This guy who has been stuck in his apartment during Spain's coronavirus lockdown, has a great idea: modular balconies that can be assembled, installed in an apartment window and later removed and disassembled. I saw an interview with Aitor Fuente, the building engineer who has come up with the idea. I later found this brief concept video on his YouTube page.
Este chico que ha quedado en su piso durante el encierro de
coronavirus en España, tiene una idea genial: balcones modulares que se
puede montarse, instalarse en la ventana del piso y luego retirarse y
desmontarse. Vi una entrevista con Aitor Fuente, el arquitecto técnico
quien se le ocurrió la idea y encontró este breve video conceptual en su
página de YouTube.
Jesus appears to have forgiven the Spanish woman who botched his face in
what was 'probably the worst art restoration project of all time.'
Yes, the Lord seems to have chosen to use the infamous monkey-like image
of Himself to evangelize by appearing on a popular Japanese …
It is engraved on a glass plate dating back to the 4th Century AD,
reports from Spain say.
The plate is believed to have been used to hold Eucharistic bread as it
was consecrated in early Christian rituals. It measures 22cm [8.66in] in
diameter and fragments of it were unearth …
Catalonia's president on Saturday formally called a referendum to decide
whether Spain's richest region should be independent, defying Madrid
which vowed to block the move.
Shortly after Artur Mas set the vote for Nov. 9, the Spanish government
said the referendum would not ta …
Arriving at the Dos Puentes [Two Bridges] Elementary School, the
stunning royal was an immediate hit with the children who had hundreds
of questions for the queen.
"How come you aren't wearing a crown?" asked one schoolboy, while
another said, "What's it like to be a queen?"
…
With an unemployment rate nearing 20%, ongoing housing evictions and
homeless shelters at capacity, Spain's capital is doing its best to
prevent the destitute from finding a place to sleep.
Take a walk on a busy Madrid street these days and you will soon see an
example …
Clive
Mantle of South Africa recently posted this video of his August
paragliding adventure just north of Madrid, near the village of Arcones,
a place he calls a 'paragliding mecca.' / Clive Mantle de Sudáfrica
publicado recientemente este vídeo …
Spain's Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia went to the opera at the Gran Teatre
del Liceu in Barcelona recently. This is how 'warmly' they were received.
Most Spaniards unaware of popular board game based on one of their country's most emblematic sites.
In Spain you can find all kinds of things named Alhambra: travel
agencies, driving schools, pastries, even a famous beer brand. That's understandable since the Alhambra palace fortress,
a symbol of the city Granada and one of Spain's most popular tourist sites, is
known throughout the world, and Spaniards are rightly proud of it. What
few Spaniards are aware of, however, is that it has inspired one of the
most popular board games in Europe. While Alhambra the game
flies off store shelves in places like Germany, France and the
Nordic countries, it currently has no distributor in the land of its
namesake.
“In Spain many people have held the license for Alhambra, but nobody has kept it very long” Haritz Solana, spokesman for Asmodee, the game's last Spanish distributor, explained to the El Mundo newspaper recently.
“It's
funny, because it's a game that has won game of the year several times,
with more than seven extensions, but it does not work here. We sold 500
units on the first run and little else.”
Alhambra is a classic
board game, with cards, but no dice, in which players must collect
materials to construct the monument and take turns to build it step by
step. The game, which can be played by up to four people and can last
hours, has received at least half a dozen international awards. It is
one of a series of Alhambra themed pastimes produced by Queens Games.
Its
creator, Dirk Henn, a German with a love of and fascination for
Granada, has just developed another game carrying the name of the city
itself. Granada can be combined with Alhambra, which makes the competition last
much longer, because you not only build the palace, but the city around
it. A video game version of Alhambra was in development, but has been indefinitely postponed.
Juan
Cruz who owns Freak Mondo (Shorn Freak), the only store that sells the
board game in Granada, told El Mundo, “At Christmas I sold the last three that
I had. Now I have one sample and if anyone wants one, I have to order
it from Germany. Though there's not much interest. I had to take it out
of the store window because my regular clients took it as a joke.”
While
on first sight it may invite some chuckles among Spaniards, what with
the box bearing images of exotic Ottoman looking domes and Arabs wearing
turbans and slippers with curled-tips, Cruz thinks if they gave it a chance
they would appreciate it
“I understand that is was developed with a
Central European audience in mind,” explained Cruz, “but when you play
it, being from Granada and knowing the monument, you realize that it has
been designed by someone who knows and likes the site.”
However, Asmodee spokesman Solana added that “there is no culture of modern board games, in Spain.
Yes, there is a love of traditional games, but among the youth there is
no interest in more recent board games. To start with there is the
weather, so in Spain they hang outside with friends. And when something
did take hold, it was the video console.”
“Here Alhambra sells nothing, or very little – not even among [board game] aficionados.”
Cruz
is more direct and attributes the lack of interest to “a certain
snobbery, a shame that we seem to have when something successful has to
do with our city. Yes, it is true that in recent years, because of the
[economic] crisis, people have been buying more games, because if it
costs 20 euros, and you go in on the purchase with four or five people,
then you can tire yourself out playing and buying sodas without spending
much. But the Alhambra has a curse.”
The Alhambra cursed? Well, the game in Spain, anyway.
You can check out how the game is played in the video review below:
Yesterday's local and regional elections resulted in a landslide victory for the right-wing Popular Party (Partido Popular, aka PP), and the biggest defeat in 30 years for the Socialist Party.
Elections for regional governments were held in 13 of Spain's 17 Autonomous Regions, and in none of them did the Socialist Party receive a majority vote. The PP will now govern in several Autonomous Regions, including Castilla-La Mancha where the Socialists have held power since Spain's return to Democracy in the late 1970s. Although they lost in Extremadura, too, the Socialists will probably be able to hold onto power there by forming a minority government with a minor party, United Left.
In the many provincial and municipal provincial government elections which were also held yesterday, the news was just as bad for the Socialist Party. This included losing control of Barcelona's and Seville's city halls, two other long time Socialist bastions.
In Guipúzcoa province and the city of San Sebastián, which are both located in the Autonomous Region known as the Basque Country, the recently formed separatist party Bildu obtained more votes than the Socialists to come in second to the more moderate Basque Nationalist Party (BNP). Before the election the courts had considered banning Bildu due to allegations of connections to the armed terrorist group ETA.
In Spain, voters can cast what is called a 'blank vote' - meaning none of the above. This year there were some 500,000 blank votes, or 2.54 per cent of all votes cast. This was the highest number of bank votes in Spain's history.
Despite the overwhelming loss, Spain's Prime Minister and Socialist Party leader announced he would not step down and has refused calls to move up national parliamentary elections, which are planned for spring 2012.
Of course these elections took place against the backdrop of large protests being held in city centers across the country. The elections may be over, but the protests are not.
Click here to listen to the radio report by Lauren Frayer of Voice of America. The transcript is below. The videos are of scenes of the protests in Madrid (top) and Barcelona (below), without commentary.
.
Thousands of demonstrators are occupying squares in major cities across Spain, protesting high unemployment and lack of opportunities for youth, ahead of municipal elections on Sunday. Many of them say they've been inspired by similar protests across the Arab world.
Protesters have been camping out in the capital's main square for days. Volunteers set up food and medical tents, adorned with homemade revolution posters. Someone pinned an Egyptian flag up overhead.
But this is not Egypt, it is Spain. Educated but unemployed youth who are frustrated by the poor economy and perceived government corruption have taken over Madrid's main square, Puerta del Sol - inspired by similar youth uprisings across the Middle East.
Pedro Escol, an unemployed scientist with a PhD, surveys the scene around him - piles of sleeping bags, revolution banners and angry youth.
"This situation in the square reminds me of Tahrir Square in Egypt," said Escol. "We are brothers with them. We are brothers. We have the same problems."
Escol says he's frustrated. He has a good education, but can't find work. He thinks politicians here are corrupt. And he says he was inspired by what young Egyptians did back in February. They took over a public square for days, calling for change. And it worked.
"Now I understand, that to take a square like [a] symbol is a very good way to force the government to talk about it, because the square is from the citizens. It's our square."
What started as spontaneous gatherings in Tunisia, and then Egypt, have now formed a blueprint for protests elsewhere - even in Europe. Calls have spread on Facebook for similar rallies among Spaniards living in Germany, the UK and Italy.
James Denselow, a Middle East expert at King's College in London, says protesters in Europe are copying some of the same tactics used in Cairo's Tahrir Square - exercising rights Europeans have had for decades.
"In European countries you've had free legitimate protests as an often constitutionally-protected right for decades, whereas in the Middle East this is incredibly new, which is a reason why it's proving so infectious partly," said Denselow. "I think there's a feedback loop in the sense that European countries are using lots of the same methods and tactics as groups in the Middle East, no better so than online social networking and Internet tools to organize."
Denselow says that while their political circumstances have been drastically different, with dictatorships in the Middle East and democracies in Europe, some of the economic conditions for youth in both regions are remarkably similar. Some Mideast regimes have fallen, and European governments have had their own stumbles.
"These are educated young professionals who are finding a workplace that is not accommodating them, whether it's in terms of people with degrees or people struggling to pay for their degrees," Denselow added. "There's been a government brought down in Greece and replaced quite quickly by another unpopular government, and problems in Ireland too. Each country has its own unique characteristics that reflects a reaction to those protests."
In downtown Madrid, Angela Cartagena is a volunteer on the protesters' quite savvy media outreach team, giving reporters tours of the protest camp. She says organizers learned lessons from the supply lines and that sustained Egyptian protesters in Cairo last winter.
"We have a legal commission, a communication one which I belong to, an infrastructure sub-commission also inside," said Cartagena. "We have a cleaning committee, which I think is very important. They're doing a great job, they're taking care all the time, cleaning the square, everything."
Cartagena says demonstrators are even calling for a Spanish "revolution."
"It depends on your concept of revolution," Cartagena noted. "This is a kind of democratic revolution, in a sense. Of course it's not a revolution like in the Middle East, the situation is completely different. But we are also trying to make a new democracy. They are trying to get [their first] democracy, and we are trying to get a new one - a different one, a better one."
Spanish protesters are angry about government austerity measures and high unemployment, and their voices are directed at all Spanish politicians, not only those currently in power. But local and regional elections are being held Sunday, and polls predict losses for the ruling Socialist Party. The next general election for parliament, however, is scheduled to be held by next March.
Two earthquakes struck southeast Spain in quick succession today, killing at least ten people, injuring dozens and causing major damage to buildings, officials said.
The epicentre of the quakes - with magnitudes of 4.4 and 5.2 - was close to the town of Lorca, and the second came about two hours after the first, an official with the Murcia regional government said on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.
The Spanish prime minister's office put the death toll at 10 and the Murcia administration said the deaths included a minor and occurred with the second, stronger quake. [...]
The quakes occurred in a seismically active area near a large fault beneath the Mediterranean Sea where the European and African continents brush past each other, USGS seismologist Julie Dutton said. The USGS said it has recorded hundreds of small quakes in the area since 1990.
Lorca, which has a population of about 90,000 people, dates back to the Bronze Age and probably gained its name from the Romans. The old part of the town is made up of a network of narrow alleyways.
The quakes were reportedly felt across Murcia, with tremors registered in Cartagena, Aguilas and as far away as Albacete.
In 2005, more than 900 homes in Lorca were wrecked by an earthquake measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale.
Friday, February 4, 2011
EntreLobos (AmongWolves),
an excellent movie by Spanish director Gerardo Olivares, tells the
remarkable story of a poor country boy named Marcos, who at the age of
7 is handed over to his father's employer, a rich landowner, who in
turn delivers him to a life of labor with a hermitic goatherd in an
isolated valley. The old man, who lives in a cave, is unused to human
company and at first seems not very interested in having a live-in
apprentice. The boy, who was abused by his parents, is frightened and
equally aloof initially. Despite this, the shepherd begins teaching
Marcos how to herd the goats, as well as how to care for himself and how
to survive in the wilderness by trapping and fishing.
The two develop an affection for each other, and the boy befriends
the goatherd's animal companions: a ferret, a civet, and an owl.
Unfortunately, the goatherd soon becomes ill and dies, leaving Marcos to
fend for himself. For the next twelve years he has virtually no contact
with human beings, but does make additional animal friends - the wolves
of a nearby den.
This beautiful film is based on the incredible experiences of Marcos
Rodríguez Pantoja, who lived alone in the Sierra Morena mountains from
1953 to 1965, when he was captured by members of Spain's Guardia Civil
and returned to civilization at 19 years of age. But there's another
intriguing narrative connected to all of this: the story of how the
director found his hero.
According to a post on Olivares' blog,
he came across the story in January 2007, after reading in a newspaper
about a girl who spent twenty years lost in the Cambodian jungle. The
article contained the web address www.feralchildren.com,
a site with more accounts of children who grew up with animals. Being
in the story telling business, Olivares clicked on the link thinking it
might be a good place to find an interesting tale.
There
he found more than 100 documented cases of children who were either
confined by their parents, abandoned, or lost in the wild, but who lived
thanks to their instinct for survival. These reports included that of 7
year old Traian Caldaro, a Romanian boy who hid in the mountains of
Transylvania for three years in order to escape an abusive home, and the
story of Reverend Joseph Singh, a missionary in India who discovered
feral twin girls living with a pack of wolves in the jungle.
Olivares
was reading through the histories on the list when he noticed a Spanish
name, Marcos Pantoja, followed by the location Sierra Morena, Spain.
Sensing that a good story might be hiding behind these details, he
clicked over to a page full of information that he soon realized
contained the perfect ingredients for a movie script.
Olivares
says that when he finished reading the report, he put his head in his
hands, and hoped Pantoja was still alive. If the information was
correct, he would have been 62 years old.
He saw a
small black and white photo on the top right hand side of the page, and
below that a box with the words "Learn more about Marcos Pantoja at ..."
and the title of a book: "Marcos: Wild Child of the Sierra Morena." He
clicked and found the name of the author, Gabriel Janer Manila, the
publisher, Prometheus Books, and a link to purchase it. He ordered a
second-hand copy for $6 from a bookstore in Portland, Oregon, then typed
the name of Marcos Pantoja in Google, but nothing came up. Next he
tried entering the name of the book's author, and found him listed as a
professor of anthropology and sociology at the University of the
Balearic Islands. He sent the professor an email asking if they could
meet, and received a reply a few days later inviting Olivares to come to
his office in Palma de Mallorca.
The meeting with
Dr. Manila shored up the amazing details of the story, supported by the
anthropologist's doctoral thesis, the subsequently published book, and
the fact that British playwright Kevin Lewis had written a play called
Marcos, about the young man's social reintegration process.
Nevertheless,
as incredible as the tale was, it had seemed to have fallen into
oblivion. Not only was there not much of a trace on the web, but Dr.
Manila had not heard any news of Pantoja for 15 years, and thought he
might be dead. "Gerard, Marcos was a very fragile man who suffered much,
so do not be surprised if his life has ended tragically," he told the
director.
A few weeks later Olivares was sitting in
the office of the mayor of Añora, the town where Pantoja was born. The
mayor had never heard his story, and initially had difficulty believing
it. However, she did a little research and came up with his birth
certificate, the address of the house where he had been born and even a
family member, who told Olivares that the last time she had heard of her
cousin had been 13 years earlier. At that time he was living in a cave
near Alhaurín, in the Andalusian province of Malaga. She had gone to
look for him, but could not find him and was told by someone who worked
in a bar he frequented that he had not been seen around there in a
while.
Olivares worried that perhaps like the cousin
he had reached a dead end in his search – but he was not ready to give
up. He was planning to continue his research by visiting Alhaurín when
his producer José María Morales suggested hiring a private detective.
Apparently
Morales knew a woman who had recently hired an investigator to find out
if her husband was having an affair, and within 24 hours of doing so
was presented with photographs of him in a compromising situation.
Olivares thought, "Why not," called the detective, and gave him the
pertinent information. Later that same night he received a call telling
him not to bother going to Alhaurín because Pantoja was living in the
town of Orense, in the region of Galica - and here was his phone number.
Olivares says that he was so thrilled by the news that when he hung up
the phone his hands were shaking.
Here is a translation of his description of what happened when he called the number:
The phone rang several times before someone with a Galician accent
answered on the other end. I introduced myself and asked if Marcos, the
man who was isolated in the Sierra Morena for 12 years, lived there. The
man was silent for a few seconds before answering.
"Yes, he lives here, but what do you want?
I explained in detail that after discovering his story I had
spent almost a year looking for him, about Gabriel the anthropologist,
about visiting his house in Añora, and that there were family members
who wanted to know how he was
"I don't know if he will want to talk to you, but call back in ten minutes."
I didn't wait even three minutes before calling back, I was so anxious to talk to Marcos.
"Hellooooooooo!"
It was him, and on hearing his voice at last, I choked up. I felt a lump in my throat and could hardly speak.
"Hello paisano, I've spent nearly a year looking for you ... Finally I've found you."
Marcos let out a laugh.
"I've met some of your family who have also been trying to find you..."
He was silent and then replied:
"Well, my life has been hard..."
"I know. I'd like to meet you and talk at length."
"Then come around here, I live in... But how did you find me?"
"Tomorrow I can tell you the whole story in person, if it's not inconvenient"
"Tomorrow? Okay, no problem for me."
I hung up the phone and sat in silence, just smiling for a while. The next day, I was finally going to meet Marcos.
Ten months had passed since
Olivares had first read about the little Spanish boy who found himself
alone in the wild and survived thanks to the lessons of a destitute
goatherd and the friendship of wolves. Over the next two years Marcos
Rodríguez Pantoja cooperated with the director on the filming of his
fascinating story. He appears in the last scene of the movie, as himself
- happily playing with a wolf on a mountainside.
One of my favorite Spanish singer-songwriters, Alex Ubago, recently collaborated with Craig David on a Spanish translation of David's 2001 hit song Walking Away. The result is a bilingual version that is being released as a duet on David's Greatest Hits CD in Spanish speaking countries.
In an interview with them that I read in today's ¡Que!, they claimed to have communicated in Spanglish while working on the new version. David said that was because he really only knows a little Spanish. However, Ubago added, "That is until he sees a pretty [Spanish-speaking] girl, when he lets loose with perfect Castellano."
Both singer-songwriters are 27 year old Grammy winners with well established careers. Craig David, with more than 13 million CDs sold worldwide, is one of the most successful recording artists to come from Great Britain so far this century.
Alex Ubago, who accompanies himself on the guitar, is from Vitoria, Spain and has sold more than three million CDs. He has won numerous awards in Spain, Latin American and the USA. He will soon release his sixth disc, which was recorded in Argentina. I have not heard if the duet with David will be included on Ubago's CD.
David also recorded new bilingual versions of "Walking Away" with artists such as Lynnsha from France, Nek from Italy, Monrose from Germany, and Bonnie Pink from Japan for his CD's release in their respective countries.
