When I first moved to Spain, the country was suffering a drought.
(We all have a tendency to fall back on stereotypes. When I tell people I live in Spain they assume I must live on one of those fictional costas where no one ever does any work but spends all day and all the long, hot night sitting at a terraza on the beach drinking iced beer or cheap vino tinto.)
Continue reading “positivity check”
I don’t have many more shooting stars poems to post on the blog, but there are other things being celebrated this weekend, as well as the perseids.
It’s been several years since I’ve spent August in Spain, as I’ve attended the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School, both as participant and as course leader, since I first won a place some years ago.
Before that, though, I was living in Madrid, and August was important en mi barrio for la fiesta de la Paloma. This year, Monday 15th August will be a fiesta nacional (la Asunción de la Virgen), and in her honour I have dug out this old poem. It was first published in the New Entertainer, I think, when I was writing my Capital Letters column:
Continue reading “stars and doves”
I had to make a quick visit to Madrid yesterday to sign some papers, but fled back to the village as quickly as I could. A considerable amount of the time I was in the city was actually spent travelling on the metro.
This poem dates from at least six years ago, but I remembered it as the air-conditioning on the metro doesn’t seem to have improved at all.
Fat Woman on the Metro
Her fan is silk and lace – a butterfly
whose coloured wings flick
and furl coquettishly. Crimplene
caresses curves as tenderly
as any lover’s hand; she wears pearls
of sweat at wrist and neck.
Under the headline “The demon head,” today’s digital edition of the (UK) Metro is running a story about a primary school headteacher banned “after a torrent of racist outbursts.”
The disciplinary panel chairman is reported as saying that the headmaster demonstrated ‘racial and religious prejudice’ and made ‘offensive and derogatory’ comments, and the Metro claims that:
the catalogue of foul-mouthed comments […] included calling a prospective teacher a ‘P*ki’
I guess most readers know I’m based in Spain and although I try and keep this blog politically neutral, I suspect some might be wondering why I haven’t commented on the “No les votes” protests, which have been going on since last Sunday.
I’ve had a look at the Guardian website and the news page for Spain seems to be stuck several days ago and make no mention whatsoever of the protests.
I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad. But it’s got me wondering again about the world of modern communications.
Continue reading “mod comms”
don't confuse the narrator 