Monumental Folly

By Richard Morley

Madrid has a new landmark. Usually after a statement like that, given that Madrileños are a conservative bunch who don’t take easily to change, I would write “and opinions are divided”. They certainly are over the new layout for the plaza del Sol and not everyone agrees that the Cuatro Torres, the highest buildings in Europe, are an iconic symbol of the city. However, I have yet to hear one complementary word about the new addition to Madrid’s skyline.

Officially it is called the Madrid Obelisk and is a present to the city from the Caja Madrid bank. It is there to mark the bicentenary of the French getting kicked out of Spain. Standing, as it does, at the Puerta de Europa, I am not sure if that is terribly diplomatic. (According to an entry on Wikipedia the obelisk is to celebrate three hundred years since the inauguration of the bank. I am told this is not true. Well, it is Wikipedia!)

It’s other names range from the polite, “Golden Needle” to, rather rudely, (and those of a sensitive nature do not kill the messenger,) “El Dildo Dorado”, The Golden Dildo, which is nicely alliterative as well as descriptive. I get the idea that the city’s residents, at least the ones who talk to me, are not impressed.

Designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, it stands ninety two metres high with a diameter of two metres. Apparently it is meant to sway like bamboo in the wind. Now the Plaza Castilla is already a place to avoid for sufferers of vertigo as the leaning towers of the Torres Kio dominate and hang over the plaza like opposing tsunamis. Stick a swaying, golden column in between and you have an instant recipe for seasickness.

But at least the two towers played well their role as a gateway out of the city and a frame for a city-side view of the four towers. This new monstrosity blocks that view and seems as alien, with its golden flutes, as an acupuncturist’s needle in the face of a well loved friend, to paraphrase the English crown prince.

Perhaps that is the obelisk’s problem. It has been built in the wrong place. It’s Rococo / Ormolu fluting would be more at home in the more classical parts of the city; Opposite Atocha station in the Plaza Emperador Carlos V, for instance. Or even in, or at least near, the Retiro Park. Hidden by the trees it would hardly be noticed close up and yet be seen from afar.

But surrounded by some of the most daring and modern architecture in Madrid, it seems definitely out of place. Trying to take photographs there this week I found it cluttered, and detracted from, a modern, open urban landscape.

Well, it’s too late now. Its base is rapidly nearing completion, so they are not about to tear it down and move it.

And really, what is its point? It commemorates a bank! I have no idea what the cost of this folly is, but can’t help thinking it could be money better spent. The Caixa Bank has given the city a wonderful addition in the Forum to an already impressive list of art galleries and Caja Madrid itself has sponsored many great exhibitions. So who was the idiot that decided that in this time of deep financial crisis a fitting monument would be an insulting finger upraised in the face of the suffering public?

Last month activists belonging to Greenpeace climbed to obelisk to protest against climate change. Their banners seemed to put the blame on El Presidente, José Zapatero.

At least someone has found a use for this monumental mistake.

Transports of Delight

By Richard Morley

What would you think if I told you that Madrilènes use to ride on canaries? Supposing I said that razor blades were a perfectly usual form of transport? It’s quite true. In 1898 the city introduced the first electric trams. They were painted yellow and were known as “Canaries”. Prior to them, and existing alongside, were steam driven trams, and these were called “Maquinillas”, which translates into clippers, or razors, and is also the name given to those little cigarette rolling machines. Or probably just “Little machines”, which, as they were small and narrow gauge, compared diminutively with the larger railway engines leaving Atocha for Aranjuez and points south.

Before that, the power used was what is known in Spanish as “A sangre”, or blood powered. It all sounds rather gruesome until a quick reference check informed me that this just meant the trams were pulled by animals. Both Horses and donkeys were used.

Twenty one years later, as I wrote a few posts ago, the Madrid metro opened its first line. The trams went everywhere. I would imagine the tram operators viewed the underground upstart with a little distain. In that first year of competition the Metro carried just fifteen million passengers while the trams carried ten times as many. Surely the Metro would never be a serious rival their monopoly within the city! Ancient Tram on Display at Pinar Chamartin Metro Station

Madrileños loved to give their trams nicknames. Besides “Canarios”, in the first decade of the twentieth century some grey painted trams received the appellation “Los grises de la Muerte” as they seemed to cause an awful lot of accidents. Madrileños are known as “Gatos” and all cats are grey in the dark. Perhaps no one saw them coming. However, when they painted them red the name changed to “Cangrejos”, which is the Spanish word for Crayfish, but probably comes from the phrase, “avanzar como los cangrejos”, because as the crayfish is a slow moving animal this translates as “To make little headway”, at least according to Collins.

Since 1933 there had been another competitor to the tranvías. This was the year the city council had created the Empresa Mixta de Transportes Urbanos, which was, as the name implies, a mix of all the different forms of public transport in the city; The Trams, the Metro and now another upstart, the autobús. The EMTU became the Empresa Municipal de Transportes, the EMT, in 1947.

The trams enjoyed one hundred and one years of service. In 1956 they carried 260 million passengers, the greatest number they ever carried, but in the same year the metro took 394 million. From that time on the writing was on the wall. The number of private cars had also increased and the trams on their fixed tracks just got in the way. Despite a fiesta to celebrate the centenary in 1971, the axe fell the following year.

Every Madrileño knows the EMT. They run the red (and now blue) buses around the city. From 1949 until 1965 the EMT ran a combination of trams, trolley buses and normal buses, but from 1974 had the sole responsibility for the bus network.

I don’t know if this is true, but someone once told me that the Spanish love to travel on buses. I think they are wonderful as I have explained before. I just use them to get about the city, but others travel all over the country.

If you are in Madrid and want to leave then you will begin your journey by going to an “Intercambiador”. One Madrileño I know hates this name, but unlike so many long-winded Spanish descriptions, this is short and to the point. A “Changing place”. The New Intercambiador with the Cuatro Torres in the background.

The Empresa Municipal de Transportes has just opened what it claims is the most modern bus and coach station in Europe. Situated at the plaza Castilla, also known as the Puerta de Europa, this is now the place to get that long distance coach to all points north.

Built in the shade of the famous sloping sky-scrapers, the Torres Kio, the new bus, coach and Metro station, which of course, this being Madrid is not yet finished (!), is constructed on three levels and connects directly with lines 1, 9, and 10 of the metro and is just one metro stop away from Chamartin Railways station. Which begs the question as to why they haven’t thought to build a moving walkway tunnel between the two stations and combine them into one big “Intercambiador”?

To celebrate this opening, the EMT have held a short exhibition of buses through the ages. This past weekend has been a long one in Madrid, with city workers getting the Monday off. I went to see and photograph this exhibition, which was much more interesting than the one the metro hosted a couple of weeks back, and thought you would be interested to see what the citizens rode in before today’s comfortable and over air-conditioned buses.

I have a photo in my collection that shows the Calle de Alcala in about 1928. One of the buses, a Spanish built Hispano Suiza has the steering wheel on the right, proving my photograph’s evidence that at the beginning of the last century Spain drove, like Britain, on the left.

Right hand drive Hispano Suiza. And no protection from the weather!

A Bus Ride through history.

1914 Ford Model T, Four cylinders, 2900cc, 20 Horsepower.

1922 Hispano Suiza 30/40. Four cylinders, 4710 cc, 43 Horsepower.

1928 Rolls Royce, 20/25. Six cylinders, 3667 cc, 32 Horsepower.

1935 Bussing (an appropriate name!), Nag. 3080 cc, 65 horsepower.

1941 MAN MP, 9498 cc, 120 Horsepower.

In 1946 the Spanish part of Hispano Suiza sold their automotive assets to Enasa, the maker of Pegaso trucks, buses and sparts cars.

1959 Pegaso, Z-408 / 1(5051). 10,170 cc, 165 Horsepower.

1966 Pegaso 6035. 10170 cc, 179 Horsepower. I see it's a number 27. I often use the much more modern bendy bus on that route. It goes straight down the Paseo de Castellana.

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1968 Pegaso Setra Seida. 10,170 cc, 170 Horsepower.

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1978 Pegaso Setra Seida. 11945 cc, 225 horsepower.

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1982 Pegaso Setra S-215H. 11,945 cc, 286 Horsepower.

This post probably qualifies me as a Geek, or a "Freaki" as the Spanish would say, though probably not to my face!! Will you admit to your freakiness? Did you enjoy this post? If so, leave a comment below.

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Words of Warning

By Richard Morley.

I had left the Plaza Santa Ana, a well known square not far from the city centre and a much better place to eat or have a drink with friends than the Plaza Mayor, and was walking along the Calle Principe towards the Plaza Canalejas. It was twilight and the streets were starting to fill with people looking forward to an evening out on the town. As a moved along with the tide of walkers a Chinese looking man stopped in front of me and asked me if I spoke English. He held a map. He was lost. Could I direct him? He pointed to a place on the map.

Suddenly, a short, fat man, accompanied by a taller, skinny youth, crossed towards us from the other side of the narrow street. The little fat man gave me a half second flash of a green, official looking card inside his wallet and announced, “I am a policeman. It is very dangerous to speak to strangers on the street”. Then added, “Show me your passport”, and reiterated I was in danger.

Those that have met me will know I am not the tallest man in the world, yet I was half a head taller than this “policeman”. However, I was quite a lot shorter than his companions.

I have had young men offer to change my money in unlit back streets of African Towns (I give you good rate, Mister). I have been invited into back rooms and offered wondrous things as I strolled the alleys of Cairo. I have watched the tourists conned by the three card trick artists in the Calle Della Veste in Venice. The little fat man and his accomplices were amateurs by comparison. But there were three of them and one of me.

He was still demanding I gave him my passport. Still telling me it was “very dangerous”, although he didn’t elaborate on this supposed threat. I gave them my best sardonic stare and walked away, on the principle that if he really was a policeman he would come after me. He didn’t.

I suppose I am worldly wise. I should be; I have been in it long enough. But for a young girl just off the plane this could have been quite scary. If my “policeman” had been taller than me and not so laughably squat, I too might have felt more apprehensive. The whole thing lasted less than a minute. It wasn’t a pleasant experience and as I walked away I kept glancing behind me. But they were gone. They had disappeared as swiftly as kitchen cockroaches when the lights are turned on..

In four and a half years of living in Madrid this in the ONLY time I have felt concerned for my safety or my possessions. As far as I am concerned Madrid is a safe place. I have felt less secure on a Friday night in some English provincial towns.

The major street crime seems to be pick-pocketing. The Rastro, the famous street market on Sunday mornings, (see header photograph) is said to be teeming with flexible fingered felons who will, quite literally, snatch at any chance they have to have off with your exposed purse (that’s UK English for a ladies billfold, American readers) or wallet. I do know people who have had belongings taken from their pockets in the Rastro, so that is certainly one place you must be on your guard.

However, this week, I came across a news item about someone called Diane Von Furstenberg who reported that she had been mugged while walking along the Paseo del Prado. Google alerts told me:

Diane Von Furstenberg tweeted that she was mugged in Madrid, Spain. A distraught Von Furstenberg apparently got away with her phone because she instantly went online to let friends and fans know "Madrid! I just got robbed in the street in front of the Thyssen Museum. My wallet, cash, and all my credit cards!" People, this is why you should carry a photocopy of your passport around and not the real thing, okay?
She then assured fans she was "totally fine" and hoped that was the worst thing that happened to her. Hey, that's a valid fear in Madrid. My best friend and I could barely walk around the city at night because there were so many casually dressed prostitutes outside of our hostel that we were inevitably followed by American boys speaking bad Spanish who wanted to know how much. Also, why are there so many Pork Museums?

Let’s clear up two things straight away: The “Pork Museums” as she calls them, or the “Museos de jamón” are a chain of cafés and pork butchers. One of the best places for a cheap meal if you don’t mind being surrounded by suspended pieces of dead pigs. And, oh come on Miss Furstenberg, I have seen your photograph. There’s no way, except in your imagination, that any man would think you were a prostitute. The girls in Montera are so much better looking!

Right: Diana Von Furstenberg as photographed by Vanity Fare.

However, she claims she was mugged and that’s not nice. It does surprise me that the deed occurred in such a public street, but the report does not tell if it was some lonely hour of the night. She is also female and perhaps thought a more vulnerable victim.

Not being female I decided to ask the experts in this matter how they felt about walking the streets of Madrid. I asked both native and ex-pat and cross section of age ranges. If it is not considered sexist, might I also remark that these are also attractive women, who love to go out at night and might seem to be easy pickings to the dregs of our society?

I asked them:
How safe do you feel in Madrid?
Do you feel more or less safe than in other cities?
What advice would you give to visitors regarding safety?
Do you have a scam / pick pocketing / mugging story to tell?

Here is what they told me.

From a native who has lived in Madrid all her life: I feel safe, but usually stay in well populated areas and never take the back streets. All cities have their dangerous areas and it is unwise to carry all your belongings in one bag or pocket.

From a lady from England who lives here: Short answer, yes, I feel safe in Madrid. Safer than I did in London, at night certainly, though I didn't spend much time in London if I could help it. I think the difference is that the mugging potential in Madrid does seem to be pretty much round the clock and not confined to the side streets.

From a lady from Scotland who visits often: I have been travelling back and forth to Madrid for many years and I must admit I feel only as threatened as I would at home. In all the years I've visited I have only been with one person when they've been mugged and to be honest if they were wearing those baggy combats and acting quite so clearly as a tourist, they would have been mugged in London, Edinburgh and Glasgow too - but they probably would have known about it at the time rather than only noticing when getting back to the hostel. I have never witnessed the kind of street brawls that welcome most of us heading out in Britain on a Friday/Saturday night.

From a native who comes from elsewhere in Spain, but now works in Madrid: Yes, I feel relatively safe in Madrid but I'm not a naive person (and I have common sense), so I make sure that my purse is closed, behind my arm and never ever I stop looking at the people or vehicles, etc. I don't carry anything important in my pockets (just in case). I think that Madrid is not a dangerous city or at least not more than other cities, but you have to take some actions in order to prevent a complicated situation like "our friend". (I think she means Diane Von F.)

And from another Madrid native who answered my questionnaire like a questionnaire:

How safe do you feel in Madrid? Very safe. Especially in the historical centre.
Do you feel more safe or less safe than other cities? The same as in other European capitals.
What advice would you give to visitors regarding safety? Take care of their wallets, handbags, etc. The same as we do when we walk on the street. There are pickpockets like in other cities as London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin.... but Madrid is not an especially dangerous city.
Have you a scam / pick pocketing / mugging story to tell? No, because I usually take care of my handbag

I also loved her comments about how Miss Von F thought she was perceived:
"I think this woman has a lot of imagination. It is possible she was more aware of the fact that if people recognized her or not, or if there were any fans on the street, than taking care of her bag. Of course Spanish man don't think foreign women are prostitutes, they are (in general, with exceptions) very respectful with people and especially with women."

My first responder also commented on that. When I asked if she thought it was true that Miss Von F could assume that men thought she was a prostitute, my friend replied, “Who knows? Probably a high class one!”

Oh! You women when the claws are out!!!!

There are some good, common sense points there: Not putting your possessions in one bag or pocket, always be aware of your surroundings, keep your bags close to you. And, of course, have sense with what you wear.

In summer we see lots of very obvious tourists. How do we know? Well, apart from the horrible fashion (?) of wearing sandals AND socks, there will be a camera around the neck, a bum bag / fanny pack around the waist, a bulge under the shirt where they think they are hiding that money belt and sometimes a little pouch hanging from the neck that we all know has their passport, money and credit cards in it. And if the tourist is an American male over fifty, he will be wearing a florid shirt his wife bought him in Hawaii. They may as well have a target on their back saying, “Come and get me!”

So do my ladies have any advice for you? Yes lots, and I am just going to list it as trying to put it into a literate form would take too long.

Don't put all your money and belongings in the same pocket.
The worst pocket (ie. jeans) is the rear one. It's better in front of you.
Don't leave your handbag, suitcase, backpack... hanging on your chair or on the floor.
Don’t wear your backpack on your back.... because someone can cut it if it without you knowing.
Pay special attention in crowded areas.
Don't leave your mobile on the table (someone can come there trying to sell you a newspaper. They lay the paper over the phone and when they go, so has your phone!)
Don't leave your bag on the seat (in a car) it's better on the floor of the car.
Keep your passport in the hotel (safe box).
Take official transportation at the airport.
Hotels, train station, airports are special places to be robbed if you don't pay attention of your belongings.
Take a copy of your passport, credit cards because if you lose it at least you have all the information.
Don't play "trileros games", it can be "friends" of your properties. That’s the three card trick, or the coin under the cup trick.
When you're walking don’t carry your bag on the road side of the pavement.
If you notice someone is following you try to change your way. If the situation will be the same try to enter in a shop or a place with people.

The resident English lady puts it well: “My advice to tourists here would be the same as anywhere else - try not to look like a tourist! Don't carry everything valuable with you all the time, have a bag that zips up securely and that you can carry where you can see it and just be observant and vigilant. Ignore distractions like people dropping money, etc.”

And she has quite a cautionary tale to tell. She writes: “In Madrid so far, (she has been here six or seven months, I think), the night before I arrived, the girl I was due to meet here on my first day had her phone stolen, a week after I arrived there was a murder less than 500 metres from where I was living, my flatmate was assaulted getting off the nightbus, one of her female friends was knocked to the ground and had everything taken last week, and a couple of days ago one of her male friends had his mobile cut from his trouser pocket on the Metro. Oh, and a male acquaintance of mine was attacked apparently for his watch and his wallet and got a black eye in the process (he says he fought off two "big guys" and they didn't actually get his stuff!) The closest I've come is actually catching a woman halfway through unzipping my handbag on the Metro - she hadn't managed to get anything out of it yet! Sadly, I'm sure my time will come!”

I sincerely hope not.

She also commented on Miss Von F: “I also have no idea who this woman is, but as she's a designer and as far as I can tell most designer clothes these days seem to be made to make you look like a tart, maybe someone did think she was a prostitute! And surely she's a prostitute for fashion.”

I am but a mere male and would not dare to comment! Besides, I care nothing for fashion – as everyone who knows me will testify! Jeans and tee-shirt, that’s me!

That means I look like everyone else, mas o menos, although sometimes when visiting offices I dress up a little more smartly, which means, I blend in to my surroundings. I don’t look like a guiri, a foreigner, a tourist. My ever present camera is small enough to remain hidden until I need it. I haven’t used a wallet for years and separate my cash. And I always try to look like I know where I am going – even when I don’t.

Different countries have different styles in clothes, even in the western world. One young lady seeking information about “How to not look like a guiri while visiting Madrid” received the advice, “Leave all your clothes at home and come straight from the airport to Zara and buy yourself a new wardrobe”. Unrealistic, I know, but it would probably do the trick.

Madrid unfortunately does have its share of bad people. I watched as three men closed in on a young back-packer as he boarded the metro. I am pleased to report that I got between him and them and then, as the doors closed behind them had the satisfaction of watching the trio trying very hard to pretend they were not there. They exited very quickly at the next station.

But the young back-packer was a definite target. His heavy pack was on his back, his pouch was around his neck and he wore those baggy shorts which have pockets everywhere. Oh, and he wore that cotton “Tilley” hat with the wide, stitched brim that no Spaniard would ever wear. Please, take note, if you don’t look like a target then you won’t be one!

Again on the metro, a lady in a group I was travelling with suddenly realised she was sandwiched between two men with designs in her large handbag. Our group closed in around her and the men left the train.

My landlady, who has lived here nearly all her life and should have known better, had her purse, money and door keys stolen in a moment of inattention while riding the metro. She had left them sitting on the top of her open bag while talking with a colleague.

This would seem to indicate that the metro is an unsafe form of transport. It’s not, but you must be careful. I ride it nearly every day and have never experienced a moment’s unease.

The truth of the matter is that much like anywhere else you must take elementary precautions. But I have to say I have never felt safer than in Madrid. Sometimes I will walk home at three or four in the morning – a walk of about forty-five minutes – and have never felt threatened. One evening last week I was approached on a narrow pathway by a group of skin-headed youths with chains and piercings who not only stepped out of my way but wished me “Buenas Tardes” as I passed.

Here is another comment by another lady, a native who has lived here all her life, who sent her reply just as I was finishing writing this. (I would never divulge the age of a lady, but under the cloak of anonymity I might add that she has lived here for nearly fifty years.) She writes: “I don’t know if I can help you, because I have never been robbed or mugged in Madrid.
I have always felt quite safe anywhere. I think the secret is trying not to look like a “guiri”, although in some countries it is not easy.
And related to the story about ( Miss Von F) being followed by men thinking that they were prostitutes, I don’t believe a word of what she says. It has never happened to me or any of my friends or women I know. Maybe I’m a bit stupid… but how can you know a casually dressed woman is a prostitute?”

Personally I think Miss Von Furstenberg had a bad experience, which can never be nice, but then milked it for all it was worth, painting Madrid in a bad light which I felt needed to be answered. I hope I have put everyone’s mind at rest.

But let me finish this by quoting the comment of the Scottish lady whose answer I gave you earlier: “There is not a city in the world where you wont find muggers and con artists but hand on my heart I feel much safer as a young woman walking round Madrid at 2 am than I would in London.....”.

My sentiments exactly! Well, except that I have never been a young woman.

My thanks to Concha, Emma, Luz, Nic, Paloma, and Sole.

If you would like to comment on anything in this post, feel free to write it in the section below.

Remember the four questions I put to my friends:

How safe do you feel in Madrid?
Do you feel more or less safe than in other cities?
What advice would you give to visitors regarding safety?
Do you have a scam / pick pocketing / mugging story to tell?

How do you feel while walking the city streets? Do you have any more advice you could pass on?

I wish you all a hapy and safe time in my favourite city.

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In the Grip of the Gripe

By Richard Morley.

Last week I went with some friends to eat at FrescCo. When the assistant gave me my change she also gave me a 250 ml bottle of Sanex shower gel. Any suspicions that she might be making a pretty overt comment on my personal hygiene were dispersed when I saw she was giving a bottle of the stuff to everyone.

A week before that there was a give away promotion for a household cleaning agent at the Avenida de America metro station; The only way to describe the hoard surrounding the two young ladies hosting the event is “clamouring”.

In Madrid we are being advised on personal hygiene and cleanliness on all sides. Huge posters on the metro and at bus stops advise us how to blow our noses, dispose of the used tissue and to wash our hands.

Many years ago Britain had a campaign that warned us that “Coughs and sneezes spread diseases”. “Tos y estornudos traen enfermedades” sort of rhyme, if not scan; The Comunidad PR division missed out on that one.

We are in the grip of a fever.

The fever is an attempt to stop another. The H1N1 virus, Gripe A (pronounced “Grippay Ah”,) or Gripe Porcina, as it’s known here and swine flu everywhere else, has been elevated to public enemy number one. 37 million doses of the vaccine have been acquired by the government and will be distributed to the young, old, pregnant and those with jobs that might put them at risk. Those of us in the middle have been left to fend for ourselves while being directed how to avoid those who might already have the disease.

Now one would think that in the face of this supposed epidemic the authorities would be doing all they could to protect the public as quickly as possible, yet the vaccination campaign won’t begin until the 16th of November. According to Trinidad Jiménez, the health minister, the date has been chosen for “Logistical Reasons”. But I wonder if she’s had her shot already.

The latest figures on the pandemic show that at the moment the infection rate is quite low with only 101 cases per 100,000 of the population succumbing and most of them recovering with aspirin and bed rest. Since May there have been 54 deaths attributed to the virus, but those were among those most at risk: the old and those already weak from another illness.

However, nearly 23% of the population of Madrid is over 65 years of age. In the city there are 52 hospital admissions a day for respiratory diseases and in Madrid the average number of deaths is around seventy a day, or 690 per 100,000 inhabitants. (I took these figures from the Madrid City Report, which claims that reducing the pollution in Madrid would save 562 deaths a year!)

The statistics for the N1H1 virus are for the country as a whole, so it would seem that given the factors that lead to death now, swine flu will not really make a difference.

Not that I would wish to trivialise any death that the virus brings.

There was a very sad case of a Moroccan woman who died of the H1N1 virus while in the later stages of pregnancy. Her baby was born by caesarean section. However the publicity that surrounded the case was because her newborn was given the wrong treatment and also died, leaving a distraught husband and awkward explanations from the hospital. But it was the one of the first cases and so received lots of publicity.

One doctor I spoke to recently thinks deaths from H1N1 might reach as high as 500 as the winter sets in. In a population of 42 million, that’s probably no more than would be expected from the usual seasonal influenza that comes round each year, and hardly merits the name epidemic.

In 1340 the Black Death, Bubonic Plague, carried off nearly twenty-nine per cent of the population. A reoccurrence around the end of the sixteenth century led to 600,000 deaths out of a national population of just eight million.

Pieter Bruegel's "The Triumph of Death", depicting the Plague in the 16th Century. The picture can be found in the Prado.

The 1884/85 Madrid cholera epidemic caused fifteen thousand deaths.

When the news, and the first outbreaks of Swine Flu reached Spain, I did spy a few people wearing surgical masks in the street. I haven’t seen that for a while, but may well reoccur as the numbers rise as winter approaches.

The vaccination programme, as it should be, is being directed to those most at risk. I have known people who have had the illness over the past few months (they normally moan on facebook,) but have all recovered now. But the Spanish health authorities are right to be concerned. A 33 year old Nigerian woman died of the disease in Majorca recently. Previously to contacting the illness she had been perfectly fit.

The doctor I mentioned above was one of nearly fifty people at one of the English Villages I attend. At the beginning of the week there was one person with flu like symptoms. Four days later almost half the group had been infected. Which means half had not! And of the half two or three had to take to their beds and the rest, aided by aspirin and copious quantities of tissues, were able to carry on. So it affected some differently than others and some not at all. It was this that brought up the subject in the first place.

My macabre side thinks that the grim reaper is selective in such matters, although he gets us all eventually! There will be vaccinated people who will die and non-vaccinated who won’t. The disease is spread by viral contagion, and so the greatest single preventative measure would be to close all the bars and nightclubs where thousands mingle every evening of the week. But that’s not going to happen, is it?

A quick glance through last Friday’s El Pais brought me to a small section called “Deaths in Madrid” (Fallecidos en Madrid), where we are told of approximately a hundred people who have recently died. The ages of the deceased are given and I was amazed to see most of the people were in their eighties and nineties, although they ranged from 67 years to Amador Hidalgo Mansilla who topped the league at 101! Spain has the longest life expectancy in Europe and (I think) only second in the world. The Spanish are made of hardy stuff. They won’t let a little thing like Swine flu see them off.

Swine Flu, Reality or Myth? There is some debate. What do you think? Comments please.

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A Plaza in the Sun.

By Richard Morley.

It is said that there is nothing new under the sun. Madrid can prove that statement to be false.

Standing at the very heart of Madrid, the very heart of Spain, is the Plaza de la Puerta Del Sol, the gateway of the sun. It is the place from where all distances are measured. It is the place where the Spanish gather, or watch on TV, when one year passes into the next. Historically it is a place to meet, to protest – and to assassinate. There is much that is old here, but now, there is a lot that is new.

In the 15th century Madrid’s city walls encompassed a much smaller city. With the steep escarpment and river that encircled it to the west and southwest, its main entrance faced east, towards the rising sun. Some say the entrance had an inscription of the sun on it. What ever the reason for its name, this was where the newly arrived traveller would enter the city. La Puerta del Sol - The gate of the Sun. This was a place of business, both commercial and governmental. Taxes would be charged on goods entering the city. Mail arriving from far off towns would be collected and distributed from here; goods bartered and traded, business negotiated. There would be inns, taverns, livery stables, farriers.

Before the first major remodelling in the middle of the eighteenth century, there stood the church of San Felipe. Its main steps became famous as the Gradas de San Felipe as a place to exchange gossip and rumour. Imagine the hustle and bustle of such a place.

As Madrid expanded the walls were moved out. The eastern gateway became the Puerta de Alcala which was a kilometre further east. The plaza was no longer at an extremity. Now it was very firmly in the centre. And so it has remained, both geographically and spiritually. The Plaza de la Puerta del Sol is at the heart of everything that is Spain, that is Spanish. And like the country and its people, it has undergone many changes.

Two views three months apart. The workmen have been busy.

Before 1766 there was no actual plaza. I imagine timber framed, crooked buildings set around an unpaved square rutted with the wheels of carts and the smell of pack animals. I see a place of loading and unloading, of hardy, strong backed men and small boys running errands for a few céntimos. But that work must now have moved to the new gate. The plaza de la Sol, once rich with the profits of trade would have become neglected, run down. Hardly suitable for the centre of a royal city.

Sol Prior to reformation work that began in 1857.

But in 1766 the architect Jaime Marquet began work on the post office building. To provide security many of the old buildings were torn down and a large plaza created in the space. Over the next century the old church of San Felipe, its associated monastery and the convent of Our Lady of Victory disappeared under the demolisher’s hammer.

Work begins on reforming Sol.

Between 1857 and 1862 Lucio del Valle, Juan Rivera and José Morer gave the plaza its semi circular shape. Like the eastern sun rising over the horizon. Its rays became the streets of Arenal, Preciados, Carmen and Montera. Sol in 1877.

Outside the former post office building is a stone slab, also semi circular in shape. It shows a map of Spain under a compass needle and bears the legend “Origen de las Carreteras radiales”, and the symbol “0km”. This is the point from where all distances are measured. All roads lead out from here. This is the centre of Spain.

Figuratively; the actual geographical centre is thirteen kilometres south south-east in Getafe on the Hill of Los Angeles. But for practical purposes let us return to the Plaza del Sol.

While the larger plaza, the Plaza Mayor, which lays a couple of hundred metres west of Sol might be a place of spectacle, of bull fights, heretic trials and autos de fé, the Plaza del Sol remained a place of trade. Its surrounding street housed all manner of shops and workshops, and all manner of professions. The calle de Montera is still infamous for the oldest! Sol in 1930.

1931. The Second Republic is Proclaimed to crowds gathered in Sol.

Madrid’s first underground railway line terminated at Sol. It ran from Cuatro Caminos where country produce, brought to the edge of the city (as it then was), was loaded on to special goods carriages to be transported into the centre.

Spain’s largest department store, El Corte Inglés, houses itself in several building in Sol and many other shops and hotels surround the plaza. However, while it is still possible to buy a hand made fan, or some traditional pastries, fast food outlets like McDonalds and KFC and a couple of amusement arcades are beginning to dominate.

Sol is where everyone meets everyone else. Meeting Friends? The place to meet is under the clock of the former post office. Or if not there, then “By the Bear”. Madrid’s symbol is a bear reaching up into a Madroño tree, sometimes called a strawberry bush. The fruit of the madroño do look like strawberries, but are nothing like as tasty. A twenty ton bronze of the bear and the tree stands in Sol. A month ago it was moved a few metres to a new location, but it is still in the plaza, but now at the beginning of Madrid’s longest street, the Calle de Alcala.

(Actually, the bear has been moved back to where it was when it was first erected in the plaza in 1967.) The Bear and the Strawberry Tree, over looked by Spain's favourite uncle, Tio Pepe

So why was it moved? Well everything in Sol has moved. When I first came to Madrid, less than five years ago, Sol was little more than a bus station with those radiating roads still carrying traffic. The bus stands were dull concrete, the traffic, choking. Beneath the plaza lay a dingy Metro station, barely able to cope with the passenger numbers of three separate lines and not very pleasant. What is underneath the Plaza Del Sol? This view shows the metro stations and the new Cercanias Station.

Today it is a very different place. Shortly after my arrival it was partly pedestrianised. The streets were redesigned; the bus shelters banished and the metro station got a new, shiny entrance. But that was not the end of the matter. Beneath the plaza a new commuter train station for the cercanías, was being constructed. The work went on for ever. Then we found out that they were constructing Europe’s largest man-made cavern. That opened last June (proving you can have something “new under the sun”) to great acclaim and controversy as the street level entrance, a glass shell in the shape of a great whale, (and called El Pez, the fish, by the locals), was deemed unsuitable and not in keeping with the surrounding architecture, but then neither were the rust stained bus shelters – and they stood there for years."El Pez", The new entrance to Sol Metro and Cercanias stations.

All but one of the radiating streets was closed to traffic and then the whole place was dug up and has been refurbished in completely new clothes. The uneven cobbles are gone, replaced by smooth grey stone. The old central fountain has been replaced with two modern, geometric inverted cones, and the old lamp posts, known as “suppositories” because of their shape, have given way to more tasteful and delicate standards.

Two views: On the left, sometime between 2000 and 2005. On the right, 1970.

After four long years it is nearly finished.

Again the protesters will have somewhere to meet. There will be room for many more New Year celebrators. And the centre of Madrid will have a brand new face. Mind you, while talking of this with a friend over the weekend she remarked that as soon as it was finished, they will dig it up again. “They always do!”

Which is quite true! Since Señor Marquet laid down the basic shape in 1766 the plaza, from the facades of the surrounding buildings to the nature of the land it is built on, has been in almost constant flux. There are photographs showing it with gardens, with trams and trolley buses – and with sandbags. In the centre, unmoved by all that has gone on around him, stands the statue of King Carlos III on horseback. He was known unofficially as “The mayor of Madrid” because of all the changes he ordered to be made to the city, so I hope he approves of his new surroundings. Someone once told me that when the statue, which is actually a copy of the one in the Real Academia de Belles Artes de San Fernando, was first erected in 1994 it contained an electrical device that kept the pigeons away. I must watch one day to see if this is true.

Hopefully the new surface will never be stained with blood.

On May the second 1808, an infamous day in Spanish history, the revolt of the Spanish people against French occupation culminated in a fierce battle fought in the Plaza del Sol. The Spanish were defeated and the Grand Duke Joachim Murat, head of the French forces, had hundreds of the rebels shot.

On November 12th, 1912, the Prime Minister, José Canalejas, was gunned down in Sol by the anarchist Manuel Pardiñas. A Plaza named to honour Canalejas stands a couple of hundred metres up the Carrera de San Jerónimo.

April 14th in 1931 Sol saw the proclamation of the Second Republic, an act which led to the Civil war five years later.

The former post office is now the home of the Comunidad of Madrid, greater Madrid’s governing council. Before that is was the Ministry of the Interior and was a feared place, so I am told, during the regime of Franco. People brought here, so the story went, would never be seen by their families again. On its walls is a plaque to remember and honour those who died and assisted on the terrible day of the Atocha bombings on March 11th, 2004.

Now at New Year everyone gathers to watch its 19th century clock, which was built and donated to the city by José Rodriguez de Losada, and as its bells strike twelve, to eat a grape for every chime. This is a great tradition and the atmosphere in the plaza absolutely fantastic. Everyone should celebrate there at least once. With the street works finished there will be more room for the tens of thousands of celebretantes. But before that comes Christmas. There is always a decorated tree in Sol and nearby, and much more importantly, will be someone selling roast chestnuts, which I love, and the lottery ticket sellers will be telling us they have the winning ticket for El Gordo. The rest of Madrid might still be as full of holes as a gruyere cheese, but at least Sol is almost whole again.

Until the next time!

I made this video on October 16th just before midday. You can hear from the sound of jack-hammers the work has not yet finished. I wonder if it will ever be!

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

By Richard Morley.
I have written before about Madrid’s wonderful metro, but I can’t let this weekend go past without mentioning it again as Saturday was its ninetieth birthday.

Their Royal Highnesses Alfonso XIII and Juan Carlos with Queen Sofia use the metro.

On the 17th of October 1919 King Alfonso XIII inaugurated the first line. It ran from Sol To Cuatro Caminos through eight stations and cut the travel time from an hour to eight and a half minutes. That first train.

Since then the metro has continued, and continues, to expand in all directions.

This is being celebrated with a small exhibition on display at the Nuevo Ministerios metro station.

It a little smaller than I expected!

The exhibition at Nuevos Ministerios.

Considering that they have advertised the show at every station and they have been trumpeting their 90th anniversary all year, I had hoped for something on a grander scale. Perhaps they are saving the big one for their centenary in 2019.

Half a dozen boards display photographs of the different types of rolling stock that has been used through the decades, ancient photographs of early construction work, pictures of the metro in use and advertisements through the ages. There are a couple of ancient ticket dispensing machines and a cut away model of Gran Via station. Well the model is named the station of Red de San Luis, but then its name was changed to José Antonio before eventually taking the name Gran Via. But then Gran Via itself wasn’t called Gran Via until relatively recently, so that’s understandable. There are some interesting pictures of early tunnelling. Since the 1960s Madrid has used the “Madrid Method” for tunnel excavation. This is a system that utilises steel and concrete to shore up the surface while men dug out the underlying soil by hand or machine. Madrid stands on a mixture of sand, gypsum and clay, which is known locally as “Peñuela” and is relatively easy to extract.

In more recent years huge Tunnel Boring Machines have done the work that used to be done by man and donkey. When work began in 1917 the system was identical to that used by the mining industry. On some of the lines today, particularly lines 1 and 2, the bare rock walls can be seen as you pass through. Where the natural rock was not strong enough the walls were lined with brick. "Mining" the Metro at the Glorietta of Bilbao.

That first line was just 3.48 kilometres long. Today the system comprised of 284 kilometres of track and the number of stations has increased to 294. However, if I have my sums correct, the cost of today’s ticket is 1113 times more than the cost of a ticket in 1919! However, even if you buy your tickets singly, it only cost one euro to travel on three quarters of the network, with only a further euro supplement to get you to Madrid’s furthest extremes.

Then and Now.

As well as having its own eponymous construction technique, the Madrid metro has been one of the most innovative public transport systems anywhere in the world. It holds many patents for building and control systems. It uses some of the most modern rolling stock in the world, which it is constantly up-dating. For those reading this and are now muttering, “Not on my line, they haven’t”, I can only say that they will.

Madrid metro does have some old sections which were built with a much smaller tunnel size than that used on the newer lines. This, of course, restricts it, without major reconstruction, to what it can do. That major reconstruction, as well as some pretty intensive modernisation, is planned.

With an announced investment of 2,976 million Euros intended for new lines and refurbishment of old stations, I would imagine that when the Metro celebrates its centenary, we will have seen some radical changes.

And they might be able to afford a better exhibition.

The photo just above is the entrance to a much used Metro station. It has since been remodled. Much kudos, and perhaps a beer, to anyone who can tell me where it is.

What do you think of Madrid metro? Comments please.

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Power to the people

By Richard Morley.Powerhouse of the old weaving factory, Atocha.

One of the questions that cropped up recently on the search engines which send internauts towards this blog was, “What did Spain do in the Industrial Revolution?” And the answer to this, at least to an Englishman who was brought up to regard the likes of Watt, Stephenson, Arkwright, Trevithick, Boulton, and McAdam as national heroes just as much as Drake, Nelson, and Churchill, is Not A Lot. Such a great leap forward in technology requires a spirit of entrepreneurial endeavour and public acceptance that was either lacking or discouraged in Spain at that time.

Much of Spanish manufacturing was rigidly controlled. Usually by the royal household who had a monopoly on many of the processes and balked at the very idea of competition.

This is not to say that Spain had no industry. Far from it; such a sizable and important country with possessions and colonies abroad had need of a diverse and powerful infrastructure. What it lacked was innovation.

While researching the question, at least as far as Madrid went, I was struck by the great lack of records available. In fact, what I have found have been bureaucratic accounts relating to the tariffs and taxes imposed on traders, importers and manufacturers rather than records of inventions or scientific development. In fact it seems much of Spain’s industrial advances used imported technology as opposed to any home grown know-how.

The first thing you notice when visiting the railway museum in the Paseo de las Delicias is a British built locomotive and in the lobby of the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales stands one of Watt’s steam engines.

However, before I get comments about how Spanish ingenuity invented the submarine and the mop and probably many other things, compared to Britain at that time most of mainline Europe depended more on an agrarian economy than an industrialised one.

According to industrial historians the one thing that points towards industrialisation is the use of fossil fuels: Coal and oil. While the coal mines of Britain were supplying the powerhouses of increasingly large factories, the industries of Madrid were still fuelling their fires with charcoal and firewood.

How do I know this? Through the official records of the time! All fuel entering Madrid was taxed and one thing the funcionarios of Madrid were good at was keeping records. So I know that in the mid 1800s Madrid imported approximately 36,000 tons of charcoal a year, which worked out at less than half a kilogram of fuel per resident per day, a figure that basically hadn’t changed for a hundred years. Also 16,000 tons of firewood was entering the city at that time. There is no mention of any coal. When Enrique Dolfus established his cotton factory in San Fernando de Henares the steam engine that supplied the power to the looms was fuelled by 29,000 arrobas of firewood a year. An Arroba is 25 pounds or about 12 Kg. (San Fernando de Henares is outside of the city and so this does not figure in the records.)

There was no heavy industry at this time. Large scale metalwork was produced out of the city, but Madrid did have many blacksmiths, tinsmiths, gold and silversmiths who needed fuel for their furnaces. And of course, there were the bakers, the tripe makers, pottery, glass, tile and brick makers who had to heat their ovens and kilns.

The documents show that charcoal was the main fuel used for domestic use. But it seems that there are different forms of charcoal and different industries demanded very specific fuels. As an example, charcoal made from heather was used almost exclusively by the metal industries as, being a very hard wood, produced the greatest heat. Seven hundred and eighty cartloads and smaller quantities carried by mules and donkeys entered Madrid in 1848.

One of the most intriguing types of charcoal was called “Errax” and was made from olive stones. It was only used for use in domestic heating in the houses of the wealthy and never really caught on.

But charcoal was much more expensive than untreated firewood and that was used by many. A special type of firewood, known as “Hornija”, was ideal for bread baking. However, its heat output was not as high as charcoal and when the pottery in Alcorcón began to use it in the kilns it was found that the wood of the broom they were using did not give sufficient heat to vitrify the lead glaze. This had fatal consequences when the pottery came into contact with vinegar and other foodstuffs.

The saltpetre factory in Embajadores used firewood from grape vines and the tanneries would use oak. The earthenware factory in Valledemorillo only wanted pine.

But there was one fuel that was cheaper than all the others. Known as Madrid Peat, “Turba de Madrid”, this was actually animal manure that was mixed with straw and allowed to dry in dung heaps. It was calculated from the forage / manure conversion tables (and I amazed that there are such a things!), which determine how much mierda is produced by how much food, the 230,000 fanegas* of barley and nearly two million arrobas of straw would produce nearly eight thousand tons of manure. Apparently this represented 14% of all the fuel used in Madrid. While much of this was used in the kilns of the brick makers, it was a very cheap fuel for the bakers. Noting that baker’s ovens usually put both fuel and product in the same cavity, as the cooks of cordero (milk fed lamb) do today, I do wonder what the bread tasted of.

*A “Fanega” is a dry measure equivalent to about one and a half bushels or 50Kg. It is also the name of my favourite restaurant in Madrid. Find it at C / General Oráa, 29.

“Madrid Peat” was obviously in very plentiful supply, but its accumulation was discouraged due to fire risk. This did not prevent a large fire breaking out in Santa Domingo Plaza.

Genuine peat, gathered from marshy areas outside the city, was used by the lime makers and also by the confectioners. By law only tanners were allowed to use horn to feed their fires, but this was a readily available commodity from the meat markets in the Rastro and tripe makers would use it to start their fires.

This use of wood had a devastating effect on the surrounding forests. In a defence of “uncooked soap”, (apparently there are two ways of making the stuff – one needs heat, the other, considered inferior, didn’t,) Francisco Cabarrús, a French businessman whose Spanish father-in-law owned a soap factory in Carabanchel, claimed that the traditional method was responsible for the “great shortage of firewood at the Court and throughout the kingdom: it would not be exaggerated to say that the boilers in the villages around Madrid use around 400,000 arrobas of firewood per year, and if the “uncooked soap” is prohibited the scarcity will increase and the time may come when the forests are completely destroyed”.

You don't have to go too far out of Madrid, particularly if you head towards Segovia through the summer trekking and winter skiing resort of Puerto de Navacerrada and over the Sierra de Guadarrama Mountains before you see great swathes of forestry, so perhaps Cabarrús overstated the case, but we are very aware these days about deforestation so perhaps, even for motives of self-interest, he could be regarded as one of the first conservationists.

It was not really until the beginning of the railway in Spain that coal was really required. This is strange as Spain has huge reserves of the stuff, although it is difficult and expensive to mine. Much of the coal used in power stations in Spain is imported.

But why was Spain left behind in the Industrial revolution? According to Leandro Prados de la Escosura, in a paper on Growth and Poverty in Spain, the indicative movement of the population from agriculture and villages to industry and towns did not really begin in Spain until the beginning of the twentieth century.

In his book, “An Economic History of Modern Spain”, Joseph Harrison suggests that the problem with Spanish industry in the 1800s was one of money supply. He states that, “…Spain’s inability to build a sound industrial base must be placed with successive governments who pursued a variety of mistaken and counter-productive policies which proved highly detrimental to the private sector”.

Quite true. It seemed the state could raise money from the banks, which they owned, for any number of schemes, but business entrepreneurs went begging. From 1852 to 1873 the bank of Spain lent twenty million pesetas to private companies, but eighty-two million stagnated in government loans.

While London and Amsterdam were seen as trading cities, Madrid was the model for the political city. Like Imperial Rome, Madrid was described as an economic parasite, consuming the wealth of the nation and its empire without contributing to that wealth. From Madrid ran a political and administrative network that controlled, taxed and shaped commercial activity, but its location, well inland and away from the trading ports, kept it from developing commerce of its own.

When you consider the centre of worldwide trade that Madrid has become today, this history seems very strange, but, with the exceptions of industries under royal patronage, the tobacco and weaving companies, private enterprise was almost discouraged by the government of the day.

But not all the blame can be laid on the government. A report in the London Standard of March 14, 1885, tells how cigar rollers in Madrid revolted over the introduction of machinery into the factories. It seems the populace, like the Luddites of Britain’s own Industrial Revolution, did not welcome the age of mechanisation.

So the answer to what Spain did during the Industrial Revolution is indeed, Not A Lot. However, if someone in a hundred years time asks what Spain did during the Technological Revolution that is happening now, then the answer will be very different.

Spanish companies are at the forefront of technology today. Telefónica takes its expertise all around the world. The Madrid Metro is an example to public transport systems the world over, holding patents that earn huge revenues and just about everyone I know works in the computer of engineering sectors.

The question should not be, “What did Spain do in the Industrial Revolution?” but, What is Spain doing now?

The question of which source of power should drive our world is important today. Should it be wind, water, sun, coal or uranium fired? Or should we return to animal waste? Leave a comment below.

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A Mess Of .... Miércoles

By Richard Morley

I have always thought Madrid to be a clean town. There seems to a huge green jacketed army going around after us picking up our unwanted unsavoury waste. Our bins are emptied in the small hours of the morning by ruthlessly efficient, although noisy, bin men who are followed in turn by a team armed with high pressure hoses who wash the streets and clean the rubbish bins on every lamppost.

Watching the Cabalgada de los Reyes Magos, or the parade of the three kings, which among other things has riders on horseback, I was amused to see that directly behind the horses were three street cleaners, pushing their barrows, ready to sweep up any droppings the horses left behind them. I was amused, but not surprised. With a hoard of marchers on foot bringing up the rear this was a very sensible action to take. Evidence once again that Madrid takes having clean streets seriously – and a good reminder to the crowd.

Before the Puerta del Sol took on the appearance of a perpetual building site, I once watched three protest demonstrations in a row. Each group handed out immediately discarded flyers and left a pile of detritus. But between each demo the street cleaners moved in, leaving a pristine plaza for the next group to desecrate. Within minutes of the last demonstration, all the rubbish was gone.

The same thing happens at the New Year celebrations that also take place in Sol. With tens of thousands of revellers drinking canned beer or bottles of cava and discarding cigarette ends, hamburger cartons, drinking cups etc, the authorities estimated the street cleaners removed twenty-seven tons of rubbish last year. By sunrise on New Year’s Day it was all gone!

A mole on the inside of the Ayuntamiento tells me that a street cleaner’s job is one of the most sought after in the city. I don’t suppose the pay is marvellous or the hours very sociable, but it’s a service the community needs and so guarantees pretty much constant employment. And they seem to have every mechanical aid they need at their disposal.

So what can be swept or washed away never stays around for long.

Other blots on our city’s landscape are a little more permanent.

I have written before about graffiti. Then I was praising those that can do it well.

Unfortunately the truly gifted are in the minority.

From time to time my own apartment block has come under attack from the spray paint fraternity. But no nimbyism here – I think everyone’s backyard should be free from this defacement. On Monday I visited one of Madrid’s least beautiful areas. It was a bleak residential area where efforts to provide a small park and play area had been completely violated by this obscene insanity. What should have been a small haven of peace and beauty had been completely despoiled. Surrounding walls had been covered with nonsensical scrawls, names, insults, and vulgarities, and although there were some that had been painted by someone with a modicum of talent, the content of the work made me feel threatened. I suppose it did not help that the only people in this tiny park, given to the community to provide fun for children and rest to the elderly, were five young men who were encouraging two dogs to fight each other. I will have to visit this street on a regular basis from now on. I will not feel comfortable.

Quite rightly the authorities consider graffiti an act of vandalism; an act that costs the city dear to clean it up. This is reflected in the size of fines given to those actually caught in the act: from a derisory €300 to a more substantial €6000.

That last figure is a sizable sum. I doubt if many of the untalented youth who leave our walls disfigured with their childish squiggles could afford to pay it. So the Ayuntamiento have come up with an alternative: Clean up your own mess.

So from now on, anyone foolish enough to be caught in the act will be asked to remove it and any other “street art” in the neighbourhood. I am not sure whether they are “fined” a particular number of hours of work or square metres of wall space. I would think ten times the area of the wall you are found to be defacing would be sufficient. Already eight youths, aged between 16 and 20, have begun work. “We want to make them wake up to the damage they do”, said Ana Botella, the Ayuntamiento’s environment delegate. I do hope they see the error of their ways.

Included in this programme are young people caught in the antisocial crime, (according to authority), of engaging in a “Botellón”. I witnessed this heinous crime in action a few weeks ago. A few dozen youths spread themselves and sprawled across the Plaza dos de Mayo and wilfully drank Calimochó, a mixture of red wine and Coca-Cola, which they can buy for a couple of euros a litre. Like most teenagers they looked rather sullen. In a corner of the plaza a small squad of policemen with a couple of cars and an unmarked van stood watch over the listless bunch.
“A bit of an overkill”, I remarked to an English friend as we walked past.
“I don’t know”, he remarked. “They ought to arrest that guitar player for offending good taste”.
Other than that, these “criminals” seemed to have far to much lassitude to actually do something antisocial.

Not that that is unknown. Less than a month ago, in the western suburb of Pozuelo, a Botellón did get out of hand and serious crimes were committed. Local residents blamed it on the drinking, but I have heard that something more than a sad evening of consuming cheap alcohol had been organised by someone with an axe to grind. Fortunately this does not happen often.

But I also plead guilty to this crime, I have to admit to taking part in a “Botellón myself. I swear I was the oldest there by thirty years. I was in La Latina and saw this crowd of youths when one of them shouted my name. He had been at one of the English Villages I attend and came out of the crowd to offer me some Spanish hospitality. He thrust a plastic coke bottle in my hand. “Calimocho”, he explained. “Have a drink.” Cheap wine and generic coke; yes it tasted as you would imagine.

But it’s not their drinking habits the Ayuntamiento find troublesome, although the act of drinking in the street IS illegal, but the discarded plastic and smashed broken bottles they leave behind them. They too, if caught, can now be fined a tidy sum, or be sentenced to tidy. I wonder if we can expect to see orange suited youths chain-ganged together, brooms and scrubbing brushes held at the ready.

“Quite right too”, would say the tax payers of Madrid, who have recently received increased demands from the city council to pay for refuse collection. The new tax is seen as unfair as it is based on the size of the property and not on the number of waste producing residents.

Elisha Bartholomew, who lives with his wife in Vallecas, is retired on a pension of €900 a month and claims he produces no waste except for some potato peeling and newspapers. His “garbage tax” is €112. But neighbour Lucas Garcia has four residents in his house and will only pay €94. He says, “It’s very unfair. Gallardón (The mayor of Madrid) has spent a fortune on the M30 (The Madrid ring-road) and the attempt to get the Olympic Games and we have to pay.”

Now, the newspaper report I culled that from did not say if either family had a dog, but if they did they should be held responsible for their share of the mierda de perro that fouls the streets of Madrid all the time.

Near where I live there is a small, sandy area designated for dogs to come and do what is necessary. The Ayuntamiento has provided a bin that also dispenses free plastic bags to assist the owners clean up after their pets. There are signs on every lamp post informing them of this little bit of civic behaviour. And do they? Do they heck! The area is a minefield where you would indeed be foolish to rush in where even angels would fear to tread. I have seen a motorcycle equipped with a vacuum cleaner that dashes about the streets collecting these doggy mementos.

It is a legal requirement to pick up after your animals. There’s a fine of €200 if you do not. But it would seem there’s one law for us and one law for the police. The streets of Lavapies, a barrio in south central Madrid full of narrow twisting lanes, are patrolled by police on horseback. Well horses are animal too and the residents are complaining about the splatters of poop that present a far great challenge to avoid that what the dogs leave behind. Worse, it’s somewhat more liquid and squirts up in smelly jets if a car drives over it. “The law should be equal for all”, commented one resident, remarking he had never seen a cop dismount and clean up after his horse.

Quite right too!

Author's note: Miércoles means Wednesday, but is also used as a humerous euphemism for excrement. It's Wednesday, I am writing about it - and it amused me.

What do you think should be a suitable punishment for the spray paint despoilers? Should the punishment fit the crime? Comments please.

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A Night At The Opera

By Richard Morley.

I have friends with connections. One of them phoned me and said she had two tickets for the opera and would I like to go?

How many times have I walked down the Calle de Arenal, through the Plaza de Isabel Segundo and been faced with a choice of routes to get to the Plaza Oriente and the Royal Palace? The building forcing me to make that choice is the Madrid Opera house, or properly, El Teatro Real. Built in the shape of a coffin the Teatro Real looms over the plaza Isabel Segundo like a tsunami about to break. From the outside it is not a pretty building.

I had been told that inside it was a different matter. That since its refurbishment in 1997 it was a beautiful place. I wouldn’t know. With opera tickets being the price they are, the only chance I was going to have to see the inside was on the White Night, La Noche en Blanco when, together with other places of culture, the Teatro Real opens its door to the hoi polloi so they can get a look for free. The queues for that usually snake around the Plaza Oriente for hours. I hate queuing, so I thought I would never get the chance.

And then my friend phoned me.

The Teatro Real was opened by Queen Isabel II in 1850 following thirty two years of construction. It had not been an easy building to erect. A theatre must of necessity be large and high. In keeping with the Royal Palace, which it faces, and the expectations of its patrons, who were the elite of Madrid society, it also had to be a grand edifice using heavy stone. But there is a reason why the street that runs from Sol to the opera house is called the “Calle del Arenal”. It was Madrid’s main source of sand for building and the bible tells us not to build our houses on sand. There were problems.

However, in 1850, Queen Isabel attended the opening performance of “La Favorita” by Donizetti and in the decades that followed its reputation as one of the major opera houses of Europe was solidified.

In 1897 one opera goer wrote, “The luxurious decoration of the room, with warm red and gilded tones, shone with light. In the boxes, white shoulders and bosoms, splendid dresses, jewels, muslin shawls. Diamonds shone, fans waved, bald pates shone like marble”. It is curious the author did not actually comment on the performance those bald heads and white bosoms had come to see.

I think I might know why.

Opera in Madrid has had a hard time. It is said that the Teatro is haunted by the ghost of a singer who had failed an audition! Likewise, the Teatro Real’s existence has been haunted by conflicting tastes in culture and politics.

The 1924-25 season ended with “La Boheme”. No more operas were performed until 1997. Why? I refer to my previous mention of the sand the theatre was built on. Deep cracks had begun to form in the building due to its unstable foundation and the place was closed. Shortly after, the building caught fire. It became a ruin. During the Civil War it was used as a munitions dump and was further damaged by an explosion.

In the mid sixties there was an attempt to reopen it as a music hall. Franco has forbidden the performance of opera, which he considered to be decadent. This was hardly encouraging to Spanish opera singers like Montserrat Caballe, Victoria de los Angeles and Alfredo Kraus, who were then becoming famous on the international stage.

After the dictator’s death it was decided to rescue the Teatro and there were hopes that it would reopen in 1992. Like the phantom of the opera mentioned above, the theatre failed its audition. The government had chosen José Manuel Gonzalez to carry out the restoration. He had been in charge of the necessary repairs when it became a music hall and had ignored Franco’s instructions to destroy the stage so that opera would never be performed again. But soon after work began Señor Gonzalez died of a heart attack while showing journalists around the site.

However, in 1997 the opera house reopened. The first opera was meant to be Parsifal. It’s beautiful music, but hardly the stuff of what should be a happy occasion. Besides, it was thought that five hours of opera might not please the King, who unlike his wife, is not known to be a great fan of the art form. So one of the first duties of the new Minister of Culture, Esperanza Aguirre, was to decree that the opening performance should be of Manuel de Falla’s opera ''La Vida Breve'', which as well as being a good Spanish work was a lot shorter than Parsifal.

Last Wednesday I sympathised with the King.

Since then there has been a lot of discussion, and xenophobic comment, regarding the nature of performances at the Teatro. After all, Spain does have its own home grown opera in the Zarzuela. And they tend to be happy, entertaining works which the public would enjoy.

I know I would.

But Opera is regarded by some as “High Art”, which can leave us poor uncultivated wretches a little lost – and bored.

The performance I went to see was “Lulu” by Alban Berg. Berg was an Austrain composer and shared with Schoenberg a love of the “twelve tone” technique, which meant we were not going to leave the performance with something to hum on the way home.
Let me state I am no musical Philistine. I was brought up in a musical family and play several instruments (with differing degrees of expertise) and have always loved music and in particular the classics. But I do like a good tune!

There are no tunes in “Lulu”.

My musical ear enjoyed the sounds of the orchestra and the quality of the singers could hardly be surpassed, but the story of a heartless hussy who goes through three husbands in a life that passes from poverty through riches to degradation is not a happy one. But neither is La Boheme, and that’s got some wonderful tunes.

This four hour, (yes, really!) opera has recently been performed at The Royal Opera house in London’s Covent Garden. Here is a quote from London’s Daily Telegraph: “Some directors have sought to soften its edges with comedy or lard it with visual glamour, but Christof Loy's new production rigorously refuses any such sentimental concession or moral compromise: his interpretation is bleak, raw and ice-cold.”

And London’s Guardian Newspaper: “Christof Loy's mind-numbingly tedious staging of Berg's Lulu achieves the impossible - it allows Berg's masterpiece to come across as a turgid and overlong evening of musical endurance.”

And I would say they just about hit the nail on the head!

So, did I have a good evening? Well, yes I did. Despite the reviews above I did actually enjoy the story – if not the telling. But I really had to put my brain to work. The libretto is in German, but above the stage – far too far above so I was like a nodding donkey all evening – was a screen with Spanish subtitles, which I then translated into English. I would like to thank Gloria Nogué, who the program tells me was responsible for those subtitles, for making it so easy. She just about hit my level of Spanish!

Our tickets were for the VIP section, which meant we had much the same view as the King and The Queen, should they have been willing to endure the performance. It gave me a great view of the great horseshoe shaped auditorium with its wonderfully restored gilt boxes and a great view of the stage, which is huge. This wasn’t actually filled with much and the simple set with much left to our imagination and the choreography basically consisted of the cast ambling round or standing still.

Our VIP tickets gained us entry to the Goya room during the two intervals. They also meant that our refreshments, white wine for me, cava for my companion, and delicious canapés, were complementary. It’s nice to see how the other half live once in a while.

From next year the Teatro Real has a new director, Gerard Mortier. He is quoted as saying, “I aim to fascinate the public. One of the first things I’ve noticed about Madrid is that the Opera House faces the Royal Palace and has its back to the city. I hope to keep the theatre facing the palace but for it also to embrace the city and bring in the people”.

He said he also hoped to attract younger people to the opera and to emulate what he called the Paris Opera's feat of bringing down the average age of opera-goers from 58 to 42.

Ok, it’s not that long a walk from La Latina to the Teatro Real, but he will need to stage something much more entertaining than “Lulu” and try to reduce the normally ridiculously high prices for tickets. I hope he succeeds. It was a great experience, but next time I want to be entertained.

.

It's Turned Out Nice Again!

By Richard Morley
Sunny skies over Madrid's Main Mosque.

Well I am sorry to inform the Schadenfreude of some, but once La Noche En Blanco was out of the way the weather turned nice again. The skies are blue with just a hint of cloud, jackets are now being carried, not worn, and the tables on the pavement are in use again. Temperatures are in the mid to high(ish) twenties, which is a welcome relief from the searing heat of not that long ago. I am so glad I did not succumb to the temptation to store the electric fan for the winter and right now it is wafting a welcome cooling breeze about the room.

La Noche en Blanco, the White Night or literally, “Sleepless Night”, seemed to be a great success. Wandering around Gran Via with its normally cream coloured cliffs of building facades painted brilliant colours by gelled floodlights was a wondrous sight. Up every street a crowd gathered to watch some street performance or listen to bands playing every conceivable type of music. I am told the usual long queues meandered slowly outside the major galleries, although as they are there every day of the year this bemuses me. But one should never underestimate the madrileños’ love of anything free! But whether it is vale la pena to wait for hours I am not so sure.

For me the evening will be remembered for another sort of pain. Climbing on to a bus to go to a friend’s house, I slipped and scraped my shin from knee to ankle and fell flat on my face into the bus. (And yes, I was sober!) Several passengers rose from their seat to offer me assistance, which with great bravado I shrugged off, but the pain ……!

I arrived at my friend’s house where the cuts to my leg were immediately attended to with some large dollops of iodine. Ouch! Even more pain. I have been left with a leg that has evolved through all the colours of the rainbow, that has two gaping holes in it, and has twice the circumference of the other leg. I presume it will deflate in time.

Once the wound was dressed and a restorative glass of Mahou had been consumed, we set off to partake in the evening’s events. On nights like this I, as the guiri, am happy to be guided by those that know their culture better. Our group are all of a “certain age”, but had decided to relive their salad days by going to listen to a band from the seventies. We set off for Clamores Jazz club in Chamberi. There we spent an evening in the company of Cánovas, Adolfo y Guzmán. This was only three quarters of the original line up; someone called Rodrigo was missing.

With the three eponymous members playing guitars and a session musician on piano the audience were treated to nearly two hours of a zimmer-framed stumble down memory lane. The three musicians were now all old men. This mattered not to their fans who had come to listen and sing along. Everyone knew the words and were actively encouraged to join in, perhaps to disguise the occasional croaks of age from the stage, although the voice that came from those three old men were not old at all, but still had the timbre of their youth. You can see how in the YouTube clip of one of their more famous songs, covered by just about every Spanish singer of merit, below.

Of course, many of the songs, despite their age, were new to me, and I could not lend my voice to the choir. But when they sang a couple of Beatle’s songs I was right in there – alone – while the rest of the audience kept quiet. Oh what the heck, they were probably too drunk to notice! But Rule Britannia and all that.

After the show we went out into the streets and attempted to listen to a jazz band, invisible among the throng, in the Plaza Dos de Mayo, then wandered through the crowded streets of Chueca down to Gran Via and a solid river of people oozing through the trafficless street.
Without a never ending flow of cars Madrid seems somehow more open, more free and much more sociable. For this night only the city was for the people: Couples, groups of friends, families with their children – some quite young. It was like a tide of humanity had flowed in through the carless streets – and quite magical.
Of course, more has been happening than La Noche en Blanco. No one has been able to avoid the overspill from the Cibeles Madrid fashion week. The newspapers have been full of the wonderful, and downright weird, ideas of the fashionistas. We have seen quite an eclectic mix of designs, but you know very few will ever be seen worn on any high street anywhere.

And they are still shifting the street furniture. “We will have to find a new place to meet in Sol”, suggested ADN newspaper. As part of the renovation of the Plaza del Sol it seems they are moving the statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree. But don’t worry too much. We shall not see hoards of rootless tourists missing each other because there is nowhere to meet. They are only putting it back to where to was 30 years ago in front of the Tio Pepe building. According to the report this will be the finishing touch to the remodelling of Sol. Hooray! I have lived here for four and a half years and only one once seen the plaza without work going on. The residents and shopkeepers will be very relieved.
But not those in the neighbouring street of Montera, it would seem. This, of course, is the notorious street where the ladies of negotiable affection ply their trade. Three years ago the residents tried placing webcams on their balconies to put off the girls’ clients and that was followed by the ayuntamiento placing very obvious cameras, with warning signs, along the street. Apparently this has had very little effect. I am not surprised. Two years ago the girls had an alternative venue, the Casa del Campo, but the authorities closed the roads to through traffic, so everyone came into the centre, spilling out along Gran Via. Recently the Gran Via girls had a bust up with the Montera girls when one of the former strayed off pitch. Despite the area being swamped with (blind?) police, it seems quite an affray ensued, according to a friend (honest!) who was an eye witness. “The cameras have had little effect”, claimed QUÉ! Newspaper.

But are lessons learned? I doubt it. At a cost of 600,000 Euros forty eight surveillance cameras have just been installed in the Barrio of Lavapiés. According to the Ayudamiento the activities of the working girls once again are the main reason, but it does have a reputation as a high crime area. I say “reputation” as I have no first hand experience of Lavapiés other than as a place to get the best Indian and Asian food in town. It was once the Jewish quarter with surrounding walls to keeps the jews in after nightfall, until they were all thrown out in 1492. I recently waited for a friend in the Plaza there and eavesdropped in on a conversation between four men; a Moroccan, an indeterminate African, a Chinese and a Spaniard, all sharing one long bench. It is probably the most cosmopolitan plaza in Madrid. Whoever has the job of watching those cameras is going to be very bored.

And going back to the subject of shifting the street furniture, Cristobel Colon, or Christopher Columbus to our American readers, is now all trussed up waiting to be moved to his new home in the centre of the Paseo de la Castellana. To date, the Madrid Municipalities have asked central government for 1,076 million Euros as part of “Plan E”, the scheme to renovate the city by finding jobs for the unemployed. As I have written before, much of this work is needed, but moving the statues does seem like “busy work”, just to keep people in jobs. The government has recently stated it will raise taxes to pay for all this work and some politician voiced the opinion that those who have benefitted from the crisis by having their mortgage repayments reduced as interest rates went down should pay an extra tax so that no one can be seen to profit from the current depression.

I love this town, but sometimes ….!!!!

Still, the weather's turned nice.