Save Me…… from failing to confront the ghosts of the past

In 1998 former Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested on a visit to the UK, my home country, by British authorities acting on an international warrant indicting him for human rights violations in his home country.

He was held under house arrest in London for nearly 18 months while lawyers and judges argued the case. It was a milestone as it was the first time that judges in Europe claimed universal jurisdiction over a former head of state supposedly covered by amnesty laws in his own country.

While he eventually returned to Chile, the investigation led to judges in South America to strike out amnesty laws there so that dictators like Pinochet could be put on trial in the future.

The man who brought the indictment, and whose investigation helped change those laws in Chile, was Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, the same man who opened an investigation into the deaths of thousands of people during Spain’s own Franco dictatorship.

Why do I mention this now? Well, this very week Garzon is himself in the dock in Spain, accused of abusing his powers and of overstepping his authority as a judge.

It is a cynical trial, one brought by right wing groups in Spain, angry at what they see as Garzon trying to bring the Franco regime to justice for past crimes. They claim that, just like in Chile, Spain’s own amnesty law covers crimes committed during the Franco regime. I sincerely hope this trial, opposed by international human rights groups including Amnesty International, is thrown out as soon as possible.

But, for me as a Brit living in Spain, the fact that it has come about at all, raises a more interesting point about the country, its people and its history.

I’ve always been fascinated by people’s views here in Spain on the Franco regime, how they felt, what they did, what they thought living under a dictatorship that crushed descent, murdered thousands and destroyed democracy.

But what has fascinated me more is the fact that so many people just don’t want to talk about it or say we should just forget about it. Maybe because it brings up painful memories, maybe because it split families in two, maybe because it’s an embarrassing and distressing period in Spain’s recent history for many people.

But is it good to leave it all in the past? I don’t mean people should dredge it all up again. But isn’t it at least worth addressing, analyzing and understanding so that it can finally put to rest what I am sure are deep-seated grievances, agonies, hurt, pain and loss suffered by so many people. Learning from history means the same mistakes may not happen again. Isn’t this exactly what Baltasar Garzon’s investigations have all been about?

I am aware that Spain did pass a 1977 amnesty law covering the Franco period in an attempt, perhaps, to make a fresh start, to put history firmly in the past, to give Spanish society an opportunity to move forward without recrimination. Perhaps.

But let’s not forget that it was done at a time of great instability, less than two years after the death of Franco and with the unity government still greatly sensitive to the role of right-wing hardliners in the military, the very group who had seized power so violently in the first place in the Civil War.

What I’m suggesting is that perhaps there was a certain amount of pressure to pass the law to account for those in the military who still supported and espoused the continuation of the dictatorship. I’m not saying that it was necessarily passed under duress, but history records that there were many in the military and the right-wing who bitterly resented and opposed moves toward full and open democracy in Spain after the death of Franco in 1975. Indeed, as many will know, there was another attempted military coup in 1981 which, thankfully, failed, but which had the country on a knife-edge for a short time.

So how do we reconcile history but ensure justice is served? Is it right to leave things in the past? Don’t they just fester if they are not addressed? Isn’t it better to seek justice, not necessarily retribution and revenge, but at least an admission of responsibility? It’s estimated that up to 50,000 people were murdered by the regime in the years after the end of the Civil War in 1939. 50,000 people. Imagine it. Let me put that into perspective for you. Fill the Sevilla football club stadium to capacity, not a single seat left empty. All gone. Murdered.

These were people perceived to be opponents of the regime. Each one of those people had families; mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters. Many families still don’t know to this day where the bodies of their loved ones are buried. How can Spanish society possibly put history to rest with this hanging over its head? Don’t these people deserve to know what happened to their loved ones?

I acknowledge that some significant things have been done by recent Spanish governments to apparently redress history. For example, the national anthem of Spain no longer contains the lyrics introduced by Franco, and in 2007 the government banned all public references to the Franco regime and removed statues, street names, memorials and symbols associated with it. Such actions are good, but to me, they seem only to bury history a bit deeper rather than deal with it.

Why does this question of Spain’s past fascinate me so much? Well, I think perhaps because I come from a country that has had relatively stable democracy over many generations (that’s not to ignore the fact that it has also been responsible for a few chaotic experiments in democracy elsewhere in the world throughout history). I have never lived under a dictatorship where personal freedoms, the right to vote, the right to descent, were crushed with threats and violence. I suppose I consider myself lucky in that respect. Some people might suggest that, therefore, I could hardly begin to understand the perspective of people in Spain and how they view their own history.

But that doesn’t make sense to me. How can you not want to atone for the past and put it to rest, once and for all? Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. Amnesties don’t repair the pain and the hurt.

In Chile, under the Pinochet regime, at least 3,000 people were murdered and more than 20,000 people detained and tortured.

I leave the last word to Garzon himself: “Will Franco’s victims now have fewer rights than Pinochet’s victims?”

Save Me…… from turning into a clown from a TV sketch show

There was a comedy show on British TV about 15 years ago called “The Fast Show”. It consisted of a series of sketches featuring the same characters all cut together quickly – hence the name – which was very popular in the UK at the time.

One of the fictitious characters featured was a Columbian footballer called “Julio Geordio” who played for Premiership team Newcastle Utd.

The sketch consisted of him being interviewed on TV after a match, where he would start out talking English in a strong Columbian accent before slipping into an equally strong Newcastle accent – known as “Geordie” - towards the end of every sentence. The joke doesn´t translate well in words - you have to see it to understand it (find it on Youtube) - but the point it was making was this foreign footballer seemed to be integrating well into local society by the way he automatically slipped into “Geordie” all the time - hence his joke name.

So what on earth has this got to do with me? Well, let me explain.

Here in Andalucia, people have quite a strong regional accent. In fact, the more south west you go in the region, the stronger the accent. The Seville accent is strong, the Jerez accent stronger, the Cadiz accent even stronger and, frankly, when you head off into the rural areas in between, it’s positively indecipherable at times. Very much like Geordie in fact.

I love the accent. But it is a target for good-natured ridicule and jokes among the rest of the Spanish population who see it as a sort-of stereotypical, uneducated, slightly backward, working class accent, in much the same way the Brits take the piss out of the Geordie accent, and, truth be told, the Birmingham and West Country accent as well.

One of Andalucia’s most famous sons is Hollywood actor Antonio Banderas, who originally comes from Malaga. It’s interesting to note that when he’s being interviewed on local TV, he tends to speak in his normal, strong, regional Malaga accent. But when he speaks on national TV or in films, he often adopts a more neutral, clearer Castillan accent – the equivalent of the English accent from south east England. It’s like someone from South Shields talking with a Kent accent!

While not wishing to go into complex phonetical explanations, it is, nevertheless, important to give you an idea of the Andaluz accent.

For a start, the letter “s” is not a big thing among local speakers. They don’t care for it much and leave it out of pretty much every word, unless it begins with an “s”, in which case they grudgingly pronounce it. Most of the time, that is. Unless you go to Jerez, where they really hate it.

For example, the phrase “lo mismo” which means “the same”, becomes “lo mi’mo”. The word “si” which everyone knows means “yes”, incredibly becomes “thi”, as does the number “seis” (“six”) which comes out as “thai”! This is particularly impressive as it achieves a double whammy against the letter “s” in one tiny four-letter word.

The phrase “Soy de Madrid” which means “I come from Madrid” disappears into a lost sea of consonants and vowels in Cadiz where it’s often pronounced “Thoy de Kai’”!

The letter “s”, a whole range of consonants, a load of syllables and most of the prepositions are just swallowed up in the Andaluz accent, never to be uttered. It’s fantastic.

But let’s be fair here. While some may ridicule it and accuse the Andaluzes of mangling words beyond all recognition, you could conceivably argue that they are, in fact, being incredibly efficient with the language. I mean, why spend time saying a lengthy exclamation like “Oh Jesus” (Spaniards pronounce the “j as though it were an “h”) when you can save at least half a second just saying “O-thoo” instead, as they do in Jerez. Now, add up all those extra seconds over the period of a year and just think how much time that leaves them for doing everything else. That’s why they always have so much time to spend at the beach. That, and the fact that there are bugger-all jobs in Andalucia as well, of course.

So, to get back to my original point; what has all this got to do with “Julio Geordio”? Well, while I don’t speak Spanish fluently, I get by reasonably well enough. The problem is that I sometimes find myself automatically sliding into Andaluz pronunciation, dropping s´s, leaving out the ends of words and generally mumbling a lot. I do it without thinking to be honest, because when it’s what you hear from everybody every day it sort of becomes second nature when you speak it.

But I know I have to be careful, because some people might think I’m taking the piss by mimicking the accent. But I’m really not. Honestly. Far from it. I’m actually, subconsciously, probably just trying to fit in. Mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery, after all.

Trouble is, maybe I am just turning into “Julio Geordie” and don’t even know it. Maybe what I really am is a cartoon character, a clown who, rather than trying to sound genuine and sincere, just ends up sounding like a complete idiot when he talks Spanish.

Or maybe I shouldn’t worry so much and just dive straight in. Ich bein ein Andaluz!

Save Me…… from f-f-f-f-freezing winters and woefully inadequate flat insulation

As you read this, you may be sitting in your armchair, on your sofa or in your office chair with the radiator burbling away happily against the wall or the roaring fire glowing in the corner, warming the room from the chilly, windy, wintry, freezing cold outside the window.

Well, if you are, spare a thought for me, because I’m freezing my arse off here in Spain.

Spanish houses and flats (well, ones in the south of the country at least as that’s where I live), are not designed for the chilly winters we get. There’s no wall-to-wall carpets, no radiators in every room and no fireplaces.

Now, to be fair, that’s because if there were, we’d all die of heat stroke during the summer.

As you’ll no doubt be aware, it does get quite hot here in the summer. In Seville, it’s regularly in the mid 40s in July and August. So a flat with concrete floors, air conditioning and windows with shutters but no curtains is perfect for keeping the heat out and the cool in. And it’s hot here more than it’s cold.

But in December and January, it gets cold. Very cold. I don’t mean -10C cold. It’s not that cold. That’s just silly. I mean +5C cold. Now, if you’re reading this in the UK or another northern outpost, you’re probably wondering what the hell I’m going on about. +5C in winter is positively roasting where you are.

But imagine what +5C feels like in a flat with bare concrete floors, no curtains and no radiators. Yes, that’s right. It feels like -10C.

As I sit here and write, I am shrouded in a thick blanket, my teeth chattering and my knees knocking together in time. Add a double bass and a trumpet to that noise and you’ve got a version of “Haitian Fight Song” by Charles Mingus right here in my flat (find it on “youtube” to see what I mean).

Now, ok, I know what you might be thinking. If you’re a regular reader, you will know that back in October I complained bitterly about the hot weather hanging around in Seville well past the summer. I said I was fed up with the sun and wasn’t it time it got cold. So, right now, you might be thinking: “Oh for God’s sake, shut your mouth, you moron. First it’s too hot, then it’s too cold, make your mind up.”

Fair point. But it’s my blog, so sod off. I’ll write what I like. If you were sitting here next to me shivering you’d feel exactly the same way. I don’t claim to be fair and balanced. I just write what I feel. And right now I feel bloody freezing.

I’ve said it before. Seville is a city of extremes when it comes to the weather. It’s loads of sun and stifling heat for months on end, then it’s loads of freezing cold for ages. At least in the UK, you get a general drizzly fuzz most of the year. You know where you stand there, to a certain extent at least.

That’s not to say that I don’t like the weather in Seville. I do. But it takes a while to get used to it. It’s certainly not boring, I’ll give it that.

For example, now it’s winter, my wife and I play the nightly game of “Who’s got most of the duvet?”. It’s a game I normally lose as she is very protective of her side of the bed and grabs hold of the duvet like a teenage girl clutching a Justin Bieber autograph. Try and take it off her and you’re a dead man.

I’ve tried to reason with her, suggesting that if I could just have a bit more of the duvet on my side I wouldn’t have such a hacking cough and the first stages of pneumonia. But she just accuses me of trying to take all the duvet for myself as she pulls yet more of it over to her side. I get my own back by snoring loudly.

The thing is, it’s so cold at the moment that we’ve even put three more blankets – yes, three! – on top of the duvet for extra warmth. But they too seem to edge over to her side during the night, so that I wake up each morning with icicles on my toes and frost on the end of my nose.

I remember a few years ago the comedian Billy Connolly telling a story about a time he stayed in a freezing place in Scandinavia. It was so cold, he said, that he woke up in the morning to find a small ice cube in his bed. He wondered what on earth it could be, but when he finally threw it on the fire it made a fart sound.

I know how he felt.

So, please, I ask you. No, I beg you. Search your soul to find some empathy for me. Send me your warmth and ideally make a contribution to my “buy a portable radiator” fund. All donations are gratefully received.

And tell my wife to let me have some of the bloody duvet at night as well. I need it. I’m so tall that my legs stick out the bottom of the bed anyway, so it’s only right I should have a bit more.

Save Me…… from failing at yet another New Year’s resolution

A new year always throws up a lot of different thoughts and emotions, looking back at what you’ve done, looking forward to what you want to achieve.

As is often the way, you set out with a drive and enthusiasm for new plans and new goals and then by the third week of January you think, what’s the point and forget all about it.

But this year things need to be different. I’m in my early 40s now and have found myself thinking about my health more often in recent years. Those who know me know that I’m a big lad. I’ve always been tall – the tallest in our family (so much so that I still occasionally call my younger brother “wee man” even though he’s close on six foot tall himself).

 But when I was a kid I was skinny as anything and took a lot of bullying at school as a result. It was always difficult to find clothes to fit me too. I might find a shirt or jacket the right size for my body, but the arms would be half-way up to my elbows.

Now I’m older I’m still, of course, tall, but I’m also big as well. I’m not grossly fat, but I do need to lose weight. And, as has been the case my whole life, I still have trouble finding clothes to fit me. Especially in Spain. In the UK I was an XXL and were it not for Marks and Spencer I would have been walking round in bin liners. It’s alright for most of you who are average size. The High Street is a cathedral to clothes of all designs for you. But alas, it never has been for me. And it’s worse in Spain.

Over here, people are generally shorter and smaller. So I’ve discovered that even though I’m exactly the same size as I was in the UK, I’m a 3 or 4 or even a 5XL here. They don’t have M&S here, so it has been a case of not buying many clothes at all here and just waiting until I make trips back to the UK.

That was until I found a shop in Jerez last week. It used to be a common sight on the UK High Street but for some reason it moved out of the UK a few years ago. But it’s still here in Spain and it does a section especially for big and tall men like me. It’s C&A. I didn’t know what the C and the A stood for when it was in the UK and I still don’t now. But I don’t care, because it’s got clothes that fit me. And they’re not those terrible, out-of-fashion baggy things that you usually only get in those XXXXXXXL outlet stores you find stuck in some out-of-the-way industrial estate, advertised by some crappy hand-made sign stuck in a dual-carriageway layby.

So, that’s my first New Year’s resolution out of the way already – find some decent clothes that fit me in Spain - and it’s only January 6.

The second one, and the real reason I write this today, is to get fit and lose weight. Like I said, we all say these things at the start of each year but then forget about them a few weeks in. But I figured that by putting it on the record it would give me a bit of extra motivation to achieve it.

So, for the record, this year in August me and the wife plan to walk the Camino de Santiago. Well, not all 850km of it, but probably 150km at least.

For those that don’t know, the Camino is an ancient pilgrims’ route to the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostella in Galicia, north west Spain, which is said to house the tomb of the apostle St. James. Every year, thousands of people walk part or all of the route, collecting stamps along the way in the special Camino “passport” which then entitles them to an official certificate at the end. There are many different routes you can take to Santiago, but the most common one is the inland route across northern Spain which starts in the Pyrenees at the Spanish-French border. Only the most dedicated start here as it’s more than 800km and can take over two months to complete. Many people do the last 100km as this is the minimum distance needed to quality for the passport stamps and the certificate. But we want to do a little bit further than the minimum. It’ll mean averaging about 20km a day for a week and staying in the traditional hostels known as “albergues” each night. It isn’t too bad, but harder if you’re out-of-shape as we are.

So we have already started preparing. Last week, we walked a tricky river gorge stretch in the Sierra de Grazalema, south east of Seville. It was only 10km but the need to clamber up and down rocky outcrops and negotiate very slippery paths made the route a “media” in the guidebook instead of the easiest “baja”.

On January 1 we went for a 4km walk along the beach at El Puerto, near Jerez – very straightforward if you’re walking along the flatter, more compact sand close to the water’s edge, but harder if you’re walking through the deeper stuff we deliberately chose further up the beach. Ok, neither route was very long. But it was a start for us. So we’re pushing ourselves a bit further each time.

The Camino is an important route for so many people, particularly for pilgrimage. For me, it’s about getting fit. The religious thing used to be important to me, but not anymore. I’ve toyed with it – religion, not the Camino - a couple of times in my life, but have always come to the same conclusion, that it’s not for me. That’s not to say I don’t respect others’ beliefs – I do. But it does nothing for me I’m afraid.

So that’s it. The Camino in August. We’ve got no choice now. I’ve said it for the record. Wish us luck, won’t you.