and run a class on making pisco sours. We are being fairly abstemious in order to cope with the altitude and Puno is the highest town in Peru so we decided to give this a miss although we then gave in to the temptation of the bucks fizz that was passed round in order to make up for our disappointment in missing the dancers and yet another "photo chance". Then, after a night in Puno, we travelled by car to Copacabana in Bolivia and crossed Lake Titicaca in a catamaran (fantastic!)by way of the Island of the Sun, the so called birthplace of the Inka civilization, to the Bolivian altiplano and down into La Paz.

All of this has given us an opportunity to see some spectacular views of the Andes and we shall be boring you with the photos very soon. It has also been a way to observe a little more the way in which people live-from the shanty towns on the outskirts of tourist towns, such as Cusco, to the large urban industrial and commercial conurbations and the traditional agricultural communities. I imagine the life of these rural communities is hard, especially on the altiplano in both Peru and Bolivia where growing most crops isn't a possibility. However, from what we saw, it looks infinitely preferable to the urban options. Although we saw lots of charming children running alonside the train and waving at us in the country and they seemed at least to have enough to eat, the poverty we saw in the towns made us feel uncomfortable. We hope that, on balance,people feel that it is better that we come and spend our money here than not.

On a less controversial note, this morning we have been to the Valley of the Moon, a nature reserve outside La Paz, to look at the incredible rock formations (more "photo chances") and then came back into town to watch part of the traditional May Day parade which included as well as the political parties, various groups of workers in their uniforms, miners in their hard hats, civil servants in their white shirts, bread makers, workers in the meat industry as well as, in many of these groups, women wearing the traditional dress of the full skirt and peticoats, flat shoes, beautifully embroidered shawls and..bowler hats.

More in La Paz tomorrow when we expect some of the museums to be open, then a late flight back to Lima where we shall make our farewells to South America. At least for now.

The truth, but not as we know it...

2009-04-28T18:14:00.004+02:00

In Cusco we have stayed, and will stay again tonight at the Libertador Hotel, a converted colonial convent, filled with antiques (not just us, stop sniggering at the back!) and original paintings and with a world class restaurant. We travelled to Macchu Pichu on the Hiram Bingham Orient Express and after our exploration of the "Lost City" yesterday we have been staying here at the Inkaterra Lodge Hotel, a tiny oasis which used to be a tea plantation and which is carved out of the cloud forest just at the point where the Amazon meets the Andes. Our bungalow had candles, a log fire and hot water bottles in our bed-and that is modest. Apparently the villas, where I am told members of the British Royal Family like to stay, have private terraces, hot tubs and butler service.

Although we have tried to eat Peruvian cuisine and talk to lots of people-our Spanish has been much more useful than we thought, although for many rural Peruvians it is their second language-it would be foolish to say that in these circumstances we are getting to know the real Peru. One thing is clear though, I think, and that is that the beliefs that underpinned Macchu Pichu are alive and well even today. This morning we went for an orchid walk through the gardens of the hotel and our guide told us stories about the use that shamans make of the plants we were seeing (we also saw amazing birds and butterflies, but thats another story). It was evident that he believed them, as did our guide in Macchu Pichu who told us similar stories and our guide in Cusco. Peru may be a catholic country but people hedge their bets and combine christian and pagan practices as for example our guide in Cusco`s grandmother who used to "exorcise" illness in her grandchildren by passing an egg across their bodies when thy were sick, mixing it with water and then employing a man to take the water out into the streets and throw it on the ground so that the illness would pass to the next person who passed (very charitable!) after which she would make the sign of the cross and go to mass!

Off to find coffee now before we go on another walk and then this evening catch the Hiram Bingham train back to Cusco. Tomorrow we head off to Puno and Lake Titicaca and the Island of the Sun. I am still not clear as to what Macchu Pichu was-we have heard various explanations, including a healing centre, a fort and a pleasure palace. But the Inka culture which produced it and the other places we have seen, building on other ancient civilisations is fascinating and perhaps when I have a faster internet access I will try to write somemore. For now, Mike is pacing......

Onward and upward

2009-04-27T14:43:00.003+02:00

I have been suffering from a little altitude sickness for the last couple of days-nothing serious, just a headache and a slight queasiness-so Mike was left to go on his own with our guide on the treck through the Sacred Valley while I caught up on a lost night´s sleep. He has some amazing photographs and on the way back he mentioned that he hadn´t seen any animals here, other than the ubiquitous llamas and alpacas (we had our photograpoh taken with one and its owner on Saturday-it is something you have to do!) so he was taken to a rescue centre where he was able to photograph condors and puma from close up. Fantastic.

By yesterday lunchtime, however, I had recovered enough to go to the Museum of Pre Columbian Art in Cusco. We had read about it in Hugh Thomson´s book, Cochineal Red, and it really is as spectacular as he claims, especially if you enter the galleries when they are empty as the cases light up as you go through the door. The point of the museum is that all the work-pottery, woodwork, shellwork and gold and silver-are displayed as art and not as ethnographic evidence of particular cultures. You are given the minimum amount of information-broad dates, the culture, since it covers the pre-Inka civilsations and the Inkas-and just left to look. According to Thomas it is perhaps not possible to give much information by way of provenance since looting is, or at least was, almost officially accepted in Peru, seen by the descendants of the indigenous people as a way of liberating their history from the detested Spanish conquerers and by the government as a cheap and feasible way of getting access to archeaological sites. Whatever, it is amazing and leaves you feeling able to wonder at the beauty and quality without trouybling yourself with a lot of information. That is for another day.

Must rush now as we are off on the Hiram Brigham Orient Express to Macchu Pichu, leaving our suitcase here as the Orient Express kindly provide you with your own little case. We have left another case in Lima. Must remember to collect everything on the way back!

Don´t cry for me....

2009-04-25T19:45:00.002+02:00

So we have said farewell to Buenos Aires and Argentina having spent our last evening at Casa Felix, Felix´s House. Felix is not our new best friend. The name, of course, is that off a restaurant. But it really is Felix´s house, one of the many (we were assured that it is the best) ¨private¨ restaurants in BA that are run within peoples´homes. The home in this case was what is called a "chorizo house" because all of the rooms run off each other, like a string of sausages! It was built in 1910 and so is in the art deco style that was typical of domestic architecture in BA at the time. Running alongside the rooms is an open tiled patio which has been filled with plants and which serves as an open air dining room. Before the meal we had drinks in the backgarden where Felix grows the herbs which he uses in cooking and then we ate-a 5 course degustacion menu plus an "intermezzo" of a sorbet made with melon, thyme and turmeric (sounds weird, tastes wonderful!). But best of all, from our point of view, all the food was either vegetables or fish, each course accompanied by a wonderful Argentinian wine. We finished off by finally getting to drink mate, the national tea of Argentina which people drink all the time, carrying their flasks around with them to top up their mate pot, on the street, in parks, at the cinema....

We felt the experience brought our stay in BA to a triumphant conclusion and we are now in Cusco ready to begin our tour of Peru. Things continue to look up on the food front as last night we stayed in the fabulous Hotel Miraflores Park (our room on the 9th floor looked out to the Pacific) and ate ceviche (fish marinaded in lemon or lime to cook) in their restaurant and were given a wonderful explanation of Peruvian food by our waiter. Off to lunch...

Tea for 2?

2009-04-23T15:28:00.003+02:00

According to Miranda France (Bad Times in Buenos Aires), Cafe Biela, opposite Recoleta Cemetery and the Church, is where rich divorcees drink coffee and take afternoon tea while "looking at themselves in other people's sunglasses". Not being in the market for a divorce and having only very small sunglasses, we decided to by-pass this venue and yesterday afternoon headed instead to the Orangerie in the swanky Alvear Palace Hotel, BA's swishest hotel-look it up on Google for nice photographs! Thanks to Naomi, Esther and co's generous birthday gift we indulged in tiny sandwiches, scones, cakes, pink champagne and blue earl grey, which is earl grey but with the addition of lavender from the south of France! It was served by waiters wearing red coats and white gloves. In the corner a lady in black played the harp. Delicious and a great way to start an evening which ended just after midnight back in the Thelonius Jazz Club in Palermo listening to Pablo Kranz.

France also describes how her local news stand (there don't seem to be news agents here, just street stalls) refused to sell her foreign fashion magazines on the basis that they were too expensive, even though they stocked them, and we have also had this experience. I tried to buy the Spanish version of Hola to keep up with the doings of the Duchess of Alba (as you so) and was told it was far too expensive and I didn't really need it-so I didn't buy it! Yesterday we had a similar experience. We had hardly sat down at the Alvear Palace than the elegantly dressed Maitre De glided over to us and "advised" us that we didn't need to buy two teas as one was quite enough for two people. And so it turned out to be. You just have to love these people!

Time to go time

2009-04-20T15:56:00.000+02:00

We now feel quite at home in the area we have been living for the last few weeks in Buenos Aires. We have found two good and comfortable cinemas within walking distance and, as seems to be the case in general here, foreign films are subtitled not dubbed so you actually get to hear the voices of the actors rather than, as in Spain, the small group of "actors" who provide voices (often inappropriate) for a wide range of actors. This weekend we went to see a French film about a school in the 20th arrondisment in Paris, Entre Les Murs (The Class, I think, in England) and finally caught up with Slum Dog Millionaire ( Quien Quieres Ser Millionario?). Both were fascinating studies of difficult societies and it is easy to see why they won prizes. In fact in relation to Slumdog I would imagine all other contenders in most categories from cinematography to acting to soundtrack gave up hope on seeing it. It was also, of course, horrifically violent, but I can see that it would not have worked without this.

We have also found a restuarant where we are welcomed like long lost friends-yes, despite all our complaints about food-and another which we have been to only once so far but which serves the best pizza I have ever tasted "made with the same love as that of the original immigrants" according to the blurb, since of course pizza, made by Italian immigrants, was the original fast food, long before McDonalds thought of the concept. We will be back there tonight.We have a favourite coffee shop and we know which supermarket to avoid (horrendous queues at all hours and no change in the till-a constant problem here) and where to go. For bigger adventures we know to keep an eye on what is going on at the Centro Cultural Borges, where we were again on Saturday night, to watch a modern dance company perform some of the most startling tango you could imagine, accompanied by a tango band and singer with a voice that surely equals that of Carlos Gardel (No, we had´t heard of him either till we came here, but he was a hollywood star in the 30s and lived up the road). We have a park that we run in and know our way to a shopping mall where we can sit and read the papers and watch the beautiful people stroll by on a Sunday morning. What more could anyone want?

So, predictably, we are moving on. Not very far to begin with, just to Palermo, another barrio of BA, but then, on Friday, to Peru and Bolivia. It is raining there at the moment and here we are enjoying the most wonderful autumn weather-blue skies, a little chilly first thing in the morning and then warm sun in the afternoon. The leaves are beginning to fall so the light is dappled....Buenos Aires gets under your skin. It will be hard to leave it.

Mas Guay que Paraguay

2009-04-17T20:34:00.002+02:00

I came across the above phrase, which means literally "more guay than Paraguay" ages ago. it means, or more probably, it meant at the time, since fashions change, "cool". I have been looking for a chance to use it ever since and came close yesterday as we went ...to Uruguay. Or at least we went to Colonia de Sacramiento which is a world heritage site in Uruguay. Some say it has been over preserved. It has delightful single storey houses built in the Spanish colonial style, cobbled streets, plane trees and restuarants with views of the river, in one of which we had a lovely lunch. However, we found it charming and a delightful place to spend an afternoon, enjoying the quiet after the bustle of BA. It only takes an hour on the wonderful efficient Buquebus, a sort of floating shopping mall so we were back in time to have dinner with Greg in Palermo at a restuarnt which boasted of a performance by opera singers. Maybe so. but not as we know them. Tonight we are going to the opera at Teatro Avenida to see Don Pasquale. Hopefully this is the real thing, as our previous visit there to see La Traviata was very enjoyable.

PS. I have just realised that I do know something about Paraguay since we were told by our Brazilian guide that the main industry of Paraguay, whose border is about 10km from where Brazil meets Argentina, is shopping. I have heard of people who make this their life´s work (put your hand down Esther!), but never of shopping as an industry. However, it seems that the tax system in Paraguay is such that they can import and sell good from all over the world very cheaply so people actually visit specifically to visit its shopping malls. Mas guay que Paraguay. There you have it.

The global village

2009-04-15T17:46:00.002+02:00

As I write this I have a fantastic view of the Iguazu falls through the hotel window. Impressive as it looks , however, the thing that I wasn´t prepared for was the smell. Think "newly watered garden" times 100. It also sounds pretty impressive and last night we heard the roar as the damns further upstream were opened up to allow more water through which happens once a week.

We have now done quite a lot of walking around the impressively laid out tracks (Mike thinks that it would be a good idea to get the company who run the national park to come and manage Chiclana. They might actually make it work), yesterday on the Brazil side and today in Argentina. You are going to get so tired of our photographs of waterfalls, although we have one of a racoon trying to drink out of a can of Coke.

We now have a few hours spare since our flight has been re-scheduled. Fortunately we were told about this yesterday and fortuitously, there was some repair work going on in a room adjacent to ours when we returned yesterday so that when we complained we were able to negotiate not only a new room but also told we could check out just before we left rather than by the official 10 o clock deadline. Smart negotiating.

Off to the pool now. Must get a few more rays of sunshine.

The caress of mother earth

2009-04-14T13:22:00.002+02:00

I realised when my massage started last night that it´s title, the caress of mother earth, (it sounds better in the local indian language, honest!) should have alerted me to the fact that it wasn´t just a massage but a treatment as well. I was coated in warm mud and , after a shower, rubbed with the oil of exotic flowers. All this involved lots of bending of limbs, pulling of joints and general stretching. It sounds bizarre but my right shoulder and arm which has been given me lots of problems now feels a lot better, so I guess I shouldn´t be too sniffy. Greg tried the hot stones and Mike had a Swedish massage. Not quite so glamorous, perhaps, but we are now all well and truely pummelled and off to tackle Brazil......

And now...

2009-04-13T21:56:00.002+02:00

...for something completely different!

We have noiw arrived at Iguazu Falls and are ensconsed in the Sheraton, with its fantastic views (including one from our bedroom window) of the falls on the Argentinian side. (Lovely hotel, but why the piped musack in all the public rooms?) We´ve just been for our first walk up to the falls and tomorrow we are going to see it from the Brazilian side. We had to catch a flight out of BA at 7.00 which meant leaving in the middle of the night so we have that feeling of unreality which comes from a lack of sleep. It makes the Falls, with their incredible rainbows, even more incredible.

To be honest, we didn´t exactly help pourselves with an early night. On Saturday we had been to see the musical Eva, a very saccharine account of her life. As Greg said, it made Jesus Christ Superstar seem a little critical of Jesus by comparison. So last night we decided to head off to Palermo to a jazz club for something completely different-a group of Argentinian musicians, one of whom, Pablo Andals, who is based in New York playing jazz versions of tango. It was great, but we couldn´t bear to drag ourselves away till after midnight, so whatever we are feeling now, we have only ourselves to blame. Oh well, nothing that the massage that I am about to have, followed by dinner and a good night´s sleep won´t cure.

All things Eva and Ecological

2009-04-11T22:21:00.002+02:00

Yesterday we continued our walking tour with our excellent guide William (who, despite his name, is as Argentinian as a side of beef!). This time we visited the cemetery at Recoleta and other sites associated with Eva Peron, the second wife of the Argentinian president, General Peron and the darling of the Argentinian masses. William is not a fan of Eva and the Peronists who, from what we understand, seem to reinvent themselves every few years and come back into power-the current president, Cristina Kirchner, wife of the ex-president Mr Kirchner, is a Peronist and apparently appears in front of a photograph of Evita, wearing her hair in a similar style and with suits modeled on those that Eva wore. Again from what we understand, although their policies seem flexible (sometimes pro nationalisation, sometimes pro privatisation, for example) a basic thread is the populist streak and a fair degree of authoritarianism. The original General, in addition, was sympathetic to the Nazis, although ultimately forced to sell grain to the Allies, and allowed a lot of Nazis into Argentina at the end of the war, thus explaining the German settlements in Patagonia and Northern Argentina. Eva used her considerable charms first of all to capture Peron and then to manipulate the masses (she had been a radio soap opera star and had many of her speeches written by the author of her soap opera scripts), many of whom still regard her as some sort of unofficial saint, to the extent that there was a popular outcry in Argentina at the way in which Madonna depicted her (too human) in the eponymous film. Anyway, tonight we are going to the musical, Eva, that has been a wild success in BA and which, it is claimed, gives the Argentinian depiction of Eva. We shall see. I can´t help feeling that she probably did have something of the same scary (because unaccountable) charisma of Princess Diana, although of course, her background was very different (illegitimate child of a rich farmer, never accepted by her father´s family etc) and the plot in which she is buried at Recoleta is, compared to some of the mausoleum´s there, a very modest one, constructed for her by her sister when her body was brought back to BA 16 year after her death-she had been spirited out of the country, buried in Milan and then sent to Spain where Peron was living with his thrid wife.

This morning for a completely different experience, we did another walk, following the 8 km track through the ecological reserve that borders on the River Plate. There were lots of runners, bikers and walkers and this area is obviously another of the reserves of the beutiful people-so, of course ,we fitted right in!

Tomorrow we are taking Greg to the market in San Telmo and then in the eveing to a jazz club. On monday we fly up to Iguazu for three days of Luxury in the Sheraton. More soon.

So it goes

2009-04-08T20:31:00.000+02:00

Since we worked out how it operates, you can´t keep us off the "subte" (underground) and now that we are no longer doing classes we are enjoying the opportunity to get around BA. Yesterday we went and had a look at Home which is the hotel we will be staying at the week after next in Palermo Viejo-or is it Palermo Holywood?Hard to tell as the names change all the time. Anyway, it looks great. We had a cup of coffee in the bar and checked out the pool and the loungers in the adorable garden-so thanks for that recommendation, Esther and Paul. We shall have a champagne cocktail in the bar and think of you both on our first night.

The only problem with this outing was that Mike´s sunglasses hopped of the train rather before he did in the hands of some light fingered youth who had managed to unhook them from his belt in the crush on the train. Ah well. You learn. All our jewelery, passports and camera are in the safe, but we didn,t think that a reasonable but not outrageous pair of old raybans would be that interesting. Anyway, it was a good excuse to stop of at the Patio Bullrich, one of the nicest malls in downtown BA (the one that is housed in an old horse and cattle market-oh plese keep up, I must have mentioned this already!) and buy a new pair from Mike´s second favourite shop, the Italian one with the initials EZ (the favourite is Paul Smith of course). We were very impressed when the salesman came back with the receipt and said that there was someone with the name Mike Tierney, who shopped in their store in Melbourne, but he assumed that Mike was the Mike Tierney from Cadiz. Isn´t new technology wonderful! So we went and had coffee and icecream (dulce de leche flavour-Argentinia´s national flavour) to celebrate the purchase before we set off again to San Telmo to look around with fewer crowds than there were on Sunday. Now we are waiting for Greg to arrive back from Salta before we set off again in search of further adventures in downtown BA. If only the food was better, I could live here! How is it possible to runin a salad?

Lazy like...

2009-04-05T21:26:00.000+02:00

This morning we wondered down to San Telmo, one of the old areas in the centre of BA which has 19th century architecture, little shops and galaries, a food and antiques market and, on Sunday, a craft market. Some of the stuff was good, more craft than tat, although we can´t buy anything because even with our enhanced Business Class baggage allowance, our cases already weigh too much. Still, we listened to some tango and had a nice lunch at a little corner cafe. This afternoon we may go to the cinema. Apparently, unlike in Spain where all English language films are dubbed into Spanish by the same 5 or 6 actors, so you never actually get to hear the real voices, here in South America you get voz original and subtitles, reflecting the fact that each country has its own form of Spanish and therefore it would be impossible to dub across the board.

We have been thinking about the economy here and everyone we speak to is very dispondant about the future, although we read in the local paper this morning that many Argentinians are returning from Spain, either under their own steam or through a repatriation package organised by the Zapatero Government so I guess it´s not much better anywhere else. BA of course has always been a city of contrasts. Yesterday we walked through the Retiro district (named after the Madrid park) which is the area that the rich moved to in order to be as far away as they could from the river after the outbreak of yellow fever in 1870. There are an amazing number of palaces or mansions, mostly of French design, including one modeled on the Louvre (!), which were built in the final decade of the 19th century or the first decade of the 20th and which now mostly serve as hotels or government buildings, although one of the nicest ones is the French Embassy (we Brits have a concrete bunker!). At the same time, there was obviously a great deal of poverty and one of our projects this week is to see if we can find the Museum of Immigration.

These days, we have been told, there are more Bentleys in BA than in London, and from what we can tell, Barrio Norte, Recoleta and parts of Palermo are pretty swanky. However, we see a lot of people sleeping in the streets and some of the shanty towns, known as Villas, are very depressing. There is one, for example just on the outskirts of La Boca district and the start of Puerto Modero, the fashionable restaurant and apartment and loft area by the river (It made us think of our apartment in King Edwards Wharf!). This is the extreme, of course, but we have also been told that a teacher here would earn about 400 pounds a month. Given that you can buy (we are told) quite a nice apartment for beteen 100,000 and 300,00 pounds this probably isn´t very much. However, what brought the situation home to me was when I realised that a shoe shop near our hotel was offering 6 instalment payments on shoes costing about 50 pounds a pair maximum. This is in a business area so the clientele are probably in work and we are not, therefore talking about really poor people.

Tomorrow we are going to try and walk to the recalimed park on the river...more to follow

School´s out.....

2009-04-04T23:54:00.000+02:00

We celebrated the end of our two weeks at the language school yesterday by opening a bottle of wine and having an early night! It´s been good. We learnt a lot of new grammar and lots about the history, politics and culture of Argentina, including some reading of Borges and Cortazar and some looking at Xul Solar and other artists, which we have followed up by visits to the Museo Bellas Artes, the Museum of Modern Art and the Xul Solar Museum.

In between we have even managed to go to the opera, do a walking tour of the city and make our first foray into Palermo where we will spend a few days at the end of our time in BA. We found a vegetarian restaurant, La Esquina de Flores, and stocked up on vitamin C which has been sadly lacking from our diet. A lot of coffee has been drunk to keep us awake since 5 hours of classes a day is hard going, and despite being told that the coffee here is not good (Naomi!), we have found it excellent. Just as well-we have needed it! Now all that remains is to put the grammar to some use, although we are speaking a lot of Spanish here-more often than not I think when we are out and about as well as at the school and it is very useful.

Thursday was another dia feriado (the word fiesta seem not to be used except for Christmas and New Year), this time to commemorate the dead in the Falklands or Malvinas. As fate would have it, Raul Alfonsin, the first president of a democratic Argentina after the fall of the Generals in 1983 had died a couple of days before, so the day was also his funeral and there was a massive turn out and show of popular grief. We have been told that although the Malvinas was terrible, it is generally understood in Argentina that this was the price paid for the downfall of the military junta, though it seems a terribly heavy one and one that does the British no credit, especially the sinking of the Belgrano, although we have seen no anti British feeling other than one banner at the football match. Perhaps this also has something to do with the fact that much of the country´s infrastructure, such as railways, electricity and water was built by the British and although the Spanish and Italians are by far and away the biggest group of immigrants. Still, on Thursday, I wished that I had kept my "I didn´t vote for Thatcher" badge which I would have gladly worn.

Speaking of football, the national team lost 6 goals to 0 against Bolivia on Wednesday night, thus adding an extra edge of dolefulness to Thursday. The team are blaming the fact that they had to play at altitude, but perhaps they weren´t very good after all.......

They say...

2009-04-01T23:13:00.002+02:00

.....that travel broadens the mind. And so it does. Here we are in Buenos Aires and, as we seem to do in every city we visit, we have made our visit to the dentist in search of the perfect filling for Mike´s tooth. This time it was The German Hospital that was recommended and the treatment was fine. We even had high hopes that German efficiency would find its way into the bureacracy. But no. The visit lasted two hours (a temporary filling which actually took 5 minutes plus another 5 for an x ray) and the rest of the time was spent in queues. Mike has another appointment on monday. I am planning to go shopping.

Apart from that BA is great (except the food, which is terrible for us, although no doubt very good for meat eaters. They don´t even make very good salads!) We are enjoying the school, even the struggling with Borges and Cortazar amongst other Argentinian writers and feel that as well as improving (we hope!) our grammar, it is doing what we hoped and giving us an insight into the history and culture. We now know, for example a lot about such diverse topics as the history of the military dictatorship and the subsequent trials on the one hand and the way in which the bands of people who sort the rubbish before it is collected every night came into existence (self organised at first to make some money when the economy collapsed in 2001 and now working under official licences from the city). Inevitably this takes up a lot of our time but we have managed other things including the opera last night at the Teatro Avenida (the Colon is still closed and the centre of a political argument). Tomorrow we have a day off school (the commemoration of the Malvinas/Falklands) and then Friday is our last day before we start exploring ourselves...more soon

The Hand of Maradona and other things

2009-03-29T16:54:00.002+02:00

Last night we went to the River Plate Stadium to watch Argentina play Venezuela in a world cup qualifier, their first competitive game under Maradona. The stadium seats 70,000 we were told but it is probably more. The system seems to be that you arrive, sit in the seat assigned to you on your ticket until someone comes along and claims it is their seat so you move and sit wherever you can watching whilst the new occupants of your previous seat see off (or not) challenges from further latecomers and you do the same. Whoever is sitting in the seats when the whistle blows for kick off gets to keep them! A sort of musical chairs. We were fortunate to have seats overlooking the centre circle and some protection from our guide who kept a watchful eye on us.

As you can imagine, the atmosphere was fantastic and emotional-lots of banners about Maradona ("I have come to see God, my mother bequeathed me the faith", "Maradona is an Argentinian Tango" for instance ), a band that played continuously and non-stop singing, sometimes accompanied by jumping up and down, about "the hand of Maradona". Fortunately Argentina won 4-0, admittedly against a rather dreadful Venezualan side (although you can only beat the oppostion that turns up, as I always say when City win and some smart alec points out how dreadful the other team were.) So almost everyone went home happily, since the Venezuela fans were thin on the ground. The star of the match was the Real Madrid player Lionel Messi whom it was a privilege to watch.

One reflection we had was that the stadium is incredibly run down, a bit like the city, which is full of life but, as the state of the pavements indicates, has no money. It also does not pander to the corporate lifestyle. If you want food (nuts mainly) or drink (non-alcoholic) you buy it at your seat from the guys who perform incredible acrobatics clambering up the stands. There are no bars, dining rooms nor match day programmes and all the merchandising seems to be unofficial although there are plenty of shops in the city selling the Argentinian kit and yesterday almost everyone seemed to be wearing it!

In the morning we had also gone to Museo de Bellas Artes which has a small but interesting collection of European art and, upstairs, some Argentian and Latin American art, but more of that some other time....off to wander some more.....must find some time to do our homework.....

Borges and other delights

2009-03-26T22:41:00.002+01:00

Because we missed a day of classes on Tuesday, we are in school for five hours a day this week instead of four. The last hour each day has been devoted to reading the literature of Borges who must be one of the most difficult of Latin American writers-you can´t escape into his stories but have to read them for their profound philosophical and cultural references. Very interesting but more to my taste than Mike´s and difficult for all after four intense hours of Spanish! However, this is what we are here for. Besides, we are hoping to take in a football match on Saturday between Argentina and Venezuela-Maradona´s first competitive game as trainer so there is something for everyone and for all moods!

We continue to enjoy BA and are amazed at the number of cultural spaces here and at their enthusiastic promotion. You probably don´t know how difficult it is to buy a ticket for the theatre in Chiclana-the box office only opens two or three eveings a week and before a performance and there is no online booking-or even to find out what is going on-we were still waiting for the printed spring programme to appear. when we left. By contrast, last night we were passing a cultural centre in downtown BA and just happened to stop to look at what they were offering, whereupon a young security guard rushed out and handed us a programme each, assuring us that entrance was free! So far we have only booked for the Tango group, but hope to do more once our heads have stopped reeling from our Spanish classes. More soon.

Team Tierney on Tour, Part 2:Buenos Aires

2009-03-24T20:24:00.003+01:00

It seems hard to believe that on Saturday we were shinning down vertical rock faces in the Atacama desert (did I really do that?) and today we are in Buenos Aires, wondering which of the many cinemas, bars, restuarants etc to choose tonight. What a fantastic city-it reminds us of Manhattan although we have seen very little yet since school started yesterday and took up most of the day. Today, however, is a national holiday in Argentina, commemorating the dead soldiers of the military dictatorships in the late 70s and 80s (very interesting how the whole Malvinas or Falklands is seen here now as being a political move by the dictators to hold on to power, pretty much as Thatcher used it to shore up her premiership) so we took the opportunity to go on an organised city tour in order to get our bearings. We have also booked to go to watch a tango group which has been recommended to us as being not a tourist spectacular-it´s in the Centro Cultural Borges, after all-and have started to make inquiries about a boat trip to Uruguay. Evidently we are finding it hard to stay in one place for very long. Tomorrow we have to present a summary of a newspaper article in class and give our thoughts on it. Apparently Spain has decided to withdraw troops from Kosovo, upsetting everyone in sight, so I may tackle that. So must go and do my homework. More to follow!

Reasons to Return

2009-03-22T00:35:00.002+01:00

Today was our last day in Atacama. We spent it walking through the Kami canyon this morning-not a difficult walk but it did involve climbing down two vertical rock faces!- and by visiting the village where the Explora Hotel is based, San pedro de Atacama. We were pleased that we had ventured out as it would be quite possible to spend all one´s time in the hotel and the village is charming. We were pleased to find a small but well presented archaeological museum and to trace the story of continuous habitation here since 12,00 years before the present. One of the aspects of this history which is particularly interesting is that the indigenous people of this apparently remote and inaccesible region had widespread cultural, social and commercial contact with people in Bolivia, Argentina and Peru for many cneturies before the Spaniards arrived and were briefly part of the Inka Empire. So much for the simple peasants.

We love Chile and have begun to make a list of reasons to return. So far it includes:

The people
The food, especially the fish, vegetables and fruit
The Bella Vista District in Santiago
The fact that we never got to visit the Museo de Bellas Artes in Santiago because it was closed on the day we had available
Cafe Haiti in Santiago, described to us as "coffee with legs". It turns out that all the staff are young women with incredibly short mini skirts and incredibly long legs-it led to a very interesting conversation with our guide about the position of women in Chilean society.
The diversity of the landscape...........

That´s it for now. More soon.

Lunch on the Altiplano

2009-03-21T14:04:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we had lunch at 4500 feet on the Chilean Altiplano while watching vacunas and drinking fresh raspberry juice. This is only one of the surreal elements of the day, the other being the landscape made of volcanic ash which reminded us of nothing so much as some of the more elaborate examples of Gaudi architecture, swooping curves and recesses. Photos as always to follow. This morning we are walking to a canyon since we need the excercise as we spent a long time yesterday in what they call the van, although this hardly does justice to the comfort within which we travel. This afternoon we are going to explore the village of San Pedro and then tonight we have an astronomy lecture in the private observatory here. Tomorrow we end our stay in Chile and leave for Buenos Aires. Although we are looking forward to this we both feel that Chile will be hard to beat. The people are lovely and the scenery. in all its diversity is incredible. Yesterday I finished Isabel Allende´s House of the Spirits and I must admit that the chapter describing the coup and the years of terror moved me to tears. It is a credit to the country that it seems to have emerged on the other side of all this.

We came to the driest place on earth......

2009-03-20T14:07:00.000+01:00

...and it rained!

In her book Ines of My Soul, Isabel Allende describes the journey of the Spanish explorers from Peru through what is now the Atacama desert to the valley in which they founded Santiago. Although a river runs through it, along which I walked yesterday, parts of it are so dry that there is no vegetation and no fauna. She writes about how the explorers realised that they were coming to the end of this part of the journey when they began to hear bird song again. It is no surprise, therfore, that it hasn´t rained here for 31 years.....

Until yesterday. We set out to walk through the valley of the moon, so called because the landscape resembles the lunar craters. It is truely incredible and we have wonderful photos showing the contrast of colours. However, as we walked a black cloud which had been hanging ominously in the distance when we left began to grow and to gradually encircle us. We started to see lightening and hear thunder and the guide, connected to Explora through remote control radio, was ordered to bring us back. We headed off and tried one last time to see the other side of the valley which we hadn´t been able to reach but when we got out of the van there was so much electricity in the air that the van was giving off electric shocks. We beat a hasty retreat!

Must go now. Another adventure awaits.

Atacama idyll

2009-03-19T18:05:00.006+01:00

Yesterday I spent my birthday running down sandhills, proving once and for all that 60 is the new 40 or possibly that we are completely mad. It was incredible and just about beat ,but only just,the birthday cake and champagne that Mike had arranged in the restaurant last night. How lucky can anyone be.

Today Mike went off on a bike ride, apparently beating all records so that I found him sitting in the hotel drinking coffee when I returned from my walk through the caravan valley to the Puritama springs. Trecking maybe, and the terrain was rocky, but not trecking as its been known before since we arrived at the springs to find a picnic laid out, wine, beer, fresh juice, smoked salmon, fruit, and towels and fluffy dressing gowns for anyone who wanted to bathe.

Amazing.

Hola Marga..

2009-03-18T15:25:00.002+01:00

Espero que estes leyendo este blog porque ayer fuimos a la casa de Pablo Neruda en Valparaiso, cerca de Santiago y pensamos en ti. Es una casa pequena pero con cuatro o cinco niveles, vistas maravillosas del puerto y es llena del espiritu del poeta. Ahora estamos en el desierto/que diferencia! Mike escribe un poco en espanol cada dia, un alumno perfecto! Yo no tanto, pero besos de nosotros.

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We have loved our stay in Santiago, even though it was too short, especially as we wanted to include a trip to Valparaiso and Pablo Neruda's house there. We will write more about all this later. Just to say for now that we were up at 3.30 this morning to catch our flight to Calama in the north of Chile and are now settled in the Explora in San Pedro and trying to get our bearings. We have a meeting with the guides at 1.00 to plan the visits we want to make, so more later........

Seen in Santiago, Chile, made in Birmingham, England...

2009-03-16T22:55:00.002+01:00

Yesterday we made the long trek-a 10 hour journey-from Torres del Paine National Park via Punta Arenas airport to Santiago. The weather had broken so it was pouring with rain and travelling south in order to travel north made the journey seem even more bizarre, especially when we left the national park and crossed the pampas . It really did feel as though we were beginning to fall off the edge of the world, especially when we saw the sign pointing left for Tierra del Fuego and saw its landmass in the distance.

In fact Chile is a strange mixture-both influenced by Europe in the past and yet not at all European now. We have had various experiences that have brought this home to us. For instance, when we did our hike to the Base of the Towers in order to get to the starting point we had to cross over an iron bridge made in Worcestershire sometime, I would guess, in the later part of the 19th century yet none of the young guides at Explora had been to Europe or had any intention of going. Similarly, Judith, our guide today, was very adamant that Chile has no special connection with Europe and especially not with Spain, which is seen as the oppressor, even though many Chlenos must have Spanish ancestry. On the other hand, today in the Central Market in Santiago, where we had lunch in one of the fish restaurants, we discovered that the spectacular iron roof had been made in Birmingham at around the same time. It reminds us of how small the world has always been.

Tomorrow we are going to Valparaiso to see the sea (of which Chile has a great deal, although so far we have only seen it from the air)...more to follow....

Hasta la proxima

2009-03-14T23:20:00.002+01:00

We planned this trip on the basis that we are not likely to return to South America but we are already planning what else we want to see.

For now, however, it is time to leave Patagonia and head back to Santiago for a few days and then on to Atacama and the desert. It is hard to leave. Yesterday we went to the base of the Towers, the longest hike we have made and one that the guide book describes as "challenging". It was-but we felt thrilled to have met the challenge. Nothing has tasted as good as the hot soup, cheese sandwiches and cakes and green tea that we had on the top-spread out, as is the Explora style, on a green and white tablecloth. Today has been a beautiful day. We left at 8.30 to walk up to the waterfalls on the Rio Pingo in the west of the park which is well known for being wetter and we used our wet weather gear for the first time. However, by the time we reached the falls the sun was out and we had a magical time in a grotto of mosses listening to the water cascading over the rocks. So that is Patagonia for now. We have hundreds of photographs saved on disc so we will see what we can do in Santiago.

So far...so good

2009-03-12T21:10:00.002+01:00

Either through our own technical incompetence (highly likely) or through the speed of the internet connection here, we have failed as yet to upload a single photo to blogger. So here are a few notes to remind ourselves of some of the highlights to date. Photos to follow, we hope, when we have a better internet connection and more time to do it.

After and early (4am) start from our hotel in Santiago, a 3 hour flight to Punta Arenas and a 5 hour drive back north, the view of the Torres del Paine from our hotel room when we arrived at the Explora Salto Chico exceeded all our expectations.
Getting onto a catamaran from the hotel jetty at 7am, walking 12 kms along the Lake dotted with icebergs to Refugio Grey and then taking another boat up close to the glacier while drinking pisco sours made with ice from the glacier. The captain, who has apparently done the job for 25 years was not drinking fortunately so we were spared a titanic moment!
The blueness of the glacier. Who knew?
Walking to the Lago Amargo by way of an overhang with paintings by the Aonikenk Indians, the indigenous people of the region who were wiped out through disease, by being hunted (yes), shipped off to Europe to appear in exhibitions as living savages in the 19th century and by alcohol. No wonder they were driven to drink.
On the same walk seeing herds of guanaco and nandues, learning about their habits and watching condors and flamingoes in flight, the latter from above-so graceful and so pink! (no pumas as yet, although we saw an Andean deer as we came back from Toro heights today-apparently one of only 50 left in the park.)
Rising to the challenge of walking up and down very steep hills, learning how to use sticks and some of the techniques that have enabled us to walk 50k in the last 4 days.
The enthusiasm, knowledge and professionalism of the guides.
The hotel, its staff, the food, the views, the open air hot tubs down by the lake-and despite its lousy internet connection.

News from the end of the world

2009-03-08T22:20:00.002+01:00

No photos yet, I am afraid. The hotel is fantastic, set on a lake of which we have a panoramic view from our bedroom window but the internet access is so slow so we will try to download tomorrow. Today we went to the Grey Glacier-two boatrides and a 12 km treck, but we sailed directly up to the glacier wall and the photos we have are amazing........Tomorrow we hope to do a longer walk to the Valee de los franceses. Hopefully we will find a way to get the photos uploaded soon. Watch this space (I hope).

Going Down

2009-02-25T22:10:00.003+01:00

If we are hoping that life in Lima has improved since Theroux wrote in the late 70's, the same is true with regards to certain aspects of life in Buenos Aires since Miranda France wrote her book, Bad Times in Buenos Aires. It is a fascinating account of post-war Argentinian politics written by France during a year in which she spent in the country's capital and one which brings vividly to life the complexity and confusion which led first to Peron and onwards to the military dictatorship and the disappearances. All of this is in the past, of course. However, the aspect of life to which I am referring and which I hope has changed for the better is one of France's startling statistics. Not only are there 3 times as many analysts per person as in New York and 300 brands of condoms on sale (although only 8 are said to be effective), according to France there were (are?) two deaths a day in lift accidents in the Argentinian capital. Taking the stairs seems very attractive.

2009-02-22T10:27:00.002+01:00

One of the things we have plans to do while we are in Argentina is to visit the Iguasu Falls (accent on the final "u" for the sake of pronunciation), flying there from Buenos Aires since it is at the opposite end of this enormous country. I mention this because the Falls, apparently , are bigger and more spectacular than Niagara but-it seems to me-hardly known at all other than by those who have visited them or plan to do so. Another example, along with the archaeological digs, of South America's status as a forgotten continent? Anyway, we will visit, first from the Argentinian side and then we shall walk across into Brazil and look at them from there. Naomi, who has visited them, tells me you can ride underneath them in a boat. I think I will give that a miss. But we will try and put some photos here.

That was then...

2009-02-15T13:01:00.004+01:00

Mind you, you do get an idea of what Theroux means by the fading of Peru's glory (see earlier blog) from Hugh Thomson's Cochineal Red: Travels Through Ancient Peru. Everyone knows about the Incas, Cuzco and Machu Piccchu. We will be doing the predictable tourist route, staying in Cusco, the former Inca capital, and visiting the ruins of Sacsayhuaman, Tambo Machay, Puka Pukara and the temple of Q'enko before taking the train up to Machu Piccchu before heading off to Lake Titiaca. Thomson's aim, however, is to show that the Inca civilsation is only one of many ancient civilisations in Peru, the oldest being that of the Caral who lived on the north coast between 3000 and 1800 BC-so not a "New World" at all!

His account is full of fascinating detail written from the perspective of the archaeologist-but is also a lively account of the difficulties involved in undertaking excavation here (which explains the relatively late development of archaeology in this area when compared with Europe, the East and Africa) and the rivalries between different groups of archaeologists. I guess the scarcity of evidence and the importance of interpretation in making sense of what does remain makes archaeology a field that is especially open to academic rivalry-or, in the past, to mind numbing recitation of such proven facts as there are. Anyway, someone could write a good novel with this as the background.

Some things never change

2009-02-11T19:40:00.002+01:00

As those of you who know it must agree, Chiclana must be the world capital of truly appalling local government. Projects are started but never (O.K. hardly ever) finished or, if they are finished it is usually well after the projected completion date. For instance the food market which was due to open over a year ago has now been delayed for another few weeks, leaving those brave souls who have opened shops in the adjoining precinct , presumably with the expectation of passing trade, to continue to twiddle their thumbs. A new health centre which was built last year is now window deep in weeds because no one thought to provide adequate parking for it and, so we have heard, the concrete which was used to construct it was "the wrong kind of concrete" and is now crumbling away. Meanwhile, we discover, a town museum has been ready for two years. It even contains exhibits. But it remains closed and has no staff.

This week's local paper has provided some particularly vivid examples of this "Chiclana syndrome". An article earlier in the week highlighted a number of buildings in the town centre which have been in the process of reformation for more than two years and whose scaffolding and netting (to stop them falling on passing Chiclan(y)eros) have now become "a part of the local scenery". Today, the same paper reported that the webcams set up at various traffic hotspots to help drivers plan their journeys and avoid delays have been showing the same pictures on the town council website for several months!

2009-02-10T19:28:00.003+01:00

Such is our exciting life, that we sometimes watch whatever is on the Turner Classic Movies channel, and so it was that we recently came across Rosalind Russell and Alec Guiness in a film version of the stage play A Majority of One. Russell, who won a Golden Globe for her performance, plays a Jewish American widow who, thanks to the posting of her diplomat son in law to Japan, meets and is courted by a Japanese millionaire...played by Alec Guiness! The film, which was made in the early 1960s also won an award for its promotion of international relations. Russell's character, Mrs Jacoby, a Russian emigre to the USA, had lost a son in the war aginst Japan, and the film shows how her prejudices are challenged by contact with "real Japanese people", but since this is mostly in the form of a character played rather well by Guiness there is something exquisitely uncomfortable about watching it from a 21st century perspective. Meanwhile, quite without irony it would seem, one of the acts which has made its way through to the final rounds of the Cadiz Carnaval is a version of the Black and White Minstrel Show. I am not sure what I am saying here, except that Franco means that Spain missed out on a whole segment of 20th century development.

As I was saying

2009-02-09T19:29:00.002+01:00

An article in The Economist February 7th-13th supports our feelings about the demise of air travel as the method of choice. Apparently in Spain, which has invested heavily in new high speed train routes, including the link between Sevilla and Madrid on which we will travel in a couple of weeks as we begin our journey to South America, domestic airlines have lost a fifth of their passengers and long-distance trains have gained almost a third. Iberia, the Spanish equivalent of BA, with which it has increasingly close ties, is planning to cut domestic flights by 7% this year and a report from the ESADE business school in Barcelona predicts that within two years trains will carry more long-distance travellers within Spain than airlines. So, not just anecdotal evidence then!

So many books, so little time.......

2009-02-09T13:39:00.005+01:00

We are preparing for our adventure in South America with some reading. Although we have our route carefully planned and will be taken care of most of the time by the helpful people at Journey Latin America, apart from our month in Buenos Aires, we want to have at least some idea of what there is to see and where we might look for it. Besides, although the baggage allowance is much bigger than we are used to on short haul flights within Europe, we will have to be selective about the books we take in order to leave space and weight for our boots and much else that we will need (or think we will need!) on this sort of trip. It is a challenge to pack for a journey that will include mountains, deserts, big cities, the Orient Express (to Machu Picchu), lots of movement between places etc.

Part of the key to all this is to bear in mind that it is the journey which is the holiday as much as the arrival. Paul Theroux takes this as the starting point not for his packing (although I suppose that he may have done this as well) but for his book The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas. In it he describes a train voyage- the word trip hardly does it justice and even to describe it as epic would be to collapse all its quirkiness into into a bland cliche-from his home in Boston Mass. to the tip of Argentinian Patagonia. We are not actually going to Argentinian Patagonia (although we have been urged to do so by two of the young Argentianian women who work in Meson de Los Americas down by the beach here) but to its Chilean counterpart, but we follow some of the same route as Theroux, probably in slightly more comfort (we are not looking for good copy) and hopefully with some better results at some stopping points. He arrives in Peru, for instance, to find there is a strike of railway workers. and that, "Peru, once a golden kingdom occupying a third of the continenet, had taken a mighty tumble and in defeat looked incapable of supplying those muttering workers with any hope. Few great cities in the world look more plundered and bankrupt that Lima. It is the look of Rangoon, the same heat and colonial relics and corpse-odours: the imperial parades have long ago marched away from its avenues and left the spectators to scavenge and beg.....Like a violated tomb in which only the sorry mummy of withered nationalism is left and just enough religion to console a patient multitude with the promise of happier pickings beyond the grave, Lima-epitomising Peru-was a glum example of obnoxious mismanagement."

This story of Peru's decline is also the gloomy and distant backdrop to Mario Vargas Llosa's Las Travesuras de La Nin(y)a Mala-translated as The Bad Girl. Although most of the action takes place in Europe, its two chief protagonists are Peruvian exiles and the book provides a commentary on the state of Peruvian politics-failed democracy, military dictatorship, the terrorist activities of los sonderos luminosos-and the nature of exile.

Anyway, Theroux's book was published in 1979 and, although Vargas Llosa's is newer (2006, I think) it is looking down the tunnel into Peru's past. We shall see what we find...and report back.

Way to go

2009-01-30T13:52:00.002+01:00

In the 1960s I remember finding air travel to be glamorous and exciting. Maybe I had led a sheltered life, but it was certainly better than recent experiences. It may be cheap (though beware the added costs-at Liverpool airport last week, we had to pay 50p for two tiny plastic bags into which we had to put gels and creams) but it is also nasty. For instance, I am all for maximum safety and security and willing to cooperate with as many checks as it takes. But I would like the occasional "please" and "thank you" as I am instructed to remove jackets, cardigans, belts, boots, watches etc. rather than being dealt with as an already convicted criminal. (Do they recruit their security staff from amongst prison warders?)In addition, news from Clickair, the budget "wing" (sorry) of Iberia, which till now has been our favourite low price airline and which takes us fairly conveniently from Sevilla to Gatwick, has me foaming at the mouth. Apparently, they will now allow travellers to take animals-dogs, cats, even chickens, according to the press release-in the cabin, provided they travel in a container. So now we can add a greater variety of germs to those already circulating, not to mention the noise of terrified animals.

We have to travel by air to South America and will be taking a number of internal flights there as well. Anything else is unrealistic. But the nastiness of air travel in europe is why we will be taking the train all the way back from our nearest station to Heathrow for our flight to Santiago.

Suspicion confirmed

2009-01-10T16:12:00.002+01:00

I was talking to our gardener Sebastian today about what we plan to do with part of the garden that refuses to do what we want it to do. This led somehow to Sebastian telling me that he was going hunting tomorrow, for partridge. Would I like some? I explained that we don't eat meat. "Are you an Arab?" he asked, indignantly.

I have long believed that the Spanish relationship with the meat of the pig-delicious though I am told it is-is inspired not only by taste but also by ideology. Eat the pig. Prove you are neither a muslim nor a jew. I take this incident as confirmation.

We have lift off!

2009-01-09T16:38:00.003+01:00

The work on our new one way system is progressing. Yesterday men arrived with string and spray paint and marked out a path and now the road is being dug up. We are hopeful, especially as it would be economic suicide (loss of blue flag status for the beach being one possibility) if there were access problems once the holiday season begins around easter. However, elsewhere in Chiclana council things remain the same. The governing (again)PSOE has pronounced its Christmas decorations and activities "a success" but the P.P., now back in opposition after a year as the head of a coalition, has described them as "cutre" or "shabby". Not much sign there then of the pulling together for the sake of the economy which the King urged in his New Year address.

Also on the receiving end of criticism is Carme Chacon, the Defence Minister in the Zapatero Government. Her appointment last year didn't go down well with the more reactionary elements in Spanish political life-after all, she's a woman and was heavily pregnant when appointed. None of them seemed to realise that she wasn't actually going to lead the armed forces into battle, simply take political responsibility for them. Now she has upset them again by turning up at the annual Pascua Militar-a military end of year event-dressed not in a long dress, "as protocol demands", but wearing a trouser suit, "de tipo smoquin"-a tuxedo. This has led to "una polemica bastante friqui", according to our local paper-best translated, I would think, as freaking them (i.e. the non-progressives) out. Another case of plus ca change.....

2009 begins here!

2009-01-07T17:36:00.002+01:00

Yesterday was the final day of celebrations in Spain and tomorrow the schools open again. Children get their presents on the 6th from the three Kings who turn up in thousands of cabalgatas-cavalcades-across Spain, usually in the form of disguised local businessmen or chairmen of football clubs-and the disguise does include Balthasar "blacking up". On the morning and afternoon of the 6th, weather permitting, Spanish families form their own cavalcades-in Chiclana-this mainly takes place along the paseo maritimo in La Barossa- as children "premiere" (estrenar according to the local paper) their new presents-skates, dolls prams and bikes remain popular, we can report. Whilst this activity is in keeping with the year-round Spanish love of family outings during which one sees and is seen, the 6th of January stroll has a definite edge of public display. Still, I suppose it does no one any harm and may be especially important this year since, as Jose of the supermarket pointed out, all the flash cars that used to drive around here have now gone back to the showrooms as "le crisis" bites.

It may be a new year but some things do not change. The headline in this morning's local paper announced that "El inicio de las grandes obras de Chiclana tienen que esperar aun un an(y)o"-The start of the major building work in Chiclana will have to wait another year". This refers to the plans to build a new shopping centre, including a branch of El Corte Ingles, the Spanish department store modelled on John Lewis, out near one of our two (?why?) bullrings and is typical of Chiclana's propensity to announce its intentions (we have been waiting for the new centre for two years now), perhaps even start the project and then fail to finish it. To be fair though, the work on a new one way system down to the beach from the roundabout at the top of our road together with an amphitheatre and a new police station began today just nine months after it was first due to start. Watch this space.

Nanny sometimes knows best!

2009-01-03T15:52:00.002+01:00

One of the reasons for leaving the UK that we often find given by our compatriots is to get away from "the nanny state", sometimes rephrased as "political correctness gone mad". I thought of this when I read yesterday that in 2008 in Spain, 261 construction workers died in accidents at work, of whom 50 were in Andalucia. Although I admit that we are the kind of people who check our smoke alarm every time the Julie Walters advert urging us to do this appears, it is only slightly comforting to me (and, I should have thought not at all comforting to the 261 families affected) that this is a 6% drop on the 2007 figures.

Old Habits

2009-01-01T18:02:00.002+01:00

I listen to Spanish radio sometimes when I am exercising (much better than the TV, though this is saying almost nothing) and have been struck by how often, when discussing a piece of news, the presenter will refer to and add a commentary about the attitude to the issue of "we Spanish" in a positive, entirely unironic way. Not only is it as if such an entity obviously existed, but also as though it held a distinct and unified, or at least dominant, point of view. Despite the federalism which requires such fancy footwork from Spanish politicians, especially now that Zapatero's socialists require the support of nationalist groups, in the absence of a substantial body of United Left MPs in Parliament, to pass any legislation, the Spanish national psychology, it seems, has yet to experience its post-modern moment.

Meanwhile, we remain fiercly resistant to any attempt to define us as British expats-although as the picture of me drinking tea from a flask on a walk across the salinas on a bright Boxing Day morning (neither the flask nor Boxing Day are Spanish concepts) identity might reside more in the doing than the thinking! Old habits die hard indeed. My new year resolution is to make more of a habit of writing this blog.

test

2008-11-28T12:47:00.001+01:00

Could it happen here?

2008-11-05T17:08:00.002+01:00

Just had a quick look at a couple of Spanish papers to see their take on the American elections, although of course they went to press before Obama's victory was definite. One interesting piece in El Pais quoted Carl Meacham who is described as principal advisor to the United States Senate on External Affairs and himself a child of an Afro-american and a Chilean. He asked could this have happened in Europe, in Spain, for example? Could Spain have elected a President who is half Spanish and half Ecuadorian, Dominican or Marrocan? I think the question was meant to be rhetorical and could equally well be posed-and in the same tone-to other European countries.

Culture shift?

2008-11-05T11:35:00.002+01:00

We went to bed around midnight but got up again at about 3.00 to watch the results come in from some of the key states in the American election. We switched backward and forward between channels, trying to avoid the adverts and becoming more and more irritated with the BBC coverage, which would normally be what we would choose to settle with. Instead we cringed as the pompous David Dimbelby languidly directed operations from his increasingly ample arse and one of those public school boy presenters that the BBC seem to specialise in leapt about the screen manipulating some not very helpful graphics. Then the BBC cut to their presenter in New York. She was hanging out at what was described as "the BBC party" in a bar in Times Square. The walls were painted black and it looked as though they had forgotten to send out the invitations. At any event there was hardly anyone there apart from Erica Jong and Eddie Izzard, who I like as a performer and who I think is very intelligent, but whose credentials to comment on the matters in hand I would question. The fact that the BBC had Simon Schama as one of the panelists back in the studio (his 4 part series on America has been absolutely compelling) and that they didn't use him more and allowed him to be drowned out by an American Ambassador (name???) whose main aim seemed to be to fling accusations of anti-Americanism around, made it all the more frustrating.

In all this, however, Jong did say something interesting in that she pointed out that, having campaigned for Hillary Clinton, she had been brought to support Obama by her 30 year old daughter and that this was a generational shift. I must say that I remain deeply disappointed that Hillary Clinton did not get a chance at this, but Jong's comments make sense and seem to be supported by this morning's post-election analysis. According to this, even in Republican states, the under 30's voted by 66% for Obama, who of course himself is too young to have been influenced much by the Vietnam War or even its immediate aftermath. This strikes me as almost as significant as the race issue, important as that is and not only for African-Americans. Even listening to Obama's acceptance speech this morning, I was struck not only by the content but also by the style of delivery.

All in all, I think something happened yesterday. And the BBC just didn't get it.

Democracy in Spain

2008-10-31T15:12:00.003+01:00

The Queen of Spain is 70 and, to mark the occasion, a new book has appeared in which she is interviewed by a journalist. Apparently, or allegedly, she gave her views on abortion (against), euthanasia(against) and same sex marriage (why call it marriage?). This was being hotly debated on the radio yesterday in one of those entertaining Spanish programmes where the public are invited to call in with their opinions and the studio panel of noisy and opinionated people jostle to shout over them and each other. So far so nothing. But what struck me was that almost without exception the callers, whether against or in support of Her Maj, felt the need to couch their contribution in terms of its supposed or potential impact on democracy-a reminder of how new this still feels for many Spaniards and how much it is taken for granted in the UK where democracy is almost never a sunbject of public debate, except when introduced by some sections of the erstwhile left who seem to think China has invented a better system. Anyway, this morning the Royal household issued a statement claiming tht the Queen's remarks had been misrepresented. So all is well.

The weather has broken. The temperature dropped by about 10 degrees overnight earlier this week, so it feels cold, although it is still about 14 degrees and those hapless souls who have turned up for October holidays wander around in shorts and t shirts while we are wearing boots, jeans, jumpers and even scarves! We have logs cut and undercover so we thought we were prepared but this morning during an inundation the electricity cut out. It seems that one of the outside lights is waterlogged so we have had to have that part of the system disconnected, but at least we can make a cup of tea. So all is well there too!

Here we are again

2008-10-26T16:29:00.002+01:00

We have been talking about returning to blogging, if only because it is a way in which we can keep a record of our own activities and next year we hope to be setting off in March for a two month trip to South America. The central focus will be a month in Buenos Aires-our city fix for next year-but we also intend to visit Patagonia (the Chilean version), Chile, including Santiago and the Atacama desert, Peru (Machu Pichu, of course), Bolivia, and whilst we are in Argentina, part of Uruguay and Brazil-although the people who run the Argentinian cafe at the top of our road tell us that there is nothing to see in either country and we are better off sticking to Argentina. We have more or less booked most of it and now we start the pleasurable process of pre-holiday reading......

Meanwhile we wait to see what happens in North America on November 4th. We read a very interesting piece in El Pais this morning by Timothy Garton Ash (translated from the English I imagine so it is probably in the Guardian) about Obama mostly and the elections in general. He begins by referring to something that has been on our mind recently. According to TGA the American Press are silent on the horrible possibility of an Obama assassination, but almost every conversation he has, gets round to the topic. It is this possibility, he says, which makes the stirring up of smears (Obama is a terrorist, a foreigner, anti-American etc) by the McCain-Palin campaign (especially Palin) so reprehensible. However, on a more positive note, he goes on to say that he admires Obama enormously and feels he is growing into the job of President. It may well be true and I hope so. I still regret that Hillary didn't make it and still agree with David Aaronovitch what mysogyny is more insidious than racism, but the world could do with something that feels good right now.

One of the scandals of the week (is there ever anything else in the news?) is that various UK police forces have messed up/falsified (it doesn't seem clear how deliberate/stupid this was) violent crime figures. This has given parts of the left an opportunity to have a go at the very notion that "statistics" might help us understand the world and call for a return to trusting the gut instinct of "ordinary working class folk" (whoever they might be). Said parts of the left conveninetly forgot that the same gut instinct is for hanging, flogging and castrating-probably all at the same time. I hate the anti-intellectualism that passes for political thought in Britain.

Sounds good

2008-07-28T00:11:00.001+02:00

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

Long time no post

2008-07-26T14:01:00.003+02:00

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!

2008-03-13T16:26:00.002+01:00

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

2008-03-11T09:43:00.002+01:00

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!

2008-03-05T20:03:00.000+01:00

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...

2008-03-03T19:18:00.001+01:00

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?

2008-02-27T13:52:00.000+01:00

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!

Just when you think...

2008-02-01T21:35:00.000+01:00

Here we are in Brighton, basking in the pleasure of grand-parenthood. There is nothing quite like it. My day was made today when Jessica Rose flashed me a toothless grin. I was only slightly hurt when a minute later she did the same to the salad.......

Introducing....

2008-01-22T19:05:00.000+01:00

....William Reuben Mckay, henceforth to be known as Billy. Who knows? He may turn out to be one half of a well known country and western duo with his cousin, Jessica Rose Trickey. Then again, he may not, but whatever he's a little sweetie. Welcome!

And a (belated) happy new year!

2008-01-09T19:05:00.000+01:00

Jessica Rose in her party frock seems like a good way to start the new year, although none of us actually went to a party, preferring the homely and intimate to the the public, the loud and, in the Spanish case, inevitably smokey. So a good time was had by all!

Now it's back to the routine, two Pilates sessions a week and two Spanish classes with more Spanish on the television news (also an excellent way of understanding what is important in a country through what is prioritised) and through the newspaper. This year I am determined to move beyond "consolida" to the level optimistically called "perfecciona". We shall see.

We shall also see who is to form the next government in Spain-again an insight into what is considered important. The two major political parties seem to be setting their stalls out around the economy (which is said to be in a baddish way, with rising unemployment and inflation and a stagnant property market) and issues of social cohesion. The Catholic bishops (are there any other kind in Spain?) have weighed in with a defense of the traditional catholic family, code for anti gay rights, anti choice and anti women, thus saving the conservative Partido Popular the trouble. The PSOE (socialists) have responded with a defense of all families, which seems reasonable to me. But the third big issue-terrorism-is really significant, because by this of course the Spanish don't mean al-Quaeda but their home grown variety, ETA. Now, I wouldn't want to minimise what an arrogant pain in the neck these people are nor deny that from time to time they do blow people up-mainly in the Basque country itself, which can't do much for its economy. But in a total world perspective they do not match up to al-Quaeda who, quite frankly, hardly get a mention in the Spanish media and hardly seem to be of concern to Spanish politicians. Javier Marías, who is a novelist and commentator who writes a weekly column in El País wrote about this recently and I have read elsewhere about the inward lookingness if Spain of which this seems the clearest example. Is it a result of isolation under Franco? Because, if so, they really need to start getting over it.

Whilst we wait for politics to heat up here, there are of course the American primaries. Iowa was a few days ago and last night was New Hampshire. I couldn't sleep last night so stayed up as the results came in and was delighted to see the tone of the commentary change as Hillary confounded the media and beat Obama. The night started off with questions about whether she would end her campaign if she lost, through discussions about how various levels of loss would be spun by her campaign team through puzzled silence (fortunately for them the commentators were able to get excited about the Republican vote being called for McCain at this stage) and then a slow recognition that Hillary had won. Actually I have nothing against Obama, although I think some of his ideas are rather naive, but I think Hillary stands a better chance against the Republicans and, besides which, my residual feminism is stirred by the though of a woman president. Hopefully the scare caused by her loss in Iowa will encourage her to talk more about public service on which she is very good and to appear less controlled by the party machine.

Anyway, that's all for now. Must go and cook.

Feliz Navidad!

2007-12-23T11:54:00.000+01:00

We have been rather preoccupied recently and this is why. Jessica Rose Trickey was born on the 12th November and, as this photo shows, is very beautiful. We had to visit and, had it not been for the rugby tackle from her mum, Naomi, as we went through the door to catch our plane back to Spain, she might well have been in our hand baggage. However, we shall be back to see her at the end of January (and her parents of course!), by which time she will have been joined by a cousin, due on January 5th. What an amazing year it has been and how lucky we are. More blogging after christmas. In the meantime...feliz navidad.......

Free Gillian Gibbons now

2007-11-30T19:26:00.000+01:00

For various reasons I don't normally give political opinions on this blog, despite having, as you know, a great number of them. However, I feel incadescent with rage over the imprisonment of Gillian Gibbons and the threats on her life from the thousands (of men, do doubt) now apparently rampaging through the streets of Khartoum in the Sudan. Her "crime", in the unlikely event that you haven't heard the story, is that she allowed a group of young children in her class to choose the name for a teddy bear and that they chose the name Mohammed, thus, it is alleged, mocking the eponymous prophet. This was several weeks ago and it is unclear who complained but it is absolutely clear that the Sudanese government and Islamic clerics are using this silly incident (I refuse to call it cultural misunderstanding because I think they are inventing this culture as they go along and for their own ends) to deflect attention from their own actions in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan where the peace between the south and the arabised north is far from stable. According to the BBC the majority of Sudanese bloggers feel the decision to jail Gillian Gibbons was wrong but at times like this (as with various events in Northern Ireland in the past, or the closing down of the Hindu play in Birmingham a couple of years ago) I feel my tolerance of religion as anything more than the most private matter stretched almost to breaking point.

OK. Rant over. Back to nice things in the next post.

?Por qué no te callas? Or how Hugo Chavez got a come uppance

2007-11-11T10:51:00.000+01:00

We were watching the Spanish news last night when we saw the most amazing thing. There was an item about a summit of a conference in South America involving Spain and South American countries. It seemed like a plenary session since the Spanish King was there as well as the heads of state and Zapatero, the Spanish President. Anyway, all of a sudden Hugo Chavez of Venezuela began to rant (no other word for it) about the previous Spanish President, Aznar, calling him a fascist and lower than a snake. Zapatero responded in a sensible way by pointing out that although his party was not close to Aznar, Aznar was nevertheless democratically elected etc. Chavez started again, at which point the King leaned forward in his seat, glared at Chavez and said, using the familiar, "Why don't you shut up?" It didn't actually shut Chavez up and then Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan president, started having a go at Spain too (whereupon the king walked out) but you could almost hear the entire Spanish population cheering. Chavez is a dangerous demagogue and we should be worried when he takes photo opportunities with the President of Iran. Now, if only our own dear queen.........

Don(y)ana again

2007-11-02T18:56:00.000+01:00

Don(y)ana is one of the most important wetlands in Europe and a National Park which can mostly only be accessed by boat up the river from Sanlucar. We visited a couple of year's ago and did the English tour and this year returned with Marge, Jens, baby Rodrigo and a lot of other Spanish people and did the tour in Spanish. It is one way to record some progress in this ongoing battle between us and the Spanish language.

We travelled on the boat which you can see behind Mike. It looks distressingly small......

Who'd have thought it?

2007-11-02T18:44:00.000+01:00

You know those sticky things called dates that you buy in boxes at Christmas and throw out in April? Well, this is what they look like growing on a tree in my garden.

the child within......

2007-11-02T18:36:00.000+01:00

The success of the season (summer, that is) here in La Barrosa have been these new jelly shoes. They are a bit like clogs but made of plastic and incredibly light. They cost 5 euros a pair (or two pairs for 9 euros), come in crazy colours and all the kids have them. And now, so do I. They are great for schlepping to the hot tub and back. Don't you wish you had some too?

Speaking virtually

2007-09-24T13:20:00.000+02:00

I have just discovered Facebook. How on earth do people find time to go to work these days?

You couldn't make it up.....

2007-09-21T18:41:00.000+02:00

Except, of course he did. Here is an article by a city fan which appeared in the Times this week. It tells the strange tale of Stephen Ireland, city midfielder, and Republic of Ireland International who told his Irish boss that first one and then (when he was found out) the other of his grandmothers had died so that he could get back to his girlfriend who had miscarried. A few weeks ago, I read an interview in the Times of another young city star, the very intelligent (lots of A levels) Nedum Onouha. He said that the other young players ask him difficult questions, like what time the team coach leaves. I thought he was joking. Maybe not.

You tell lies, when the truth will do...

It could, of course, only happen at the ongoing soap opera that is Manchester City. Where else would you get a player faking the death of numerous elderly relatives in order to get out of playing a game? Script writers wouldn't even dare write something so implausible. This is Sven's first real taste of the bizarre, yet rarely dull, world of City. In a moment of gross understatement, Stephen Ireland conceded that it was "wrong" in a press release issued on the official club site. One can only imagine what his elderly grandparents made of reading their own obituaries in the national press. It brought to mind Mark Twain's famous quip that "reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated". Christmas day in the Ireland household should be interesting this year.Tales of Ireland's stupidity are legendary at City. Apparently Joey Barton used to mercilessly mock his former team mate for his lack of intelligence, which is a damning indictment. When even Joey Barton thinks you're stupid, then it's time to worry.Maybe his miraculous hair restoration over the summer has affected the grey matter which lies beneath. How on earth did he think he'd get away with a such an elaborate web of deceit?! Displaying child like naivety, he clearly believed if he continued the lie he'd eventually get away with it whilst unwittingly digging a far deeper hole for himself. He even asked to be left out of Sunday's game against Villa whilst he made funeral preparations. You can't fault his sheer audacity.Erikkson immediately branded the player "stupid" for his actions, but has stopped short of disciplining him. This is probably down to the fact that Ireland is actually a very cultured footballer, and an integral part of the City side. He's a classic example of someone with great footballing intelligence, but absolutely no common sense. A poor man's Gazza, if you like.Back on the pitch, City returned to winning ways with a hard earned 1-0 victory against Aston Villa. Dietmar Hamann and Michael "Magic" Johnson were excellent once again in midfield, the latter being rewarded with his second goal of the campaign after a neat one two with the mercurial Elano. Maybe the Colin Bell analogies weren't so absurd after all; the surging run from midfield and composed finish were indeed reminiscent of the King.Johnson is now joint top scorer with fellow midfielder Geovanni, but there's a slight concern that our lack of attacking options could cost us as the season progresses. City fans are at a loss to explain why Erikkson perseveres with Emile Mpenza ahead of the clearly more talented Rolando Bianchi, or indeed why Andreas Isaakson didn't even make the squad against Villa, but in Sven we trust. He's guided us to second in the league (who said breaking into the top four was nigh on impossible?), so who are we to question his judgement. The impact he's had at the club in such a short space of time is nothing short of miraculous.Next weekend sees us travel to Craven Cottage for an eminently winnable fixture against Fulham, and Ireland will surely be restored to the starting line up. One only hopes that if he scores he doesn't celebrate by pointing to the sky in tribute to his "lost" relative(s).

Ric Turnerwww.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk

I'm a little teapot......

2007-09-03T16:34:00.000+02:00

In addition to the orange jug, which I bought because I liked the colour (see previous post), we also bought six mugs and a teapot from Gressierra, the pottery workshop in Chiclana. I like the mugs, but I love my teapot and feel that it deserves a blog posting of its own.

As you know, I like to start the day with a cup of tea (earl grey) and drink several more cups (Yorkshire Tea) at various stages during the day. My teapot is almost constantly in use, therefore, and a very important part of my life. THIS teapot is everything you could possibly want in a teapot.

The pottery is quite thick, so it keeps the tea nice and warm. However, the handle is separate so it doesn't get warm and burn your fingers while you are pouring. In addition there is a nice big gap between the handle and the pot so that you can get a proper grip. The lid fits perfectly and is nice and chunky so when you put it on the pot it makes a very satisfying clunky sound. It pours beautifully and there is even a sieve inside the pot which keeps the spout clear. Finally, the spout is shaped so that there is a little curve in it and it does not drip. Of course it is very pretty as well. All in all, it is the best teapot in the world.

I thought you would like to know.

Now I am going to make myself a pot of tea.

It's that time of year again!

2007-08-31T19:06:00.000+02:00

High summer is almost over and the Bird of Paradise is flowering again. We have some high winds from the east, the notorious levante, predicted for next week so it may in fact get hotter after a summer which has been mostly very pleasant with light westerly breezes and lots of sunshine. We are sorry if you have been suffering in what we know has been a rotten English summer, but, you know you are always welcome to join us here as Zoe and Chris decided to do. Once they had discovered where the beach was we hardly saw them, but they scrubbed up well we think you'll agree for some evenings out in La Barrosa.

We also invited Marga, our Spanish teacher, her husband Jens and their children, Lino, Ana and Rodrigo to tea in the garden. We got very excited about this and took photos of everything except our guests! However, a good time was had by all and the food disappeared very quickly!

Finally, for now, as you know La Barrosa is not a mecca of shopping, but thanks to Rob and Lyn's friends Ana and Paco with whom we had dinner the other week, we discovered a really lovely ceramics shop and factory in Chiclana. Expect pottery in your christmas stockings this year! Here is one I bought earlier

P.S. If you haven't done so already, put November 12th in your diaries-a big day in the Trickey Tierney households!!!!!!

Ain't it the case!

2007-08-15T15:35:00.000+02:00

Soledad.doc

Take a look at this! The guy is saying, "As far as I'm concerned, solitude for me is a beach with 350,000 people, not one of whom is my boss." It sums up the month of August here, and no doubt other beach resorts in Spain. The rest of Spain is empty, everyone is here and they all want to sit together!

Us, we are staying in the garden!

I never thought......

2007-07-29T18:51:00.000+02:00

...that I would hear myself say this, but what is the world coming to?

I read today that the ambition of one of the contestants on Big Brother is to become "a professional Victoria Beckham look-alike."

And for this the suffragettes went on hunger strike?

Closed season silliness

2007-07-26T17:18:00.000+02:00

Today MCFC (under SGE) signed Martin Petrov, who, you will be pleased to know, is a Bulgarian midfielder who plays on the left wing (and I used to think it was just about kicking balls!). Anyway, it was rumoured, before he signed, that he was going to Spurs, so his arrival at MCFC has caused much gnashing of teeth amongst Spurs fans and equivalent amounts of jubilation on City websites. It is a pity that we have to engage in football matches. This closed season silliness, when we get to sign players and stick out our tongues at the fans of other teams, is much more diverting!