Landers in Barcelona

Back from Rome ...

2009-06-01T13:19:00.007+02:00

We had a unique perspective on the Champions League Final.

United fans from birth, Ben and I have been Barca season ticket holders at the Camp Nou for two seasons and thus able to witness the full glory of this season of incredible football. We have big hearts, big enough to encompass a passion for two teams of this stature. And then this happened.

Having got our tickets from another Barca member, we sat in the Olympic stadium behind the goal with thousands of other Barca fans, possibly the only two in the entire area who supported United.

We’d agreed appropriate secret signals and gestures to make if United scored and how to react. It was all theoretical. They didn’t score, and after the first flurries of the opening 10 minutes never appeared likely to. United didn’t turn up and for the first time I can remember I felt embarrassed for them.

I’ve seen them well beaten before and seen them play badly on far too many occasions. But I can’t remember having seen them get it wrong so badly, to play so at odds with how they needed to play. Four days on it remains a mystery. Did they underestimate Barca? Did they think their counter attacking power could overwhelm a team lacking three mainstays of defence and with two other key players just back from injury? I’ve no idea. Time to move on...

But if we were going to see United lose, sitting where we were was the best place to be. I’d have hated to be enveloped by the gloom at the United end. To witness the utter delirium of the Barca fans up close and personal was a truly wonderful experience, even for Ben whose bravery despite being broken hearted was incredibly moving. His neighbour gave him a big hug at the end along with a lapel badge from the Mataro Barca supporters club.

The Barca fans applauded every United player as they received their loser’s medals with the exception of Ronaldo, who got widely whistled for being the sullen, whinging genius that he is.

Returning to Barcelona took us back to a city submerged in utter happiness in a way that cannot really happen in most of Europe’s big cities where two or three big teams occupy the hearts of their citizens.

Take what promotion to the Premier League has done for small towns like Hull and Burnley and multiply that by a million to reflect the scale of the achievement and the population and you have a glimpse of how Barcelona and indeed Catalonia (for this is a national team in effect) celebrated the Champions League and the treble.

A million people were on the streets of Barcelona for the open top bus parade with every man, woman, child, baby, dog and shop front dressed in azulgrana. Almost every village in the region had a big screen in the main square for the locals to watch together.

Joy unbounded and indeed joy unprecedented. One is so used in life to people saying ‘you should have been here years ago’ or ‘if you think this is good you should have been here when ... ‘. Well Barca have never won the treble before; to be in the city on its finest day was indeed a privilege.

On related points:

* Sarah now knows the first two and last two lines of the Barca hymn. And she has transferred her designated Dream Man from George Clooney to Barca manager Pep Guardiola.

* Print may be dying but the Barcelona papers have pulled out all the stops for the events of the past few days with El Periodico de Catalunya providing wonderful examples of the power of newspapers to delight on special occasions.

It provided special wraparounds on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, styling itself as El Periodico de Roma, with the first two covers being in a class of their own. Wednesday’s paper recreated Michaelangelo’s The Creation of Adam with Guardiola as Adam while Thursday showed him aloft in the air, pointing to the sky, elevated by the hands of his adoring players. Pure genius.

The Glory Game

2009-06-01T00:27:00.003+02:00

The great fallacy is that the game is first and foremost about winning. It's nothing of the kind. The game is about glory. It's about doing things in style, with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom.

Danny Blanchflower as quoted by Paul Hayward in The Observer in his piece 'Barcelona's sense of style restores glory to Blanchflower's game'

More to follow on the final but that more or less sums up Barca

Eric has it right

2009-05-25T17:24:00.002+02:00

From Eric Cantona in El Pais English edition

Watching Barça is a real pleasure for any soccer supporter,” said Cantona. “As you can imagine, this game is a dream for me. It’s the final everyone dreamed of, the perfect game. Barça is the only team that reminds me a little of Cruyff’s Ajax. Total football.”

Asked to venture a prediction on the outcome though, Cantona’s red roots shine through: “Manchester United.”

JDF Jones

2009-03-06T16:08:00.003+01:00

I have just heard the terribly sad news that journalist and author JDF Jones has passed away.

I couldn't describe him any better than the bulletin from the Financial Times does:

[He] was a towering figure in the creation of today's FT ... JDF became foreign editor of the paper in the 1960s when the FT had little coverage of international affairs. He laid the foundations of the worldwide network of correspondents that has allowed us to become such a global paper today. As managing editor in the 1970s he played a huge role in building up the FT talent pool and in the creation of the first international edition of the paper . He was also the founder editor of Weekend FT in the 1980s and Literary and Arts editor.

He was also hugely kind and generous to me, both personally and professionally, when I arrived in Johannesburg in 1982 as a young correspondent for Reuters, fearing the place somewhat and knowing nobody at all there.

Dinners at his magnificent house (which he shared with his then partner Mary and her daughter Polly) were long and liquid affairs which vastly boosted the profits of various Cape vineyards.

Journalism for JDF was meant to be as enjoyable as it was important and his running of the FT Southern African bureau was designed to further such aims.

He employed two extremely able journalists in the bureau to do all the heavy lifting stories on company results, the economy, gold prices etc while JDF concentrated on the bigger picture stories - whither apartheid, whither Swaziland, whither the region as a whole.

Most of these stories seemed to necessitate extensive travel, with beautiful Cape Town a particular favourite during the summer (shurely 'when parliament was sitting'? Ed)

We shared a memorable journey to the heart of the Botswana desert in a Land Rover with two other journalists.

In one unforgettable moment we had just sat down by some rocks to enjoy the magnificent desert sunset when heard on the BBC World Service the of death of the vile and soon to be unlamented South African ex PM BJ Vorster.

We toasted his demise with several cans of very cold Lion lager.

How we watched Barca and United simultaneously last night ...

2009-02-25T20:00:00.001+01:00

Words fail me ...

2009-02-02T08:40:00.002+01:00

Messi. Again.

Eating out in Barcelona

2009-02-02T08:38:00.001+01:00

Chef Aidan Brooks has a very comprehensive, funny and knowledgeable guide to all that is good about eating here. Well worth reading.

It sooooooo quiet ….

2009-01-30T09:42:00.000+01:00

Barcelona appears to be subsiding into a crisis-induced slumber.

We have driven down the main thoroughfare of Avenida Diagonal at 8pm on the last two consecutive evenings. This is rush hour time in Barcelona and normally one of fearful traffic jams– people work late here; yet on both nights, we have sailed down a clear road in minutes.

The economic activity of the city and the region is slowing down rapidly. The car industry is coming to a halt; tourism is down and with it takings in bars and restaurants; construction is finished.

Another major leg of the economy – fairs, conventions and congresses – are also in big trouble. Bread & Butter, the fashion tradeshow is returning to Berlin while the Barcelona car salon has been axed – it’s very much a second tier event, the type that get the chop in a climate like this.

It’s not all gloom. We celebrated Rebecca’s 16th last night in the bar of the Omm Hotel and at El Japones restaurant. Both were humming.

The wind in Barcelona

2009-01-26T19:25:00.001+01:00

Some of the damage in the park opposite our flat caused by the hurricane winds that whipped through the city on Saturday morning ...

Ben's latest talent ...

2009-01-26T10:04:00.002+01:00

... is a hugely impressive impersonation of the Camp Nou announcer, who (and he's done it for the last 50 years) discloses the team lineups before the game in a deep and rich Catalan accent.

Worth asking Ben for a riff next time you see him. sadly, I don't think we can count on this as a career prospect. While the incumbent may indeed retire at some point, the job is an unpaid one.

Idiot wind

2009-01-26T09:20:00.003+01:00

The Barcelona Council website runs a very useful RSS news service which updates you on what is going on in the city.

One feature is a Friday update on the weekend weather. Last Friday's called for some cloudy and mixed weather.

what we got on Saturday were hurricane force winds nearing 140kph which did huge damage to the city and region as a whole. Ben and I left the flat at 10am, saw a tree careering down the road and turned back. Huge pine trees were felled in our local park and on the main roads. Many of the suburbs in the hills still have no electricity.

Most tragically, four young baseball players, aged 9-12, were killed when the sports hall they were sheltering in collapsed and buried them. The photos of the boys, so smart in their outfits and caps, are too awful to look at in the papers.

But what on earth were they doing even going out to play on that morning? The winds had been wll signalled, having battered the Basque country on Friday and tracked down from there.

Why didn't the Generalitat cancel all sports as the Basque government had done?

Christmas updates

2008-12-22T18:03:00.004+01:00

I know since my first post three years ago about the Caganer Christmas tradition in Catalonia that you are on the edge of your seat every year to know who we have chosen. I can put you out of your misery.

We have broken with the tradition of Barca players to go with the US President elect - and there he is the picture, dumping with Eto'o, Puyol and, er, Messi.

The other tradition here of an annual pre-Christmas lunch with my friends Orland, Pepon, Ramon et al was also purused this year with a very fine boavante y arroz fest at Ca La Nuri which is right on the Barceloneta beach.

Que bueno, as they say here, as we drank our post-prandial gin & tonics on the terrace as a chilly winter sun set over the port.

Finally why is it so cold in Madrid right now? because they are -12 ....

High times

2008-12-15T15:22:00.003+01:00

‘I’m still on a high’ said Ben as we walked back from the party last night.

That was some high, almost 24 hours after the end of el clasico, the thrilling encounter between Barca and Real Madrid, that we were privileged to attend.

I can’t remember a football game I have seen with so much atmosphere, tension and excitement and the wonderful denouement of course of the Barca victory with two late goals. .

Virtually full, the Camp Nou was packed with some 96,000 cules wanting revenge against their fiercest enemy – revenge for the humiliation of last April when Barca applauded Real on to their own pitch after they had won La Liga and then swooned to lose 1-4 in a spineless pathetic display.

Now, Barca, playing some of the finest football of any club team in Europe, were 9 points ahead of Madrid, who had lost 3 games out of 4, had a dreadful injury list and had just sacked their manager. Even the saner papers here were predicting margins of 5-0 and 6-1, all of which were utter nonsense.

The fierce rain only added to the charged atmosphere. We got soaked as we got off the bus, soaked as we ate our sandwiches outside the Rala 2 bar and soaked as we walked down to the ground. Unlike the 70,000 or so fans exposed in the open seats, we were at least under cover for the duration of the match.

What followed was 93 minutes of hyper charged football as Barca totally dominated possession but came up against a Real so obdurate, so determined and at times so dirty that it looked like they would steal a point. No pasaran, the rallying cry of the Republican La Pasionara in the Civil War, had been adopted as the unifying force of Madrid defence. Time again Cannavaro blocked shots with every part of his body, while Casillas made extraordinary saves from Messi and Eto’o, not least from the 75^th minute penalty.

Next to us, a Catalan descended into the depths of despair, fearing that not only would Barca fail to score, but that Real would break away and steal an improbable victory, which they threatened to do more than once.

Finally, scrappily, Eto’o forced the ball over the line from a corner with seven minutes left and the whole stadium went berserk. Ben hugged the Catalan and high fived the Austrian sitting on my right. Madrid, falling 12 points behind, saw their season ebbing away.

Eight minutes later Barca broke away again and, as Messi lobbed Casillas, Cannavaro ended up injuring himself on the post as he desperately tried, but failed, to keep the ball out. The symbolism of one of the world’s great defenders lying on the ground in agony in the pouring rain as 96,000 fans went beyond ecstasy was almost tragic.

Beyond the stadium, Sarah had switched on belatedly at home to watch the extraordinary finale. Bex had watched in a packed bar in Sitges. Around the city, and all of Catalonia, people poured out of bars and homes to celebrate and let off firecrackers.

We walked home amid a cacophony of beeping motorbikes and got soaked yet again. High? We didn’t even notice the rain …

Hello to economic reality and go home please

2008-11-29T18:51:00.003+01:00

Spain is even more in the economic toilet than Britain, which is saying something. Property companies and estate agents are going tits up by the day while unemployment is rising at a rapid rate.

Hence on the front page of a local free paper the other day was a story about how Spanish people are now accepting all the crap jobs they previously left to the Columbians, Peruvians and so on, such as cleaning, nannying, portering, washing up and so on.

And inside? An advert from the Spanish government explaining the new voluntary repatriation scheme for unemployed legal residents from outside the EU. You get your dole money paid (40% on leaving and the rest when you get back) and the right to come back three years hence.

We have a winter

2008-11-25T20:17:00.003+01:00

After two very mild ones, it's damn chilly and there's been lots of snow in the Pyrenees where the ski stations have opened two weeks early.

The chestnut and sweet potato sellers, who did no businesses last winter, are having a great time of it. And the Christmas lights, always an understated delight, have been switched on.

Nobody's got any money but .... it sure looks nice

UPDATE: hue hail storm

Goodnight Vienna

2008-11-15T17:46:00.004+01:00

All I know about Vienna and I heave learned from The Third Man, very definitely one of the greatest films ever.

And for my first two days there I learned little more, spending much of it inside the very splendid Grand Hotel (and everything you think a hotel called the Grand in Vienna might be, it is, all brocade, grand rooms, gold taps, kaffee and kuchen etc).

But the taxis I took through the wet and the grey showed a city straight out of Third Man country, all wrought iron balconies, smart shuttered shops, large dark front doors and spired sloping roofs. And the two hours I got to march round the centre were delightful, through the parks, the magnificent Burghof, past shops selling Loden and a million coffee shops, including the wonderful Demel where the obligatory sachertorte was purchased.

It must be time to see The Third Man again. The clip above is the scene where Orson Welles is finally seen for the first time, on a dark street corner as a pool of light falls on him briefly, and is possibly the greatest scene in cinema. Ever.

Samuel Eto'o and Nina Simone

2008-10-26T22:20:00.004+01:00

Previously on this blog we have recorded the similarities between the mercurial Barca striker Samuel Eto'o and legendary artiste Nina Simone.

Both are/were stunning performers when they are in the groove yet extraordinarily moody and subject to hissy fits of sneering sullenness when not. Both lit up my weekend.

On Friday we went to see 'Nina Simone: the sorceress', a lovingly made, if slightly confused homage to the great diva, featuring her live performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1976. And you got the whole nine yards - the grimacing, the cackling, the staring - all conspiring to scare the audience out of its wits. And of course the virtuoso performance ....

... which leads to 24 hours later at the Camp Nou where Mr E played a key role in opening up yet another lame opposing defence with a stunning display of attacking football. Samuel scored a hat trick within the first 25 minutes, all classic 'No 9' poachers' goals.

The good, the bad ...

2008-10-16T17:36:00.002+02:00

On a whim last night we went down to the Borne and dropped in at two of our favourite bars, Xampanet - one of the city's oldest and most famous - and Paco, a great cocktail/DJ bar in the same street where we have our flat.

It was a gorgeous evening, both bars were crowded, and the streets were buzzing, although tourists were thin on the ground. It really is a great part of town. It felt very good to be there.

Today has been less good. what i thought was a minor filling job on a tooth turned out to be one that needs an expensive treatment; I then came home and steeled myself to deliver some bad news to a business associate.

Having done that, i heard that a friend needed more major surgery for the second time this year. That's quite enough bad news for one day ...

10 days that shook the world

2008-10-11T22:21:00.002+02:00

It's been 10 days since the last post on this blog, a gap that has encompassed the biggest week's stock market meltdown in history.

It's pretty dire and yes there could be worse to come if the powers that be cant think of a way to fix the system this weekend.

Time to hang on to your friends and have fun. and eat well.

They don't make football derbies like that anymore ...

2008-10-01T15:10:00.003+02:00

19 local players in the squads
2 local managers
a dodgy sending off
home team takes the lead after opposing goalie is fouled
away team equalises after lucky rebound from defender
away fans lob fireworks on home supporters
away team attacks non stop but repelled by woodwork and stout defending
pompous ref stops game for 10 minutes
away team wins game with last kick of the match in the 104th minute - a highly dubious penalty
police, football authorities, home team, away team all blame each other for allowing violence to happen
away team captain says they're not real fans ... deplorable ... shocking, having gone to celebrate with them when winning goal goes in

Oh yes they do. Espanyol vs Barca, 27 sep 2008. see it here

the blog is back

2008-09-23T09:56:00.001+02:00

It´s been almost three months since the last post. A pretty standard Spanish summer break, especially up here where no sooner are people back on 1 Sep than you have time off for the national day (the 11th) and the wonderful Merce festival (ongoing until tomorrow).

As per usual it has rained during the Merce, which is good for the Catalan mushroom industry. And between the showers we managed to take in the fireworks, the fantastic light show on the front of the Ajuntamente building, a brilliant concert by Barcelona based latin salsa group La Sucursal SA and the annual Catalan wine and cava show at the port.

And Barca are back; after a few nervy displays they looked wonderful as they demolished Gijon 6-1 on Sunday. Make no move until you have seen the fourth goal from the genius Iniesta or read Sid Lowe´s jolly tale of how the Gijon crowd are so happy to be back in Primera they sang ever louder as more Barca goals went in.

Catalonia is not Spain (Well, maybe a little right now …)

2008-06-27T08:36:00.000+02:00

It’s been great fun watching Spain’s serene progress to the final of Euro 2008 in all senses of the word.

Great fun because they have played some exquisite football; last night’s demolition of Russia was sublime to watch. But great fun also because it has highlighted the bitter-sweet relationship between the Catalans and the nation as a whole.

You don’t need a Spanis civil war history lesson here to know that for a chunky minority of Catalans, Catalonia is not Spain (as the posters given away outside European games at the Camp Nou proclaim).

On top of the 10% or so who would like complete independence, many more here feel Catalonia should get considerably more autonomy, and keep a higher percentage of its economic revenues, from the central government. Culturally, many Catalans feel as close to Madrid as they do to Lisbon or Paris.

So when the tournament opened, just 45% of Catalans watched the opening game on TV versus around 55% nationally and 65% in the Madrid region. While thousands sang and danced in front of the big screen in Madrid’s Plaza Colon, Barcelona’s big squares were empty.

Even the dramatic quarter final penalty shootout over Italy, which I watched in a bar deep in the Catalan countryside, seemed to evoke only a smatter of amused indifference among the locals.

As one Catalan friend put it ‘What really pisses us off is all the ra-ra Spanish stuff that goes with it all.’ He means the Spanish fans dressed as matadors in Vienna or staging mock bull fights in Austrian squares – the whole sangria and senorita image of the country that should have died about 40 years ago. The TV coverage is becoming more nattily nationalistic by the day.

But there is a slight thawing going on. There was a widespread tooting of horns after the games last night; it was hardly akin to when Barca win a title, but it made a decent noise. And I suspect there will be more if they win on Sunday.

And, heck, why not? Spain are, by any measure, playing beautiful football, the like of which few international teams have aspired to in recent years. And it’s being inspired by a Barca/Catalan engine room of Xavi, Iniesta and Fabregas. Last night’s victory was made in Catalonia.

And, really, would you go the whole hog and back Germany on Sunday just to spite the national cause? We’re not talking plucky little Denmark here or pledging our troth to the beautiful game as played by Portugal. We’re talking big, bad unlovable Germany who win far too often and do so without the passion and beauty that the Spanish bring to the game.

How cheap are a pair of trousers?

2008-06-08T20:53:00.003+02:00

Under 20 euros at Zara for a pair of linen/cotton trousers. 19.90 to be exact. As far as I remember these were around 29 euros last year.

The trousers are made in Turkey and the reduction seems to have everything to do with the strength of the euro. While it's hurting the amount of money I get (I get paid in pounds) it is making goods imported into the EU from outside that much cheaper.

These trousers were made in Turkey and Zara's Turkish lira costs have decreased around 30% over the last six months. So I am winning on one side of the equation and losing on the other ...

When chefs fall out

2008-06-01T22:45:00.001+02:00

The dispute between Santi Santamaria and Ferran Adria et al over the alleged ‘poisoning of diners’ is both hilarious and pathetic.

Nobody has summed it up better than Aidan Brooks, trainee chef at Commerc 24.

No need to summarise his piece. just read it here.

The fourth wet weekend in succession

2008-06-01T22:44:00.000+02:00

My friend who runs the biggest cinema chain in Spain is thrilled. The rest of us are less than enchanted. The reservoirs, 20% full at the end of March, are now over half full. The drought is officially over.

Enough already. Bring on flaming June …

Three things I did this weekend which I didn’t expect to do and enjoyed

2008-06-01T22:43:00.000+02:00

Dance on the stage at ommsession at 3am. Life in the old dog etc
Go to see (male) beach volleyball. Weirdly in a city with so much beach, it was half way up the Montjuic mountain
Watch ‘21’ the brilliant film based on the true story about six mathematicians who take on the Vegas casinos and almost win.

Rangers fans in Manchester; no surprise

2008-05-17T09:00:00.002+02:00

The appalling behaviour of Rangers fans in my home town of Manchester came as no surprise. They came to Barcelona last autumn, in much smaller numbers, and proceeded to drink, piss and vomit in every corner of the city.

Here they are in action in Manchester:

Nice eh? As a result of this, United's homecoming parade with the Premiership title, and possibly the Champions' League title, has been cancelled. Meanwhile Rangers, possibly the dullest team in the world, go home to win a few more Mickey Mouse Scottish titles.

Is this the best menu del dia in the world?

2008-05-04T18:23:00.002+02:00

The local Time Out’s latest issue (the cover price is back to €1 which sounds like it is not doing too well) has a cover story on the city’s best menu del dias – the three course fixed lunch menus that you can find all over the city for €10-20.

The menu del dia was an invention of the Franco era, designed to keep the workers near the factory at lunchtime rather than go home to eat and siesta with the wife. No longer compulsory, they are still an attractive way for a restaurant to bring in lunch time custom and use up last’s leftovers.

They missed the best one. On Friday, Sarah and I went to Alkimia, the one-Michelin starred restaurant near the Sagrada Familia, and one of the vanguard of new Catalan cooking, where they have just introduced a €32 menu del dia. By the time they’d added on the cover charge, wine and VAT, it was a grand total of €85, or £34 a head. I imagine there are plenty of similar restaurants around the world where you can’t get a main course for £34. If it was designed to face up to the recession now gripping Spain, it seems to be working. The restaurant was near full by 2.30pm.

Nor was it yesterday’s leftovers. The starters were a shot glass of tomato consommé with croutons (a nice play on pan con tomate) and a beautifully textured jellied foie, granola and apple.

There were three main courses, each with a choice; artichoke salad or marinated salmon, a poached egg in broth or chicken ravioli, then braised lamb or cod. All exquisitely prepared, presented and served, as were the desserts and petit fours, particularly the skewered ball of vanilla ice cream covered in white chocolate.

It would take a brave person to tackle either the €54 menu (three starters/five mains/two desserts) or even the €68 12-course special, but hopefully I will get a chance to try.

An extraordinary day

2008-04-24T21:57:00.003+02:00

By any standards, yesterday was a wonderful day to be in Barcelona. The sun shone all day as the city (and Catalunya) celebrated Sant Jordi when every man has to give a red rose to his beloved and in return receive a book.

The streets were packed with rose sellers, some from florists, others who'd just bought a dozen or so and set up a table at a street corner. And book stalls were everywhere with readings, signings across the city. If it was not quite the city of love, it was at least a city of blissful happiness.

Having no beloved here (she is in London) I did the next best thing and bought roses for some proxies who I happen to like and who I would see that day. Rebecca of course, Elvira, our cleaner, and Vicky and (another) Rebecca, the mother and daughter team who run the polloeria in Galvany market where I buy my chickens.

Best of all, they opened up the magnificent town hall for the one day only and I got to look round the mayor's office (and saw the mayor) the council chamber and most of all, the vast and wonderful salo de cent, the 14th century great hall where the council of 100 deputies sat as one of the earlier examples of representative local government.

Oh yes there was a football match on as well; the one I hoped would never happen between Manchester United and Barca. As a spectacle - a packed camp nou full of cules in their best voice - it was extraordinary, and to be there with Ben was something I will always remember.

My two favourite football teams, my son, the best stadium anywhere, a fine havana cigar and a bocadillo pernil amb tomate. I'm easily satisfied ...

Still a great place for food

2008-04-13T22:36:00.003+02:00

It seems we hadnt been out to eat in a while but then came a mighty rush this week, all proving that, despite the trailer trash levels that the pound now stands at against the euro, you can eat amazingly well here for very little money.

Here goes:

Thursday night: Cuines de Santa Caterina. An old favourite but still packing them into the huge canteen style tables for great market-style fusion cooking ranging from Gorgonzola risotto to tuna and avocado tartare via thai chicken curry. Ten of us ate here for under £200
Friday night: El Japones de Tragaluz. Same owners as the above; a very stylish Japanese. We'd been told to avoid the sushi but the hot dishes and desserts were all more than up to par. Japanese pizza and mandarin sorbet are not to be missed. Four of us for £55.
Today. Went with a huge group to the Castell de Rocamora in Montferri, about an hour south of Barcelona for a calcotada - a feast of eating calcots, the wierd and wonderful leek/onion crosses that are just ending their season.

You basically thrown a whole mass of these things on the fire to cook, let them cool a little and then serve them at the open air table. You get your bib on, strip the outer leaves, dip them in romesco sauce (almonds, tomato, oil, vinegar) and shovel them down your throat. They're delicious, very moreish and pretty windy.

After getting through several dozen of these (see aftermath above) you then go inside for the rest of the lunch - sausages, black pudding, lamb chips, chips, salad, profiteroles, red and white wine and cava. The cost? £30 a head ...

Possibly the best football ground in the world

2008-04-13T22:26:00.003+02:00

A strong candidate would be the Campo de Futbol de Carmelo where I watched Ben play on Saturday morning. Sadly I didn't have my camera with me, but if you imagine a football pitch carved high into the rocks of a mountain you have it.

The mountain is actually Barcelona's Park Guell, home to several Gaudiesque follies, high above the city. The ground has a neat little grandstand on one side, so you can watch the game and get this stunning view of the city and the sea beneath you. It was a glorious sunny morning on Saturday which made sitting there even more blissful.

There was, as with all these clubs, a splendid cafe which served a bacon baguette of some brilliance. That, a decent cup of tea, and a variety of podcasts on my iPod Touch; what more could a man ask for?

Oh yes, the football. Ben's team went three down, fought back to 4-4 and lost 6-9. Which was a whole lot better than the previous week's 15-0 defeat ...

Suoerlative Sunday

2008-03-24T23:06:00.001+01:00

United, Barca win

Arsenal, Real Madrid lose

and CP Sarria win their tournament, defeating 15 other teams in the age group.

Priceless ...

The AVE train is truly impressive

2008-03-22T20:50:00.002+01:00

It's been 15 years' coming, but the high speed train from Barcelona to Madrid was really worth the wait.

Just over 3 hours door to door, despite four scheduled stops and a somewhat circuitous route designed to take in the population centres in this sparsely peopled country. Without stops its 2hrs 40 mins.

Comfortable seats, tonnes of legroom, movies on the screen and 300kph dialling up on the clock within around 20 minutes of leaving a nicely spruced up Sants station. All this for £29 each way if you book in advance and you get half your money back if it's more than 15 minutes late and the whole lot if more than 30.

Madrid? As impressively and imposingly post-empire as ever, a wonderful and gigantic Picasso exhibition and some more than decent food. try especially Juana la Loca for top tapas (4 Plaza Puerta de Moros. Tel. 91 364 0525) and the Galician Orixe (cava baja 17, 91 354 0647).

Just a shame about their football teams and their lack of beaches/mountains/sea etc etc

The Biggest Sunday of Football ...

2008-03-22T20:47:00.001+01:00

United vs Liverpool

Arsenal vs Chelsea

but more than that

CP Sarria Alevin in the final of the Benicassim Easter football tournament ....

watch this space

The blog is back

2008-03-06T22:42:00.003+01:00

Sorry it's been so quiet, we've been launching a website and very nice it looks too. So a quick round up:

good week:

Celtic fans: loyal, funny and well behaved to the last. They put their Rangers rivals to shame
The Barcelona municipality for learning the lessons of the Rangers visit and entertaining them with paella, music, beer and big screens in Montjuic instad of letting them piss all over Plaza Catalunya
Jose Luis Zapatero. Looks like the PM will get back in at this weekend's general election. He's outsmarted the unpleasant Mariano Rajoy in both TV debates and generally run a brighter and more optimistic campaign. Perhaps Zapatero's Catalan list leader Carme Chacón went a little too far in comparing him with Ronaldinho however ...

bad week:

The Celtic team. Now we knew they had no chance but we had no idea they would be so craven and pathetic in defeat. The fans deserved better
Real Madrid: another year, another failure to get to the quarter finals of the Champions League. shameful
Leo Messi. Hamstrings of cotton. Out for six weeks. He weeps, we weep. While you wait for him to return, read John Carlin's marvellous profile of the wonderkid
Mariano Rajoy: it's the end my friend. Possibly the last time a bearded man will run for the highest office in a western European democracy.

The train is here

2008-02-15T16:38:00.004+01:00

16 years after arriving in Sevilla, a beautiful town of no economic importance whatseover (but home of the ruling prime minister) ...

two months after the last promised 'drop dead' date, the attempt to meet which caused massive problems to the local rail network ...

Barcelona gets its AVE high speed rail link to Madrid.

The delays and maladministration have probably done more to fire Catalan self-government than any heady political movement could. When national development minister Magdalena Alvarez swept into town last week to announce the launch date, she was greeted like Typhoid Mary by the Catalan administration who failed to send anyone to meet her at the station.

But it does look impressive.

From next Wednesday it will be as quick as 2h 38m to cover the 400 miles to the capital. The Landers will be on board on 16 March for a planned visit there having snapped up a set of tickets at 42 euros each way.

Not bad when you think that you get 50% back if you are 15 mins late and the whole lot back after a 30 minute delay.

Let it be noted ...

2008-02-02T11:47:00.000+01:00

... that Ben's team, CP Sarria Alevin B, has now won five games on the bounce (after losing six of the first seven) and has charged up the league from 11th (out of 13) to 7th and could go 6th next week if the results go right.

This follows today's thrashing of Parc UD 7-2. Next week sees the second half of the season. Onwards and upwards!

Pascal’s big night out in Barcelona

2008-02-02T11:31:00.000+01:00

Arsenal reject and fat lump defender Pascal Cygan came with Vilareal to the Camp Nou on Thursday night for a Kings Cup tie. Here’s the story of his evening:

There’s Pascal

He's big, old, slow and bald

There’s Leo

Leo’s young, fast, lithe and has long hair

Watch Leo run!

See Pascal’s eyes

Pascal is scared

Pascal has an idea

‘I’ll stick my leg out to stop Leo’

Ouch!

Here comes the ref

Waving his nice yellow card!

Now here’s the free kick

Pascal is watching the ball

He is not watching Thierry

Who scores with a free header

Boo hoo!

Vilareal are losing!

Pascal claps his hands and says

'Come on, we can still win this one!'

(One minute later)

Here comes Leo again!

He runs even faster

Pascal has another idea

‘I’ll stick my leg out to stop Leo’

Ouch!

Here comes the ref

Waving his nice red card!

Off you go Pascal!

You're a complete idiot say his teammates

Night, night say the crowd!

Sun and Snow

2008-01-20T18:40:00.000+01:00

These two pictures were both taken yesterday with the Catalan Pyrenees finally opening every station after some heavy dumps and the temperature on the Barcelona beach front reaching 19C. Very nice ...

Three Kings: what else?

2008-01-06T20:33:00.000+01:00

Today is Three Kings in Spain when said monarchs descend from the east to provide children and adults alike with their seasonal gifts in place of (or addition to) the ones provided by Santa Claus 12 days earlier.

For many grown ups, the kings will have provided a Nespresso device, the home espresso machine made by Nestle. You can hardly pass a street hoarding without seeing George (‘Nespresso: what else?’) Clooney advertising the system, while the shop round the corner from us was packed to the rafters yesterday with last-minute buyers. This in a land where coffee is almost sacred.

It’s a great business. The machines themselves range from E150-1,000, the purchase of which hook you into forever buying the custom coffee pods. You’ll want all 15+ premium coffee varieties of course, along with the cups, sugars, biscuits etc that come with it. Once in, you’re hooked, or you end up writing off cost of the machine. Very clever.

The resonance for me was the coffee market study we did at business school some 12 years ago. It focused on how Nestle and Kraft fought tooth and nail for ever 1% market share in the stores while being completely blindsided by the rise of Starbucks, which had persuaded people to buy their coffee at £4 a go in a café rather than take it up and pay an effective 10p.

So this is Nestle’s revenge. And some revenge. John Gapper has a fun article on the Nespresso phenomenon in the FT which reveals that Nestle sold 1.4m Nespresso machines and 2.3bn pods in 2006. It’s a cult, he admits as a user ‘“an experience” rather than coffee, Nestlé told analysts last year and, boy, is it all-enveloping.’

And much cheaper than Starbucks …

Off for xmas

2007-12-22T14:39:00.000+01:00

Christmas in New York beckons tomorrow, so a very big, happy and joyful one to everybody. We'll be back in early January. Whether Ronaldinho will still be with Barca is another matter ...

Oh show me the way to the next gin tonic bar

2007-12-08T23:25:00.000+01:00

Funny how these things happen. You stumble across a bar that makes some really fine Gin and Tonics - and hey presto you pick up the paper the next day and there it is in a feature about the city's best G&T bars.

The G&T here is many miles away from the colonel's pre-dinner tastebud killer that it is in Britain, where it tends to be served with miniature ice cubes and a translucent and tiny slice of lemon in a dainty shot glass.

Here, quite rightly, it's a hearty post-dinner cocktail designed to get the conversational juices flowing. Take a big brandy style schooner, throw in four large chunky ice cubes and pour over a large helping of gin without the aid of a measure. Then get the flavour in - plenty of lime, cucumber, lemon or mint depending where you are.

At the xixbar where we were last night, it was cucumber in the glass and lime wiped round the rim.

The xix incidentally formed the endpoint to a delightful evening that covered all the bases within a few hundred yards on Calle Tamarit. Start out at the minuscule Casa Jacinta at 154 for a vermouth and anchovies. Then a full dinner of amazing tapas at Albert Adria's Inopia (104) and then across the road to xix (actually at Rocafort 19, but who's counting?).

Other G&T bars on the La Vanguardia list today, none of which have been tried (yet):

Dacksy (Consell de Cent 247)
Coppelia (Rera Palau 4)
Snooker (Roger de Lluria 42)
Shenu (Londres 91)

To which I'd add the Ideal (Aribau 89)

Let them have it

2007-12-02T22:44:00.000+01:00

Much as the British moan about the state of public transport, you'd be lucky to get 20 people to stage a march to protest their dire state.

Last night we had between 200,000 (the police) and 700,000 (the organisers) on the streets of Barcelona, using four weeks of suburban rail chaos (the result of construction of the final stretch of the AVE high-speed rail link into the city centre) as the springboard for a pretty impressive demonstration of the strength of nationalist feeling here.

This may be a new phase in the Catalan campaign for greater autonomy from Madrid and/or full independence. No more of the 'we are a people, we are a nation ...' homespun philosophy that has a limited appeal but 'Madrid's buggered it up, we couldn't be any worse'.

Indeed they would probably be a lot better. There's the money and the smarts here, so why not? Nationhood based on competence rather than a cultural ideology. This was no factional left wing demo but one that brought together some 150 organisations from across the political spectrum.

Things may move fast. There is a national general election in 2008 so expect plenty of devloutionary bones to be chucked Catalonia's way - promises which may or may not be followed up if the Socialists get elected. Three years later we get Joan Laporta, president of Barca and nationalist in chief, running for office as President of the region. At that point things get really interesting.

PS Note to Catalans. Please, please stop looking to Edinburgh and drooling over the Scottish National Party's minority government as a template for independence there and here. The Scottish Parliament was a bastardised gerrymandered talking shop designed to quell nationalism and keep the Labour party in power in perpetuity.

It went horribly wrong at the last election, but hell will freeze other before a government in London would ever allows any quasi independent powers to go to Scotland.

The Michelin man disses Spain

2007-11-23T23:24:00.000+01:00

They are spitting tacks here that the new Michelin guide to Spain has failed to up the star number count in any meaningful way.

There are no new 3* restaurants beyond the six already established (three in Catalonia and three in the Basque country). Quite what 'El Celler de Can Roca' in Girona has to do to get a third star is unclear. It would also appear that the wonderful Cinc Sentits in Barcelona is not pressing enough wonga under Bibendum's ample rump as it remains starless.

Abac's second star is merited but it seems a rum time to do it as it prepares to move house, while Commerc 24 deserves its star, although I doubt it is any better this year than it was last year or the one before.

But as my brother, who knows a bit more about this than I do, says 'Michelin are hugely unreliable outside France and no one should take them too seriously.' And right now Michelin wants its focus to be on Japan where it has just published its first guide with all the astonishing lateness of an England defender. A drastic uprating of Spanish stars at the same time would have thrown the spotlight off Tokyo. Or am I being too suspicious?

And boy has it worked. The multitude of stars showered on Tokyo's eateries had the cretinous end of the food writers such as the awful Jay Rayner slavering in awe at what a clever dick Mr Michelin is.

'Do the math' as they would say in Didsbury. As Nick points out:

'If Tokyo has roughly 12 times more restaurants than New York, London or Paris then if what Michelin is claiming is true it should have proportionally the same number of starred restaurants. But this is not the case either for the total number of stars or the number of three star restaurants.'

So bugger Michelin. Look instead at how many French cars cross the border into Spain (many on Michelin tyres) in search of great food at astonishingly low prices, served with grace rather than Gallic attitude, and how few are heading in the other direction. And look at the wonderful new restaurants opening in Barcelona over the next six months as listed in La Vanguardia last week.

Who would be Frank Rijkaard?

2007-11-12T21:47:00.000+01:00

After two very comfortable and impressive wins, Barca took a terrible dive on Saturday and lost 2-0 at Getafe.

By all accounts they were dire, but to judge by today's local papers you would have thought they had just lost their 10th successive game.

Fans calling for Frank Rijkaard to go, to change things, to get a grip, sell Ronaldinho etc. I'm sure the radio chat shows had very much the same.

The place has gone mad. It will doubtless all reverse again if they win their next game but you have to have some sympathy with Rijkaard for this constant climbing up and down the outrage scale.

If he's bothered, he hasn't let on. Win or lose, he sounds so laid back he's horizontal, as if he's had a calming walk round the streets of Amsterdam with a nice joint and a bottle of Heineken. Sure, it might be better if he wielded the big stick a little more often, but it's a technique that has done pretty well so far.

Long live the king!

2007-11-12T21:26:00.000+01:00

My admiration for King Juan Carlos knows no bounds. His compassion and dignity compared with the bunch of stiffs who head the British crown has been recorded here already.

This weekend though his stock rose hugely in my estimation when he told Hugo Chavez 'Why don't you shut up?' when the pompous and autocratic populist leader of Venezuela continually interrupted Spain's PM José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, at the Iberamerican council meeting. You can't imagine Queen Elizabeth doing that.

The vile Chavez compared Zapatero's predecessor Jose Maria Aznar to a snake and described him as a fascist. Zapatero politely pointed out that he had been elected twice by the Spanish people.

He might have added that Aznar never mounted a coup d'etat, refused to renew the licence of the nation's most popular television station or called for an end to presidential term limits, all of which Chavez has done. He might also have pointed out, as La Vanguardia did today, that Chavez once regarded Aznar as a buddy and rolled out the red carpet for him when he visited Caracas in 2000.

The left adore Chavez because he stands up to 'the man' i.e the great Satan of the United States and is in some way 'right on' even when he speaks for seven hours at a time outlining his tedious philosophies. But you start with Chavez and you end up with Robert Mugabe, usurping and clinging on to power no matter the consequences for your country.

its songtime

2007-11-11T12:04:00.000+01:00

happy birthday to dad
happy birthday to dad
happy birthday to da-ad
happy birthday to dad

xxx

Ben did it!

2007-11-01T23:26:00.000+01:00

After six months of hard work, Ben heard today that he had got in to University College School in London. He'll go there in September 2009 when he is 13. It's an incredible achievment and we are all very very proud of him.

Go Sox!

2007-10-29T22:52:00.000+01:00

When it comes down to it, there are really only three sports teams in the world worth supporting - Manchester United, FC Barcelona and baseball's Boston Red Sox.

All three represent (on the field) what is best about sport. The endeavour is to entertain, and attack rather than defend. All three have traditionally favoured attack over defence in the belief that if they concede four (runs/goals) they have the means to score five or more.

All three have traditionally also pushed their hugely loyal fan bases to the edge by winning things the hard way. Why play to your full ability and win easily when you can play like idiots, go behind and recover in the last stages of the game?

It has not always worked. In fact all three teams have underachieved massively at the highest level over the years. Barca and United have only won two European Cups each while their biggest rivals Real Madrid and Liverpool have won nine and six respectively.

The Red Sox meanwhile won five World Series before 1918 and not a single other one until 2004, while the hated New York Yankees won 20 or more.

Then on Sunday night, they won their seventh Series. And lo, the world is a much better place as a result ...

A brave man

2007-10-21T23:12:00.000+02:00

Pasqual Maragall is the man who made modern Barcelona.

As Mayor for 15 years from 1982 he brought the Olympic Games to the city and oversaw its transformation from a sleepy and crumbling port to the cool, modern and wonderful city it is today, one that has attracted thousands of people like me to come and live here.

He also spent three years as President of Catalonia, overseeing the region's new autonimy statute, before he retired last year.

Yesterday he got up and, with his wife by his side, announced that he had Alzheimers and would be spending much of his time now in the fight to bring attention to, and combat, this terrible disease.

It was an incredibly brave thing to do and the coverage in the papers this morning was both moving and extensive, with praise and sympathy showered on him by political allies and enemies.

Today I am 18,260 days old...

2007-10-16T21:47:00.000+02:00

which means in two days time ... (you can work this out in excel)

Motor racing as it should be

2007-10-16T21:23:00.000+02:00

I took a very nostalgic trip to Montjuic on Sunday (along with 250,000) others to see a special festival to mark the 75th birthday of the now defunct racing circuit which winds around the beautiful park.

Among the historic cars which lapped the circuit were a dozen F1 cars from 1975, the last time a Grand Prix was held there. Not only was that the time that I followed F1 with a passion, but it was in many ways a golden age of racing. No pit stops, no tyre changes, no computers - just close racing around wonderful road circuits such as Montjuic, Spa, Nurburgring.

All gone now. In fact Montjuic in 1975 marked the beginning of the end. The drivers threatened to strike becuase of the poor safety features and raced only under threat of having the cars impounded. After 25 laps, a car left the tracks, leapt the barriers and killed four people, two of them spectators. The era of road racing was over.

Barcelona still has its Grand Prix of course on the Catalunya circuit, an event that brings millions of euros into the city each year.

It's a very strange business. Under Franco, the sport was very much the preserve of the Nationalists, organised for and by rich playboys, dukes and counts. I doubt there was much of a Republican presence there.

Today you'll see the nationalist and socialist Catalan leaders hobnobbing with the likes of Bernie Ecclestone and dangling baubles to ensure he doesn't take the franchise away from the circuit to some other part of Spain. Most peculiar.

so we did go mushroom picking ..

2007-10-16T21:15:00.000+02:00

in the right place ... in the lavansa valley in the shadow of the Pyrenees
at the right time ... in mid October
with the right guide ... a friend who knows her poisonous from her edible

and we found ... eight.

so dry has it been in September that the mushroom season just hasn't happened yet and probably won't now. It's still 20+C and sunny and the chestnut sellers are due out on the streets any day now.

One day autumn will come ...

La Vanguardia has a redesign

2007-10-03T19:53:00.000+02:00

And very nice it looks too. I’ve written here before about what a great newspaper it is and this week’s redesign makes it even better.

New colour presses have prompted a much better use of bigger photos and graphics, while the overall size has been cut down to the same as El Pais. Large elements of the former design (co-authored my Milton Glaser I learned) have been retained but it all looks crisper, brighter and more modern.

What I like about the paper is it doesn’t beat up its readers each day by screaming at them how awful their city, their region and their country is. Instead it explains it to them and let’s them come to their own conclusions.

It reports soberly and crisply on difficult issues such as immigration, violence against women, education, spiralling housing costs and so on. Its journalists see themselves on a mission to explain, rather than sound off and bend the facts to fit their viewpoint. International news is at the front and the sugary stuff about royal children kept to pink pages in the middle.

It’s a sharp contrast to London’s Evening Standard which has until now beaten its readers into submission about how foul their city is, how dreadful their mayor is. It’s depressing and apparently they have now embarked on a mission to be more upbeat.

Local papers should never be unquestioning cheerleaders for their city. But they have a duty to reflect the way their readers enjoy themselves as well as telling the story of what can be improved. Any publication worth its salt should like its readers but not many do. La Vanguardia is one of the few.

It may be the last day of September but ..

2007-09-30T22:51:00.000+02:00

.. it was 27C today which was hot enough for us to head to the beach and actually go swimming. and it wasn't bracing cold either but genuinely pleasant to swim in.

They've had the first flurries of snow in the Pyrenees but its not getting much cooler for a few days yet. The Catalans, great mushroom pickers, are getting worried that it is too warm and too dry for a decent crop. one good reason to pray rain ...

If you live in this world, you're feelin the change of the guard

2007-09-25T09:26:00.000+02:00

Much passing of batons at Barca.

As we celebrated the Camp Nou’s 50th birthday yesterday and admired Norman Foster’s stunning redevelopment plan (albeit more than a little redolent of the Allianz Arena, created by Herzog & de Meuron, one of the competition also rans), more fundamental changes are happening on the field.

Ronaldinho has now been substituted three games in succession and was ‘rested, injured,’ for the game against Seville on Saturday night. The inverted commas refer to the fact that while the Barca management claim he has an injured foot, other evidence points elsewhere. He has been partying hard with games looming, cutting training and went absent for three days after the Lyon game last Wednesday. Foot my arse, as Jim Royle might say.

Ronnie was benched on each occasion because, as El Periodico put it ‘his head was still talking but his feet weren’t listening.’ From being the ignition of every Barca move he has become the constipated channel through which each attack is slowed down to a juddering halt of short passes, many of them misplaced. He’s not happy and Rijkaard seems to have taken the giant leap of not putting him on the team sheet simply because he is who he is. His Christmas will be in Milan, I suspect.

Into the breach has stepped Leo Messi, who, along with Manchester United’s Ronaldo, can be the only true claimant to football’s George Best mantle. Against Lyon and particularly against Seville, he has become the fulcrum of the team – the ‘straw that stirs the drink’ as baseball great Reggie Jackson described himself within the New York Yankees. He powers the team forward, playing off, at different times, his midfield base of Deco, Toure, Xavi and Iniesta.

The Catalan crowd has already started to see this and can’t get enough of it. In two games he has scored three times and engineered an own goal, each greeted by the crowd prostrating itself en masse in praise.

The king is dead, long live the king. The old one will be buried in full military honours, rather than humiliated and shoved out of the back door, so great has been his contribution. Messi, touchingly, held up 10 fingers for Ronnie’s shirt number when he scored on Saturday and dedicated both goals to his great friend.

Welcome to the Messi era, one that will hopefully grace Norman Foster’s magnificent makeover for many years to come.

Lancashire, tra la la la ...

2007-09-17T21:53:00.000+02:00

I know that most readers of this blog 1) don't give a shit or 2) don't understand or 3) both but it is worth recording the fact that my beloved Lancashire may win the County Cricket Championship this week.

Like all the games in this quaint tournament, it will be played over four days in front of crowds that rarely creep into three figures. But they haven't won this tournament since 1930-something and there will be Mancunians of a certain age all over the world who will be thrilled if they do.

I shall keep you posted ...

A good lesson

2007-09-17T21:47:00.000+02:00

High drama in Ben's football game on Sunday. 10 minutes into the second half, the ref blows up, flounces like a drama queen several times and storms off the pitch, ball in hand.

It turns out he had been taking sustained abuse from the home team coach (not Ben's team) who claimed that one of Ben's team mates should have been sent off for following through on the goalie.

The ref clearly had enough and off he went. After 10 minutes of marvellously comic confusion, he was persuaded back but only if the coach was banished to the stands. The game carried on and the kids got a good lesson that you shouldn't abuse the ref.

Take me out to the ball game …

2007-09-09T23:55:00.000+02:00

Ok it wasn’t Fenway Park but on Friday night we had hot dogs, beer, warm evening sunshine and baseball.

It was the opening game of the European Baseball championships being held here and Ben and I popped up to the rather beautiful field on Montjuic to watch the opening game between Spain and Great Britain.

‘I think you’ll find the British to be a mixture of Australians, South Africans and American college boys,’ said an American woman on the way in, while I suspect the Spanish team had a few Latinos in the squad. Some of those on the field had made it to the minor leagues in the US.

There are 10 teams here with the Dutch the hot favourites, so far walloping 33 runs past the Czech Republic and Austria without reply, both games being curtailed by the sport’s splendid mercy rule.

It was great to be there. There was a rinky-dink opening ceremony with flags, VIPs, a song and the national anthems.

The game was pretty good, played well enough to remind you that, along with cricket, baseball is one of life’s higher callings. Britain won, 12-8, since you ask.

Yet another great Barcelona cocktail bar

2007-09-09T23:52:00.000+02:00

There are two remarkable features about Milano. The first is that it is on Ronda De la Universitat, one of this city’s unloveliest thoroughfares which links Plaza Catalunya and Placa Universitat. Five lanes of traffic, inter-city bus stops and crap expat pubs. You get the picture.

The second is that it has been open for three months and looks like it has been there for 30 years. Set in an airy basement, it’s all polished wood, racks of the best spirits, barmen in white jackets, red plush couches and unobtrusive jazz. And they do a damn fine gin fizz as well as well as, in homage to its name, a host of Campari-based cocktails.

Talking of which, I am grateful to the new St John restaurant cookbook for the recipe for a Bicicletta – a mixture of white wine, Campari and ice. The recipe cheerfully suggests experimenting with the proportions. In the interests of science I will do so and will report back.

A car crash happening

2007-09-09T23:50:00.000+02:00

When is a nation not a nation? When it’s Catalonia.

With exquisite timing, just a few days before Catalan national day, Spain’s football governing body has decided it will ban a friendly ‘international’ between Catalonia and the USA next month. The excuse is that it comes just a few days before a Spanish international friendly, which seems a little lame.

The row threatens to run and run and will no doubt get a good airing at the national day demos and festivities on Tuesday when the separatist hotheads will claim this as another piece of Madrid imperialism. The Catalan political elite will look on in uncomfortable silence. It’s the policy of the Generalitat to encourage Catalan national teams in all sports but they also have compromises with Madrid to keep.

But should Catalonia have its own national football team? It’s every bit as much a country as Scotland and Wales (in terms of language, devolved politics and cultural identity) who have their own teams.

The big difference of course is that there is no Great Britain team for Ryan Giggs to represent in the way that Carles Puyol and Xavi turn out for Spain (albeit with the Spanish flags on their socks neatly tucked out of view).

Logically then the Catalan players should elect to choose to play for Catalonia or Spain – as too should the Basque players (the two ‘nations’ played each other earlier this year which turned the Camp Nou into a rip-roaring cauldron of independent nationalism. And why stop there, when Spain is wholly composed of autonomous regions?

Taking this to its logical end, we’ll have 17 Spanish regions entering the major tournaments, none with a realistic chance of qualifying.

A young boy’s dream …

2007-09-09T22:46:00.000+02:00

To go on the pitch before a game at the Camp Nou and be photographed with the Barca players.

More pictures here

The blog is back!

2007-08-23T12:11:00.000+02:00

Almost three weeks of holiday are winding to a close and pretty good they were too. Better than that in fact. Blissful, trundling the old family car across mainland France, Italy and Corsica with scarcely a traffic jam in sight. And not a single airline check in queue … and we were still all talking to each other at the end of it.

Corsica completely knocked us out. The landscape, the town of Calvi, the beaches and the blue, blue sea all came as a complete surprise, as did the very good food and wine. It’s a place we’ll go back to again and again.

The weather was also sensational there which is more than can be said for much of Europe. Britain’s summer has never happened while much of France has also suffered in the cold and rain. Becca and I came back to Barcelona for a brief sojourn and drove through one thunderstorm on the Costa Brava and endured two more back here.

The Catalans who went to the seaside for August have endured grey skies and wet beaches, those who went to the Pyrenees to escape the heat have been buying jumpers. Our chicken seller in the market says she went to Ibiza for a week and had one nice day.

The Big Heat of August has never come and La Vanguardia says air conditioner sales are down 60-80%. Now it’s stopped raining it is a lovely 75F but cool in the evening. This after the Winter That Never Happened …

Through it all, Tony Wilson died. While all the noise has focussed on his ‘Mr Manchester’ music fame, I knew him when he was a much-loved friend of the family back in the 1970s.

While all my school contemporaries were wallowing in the heavy metal trash that was Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and (God save them all) Yes, Tony would burst into our living room, grab the record player and put on Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen, both billed as the ‘fucking future of music’ (or perhaps ‘the future of fucking music’ – time clouds his exact words). He was right and I have a lot to thank him for.

Summertime slow

2007-08-04T17:24:00.000+02:00

Like a dying swan, Barcelona is ever so graciously wilting in the heat and winding down for the summer.

Our local market is 80% shut as is the baker, the grocery and many other shops. Parking spots are in abundance even though all residents’ bays and pay and display are free for the month.

The biggest noise is of people banging on the doors of dry cleaners as they realise their clothes are locked up for the month. ‘I love it being so quiet here in August,’ said one friend. ‘It’s just a shame everything is shut.’

We are off on our holidays tomorrow in the car to Italy, east and west, Corsica and mainland France. Very green aren’t we? I love the idea of no airports after 50+ journeys a year, no packing to fit, nothing to catch. We have boats to chase at some point but not tomorrow.

Meanwhile yesterday was pretty special as it marked the 20th anniversary of the first time Sarah and I kissed (aahh!) and look what became of that. We marked it by going out en famille to eat tapas at Txakolin, one of our very favourite joints, and then to see the fusion flamenco band Calima play in the palm-tree strewn garden of the graceful and charming Atheneu club. Here’s to the next 20.

Meanwhile my early 50th birthday present to myself arrived – the rental for one year of two top-class season tickets for Barca. Not cheap but you are only 50 once. I am truly blessed …

Holiday well and will be back towards the end of August …

You think you have it bad ...

2007-07-21T23:57:00.000+02:00

One week in England and it's fair to say it's not been our finest of trips.

Changeable weather at best and, on Sunday and Friday, monsoon-sized downpours. Ben has a hugely irritating mouth infection and our house in Ludlow has been letting in water. It took Sarah five hours to get back to London on Friday, escaping entrapment in the many flooded towns of middle England by the skin of her teeth. We saw half a day's cricket at Lord's today between the downpours.

Still, let's be thankful. Here are two other travelling parties that fared worse than us.

The first is the family group that booked our house to celebrate the parents' ruby wedding anniversary.

The children made it but the parents marked 40 years of wedded bliss with 85 others on blow-up beds in a school in the small Gloucestershire town of Ledbury where they were stranded by the floods, missing the special dinner they had booked at one of Ludlow's finest restaurants last night. Yet today when I spoke to the wife, she was hugely cheerful and completely without bitterness.

Worse perhaps was Chris Anderson of Wired/Long Tail fame. His Holiday from Hell as described on his blog needs no embellishment:

I'm just landed back in the US after what was, hands down, our worst vacation
ever. It was supposed to be a nice week in the UK with family, a week
in Normandy with the kids to speak French and then home. But everything
went wrong. We knew things were going to be funky when we tried to do all the
flying on frequent flier miles and could only get coach seats with extra stops
on inconvenient days, including red-eye legs. And we knew that I wouldn't have
Internet access in France (scary!). But it got oh so much worse.
I'll just list some of the catastrophes and you'll get a sense of my last 19 days. First,
that weird rash I had on my arm just before we left turned out to be Lyme
Disease (from a tick bite three days earlier). Fortunately the
rash looked like a blood infection in the hours before we got on the plane
so I went to the ER and they gave me an antibiotic prescription, which happens
to be the same way you treat Lyme Disease. So there was nothing to do but just
suffer what turned into a full-body rash, a fever, flu symptoms
and chronic joint pain. But that lasted for ten days, during which I was
just useless.
Then there was the small matter of the rain. It rained Every.
Single. Day. For 19 days. It rained in England (widespread flooding, and the
wettest June in history). It rained in France (also the wettest June in history,
and a good start on the wettest July). When we got back to England, it rained
some more. Those of you who tried to watch Wimbledon have a sense of what it was like.
Then the airlines lost our luggage TWICE. Once permanently. We had to
wear the same clothes for two week and share two toothbrushes between six
people. (Yes, I know we could have bought more toothbrushes, but they were eight
euros each at the airport and we refused on principle).
Then the youngest girl got head lice.
Then airports were attacked in the UK, so every check-in turned into a two-hour ordeal. The kids refused to speak French.
Indeed, despite a whole week of drilling in that very country, the youngest one still couldn't even remember the word French.

Now I'm at the airline lounge in Boston, waiting six and half hours for my flight home to San Francisco.
The only good that came from this fiasco is that it was so decisively terrible that I may never have to go for a whole-family vacation in Europe again. It's road trips to Tahoe and the beach from now on. Hurray!

The great outdoors

2007-07-09T09:13:00.000+02:00

The days have long been good and warm here but now the evenings are following suit.

So time to join the open air cultural pursuits that make Barcelona such a fine place to be at this time of year.

First to the Montjuic Castle which sits atop of the city, for Sala Montjuic where they show a series of around 20 films on a big outdoor screen during July, all in original language.

5 euros to get in, 2 euros for a seat and Moritz beer and Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream on sale.

We went to see Singing in the Rain en famille. Ben fully in accordance that Make 'Em Laugh better than the title song and indeed, probably the best song and dance routine ever made. Smart boy.

Then last night to the Festival Grec, a summer series of plays, music and dance set mostly, but not exclusvely in the stunning Greek amphitheatre (above) in the same park. Gorgeous flower gardens, and as ever, they do these things well here with food and refreshment stalls dotted around the grounds.

Our schedule meant that last night's was the only event we could get to at the Grec and much as I love jazz, Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood, were several miles the wrong side of freeform funk for my liking (and make that several hundred in Sarah's case).

You half expected John Thompson fromJazz Club on The Fast Show to come on at and say 'Nice'. But you could never beat the setting

Goodbye to George Melly

2007-07-06T08:55:00.000+02:00

'George Melly the jazz singer, author and raconteur who has died aged 80, leched, drank and blasphemed his way around the clubs and pubs of the British Isles and provided pleasure to the public for five decades' - The Daily Telegraph.

It would be remiss of me to let the death of George Melly pass without any comment.

The phrase 'They don't make them like that anymore' is much overused but that is truly the case with Melly. Apart from being a wonderful jazz singer, he was in his day one of the keenest chroniclers of popular culture, an expert on surrealism, cartoonist and general all-round icon of the louche pop/jazz/art demi-monde that was London and in particular Soho in the 1950s and 1960s.

His hair-raising lifestyle, long on drugs and multiple sexual personas and rather shorter on the feelings of others, is beautifully chronicled in the memoirs of his long-suffering wife Diana which will make the perfect summer read if you haven't got hold of it already.

I saw him many times in concert, always in his pre-Christmas residence at Ronnie Scott's, always finding time to go in case each gig might be his last.

As the years of good living took their toll, George's sets became ever shorter until the last one where he did about 20 minutes tops, sitting down wearing a rather sinister eyepatch. But he never failed to leave without several standing ovations from a packed house of devotees.

You then staggered out from Scott's to the Bar Italia across the road, stinking of cigarette smoke and having had too much crap wine and appalling food (the club is rather more upmarket these days). On more than one occasion one of our party was truly tired and emotional because, as Goerge might have said 'Someone had done them wrong' and they had attenpted to heal their wounds with too many office party gin and tonics followed by too much of the club's cut-price Valpolicella.

But it always was the most wonderful way to start Christmas in London.

PS Plentiful obits including The Guardian and The Times, which also supplies the following priceless piece of information:

'At school, Melly wrote, he once seduced the future Sunday Telegraph editor Sir Peregrine Worsthorne on a sofa, but he said that he found a 78rpm record by Bessie Smith was far more satisfying.'

God bless the Casa Tejada.

2007-06-30T12:57:00.000+02:00

You've been away for the best part of 10 days, your plane is an hour late and there is the traffic jam from hell just trying to get out of the airport. So it's past midnight when you get home, the fridge is empty and you're starving.

What you need is to live round the corner from Casa Tejada. It is the bar de barrio that every neighbourhood needs. It stays open from breakfast until 2am, serves Moritz beer, has Barca games on its big screen and serves a wonderful variety of tapas and main course dishes throughout. What more could you ask for?

It's busy during most of that time and deservedly so.

After hot footing it round I was soon tucking into a delicious plate of sauteed bacon and sprouts, a side order of pan amb tomaquet and a large Moritz, served in an English style dimpled pot. I think, though I am not certain, that this is the in joke of one of the barman who has spent time working in England. It seems to be the only one in the place and I usually end up getting it.

Il est arrivee

2007-06-25T19:21:00.000+02:00

At one stroke, one of my two favourite teams signs one of the greatest players on earth while my other faces an opponent enfeebled by his absence ...

Calla, calla!

2007-06-18T22:11:00.000+02:00

Or shhh... the words of my wise friend as we got terribly excited about Barca winning the title. Cruising against Nastic with Real losing and wobbling against Majorca, it looked like it could happen.

It didn't of course and probably a good thing too. The local sports papers delivered a sumo-sized volley of invective this morning reflecting on the team's dire season. From Spanish and European champions, strengthened by some high-class signings, to winning nada is some feat.

The papers' verdict? Blame the club regime, blame the manager, blame the players - a message that would have been just as valid had they won the title and one that would have been completely lost in a celebratory mayhem of cava, beer and tickertape.

So it may well turn out for the best. Twelve years ago, United came second in the league and cup but won nothing after two years of success.

Alex Ferguson responded by selling three galacticos - amid huge controversy - and rebuilding the team around youth with immediate and huge success. Frank Rijkaard could do a lot worse than follow suit.

Catch up

2007-06-14T23:10:00.000+02:00

The heat is officially on as Barcelona's summer begins and it's time to do summer things like go up the mountain for a late cocktail or picnic on the beach.

This weekend the Sonar festival is on and next week the schools are out. Then it is San Juan when everyone stays up to party all night. It's a calendar as fixed as any London summer season.

And yes the football season is still not over. While the 2008 English fixtures are published. La Liga still has one game to go with Barca desperately hoping that somehow Real Madrid will find a way of tripping up at home to Majorca on Sunday. After last Saturday's 18-second Greek tragedy, anything might happen.

The voice of youth

2007-06-03T22:32:00.000+02:00

Off to Primavera Sound to see the emerging young rock stars!

First up, Jonathan Richman, 56 just a few weeks ago!

And then, Patti Smith, just the wrong side of 60!

And sadly not getting to see The Durutti Column and Vini Reilly, 54 in August! Or indeed Robyn Hitchcock, who's just beaten him to that age!

They don't make them like that anymore.

Smith in particular was sensational and set the place alight as the sun went down over the Barcelona Forum.

And last, and yes, least, Shitdisco!

We wandered off and stopped at one of the beach bars on Bogatell beach on the way home. As we lay on the sunbeds and looked out to sea, a very full, very yellow and completely wonderful moon poked its head above the horizon and rose within a matter of minutes.

Into every life a little rain must fall

2007-05-29T10:49:00.000+02:00

From the BBC:

Reunited rock group The Police began a five-month world tour in front of
20,000 fans in Vancouver on Monday, 21 years after their last major concert.

The Spanish invasion

2007-05-29T10:46:00.000+02:00

Cruising down London's Regent Street today and you pass in order ...

Desigual
Massimo Dutti
Zara
Mango

It is indeed a Spanish/Catalan invasion...

A great newspaper does different things

2007-05-27T18:44:00.001+02:00

Another reason why I love La Vanguardia is this - today's front page features the five main mayoral candidates in today's election. The paper took them down to the beach yesterday and got them to take off their shoes and jump up and down on mini trampolines to round off their very details but colourful campaign coverage.

Can you imagine any other country in the world where they would do this? Or indeed can you imagine any politicians whose spin doctors would let them do it? Fantastic stuff.

Two new discoveries

2007-05-27T18:10:00.000+02:00

1) Calima, one of the most extraordinary bands I have heard/seen for a long time - a sort of rap/gipsy/latino version of flamenco that would have taken the roof down last night at the Ciutat Vella Flamenco Festival but for the fact that we were in the open air.

But they had large numbers of the crowd on their feet playing a music that was uniqely vibrant with at times only a distant connection to traditional flamenco. Of the 10 band members, only two come from flamenco's traditional heartland of Andalucia, with the rest coming from, among other places, Cuba, Bulgaria, Barcelona and Venezuela. Sensational.

You can hear some their music here.

2) The Olympic and Sports Museum. Just opened in the shadow of the old stadium in Parc Monjuic. Ben and I went up this afternoon and were both pleasantly surprised by the quality of the exhibits and the lovely design and layout of the museum, with some great artefacts, pictures, videos and displays about the history of the Olympics and sport itself. The section on the Barcelona games is particularly good, focusing on the great design thought that lay behind the games. Well worth the detour.

Bloody Awful

2007-05-21T16:50:00.000+02:00

Or British Airways as it is usually known.

I tried booking a flight for Monday week and saw BA had a really cheap flight at £60 one way. It was there on their own site and on various agencies and aggregators. It was there yesterday and there again today.

And when you try to book it? It doesn’t exist. BA says it ‘has just sold out’ (repeatedly) while the 3rd party sites say there is some sort of problem. You wonder if this is some sort of switch and bait operation where you are lured into the site and then settle for something rather more expensive.

Ring the BA phone line and they have no idea. They have nothing to do with the website and cannot see what you are seeing. This is not so much pathetic service as disturbing. If its telesales and online systems are not aligned then this company is in big trouble.

I fly 95% of the time between here and the UK with Easyjet and never have a problem like this.

Desastre

2007-05-13T21:39:00.000+02:00

And so here endeth possibly the most disastrous four days in Barca's footballing history.

On Thursday they managed to give a way a 5-2 lead in the second leg of the Spanish Cup by losing 4-0 away at the modest Getafe. Now United have lost by this margin to crap teams and been knocked out of Cup games by who knows who. But throwing away a 5-2 lead in a second leg? No one in Barcelona had bothered to watch the game believing it to be a foregone conclusion. Cue vitriolic headlines.

Tonight, they waent one better. A home game, a big crowd prepared to forgive, a shot at redemption. Instead they virtually threw away the league by missing a hatful of chances against a dull Real Betis before letting in an 89th minute equaliser. And not any old equaliser - while Betis took a quick free kick, the entire Barca defence stood around discussing who was buying the first round of drinks tonight.

As Betis walked the ball into the net, the white hankies came out. The pañolada, the ultimate expression of fan anger, came out, along with 'fuera, Laporta', although quite what the President (two titles, one champions league) could have done about such defensive salckness, goodness only knows.

Making things worse, far worse, is the role of the city's second team, Espanol. Not only did they blow a 3-1 lead against Real Madrid last night to lose 4-3 but they are also appearing in the Uefa Cup final on Wednesday. It does not get much worse than that ...

Two wonderful and very different bars

2007-05-07T17:45:00.000+02:00

... which we happened across on a very beautiful Saturday morning

1.Bar L'Electricitat. A bar del barrio in the best sense of the word in probably the most down to earth quarter of the city, Barceloneta, tiny narrow streets of laundry-adorned flats tucked in between the flash-harry redevelopments of the Port Olimpic and the Marina. Great tapas (manchega cheese and almonds), full of locals drinking beer and red wine at 11am on a Saturday. Wine dispensed from barrels in the corner at absurdly low prices and decor last renovated around 1955. Not my photo above but sums it up completely. Just across the square from the district's beautifully renovated market at Sant Carles 15.

2. La Caseta del Migdia. On the very top of Montjuic, high above the seam and just past the gigantic castle that so many Republican activists failed to come out of in the Civil War. Possibly the city's most laid back bar with an open air sound system, hammock chairs and a barbecue.

It's not unknown to the guide books but you have to be reasonably determined to find it and get there. Blissful on a sunny day, it looks almost unmissable when its sunset sessions open in June. Check out the Flickr photos here

Double champions!!!

2007-05-07T17:36:00.000+02:00

1. The obvious one. United. Just a wonderful feeling, more so for it being so popular among football fans at large - a rare feeling for a United fan. First, because of the wonderful football we have played this season and second, because there was a genuine fear that Chelsea's bottomless wealth and greed would wipe out any meaningful competition.

I'm glad to see Mourinho has promised United a guard of honour on Wednesday night. Well done. It would be fun to see United play a game of two halves. The first half, just zip the ball about and give them a demonstration of how to win the title. And in the second half, take off the key players and pass the ball to Chelsea. Score a few own goals. Put Scholes between the sticks and Van der Saar up front. Lose 5-0 to show them it's all too late ..

2. The real champions. Ben's team, AE Les Corts UBAE, clinched their local under 12 championship on Friday by beating hot rivals Salesians Rocafort 5-2 in the last game. They now go onto the next stage to see if they can defend their Catalonia championship. Ben was sidelined with his ankle injury but was there to cheer his mates on and take part in the celebrations.

Above is a photo from the team's website of Ben in the team strip. The caption reads 'our latest signing, A player formed in the ranks of Manchester - a great addition'. Indeed.

United: the impossible dream

2007-05-03T09:43:00.000+02:00

This song is over
I'm left with only tears
I must remember
Even if it takes a million years

As Pete Townshend would have put it.

Or to look at it another way, it has been The Impossible Dream - the label given to the Boston Red Sox baseball team in 1967 when a losing team of hopelessly low expectations played beyond their wildest dreams to come within an inch of the sport's top prize.

Sounds familiar? Who would have thought back in August we would have made it to the edge of the Champions League final, and still be on the edge of the domestic double, after two years of dreary hopeless football? And produced one of the most amazing nights of European football ever seen, anywhere?

Other consolations from last night:

We lost by a country mile - no lousy decisions, shots against the post, lucky saves - against an amazing team.
We played really badly. No excuses
Chelsea lost as well
The two bottles of Ferret Guasch rose cava that Pepon brought round

It's youth recognition week on this blog

2007-04-26T22:27:00.000+02:00

The Landers in Barcelona Blog is taking a stance against the traducing of our youth as a bunch of good for nothing, drug addicted, TV obsessed, YouTube gawping lazybones (sounds fun actually, where do I sign up?).

Yes we're introducing our own Youth Recognition Week. So step forward the following members of the extended Lander Clan, who each deserve a case of Vodka alcopops!

Ben for bravely suffering some nasty pain as he struggles around on crutches, having badly sprained his ankle on the futbol sala court. Not fun at all
Rebecca for writing this wonderful, funny, warm and wise post on her Blog which gets far more visits than this one.

My nephew William for completing the London marathon in intense heat and despite a hugely nasty injury. Double points for raising tons of money for charity. See above as he auditions for night of the living dead

His sister Jules for landing a teaching job at an inner London primary school. Her pupils will end up running the country

My nieces Rose and Rachel who are having to revise in the balmy English early summer for important school exams.

I know what you'll be doing this summer

2007-04-26T22:25:00.000+02:00

The ultimate work life balance?

Read here.

yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-04-24T22:32:00.000+02:00

a fantastic second half come back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3-2 thanks to rooney's 91st minute winner

half time depression

2007-04-24T21:35:00.000+02:00

losing 2-1 to milan. updates as justified later

That Man Messi

2007-04-19T18:05:00.000+02:00

Last night Leo Messi of Barcelona scored one the greatest goals of all time; if it wasn't, then it ranks first equal with the one scored by with his compatriot Diego Maradona's goal against England in the Mexico world cup of 2006.

You can see the goal here scored against Getafe, in the first leg of the Spanish Cup semi final at the Camp Nou.

Looks familiar? Some genius has run the two goals side by side and you can take your pick. They are spookily identical.

The Barcelona papers have gone berserk today about the young genius with pages of pictures.

El Mundo Deportivo inevitably goes for 'The foot of God'. La Vanguardia helpfully analyses both goals with the following numbers:

Messi beat five players, covering 48m in 12 seconds, taking 10 touches with his left foot and three with his right.
Maradona beat six players, covering 62m in 11 seconds, taking 12 touches with his left foot only. I always said he would never make it being so one footed.

The genial Messi dedicated the goal to his ailing compatriot.

PS I wasn't there, but I did get to the bar where it was showing some 20 seconds before it happened.

Top news of the day

2007-04-13T13:17:00.000+02:00

From the BBC:

Cristiano Ronaldo has signed a new five-year contract with Premiership leaders Manchester United.

The 22-year-old Portuguese winger has ended speculation over his future after being linked with a move to Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona.

"I am delighted. I spoke with Sir Alex Ferguson about my future and everyone knew that I wanted to stay," he said.

"I am very happy at the club and I want to win trophies and hopefully we will do that this season."

United boss Ferguson added: "It is fantastic news, it emphasises the point that Cristiano is happy here and that he is at the right club.

Much as I would have loved to see him live every fortnight here, I would have been heartbroken at the thought of him leaving United - and in any case he might well have ended up at Real Madrid.

The consequences of one man's blog

2007-04-11T23:47:00.000+02:00

A blog can trigger a whole bunch of events. Here's one example that has affected me personally.

On the face of it, EuroTelcoblog was a blog of little consequence - the online diary of a telecoms analyst in London, James Enck with a deep penchant for the hardcore telco world of, as James himself puts it, 'metropolitan fiber assets and portable/mobile broadband.' It was however written with a great deal of style and wit, usually both as rare as hen's teeth in the telco world.

It's an area of peripheral interest to what I do but I happened to read it one day just after I moved to Barcelona and noticed a link to another blog run by a French consultant turned businessman in the city named Yannick Laclau. Anxious to make some contacts here, I emailed Yannick and arranged to meet.

Not only did we become good friends, but he has been extremely generous in both suggesting new ideas for Citywire and introducing me to other people here. Two of these also became good friends and when they sadly had to leave town, we inherited their rather beautiful and very flat in one of the nicest parts of the city - which is where this is being written from.

For James, meanwhile, his blog has had even bigger effects:

I got an email out of the blue from the fund manager who was ultimately
responsible for bringing me onboard at my future employers. He had stumbled
across the site and found it useful ... This eventually led to
some face-to-face meetings and culminated in a formal recruitment process'

He has a new job in a top investment bank. His new employer is a little more
strait laced about keeping blogs so EuroTelcoblog closes today.

So good luck in the new job, James, and thanks from all the Landers.

United 7 Roma 1

2007-04-11T23:37:00.000+02:00

Yes it really did happen. I heard from one friend who was there, balanced by another who missed the whole lot on a plane to the US. Enjoy

Lite, lite, lite

2007-04-08T18:26:00.000+02:00

India Knight, usually, though not always, on the ball, is on form in the Sunday Times about the UK's 'lite' culture - cheap food, cheap clothes (pace the mad scrum at the opening of the new Primark in Oxford Street) and two-week rehab at the Priory.

The emphasis of price over value is now pretty endemic in the way Britons eat, shop and live. I'm 3/4 of the way through reading Tescopoly which details the way Tesco has been bulldozing its way through Britain's towns and cities, all in the name of price, and the damage it causes - to communities and local shops but also to the food growers at home and abroad who it bullies into providing its notion of perfect uniform supplies at ever lower costs.

This week I have been mostly reading ...

2007-04-05T00:12:00.000+02:00

Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North. I've always thought Stuart Maconie to be a great DJ and this marks him out as a terrific writer.

He goes back home to explore the North from his native Lancashire to Yorkshire and the revival of the cities devastated in the grim 1980s from Manchester to Leeds and Newcastle to Liverpool. He flies the flag for a part of Britain much maligned by the metropolitan media moguls of London while avoiding being mawkish or sentimental.

As he points out the media often treats the North as being 'out there' - another country. The newspapers have nearly all closed their regional offices, sending London based reporters up when a sink estate goes up in flames. Why, he asks, does the BBC have a north of England correspondent but no south of England correspondent?

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan. A tiny novel but every page is made to sweat. The story of a doomed couple in the confused early 1960s, played out in slow motion like an inevitable car crash. Saturday was Britain 2003 in one day. This book is Britain in 1962 in one ghastly honeymoon night.

Happy Easter from Ludlow

2007-04-04T23:18:00.000+02:00

We're spending semana santa at our house in Ludlow. And blissful it is. It has been two years since we have been here and when you spend that amount of time away from such a special place you fear that everything will have changed for the worse.

Well there's a new car parking regime but that aside the butchers, the bakers and the food shops all remain as do most of the restaurants with a few additions.

The one that has got away is Shaun Hill's Merchant House so we did the next best thing and visited his new restaurant The Glasshouse in Worcester. Well worth the detour as M. Michelin would say - really good British food, especially my veal kidney and black pudding (or the 'murder special' as my non red meat eating daugther put it) and the highly inventive twists on treacle tarts and rhubarb fool which we had for pudding.

It remains extremely quiet as befits Britain's first slow town. You can still fire a shotgun down Mill Street at 5.05pm and not hit anyone. We eat our usual Ludlow diet of hot cross buns, pork pies, Hereford cider and Scotch eggs. The sun shines every day. We go cycling and walking and sleep like babies every night. Happy Easter from us all

The Big Easy

2007-03-23T21:41:00.000+01:00

One of the nice things about living here is that going out and enjoying yourself is so easy.

It's the hassle factor in London that always bugged me; ordering an expensive cab and wondering if it would turn up, factoring in the unreliability of public transport to get to a film on time or locating and paying through the nose for car parking.

Here the public transport works, taxis are cheap - it's hard work to pay more than €10 from mountain to sea - and the city is littered with huge and cheap car parks. Indeed car parking is that much cheaper following a new law which makes it compulsory to charge by the minute - it's often up to two hours in London. So we picked someone up today from the airport, parked for 20 minutes and paid a grand total of 27p.

And you can get into the best bars without being vetted, negotiating bouncers, being a member or being presumed to be a criminal and having your credit card kept behind the bar.

Last night I went out with some Catalan friends and ended up at the Ideal Cocktail Bar (Aribau 89) which forms a neat triumvirate with my established favourites here - Boadas and Dry Martini.

All are heavy on the wood, the leather, the barmen in white jackets and bow ties who know one end of a cocktail shaker from another. And very fine gin and tonics they mix too.

It rounded off a truly lovely evening which was to celebrate the promotion of one of my friends across government departments.

The cocktails followed one of those great Catalan pica-pica suppers of manchega cheese, serrano ham on tomato bread, small fried fish, patatas bravas and steak and chips, all dished up in the middle served up at La Moreneta (Cartagena 234) which is well worth dropping in on if you are near the Sagrada Família.

Bicing in Barna

2007-03-23T21:33:00.000+01:00

There's a great new initiative launched in Barcelona today - Bicing.

It's a municipal scheme to encourage bike usage. You pay €24 a year for a card which allows you to unlock a bike from a fleet of what will eventually be 1,500 bikes sited at 100 stations around town.

You then pay 60 cents an hour for two hours and €3 an hour after that, all charged to your credit card. It's €150 if you don't bring it back within 24 hours at which point you might as well keep the thing and spray paint the Bicing logo and keep it.

How cool is that?

Cricket is more popular in Barcelona than football

2007-03-23T21:27:00.000+01:00

Well some aspects of cricket and some aspects of football.

The papers here are covering the Bob Woolmer murder in reasonable depth. And why not? It's a cracking story on any level and there is indeed a sizeable Pakistani community in Catalonia. Of course they have to fill in the back story about what cricket is and how Pakistan losing to Ireland was like Barca losing to some stiffs from the 4th division.

Meanwhile the Football Story That Died through Lack of Interest is the England v Andorra game being played here at the Olympic stadium next week. Around 13,000 fans will be in twon apparently and will be joined at the stadium by some 400 Andorra supporters and a handful of neutral residents.

Nose news is good news

2007-03-18T20:25:00.000+01:00

Thanks for all the calls and emails re the nose.

Which gives me the chance to use the headline above. It is much better now and the steristrips bandages should be off in a couple of days.

Another blissful weekend ahead of the cold spell now making its way across Europe which should bring us more snow in the pyrenees. highlights:

- a first visit to the wonderful Museum of the history of Barcelona. A wonderful
collection of the ruins of what was Roman Barcino. Beautifully laid out if a
little too large.
- Seeing the Arctic Monkeys live. Yes we were probably the oldest people there but nothing wrong with that. There were some 3,000 people younger than us going mad at Razzmatazz. Great music though as Sarah says, nothing that the Clash weren't doing 30 years ago.
- Going to the beach today at Casteldefells with friends for a truly teriffic paella at Patricio's, one of the moste emblematic beach restaurants in these parts. No booking for the outside tables so you get there at 12, grab some seats and read your papers
until they start serving at 1.30. worth every minute of it.

- ah yes. Football. 8-1 and 8 great goals at that. Four for United and four for Barca. Even better, as we speak, Real Madrid at home are barely scraping past Nastic 1-0, bottom of La Liga by some distance and with a man sent off. As one disgruntled fan puts it on the Marca.com bulletin board in a rant directed at Madrid manager Capello:

fuera!!! fuera!!!! fuera!!!! yo ya saco mi pañuelo blanco delante del pc!!!! jajajajaja

'Out! Out! Out! I have my white hanky out (the traditional F*** off sign in Spain) and I'm waving it in front of the PC'

I've been a bad blogger

2007-03-11T18:33:00.000+01:00

Mea culpa. the last two weeks have been a void filled by travelling, getting a very nasty virus, friends visiting and some deeply depressing football by Barca.

One door closes and the next one slams in your face - that sort of thing. And literally in my case yesterday when I walked full on into a glass door and broke my nose. Blood everywhere and now feeling very tender with ice packs etc etc.

Immensely cheered last night my Messi's third, last gasp goal, which secured a vital draw in a hell for leather, harum scarum classico against Real Madrid, a game in which the two managers saw fit to dispose of their defences.

But the sun is shining and Ben scored his first goal for his futbol sala team so there is much to be happy about. More soon.

Hot media news

2007-02-21T16:15:00.000+01:00

From DWPub JournAlert, a service on what's happening in the media.

Teddy Bear Times has merged with Teddy Bear Club International Magazine, published by Ashdown.

Dolls House and Miniature Scene has incorporated Dolls House Projects. Janet Kirkwood is editor.

two good results last night

2007-02-21T10:13:00.000+01:00

Man U 1 Lille 0
Ben's futbol sala team (his debut) 11, opponents 2

make that three
PSV Eindhoven 1 Arsenal 0

let's hope for a fourth tonight at the Cam Nou!

Samuel Eto'o and Nina Simone

2007-02-15T23:26:00.000+01:00

I now see it. Samuel Eto'o, gifted football striker, is the new Nina Simone, chanteuse, pianist and diva.

Like Ms S, Samuel is moody, petulant and given to massive sulks that from time to time explode into torrents of abuse directed at the ones he supposedly loves. Just like Nina in fact, who was given to missing her own concerts on occasion when she wasn't in the mood.

On Tuesday, Eto'o hijacked his own charity awareness event by letting rip at his manager Frank Rijkaard, his teammate Ronaldinho, former Barca officials and the cat who the groundsmen emply to chase the field mice. Sanctions seemed likely followed by a likely exit at the end of the season.

Then yesterday, Valentine's Day, peace and love reigned again at the club. Some nice diplomatic footwork by club captain Carles Puyol calmed everyone down. Samuel shook Frank's hand, hugged Ronnie and resumed training. Let's hope he sits down at the piano again and scores some goals. he's been out through injury for several months and Barca need him badly.