I woke this morning to find the country in estado de alarma.
On the radio they were talking about the military being mobilised, Spanish air space was closed and we were awaiting news from La Moncloa. It all sounded pretty desperate.
Continue reading “state of alarm”
Today is doce de octubre: la fiesta nacional de España, celebrated in Spain as el día de la hispanidad – ‘Hispanity’ day – although it used to be called el día de la raza – the day of the race.
Although I’m not in Madrid to see the parade, I did catch part of the desfile militar on the TV this morning. There were certainly plenty of horses in attendance, but none of them seemed to be making much effort to win the race.
And, sadly, there were no glorious Ascot-style hats. Indeed, as can be seen from this photo from El País, none of the royal ladies wore hats of any sort. A poor sort of race day, if you ask me.
Back in Spain after what seems to have been a long absence, I find the village half in fiestas. 
There appear to be other ‘cultural activities’, too, such as those advertised on the poster in the photo: Miss Camiseta Mojada – ‘Miss Wet Tee-shirt’ – is about the level of finesse I would expect for village fiestas, but I can’t decide whether Mister Paquete Mojado strikes a new low for culture or a new high for equality.
I guess it would probably be better if I don’t start wondering too deeply about the chupitos eróticos or the invitation to “come and ride our mechanical bull”.
I’m translating a piece on Las Fallas – Valencia’s wonderful firework fiestas – and, as usual, I started off running the text through the Google translator to see if it would save me time.
Sadly, Google opts for an altogether different meaning for falla. This means that the phrase:
En la oficina de turismo podrás encontrar información sobre las diferentes rutas para contemplar las fallas más espectaculares.
becomes:
In the tourist office you can find information about different routes to see the most spectacular failures.
Perhaps human translators will be needed for a while yet.
One of the things inherent in Spanish culture is the idea of fiestas. Yesterday, December 6th, was el Día de la Constitución, and tomorrow is La Inmaculada Concepción. Both are usually bank holidays, and, depending how they fall, there is often a ‘puente’ linking the two.
I’d expected today to be declared a national holiday to compensate for the fact that the Day of the Constitution fell on a Sunday. No such luck.
It occurs to me that the refusal to link la Constitución with la Inmaculada could be an affirmation of the separation of church and state. And I think we should be having a bank holiday to celebrate that.
don't confuse the narrator 