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Seville sun shines on Arizona

I’ve written before about solar power, and the no-brainer that it is here in sun-drenched Andalucia. One of the foremost companies in the field of industrial-sized, cutting-edge solar technology is based in Seville. Abengoa has a massive platform in Sanlucar La Mayor, just east of the city, which in three years’ time will produce enough energy to power over 150,000 homes (300 mega watts). That’s a lots of fridges and air-con units (I can’t even think about heating when it’s this hot!)

Plataforma Solucar is an extraordinary, other-worldly sight, visible from the Huelva-Seville motorway, with two towers casting glowing beams of light diagonally down towards the ground. These are the first commercial solar power towers in the world (PS10 and PS20). The latest plant at Solucar is Solnova 1, which started operating in May, which uses parabolic trough technology (where a liquid in a special heat-absorbing pipe is heated by the sun’s concentrated power). All use technology developed by Abengoa.

So, when President Obama announced recently that Abengoa had been chosen to build the biggest solar power plant in the world, in Arizona, it was a a major cause for celebration. Solana will produce 250MW of power, saving 475,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year. The plant, which will use parabolic trough technology like Solnova’s, will be able to store six hours’ worth of energy, so it can continue to produce electricity even on cloudy days, and after the sun has set. It will be five times bigger than the biggest planta solar (solar plant) at Solucar. The US government has pledged 1150 million euros to the project. Not only is it a technological triumph for a local company, the new contract offers a much-needed economic shot-in-the-arm for this area - it will create 1,600 jobs.

As well as having its corporate headquarters in Seville, Abengoa is building the Campus Palmas Altas (CPA) technology park in the south of the city. It will be a centre for excellence in research and development in environmental technology, coming up with the most innovative and ground-breaking ideas in the fields of energy efficiency, producing renewable energy, and sustainable building. The Campus itself, designed by British architect Richard Rodgers, is also intended to be a model of these key areas. The building recently won a 2010 European RIBA prize.

Seville is on the world stage not for flamenco, Carmen or Semana Santa, for once, but for something a bit more 21st-century; the latest clean, green technology, developed at Solucar, in Andalucia, to be used in the US. On a truly grand scale.

PS I’m off to England for my summer holidays (rain! clouds! cool breezes! yummy puddings!) so andalucia.com’s work experience person, Sarah Matthews, will be guest blogging for month of August. Don’t forget the suncream, and see you in September.

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¿Hablas ingles?

One of the things that really galls me (me fastidia, me cabrea, me molesta, me enfada) about living here in Spain is dubbed television. I loathe and detest it. The voices are all the same - I think there’s a stable of about five people they use - young woman, old woman, young man, old man, and a spare. The intonation’s always the same. Sandra Bullock sounds the same as Meryl Streep. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong. Which is one of the reasons I love going to Portugal. They have all foreign movies in VOS (version original con subtitulos). The first time I stayed in an apartment there (as opposed to camping), a film with Cate Blanchett, one of my favourite actresses, was on. I’d never seen it before. Instead of sitting out on the balcony, admiring the view across the beautiful, unbuilt-up saltmarshes to the sea, and sipping a glass of chilled white wine with my then-boyfriend (now husband), I was glued to the sofa (with my drink, of course), transfixed, while people on this TV in Portugal spoke English! Their mouths moved in sync with the words! It was a normal film! ¡Que maravilla!

Interestingly (always learning, you see), I read that the doblaje was thanks to Franco, who made sure all foreign programmes were dubbed, so they could be censored more easily, and to make sure all voices and accent were correct - no hint of foreignness was allowed. Ah, that explains a lot. Old habits die hard, eh?

Now that we have our TDT, films on TVE 1 and TVE 2, and some cartoons on Clan, can be watched in English, occasionally even with Spanish subtitles (my TV always claims my Idioma audio is ingles, even when it isn´t.) We seem to have less luck with FDF, Antenna Neon, Nova and the other new channels.

The lack of original English-language TV series and films was cited as a reason for the poor level of English in Spain, in article I read in the newspaper recently. Well, that makes sense, since the Portuguese on the whole speak far, far better English than the Spanish, and without the strangulated “Eeeeeengleeeesh” vowels. This is also true for northern Europe - Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, where the level of English spoken is uniformly high. Kids watch TV in English from an early age. The second reason also tallies with this theory: education. There wasn’t much English taught in schools until the 1970s, and they didn’t start classes till age 10; neither were there many private language institutes. Now you can’t wave a stick around without hitting at least five academias de ingles. By contrast, it has been taught in northern European schools as standard for decades. I am always embarrassed by how perfectly the Dutch and Scandinavians speak my own language; barely an accent. It is second nature to them.

The article’s author, an esteemed professor of English and rector of a university, no less, also states that it’s much easier for the Spanish to learn another romance language (Italian, French), than a Germanic one (German, English). The vocabulary and grammar are very similar. Then he introduces another pertinent point: what he calls “indole linguistica” (linguistic nature or character) - so many more vowel sounds in English (Eeengleesh).

I was shocked when I first arrived in Seville at the poor level of English spoken by most people, from hotel staff, to restaurant and bar waiters, to my students, some of whom ran businesses which depended on foreign tourism. New colleagues assured me that this was the norm here. I’d just arrived from a year living in Quito, in Ecuador, a third-world country, where my students spoke excellent English and were keen to learn. I guess, for them, it’s a ticket out of their current existence to a new life in the nearby US. Whatever, these guys and girls took it seriously, they did their homework, they listened to me (well, most of them). So I was astonished to arrive in a first-world country where people couldn’t even manage the verb “be” or get the most basic pronunciation right. In Ecuador, US TV series abound in, you guessed it, version original. But not all of my students there were privileged, private school, holidays in Europe types - far from it. They had learned because they wanted to. So theory one, maybe, but theory two; not so sure.

The article carried some interesting facts (my weakness, I love statistics): in the mid 20th-century (when Francoism held Spain in its iron grip), 9% of the planet spoke English as their mother tongue; by 2050, this will have reduced to 5%, nearly half. However, in the 1950s for 250 million English was their second language; a century later, this figure will have multiplied five times over, to a staggering 1,250 million. That’s nearly 20% of the world’s population.

So the Spanish had better start getting their bocas round our vocales. I know plenty of teachers who can help them. Or just tune into TVE 1 or TVE 2 and listen carefully. But most of all, put in some effort. I know you’d rather be tomando un cafe, talking about football or Iker and Sara, or whoever the latest hot couple is. Well, sorry but no. Pull your finger out and study. It will all be worth it in the end. I promise.

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The many faces of Carmen

Seville is famous for many typically Spanish, and Andaluz, things: tapas, flamenco, bullfighting, Semana Santa - and Carmen. Bizet’s 1875 opera, based on a novella by Prosper Merimee, has been a firm favourite for years, with its tragic story of the beautiful, fiery gypsy girl who works in the cigarette factory, her soldier-turned-smuggler boyfriend, and her bullfighter lover; in the end (spoiler alert) the soldier kills her in a fit of jealous rage. The cigarette factory in the tale, the Real Fabrica de Tabacos, is situated next door to the Alfonso XIII hotel and opposite the Parque Maria Luisa, and is now part of Seville University. It is the setting this summer for an open-air Carmen, by the excellent local theatre company Producciones Imperdibles, as part of the 21 Grados festival of music, theatre and cinema, as well as an exhibition on the original factory and its workers, Bizet and Merimee, gypsies, smugglers and bullfighters.

As part of the Asomate Al Patio season in the Diputacion’s courtyard, you can see Carlos Saura’s film version (14 September), from 1983. Lastly, in October (1, 8 and 15), the Centro Cultural Cajasol is showing see six of the many film versions, made between 1938 and 2003, in their “Carmen en el cine” season. Then, in November (18-28), the Teatro Lope de Vega is hosting an adaptation by the Teatro Clasico de Sevilla. There is even a Carmen route you can follow: it starts by the Torre de Oro, where the cigarette girls waited for the tobacco to arrive by ship at the river quay, and includes the factory, Callejon de Agua, Calle de la Juderia and the Cuartel de la Puerta de la Carne (army barracks), ending up at the bullring.

So that will give you an idea of just how popular Carmen remains in Seville, her pueblo natal. Back in 2004, the biggest ever multi-location, open-air staging of Carmen was going to take place from 2-11 September. It had a budget of 20 million euros, and was to be directed by Carlos Saura, with top international names from the music world: sopranos Angela Gheorgiu and Montserrat Marti in the leading role, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and flamenco guitarists Jose Merce and Tomatito. Sets had been built, costumes made, extras hired, logistics meticulously planned for the cast, crew and 12,000-person audience.

Then, less than a month it was to open, the organisers pulled out, citing financial problems. They left a very, very irate Ayuntamiento, which had spent much time, effort and money planning the whole show, and a very, very disappointed public, both here and all over the world, who had been looking forward to this amazing spectacle, which was to have had three locations: the Fabrica de Tabacos (naturally), Plaza de España, and the bullring, with intervals between each act for everyone to move to the next place. The Paseo Marques de Contadero was to be turned into a 19th-century boulevard, complete with inns and horse-and-carriages. The company responsible, which had staged similar shows in the Forbidden City in Beijing (Turandot) and Luxor (Aida), was called Opera on Original Site, and was the brainchild of Michael Ecker. He was calling this production Carmen en Sevilla.

Now there is talk of resurrecting the idea, partly to erase the bitter aftertaste left by the massive let-down from six years ago. The culture delegate for Sevilla, Maribel Montaño, has announced that the ICAS (Instituto de las Cultura y las Artes de Sevilla) is looking into the possibility of resurrecting the plan which ended in such a high-profile fiasco, as part of its three-year programme of events dedicated to the gypsy girl, under their Myths of Seville season (the other two operatic figures are Figaro and Don Juan). It would be on a smaller, more realistic, scale, with an audience of just 5,000.

If she manages to pull it off, it will be an amazing achievement (both the planning and the show itself), and I will be first in the queue to buy my ticket (providing they promise me a refund in the case of, er, “technical problems”).

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¡Nos vamos a la playa!

It’s that time of year again when you pile bags and bags of stuff into the car boot: swimming costumes, towels, sunhats and suncream (and sunsuits if your kids are blanquitos like mine), buckets and spades, beach parasol, folding deckchair, cold box replete with water, soft drink, snacks, sandwiches (if you’re English), and in our case, a UV tent (not as daft as it sounds. I suffered from endless bouts of sunburn, heat rash and blisters as a child, so anything for mine to avoid it), and everything else you need for your day/weekend/week/fortnight/month at the beach - after all, Andalucia has 800km of coastline, so you’d be mad not to,especially with this heat.

Then, car refuelled and ready to go, you set off, all excited about heading off to enjoy the sun and sand, until you find yourselves in a nose-to-tail jam before you’ve barely left home.

That’s the situation on most coast-ward autopistas in Andalucia, it seems. Whether you want to go from Granada to the coast, from Seville to the beaches of Malaga, Cadiz or Huelva, it’s a nightmare. And when you get there, the same thing happens: you leave the dual carriagway, to find yourself in a bottle-neck to get into the town itself.

On Saturday, for example, which marked the start of the second quincena (fortnight) of July, there were queues of 14km heading out of Seville on the A49 towards Huelva, while the Malaga autopista, the A92, had 17km of traffic at a standstill. Yesterday, a whopping 20km leaving Malaga, and 11km going back into Sevilla. A new road, 25km-hiperronda Las Pedrizas (AP-46), is planned to ease the weight of traffic entering Malaga from the north, from Antequera. But, like so many obras across Andalucia, the the 500-million-euro road was paralizada for some months, due to lack of funds, and is now, needless to say, massively behind schedule.

Other blackspots are the coast road between Nerja and the Costa Tropical of Granada province, which, when completed, would make a clear run from Malaga to Motril. Also, the first 15km or so after leaving Seville has roadworks (they’re increasing the lanes to three in each direction, at long last), so cars grind to a halt when they’ve barely climbed the hill up out of the city into the Aljarafe.

If you’re leaving Huelva to go to two of its most popular beaches (though not my personal favourites, by any means), Matalascañas or Punta Umbria, you will inevitably slow to crawling pace as you near your sandy paradise. At least if you’re going to Matalascañas, or neighbouring Mazagon (my beach destination of choice), you’ve got the wild beauty of the Parque Doñana to look at out of the window as you sit impatiently, grinding your teeth and tutting. Look out for the lynx underpasses. I just love the idea of those beautiful wild cats padding through the tunnels to safety on the other side, as the queues of cars rumble overhead. “Lots of cars today, dear. All those humans off to the sea again. Must be Saturday. Fancy a bit of rabbit chasing?”

One of the biggest projects, the much-hyped SE40, would carry traffic to the south of Sevilla, thereby allowing cars to pass directly from Huelva to Cadiz, without hitting the horrible SE30. Its future is also in doubt.

Anyway, here is my hot tip: get up early, before breakfast (Eek! but what about my tostada con aceite, jamon y tomate?”, I hear you ask, outraged. Just take it and eat it in the car), and head off about 9am. That way, you avoid the traffic. I’ve done it the last two Saturdays heading Huelva way, and the roads have been virtually empty. And the parking was fine. And we had plenty of space on the beach (for the first few hours, at least). So pack your beach bag the night before, set the alarm for 7am and you’ll be laughing. Happy sandcastles!

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The Times, the goalie, his girlfriend and the politician’s wife

It has all the ingredients of press manna from heaven: a major international sporting event, a beautiful Spanish sports journalist, a top Spanish sports star, a sniping British newspaper and a top British politician’s pissed-off Spanish wife. OK, so it’s not earth-shatteringly significant in the grand scheme of things (compared to the state of the Spanish economy, for example), I admit, but it is highly entertaining nonetheless.

Here’s what happened: after Spain lost to Switzerland in the first round of the World Cup (remember, what you spent the last month watching and talking about?), Telecinco sports journalist - the one who collars the poor sods outside the changing room, when all they want to do is go and have a shower - Sara Carbonero, she of the unfeasibly green eyes, grilled the Spanish team’s captain, Iker Casillas, about the match. So far, so normal. But she’s his girlfriend, and The Times saw an opportunity to have a dig at the competition’s favourites. The following day, on their front page they ran photos of the interview with the caption, “Goalie’s girlfriend starts the Spanish Inquisition.” Tabloidy, or what?

But they also claimed that Spanish fans were blaming Carbonero for “distracting” Casillas, the team’s goalkeeper, by reporting from behind his goal, an accusation then taken up by The Guardian among others. Well forgive the irony, but talk about a red rag to a bull. The Spanish media laid right into The Times, chiefly El Pais, El Mundo, and the Spanish sports paper Marca, addressing the journalists by name. Nothing like an inter-media slanging match - this is the best thing since the Germaine Greer-Salman Rushdie spat.

El Pais said The Times’s story was more suited to the infamous British tabloids (The Sun and The Daily Mail also mentioned that she’d been voted World’s Sexiest Reporter, quelle surprise), going on to comment that the paper’s reporters bordered on “machismo lacking in objectivity.”

Carbonero defended herself on the popular late-night discussion programme La Noria, asking if she was capable of destabilising the team. “I think it’s ridiculous,” was her answer.

Then, of course, came the final, and that kiss. The gobsmacker (OK, I admit, I’ve been dying to use that word, it just seemed so totally appropriate) that has been much imitated on Spanish TV, and watched by half a million people online.

On Monday, day of celebrations the like of which Madrid has never seen, the victorious team arrived home from South Africa, met the king and president, rode through the streets cheered by a million ecstatic fans, did the conga on stage and sang with Manolo Escobar and David Bisbal. The next day, The Times published a letter from the wife of British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. Miriam Gonzalez makes Cherie, her outspokenness, and her various media debacles pale into insignificance against the Spanish lawyer’s ballsiness.

“Sir, Now that Spain has won the World Cup and Iker Casillas demonstrated on Sunday that he is an outstanding goalkeeper regardless of whether his girlfriend, Sara Carbonero, watches him from the touchline or not, it may be time for you to eat a bit of humble pie,” she said. “Trying to blame Sara for Spain’s initial lacklustre performance while she was simple doing her job was not worthy of a newspaper that should treat women for who they are and not simply what their male partners do.” Well that told ‘em.

The Times replied, standing by its original story and saying that it had done nothing wrong by reporting Spanish fans’ reactions. It went on to congratulate the Spanish team for their victory, saying “You in particular will be glad to know that we scrupulously recognise women for what they are and not what their partners do”.

In the closest thing to an apology Ms Gonzalez will ever get, the paper went on, “We are not over fond of humble pie, but if you, Sara Carbonero or Iker Casillas are ever passing, please do drop by for a slice of tortilla.” Kind of pompous, if you ask me.

Most annoyingly, you have to pay to read the original Times reports, as the august journal now charges for the privilege of perusing its pages. Spoilsports. Gonzalez has already been quoted in a rare interview describing the media coverage of the leaders’ wives during the election campaign, and focus on their fashion tastes rather than cerebral capacities, as patronising, “putting it diplomatically”.

“I like to be called clever”, she said. Something Carbonero probably wouldn’t sniff at, either. I can’t see much in common between the corporate hotshot and mother of three, and the undeniably good-looking reporter. But Spanish women stick together, it seems. Watch out, British media, Spanish women have a champion of their interests now. I wonder what would happen if The Sun had a go at Belen Esteban, Spain’s answer to Katie Price? Would Ms Gonzalez give ‘em hell? No, I don’t reckon she would either.

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¡Madre mia!

It’s funny that although the main story is, of course, that Spain won the World Cup for the first time ever last night, what most people are talking about is not Hiniesta’s 116th minute goal, referee Howard Webb’s questionable decisions, or even Pulpo Paul’s amazing predictions, but the moment when the Spanish goalkeeper grabbed the journalist who was interviewing him and gave her a passionate kiss.

That image will stay with most of us who were watching it forever. That kiss, which said everything about all the criticism which had been targeted at Sara Carbonero, girlfriend of Iker Casillas, that her presence had distracted Casillas and caused him to let in the fatal goal in their first match against Switzerland - as the Spanish media put it “even newspapers as prestigious as The Times repeated this theory”. All that is forgotten now, and they are the golden couple. Carbonero was left lost for words, as you would be if your boyfriend gave you a smacker in front of the entire Spanish population, and 760 million-odd other people around the world, and uttered a simple, shocked “Madre mia!” before handing back to the main presenter. It appealed to the romantic in all of us, that spontaneous, loving gesture, and was a perfect end to a rather prolonged night.

Some interesting facts: no one team has ever lost their first match and then gone on to win the Championship; the (English) referee handed out more cards than ever before (13, 12 yellow and one red) in a World Cup final; Spain is only the eighth country ever to hold up the trophy. It joins a select group which includes Brazil, Italy, Germany, Uruguay, Argentina, England and France, sights are now set on hosting the 2018 competition jointly with Portugal. As some papers put it this morning, last night we won not one World Cup, but two. The other hopefuls are Quatar, South Korea, Australia, Russia, Belgium and Holland, Mexico, the US and England.

But let’s get back to last night. I can’t tell you much about the match itself, as I was watching it on a huge screen with 6,000 other people in Camas, home town of Sergio Ramas and my husband (whose cousin knows the Real Madrid player). The scene at the plaza was filmed by two Spanish national TV channels, who had reporters there before, during and after the match, as well as again this morning. There were also photos of football fans watching the match in Camas, which is just outside Seville, in many newspapers today.

Anyway, it was more family occasion than serious follow-the-ball match for me, having to keep an eye on my son, who was playing happily with his cousin, both of them blasting away on their vuvuzelas and waving their stripey light sticks. And the sun was shining directly on the screen for the first part (can’t really say half, as it wasn’t a game of two halves) of the match, making it difficult to see what was happening.

At the risk of stating the obvious, it was an amazing sight, that sea of red and yellow (my son had to make do with a red Thomas the Tank Engine T shirt). My niece waved a huge flag and even my husband, who hates football with as much passion as most people love it, got right into the spirit of the occasion. We saw a Pulpo Paul on TV (which was a friend’s, as it turned out), and a bizarre doll dressed up in an Asturian cloak. Plenty of crazy hats, flags, scarves, yellow and red vuvuzelas, faces painted with the Spanish flag. Young and old, all throughly enjoying themselves on a hot summer evening.

But was a long, long match, and there was a noticeable pall in the atmosphere at the start of extra time. Everyone can stand and jump and wave their flags and be excited for a couple of hours, but after that energy levels start to dip. It wasn’t until the point where Heitinga was sent off, so near the end of extra time, that the atmosphere went electric, the seleccion española seemed to find their second wind too, and then boomba! Iniesta pops it in and the place goes mad. Fireworks went off when the goal was scored, but the game hadn’t finished so I got quite confused. Then, it was all over. Spain had beaten Netherlands 1-0, and thereby won the World Cup. And the car horns started beeping all over Camas, Seville, Andalucia and Spain.

Listening to comments on the radio this morning, what stood out was the amount of people who said that this victory had united Spain, north, south, east and west, and that we’re all champions. One of the most popular chants last night was “Yo soy español, español, español…”

Well I’m not, but I’m as delighted as any Spanish person could be. ¡Viva España!

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Day of High Drama

And I’m not just talking about the football, more of which later.

Yesterday those of us who live in and around Seville experienced a weather phenomenon which, while mild in comparison to those in the US, scared the living daylights out of me, and I was at home. It was like a mini-tornado, a swirling mass of dust which blotted out everything behind it, and swept across our garden, bending the trees double and rattling the windows. I’d never seen anything like it - my husband told me to keep the children away from the windows, in case they smashed, and to move the car away from an unstable wall next to which it was parked.

Thanks to the internet, or more specifically Facebook, I was able to track its path. Friends reported it in four different locations - one, who was in a park with her daughter, where I was supposed to have been with my children, reported a fallen tree and flying scaffolding, which narrowly missed the children (my friend’s daughter kept saying afterwards, “the park’s fallen down”). Another reported her car being buffeted by the winds, and branches, foliage and debris blowing all over the road, as well as a dust cloud which made visibility near zero. And at the mercadillo near our house (fruit and veg, clothes, shoes etc), much of the produce was swept off towards the motorway, about 500 metres away.

News reports today say the winds - they called them rachas, gusts, and turbiones, squalls - reached 60km/h. But with all the dust, and it being such a concentrated area - a specific mass which moved along on its own - I’d say it was more like a mini-tornado. I’ve seen them at a distance, usually moving across an area of flat land, like a field, but never near my house. Tornados are defined as having winds of more than 64km/h, so we were just under. But seeing all the dust it carried, I’d say a minor whirlwind is about right.

In any case, it uprooted trees, apart from the one that narrowly missed the children in the park I mentioned earlier, landing one on top of a bus in Seville, while another trapped a family in their car for two hours. A meteorologist explained the cause: “the temperature difference between hot air coming from North Africa in the lower part of the atmosphere, and cold air in its middle part.”

The other drama was Spanish football’s biggest day ever - winning a World Cup semi-final against Germany. For the first time in its history, Spain has reached the final, and will play the Netherlands on Sunday (in case you live in a cave in the mountains). I’ll just mention a few things which stood out for me.

1) The Queen, arms outstretched in a victory, with a massive smile on her face. We likey (she hates bullfighting, too) - somehow I can’t see our own Queen in such an attitude of unbridled joy (or the Duchess of Cornwall, for that matter).

2) Puyol’s head - both his coiffure, and his ability to aim a flying football into a goal using it, while leaping up into the air surrounded by his opponents. Respect. He was described as “the heart of the team” in today’s predictably over-excited, over-emotional and wonderfully over-the-top Spanish press.

3) jabato (a new word for me), meaning wild boar piglet, or daring person, after a Spanish comic book character - how Vincente del Bosque referred to his players, while smiling benignly, and admitting to being happy - he even went as far as saying that you have to celebrate your successes.

4) Capdevila, which sounds so like “Bob the Builder”, I got quite confused.

5) An over-confidence/extreme optimism, which causes the commentators, especially the eternally excitable Camacho (if you haven’t already checked out the video of his reaction to Villa’s goal against Paraguay, it is not to be missed), to say “We’re in the final”, 10 minutes before the game’s over (my heart was in my mouth, but they obviously had 100% confidence in Paul the Octopus Oracle), and “Glory awaits us” the day after.

6) I think I have a crush on both Xavis (Hernandez was chosen as man of the match), or maybe it’s just because their faces are so familiar to me by now.

7) Zapatero’s comment: “This happiness is just what the country could do with.” Indeed, Mr President. You don’t say.

Sergio Ramos is from my husband’s hometown, Camas.

9) At the risk of sounding like an over-cautious killjoy, the antithesis of all things Spanish, the Dutch haven’t lost a game in 25 matches. ¡A por ellos!

10) Er, Germany’s out. And they said that Spain is the best team in the world, and can beat anyone. Enough said.

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The eclipse of God

One of the many things that fascinated, astonished and intrigued me when I first arrived in Seville, nearly seven years ago, was the way religion - or rather Catholicism - is intricately interwoven into every aspect of life, from names of hospitals, schools, streets, shops, restaurants and bars, to people’s names (every other woman seems to be called either Maria Jose, or Maria something, while men are frequently Jose Maria, or Francisco, or Javier, or another saint’s name), swear words, and of course the ubiquitous photos of preferred virgins (in Seville, your loyalties lie either with Triana or Macarena).

But in the years since I arrived in the city, the Catholic Church in Spain has faced a mounting number of threats to its age-old stranglehold on the moral and spiritual life of its sheep: abortion, gay marriage, quick divorce, the international child abuse scandal (Spain continues to hide its darkest secrets on that account, which demonstrates how much power the Church still has over some sections of society here).

And now, worst of all - or best, depending on which side of the gold retablo you sit on - the Ley Organica de Libertad Religiosa (Law of Religious Freedom), still in its draft stage. Now this is too huge and controversial and emotive a subject to address properly in a little blog post like this, but it’s also a Very Big Deal, so I want to mention it, at least. Pretty revolutionary, it seeks to strike at the very heart of the institution, as part of the PSOE’s ongoing war against Spain’s religious hierarchy.

In case, like many, you’ve been too wrapped up in the World Cup for the last few weeks (and will hopefully continue to be so, Villa, Villa, maravilla!), and too listless from the soaring summer temperatures, to notice the rest of the news, here’s what it’s all about. Under the new law, among other secularising changes, two key visual elements would be banned: face-covering Islamic veils (burkhas and niqabs, where you can only see the woman’s eyes) when worn in public, and religious symbols in public buildings.

In fact, face veils have already been banned from public buildings in Coin, in Malaga; also in Barcelona and some other towns in Catalonia, on the grounds that they hinder personal identification. And, no less potently but with a much wider relevance, the crucifix is a ubiquitous religious symbol throughout Spain - schools, hospitals, local government offices - think of all the places where you see Jesus on his cross. One exception to this is where they’re deemed to have historical, artistic, architectural or cultural value. Private institutions which carry out a public service will also be excluded from the ban.

The reaction from the conservative press has been predictable: “religion is fundamental to all people” - er, no it isn’t, not to me, or practically anyone else I know. Or most of the younger generation in Spain, for that matter.

“The number of Catholics (yes, but what does that mean? Baptised non-believers, or practicising Catholics? Big difference.) in Spain is considerably greater than the number of people from other faiths.” True - there are one million Muslims out of 47 million total population in Spain. This commentator, a bigwig of a major publishing company, states that there is an “anticlericalism, which has come about due to past acts, sometimes misinterpreted, of the Church.” Yes, well, for me, that says it all. Denial is a river in Egypt. “The first question we have to ask,” he goes on to say, “is whether society demands such a law. In my opinion, no.” You don’t say. Well thank the stars that you’re not a politician, matey, or we’d all have no choice as to whether to give 0.7% of our Declaracion de la Renta to the Church.

Then, last week, the Pope announced the setting up of a Pontifical Council for New Evangelisation, which is aimed at “revitalising faith in countries which are going through a progressive secularization of society and a sort of ‘eclipse of the sense of God’”.

“There are regions in the world in which the Gospel put down roots a long time ago,” he said, “giving place to a true Christian tradition, but where in the last centuries - with complex dynamics - the process of secularization has produced a grave crisis of the sense of the Christian faith and of belonging to the Church.”

Maybe it’s partly due to his strangulated Germanic-Italian, or a strangulated translation of this, but the version in the Spanish press was vastly different: I would translate it as “revitalise faith lost through reduced strength, due to intellectual laziness on the part of the hierarchy in administrative tasks, and external cultural hostility.” My journalistic antenna went crazy when I read that last phrase, but nowhere in the full original statement by Pope Benedict could I find reference to “external cultural hostility”. Let’s just rephrase it as “extreme paranoia and insecurity”, shall we?

Yup, that’s Spain. But it’s too late, Your Holiness. The damage is done. The more cynical are saying this is a way to distract attention from the stories about abusive priests - sort of a papal “Back to Basics” campaign: forget the kiddie-fiddlers, let’s talk about GOD. I have my doubts about whether it will work, but then you should always keep an open mind, right?

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Towering egos

If you live in Seville, or nearby, or indeed even if you don’t, you may well have heard about the continuing controversy over the Torre Pelli, the Pelli Tower. This 178-metre structure - designed by the Argentine architect, Cesar Pelli, as a headquarters for Cajasol bank - is threatening to lose Seville its World Heritage Status. In 1987, the Cathedral, Alcazar and Archivo de las Indias gained the city a place on the UNESCO list.

Next month, when the UN meets in Brazil, one of the subjects on its agenda is the placing of Seville on the endangered World Heritage Sites list, and if the design of the tower is not subsequently modified (ie made shorter, I suppose), its removal. It would only be the second occasion when this has happened, the first being last year, when Dresden was taken off the list after a bridge was built which was felt to ruin its river landscape. Other endangered sites, just to give you an idea, are in places like Iran, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan.

So what’s all the fuss about? Well, the Torre Pelli would, quite literally, tower over the Giralda, Seville’s iconic Moorish minaret, and the city’s most recognisable building. At almost 200m, it would be nearly twice the height of the 900-year-older structure. There is a very strong popular movement against the tower, with hackles rising all over Seville, while in the other corner of the ring, so to speak, are the Ayuntamiento’s beleaguered planning department, who are also facing controversy over the notorious, much-delayed, over-budget mushrooms in Plaza de la Encarnacion, and the modernists.

Pelli’s 313-million-euro elliptical design, scheduled to be completed at the end of next year, has been compared to sexual organs and sausages, and also described as “Francoist” (not a good way, methinks). The Argentinian also designed the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. Unlike the mushrooms, the site of the tower is thankfully not in the casco antiguo, but in the Isla de la Cartuja, the modern business area. It would be the city’s first skyscraper, which for me is where the nub of the matter lies. Personally, I think one new world-class iconic building in a deeply conservative, traditional city like Seville would not be a bad thing. It would attract more visitors, and would give the city a more modern, forward-thinking aspect (even if a little deceptively so, since it isn’t).

But the idea of having more than one of these - a “skyscraper city” - is anathema. As Amy Winehouse would say, “No, no, no!”. It would be like sticking a load of huge, incongruous, super-high-tech buildings in the centre of a medieval city like Amsterdam (OK, so this one is not in Seville’s heart, but it would still be too close for comfort for a herd of these monsters). No se hace. They would unbalance the harmony of the city, sticking out like a big, red, swollen, pus-filled zit. Which is just begging to be squeezed, wacked, or zapped, whichever means of removal you prefer.

So, on balance, I will not be weeping if we say “bye bye” to Pelli’s creation, but other modern edifices - less e-nor-mous, attention-seeking, self-congratulatory, and let’s face it, phallic - which would give the city a much-needed contemporary edge, would be an inestimable asset.

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Our friends electric

You will either be sickened by England’s defeat, even more sickened by Lampard’s disallowed goal (which I didn’t even notice as I was watching the match on a German channel, being harrassed by small children), or just plain sick of hearing/reading/talking about our fateful exit from the World Cup yesterday afternoon (”a monument to mediocrity” as one pundit termed it).

So I’m going to tell you about something completely different, which has nothing whatsoever to do with football, or sport, or South Africa, or those noisy horn things everyone’s been complaining about, when they’re not demanding new Wimbledon-style technology to tell us whether the ball’s gone over the line (in the photos I saw, it clearly had).

The BBC has had a fantastic idea: to send an electric car off on a 4,000 mile (6,437km) road trip round Europe, to tell people that a) they do exist, b) they do work, c) you can recharge them, and b) they’re fun. A team headed by Peter Curran - a gloriously dry, droll Northern Irishman whom I used to listen to decades ago on GLR - left London on 7 June, and went via Denmark, Sweden, France, and is currently here in Spain - he arrived in Barcelona last Saturday, four days behind schedule, followed by Zaragoza, Madrid then Caceres, then to Portugal, and back to Valladolid on Tuesday, Salamanca on Wednesday, and Bilbao on Thursday.

Curran is not remotely preachy or earnest, which makes the whole adventure entertaining listening, as well as informative, interesting and inspiring (not that I’ll be changing my own car yet, sorry). The programme is called Electric Ride, as is being broadcast in various installments which you can listen to on the BBC iPlayer.

Now I know that the Electric Ride is not passing through in Andalucia - the closest would be Caceres, over the border in Extremadura - but it is such a brilliant jape, that I couldn’t resist telling you about it. The battery-powered EV (electric vehicle), a small red car reminiscent of a new-generation Fiat Cinquencento (Curran calls it “a tiny little Noddy car”), is provided by THINK; it is called a THINK city. The BBC team behind the project claims they are investigating the “technology and infrastructure and political will behind the growth of EV culture”. Many people point out that while the car is zero-emissions, the making of the battery itself is by no means environmentally perfect, and that the electrcity used to charge the battery is often produced by fossel fuels. Let’s see if Spain will have any solar-powered solutions. The lack of range is also cited as a problem, with 100-300km the norm (the THINK city’s is 160km).

A journalist friend of mine, who is also an eco-campaigner who puts his money where his mouth is (he installed a wind turbine in his house), convinced his local north London authority to install a recharging point for his electric car (his wife still prefers the Golf). That was a few years ago now, and London currently claims to be the EV capital of the world (100,000 cars have been promised, and 25,000 charging points, by 2015); there are 13 different models of EV available to buy in the UK. In Andalucia, since last year electric cars have been available to buy in Seville, with 75 recharging points planned (as well as Madrid and Barcelona). The Spanish government has pledged to have one million electric cars on the road by 2014, as part of Plan Movele.

I’m awaiting with much anticipation news updates on the team’s progress on the first part of the Spanish leg of their epic journey. Did they find it easy to locate charging points? Were people helpful? Did they laugh at the little car and the crazy British man driving it? I wait with baited breath to read his adventures.

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