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

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 ...

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

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 …

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

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

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 …

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!

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

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 ...

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

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

'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.

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

... 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!!!

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

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

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

The ultimate work life balance?

Read here.

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

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

half time depression

losing 2-1 to milan. updates as justified later

That Man Messi

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

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

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

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

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 ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

News from here

It’s been a long gap since the last blog so here’s a quick catch up.

Despite the Al Gore like temperatures and the lack of snow, Sarah and I snuck off to Masella for a couple of days of skiing. The Gods of artificial snow had laid down enough of the white stuff for blue runners like us to use and we got enough of the buzz, scenery and mountain air that we could have wished for.

Ben meanwhile went off on ski week with his school to Andorra, came back having a brilliant time having jumped over moguls and skied reds backwards.

We had our first night at the Barcelona opera at the stunning Liceu. Not just any run of the mill work but Verdi’s epic Don Carlos which runs to five hours in its full five acts. That meant the performance started at 8pm – almost a matinee by Barcelona standards – and finished as the clock struck one.

There was some weak singing – especially Don Carlos – but the staging of the (Vienna State Opera) production was amazing. It switched between original and modern settings including a surreal interlude in a 1960s suburban house which had the Catalan audience booing.

Even more extraordinary was the royal gala party which was stages as a modern televised event with the guests arriving through the theatre’s main entrance, up the stairs, through the magnificent hall of mirrors and on into the auditorium where the guest of honour were marched up the central aisle and on to the minimalist set where a black tie cocktail party was in full swing. That the audience did love.

The incredible spring like weather has returned – 18C and above. Sadly, Sarah and Ben were in rainy London but Bex and I had a great time; a long walk on Saturday morning through the nicest and quietest streets of the old city.

We found a beautiful doll’s house shop where the miniature details extended down to tiny newspapers and racks and miniscule umbrellas and cakes. We then dropped in at our favourite cheese shop (run by Scotswoman Katherine McLoughlin) and meandered down for lunch at Txakolin, which remains our tapas venue of choice.

It was also a good weekend for old and new. Old staples - Boadas for cocktails and Jamboree for live music (last night was Cuban rumba singer Xiomara Laugart, for a measly 12 euros) - and new finds - Dostrece in the Raval for late night copas and Arroseria Xativa, 10 mins walk from where we live, for the best paellas/rice dishes in town.

And tonight? Eto’o and Messi are back for Barca at the Camp Nou.

It doesn’t get much better than that …

UPDATE: just back from the game. they won 2-0 and looked pretty sharp indeed. Messi ran around for 20 mins and started to look the business. no eto'o yet.

biggest cheer of the night was for Barca's basketball team beating Real Madrid in the Spanish cup final in Malaga. Basketball is the second most important component of Barca bu it's fair to say that there would have been a smilar cheer had victory been chalked up in any other club sport such as indoor football, hockey or baseball, or indeed in any event where there is a winner and loser eg tiddlywinks, donut eating ...

'Madrid, cabrón, saluda al campeón ... ' as folk round here like to say ...

Fiestas aren't just for summer

We were walking last night through Gracia (one of Barcelona's more Bohemian neigbourhoods) after watching Flags of Our Fathers (v recommended if a little bloody in parts) when we came across one of the district's largest squares packed with people, a huge bonfire in the middle and knots of people barbecuing sausages and steaks all around.

It was, we found out today, la Fiesta Sa Pobla, which apparently began some years back as a cultural interchange with Majorca. Why they fixed it for late January who knows. But it did get everyone out on the streets on a cold saturday night ...

Adios, porteras

La Vanguardia today has a nostalgic look at the decline of the portera - the apartment block door men and women. 40 years ago there were 11,000 of them, today the numbers are down by 75%. Electronic security systems and the advent of working mothers have been the main causes.

Many blocks, like our old one, now only have live-out porteras who work mornings, Monday to Friday. Our new block, altogether grander, has the magnificent Jose who works 8-8 on weekdays, with the traditional long break for lunch and siesta between 2-5pm when he pops into his flat on our premises.

Smartly suited while on duty, Jose handles all the deliveries, takes all the rubbish out, polishes the handle of the big front door (literally), sorts the post, helps take the shopping up and liaises with the many live-in chicas (maids) and visiting workmen. A committed Barca fan, he also leaves his copy of the Sport newspaper for all to read when he has finished with it. At weekends he is replaced by another portera, as are the others on the street, who seems to be very second division and possibly not unaquainted with the joys of alcohol.

We wouldn't do without Jose. But it has to be said that for an awful lot of the day he has very little to do and plenty of time to read La Vanguardia and Sport.

One day no doubt the flat owners of the building will look at their community service bill and wonder whether Jose might do fewer hours or even have the security part of his job done by the closed circuit TV system which is already in place. But let's hope that doesn't happen for a while.

The furs are out

It's chilly - hardly Arctic and still very sunny - but at least it is cold enough for the good ladies of Turo Parc to get their furs out after the exceptionally mild winter. And they have done so in droves; I counted at least six on the way to the paper stand this morning. There are two or three fur shops around hear and neither they or the wearers seem at all worried about being attacked by the anti-furistas as would be the case in the UK. And very fine they look too; these two dears are just on their way back to their flat for a nice cup of tea and a pastry after a none-too-taxing stroll around the park.

A big weekend for football

Today Liverpool vs Chelsea which saw the Roman Empire further disintegrating. Great stuff.

Tomorrow its Arsenal vs United at 5pm followed by a very quick dash down Avenida Diagonal to the Camp Nou to watch Barca play Gimnastic of Tarragona, a team that thrilled every Catalan last year by winning promotion after 50 years and will break their hearts by going straight down this year; they have won just one of their first 18 games.

Gimnastic are 13-1 against to win the game. Pretty good odds in a two horse race until you consider that they lost the last away game with Barcelona 10-1 back in 1948.

The end of the Indian summer?

It was around 67F today and yet again beautifully sunny - the latest in an Indian summer that has lasted for almost four months. Beautiful for us, disastrous for the ski slopes.

The forecast is for a big dip in temperatures and rain. We all need it and hopefully it will bring some snow for Ben's school ski trip. We shouldnt worry too much- spring is not far away ...

What's in your paper?

Spanish newspapers, like those elsewhere, are facing falling sales and the drift to the web. But they are fighting it in some rather intriguing ways.

Extras are big things here, but rather different from the give away DVDs and CDs you find in British papers. I find those rather strange ways of getting people to papers. They are expensive, require large sums of TV advertising to promote and seem to have little long-term effect. If you buy The Times only because you like its 40 Diva Hits CD you’re not likely to buy it again.

Here you have to work for your extras, either by collecting coupons day by day or ponying up some extra dough. Last Sunday, for example, you could have had the following:

La Vanguardia – a very fine stainless steel kitchen ladle, part of a 12-piece weekly set. Four coupons from papers during the week plus 50 cents. I am collecting these religously.

El Periodioco - A free album for historic photos of Barcelona. The trick being that you have to buy the paper every day for two months to get the pictures to fill the album

El Pais - The first in a series of Jazz CDs at €1 with the rest twice a week at €5.

ABC – The first in a series of kids' DVDs, €5 each.

The sports papers are not excluded. One of the two papers that follow Barca here is offering the ‘authentic’ Barca jacket and the other one the ‘real’ one. Either way you need something like 28 coupons to go and get one.

Some of these offers are fairly upscale. You can get a volume of the Larousse encyclopaedia with La Vanguardia every week and from tomorrow, a CD and book set on the great operas of the world. Papers here still have some notion of trying to better their readers rather than just feed them pap about Big Brother.

As a result the newsagents of Barcelona sometimes resemble junk shops with CDs, books and egg whisks. But it does seem a better way of engendering loyalty than just giving away endless DVDs …

The elements of a perfect weekend in Barcelona

1. Peerless weather - blue skies, sun, 16C all weekend
2. A holiday weekend - three kings - so no shops open
3. saturday morning walking along the Passeig de les Aigües in the Collserola hills above the city
4. saturday afternoon on the beach in town
5. saturday evening watching another Powell Pressburger classic I know Where I'm Going
6. And then catching the 2nd half of Zaragoza - Seville, one of the best games of the season
7. Sunday morning with the papers on an outside table at the Bar Sandor in Plaza Francesc Macià, "sin duda la mejor terraza de Barcelona."
8. Sunday afternoon cycling along the Diagonal cycle path to Parc Cervantes along with a 1,000 children trying out their new bikes
9. Then a great FA Cup Tie watching Henrik Larsson score his first goal for United. How they miss him here.
10. to wit, Barca could only draw a nasty fixture at Getafe, sans Eto'o, Messi, Ronaldinho, Deco and more
11. But Real Madrid lost
12. er, that's it ....

Dear Three Kings

It is Three Kings on Saturday, which is when all good Spanish children get their real presents. Forget Christmas Day, this is the big one.

All this week La Vanguardia has been printing a selection of letters to the kings from children where they specify what they want and why. They are cute as hell. I especially like this one from Miguel, 6, who starts off pleading for his baby brother.

I'd like it if you bring Sergio lots of games, although he has been very naughty.

OK. enough about naughty Sergio. Now me:

I've been very good and I'd like a book on the planets, a batman, a robot, a remote control car, a remote control motor bike, a Spiderman, a Superman, a sword and a videogame.

Some good news

1) The number of deaths on Spanish roads dropped 10% last year - including a 15% drop from when a UK style points system was introduced in July.

2) Cava sales have recovered to previous levels after being hit in 2005 by the prissy metropoltian elite who took umbrage at Catalonia's new autonomy charter. Which shows they're either too feeble to make a boycott stick or they like cava too much.

Buried among the storms and the New Year

was the news that ETA - allegedly in peace talks and having declared a ceasefire - let off a huge car bomb at Madrid on Saturday which meant that two innocent Ecuadoreans never made it into 2007.

As the La Vanguardia columnist put it today:

ETA has now eliminated two dangerous enemies of the Basque people. That just leaves six billion people on earth.

Nice work guys.

It's goodbye to 2006...

From a humungously wet and windy Glasgow. Even the Scots say it's pretty rough out there and who am I to argue with that?

Three highlights of 2006? Try these:

1. Dinner at El Bulli with Sarah
2. Barca winning the Champions League
3. Not being 50 yet

The journey begins

... With the first of the 11 Powell and Pressburger films in my Christmas DVD set - A Matter of Life and Death. Just a wonderful and surreal love story. It was almost as good as watching The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp for the first time.

But not quite.

Ain't no sunshine ...

Number of days in London: six
Number of minutes sun has been seen: zero

That apart it has been a terrific Christmas, as indeed was the run up to it. I signed off from Barcelona in Bacchanalian style, with two rescheduled meals concatenating into the same day barely separated by a couple of hours in the recovery room.

The first one - the now ‘annual’ Christmas lunch with my friends from the Catalan Ministry of Education – was particularly special – held in a tiny, crowded neighbourhood bar in the back end of Poble Nou, not one of the city’s more travelled barrios. But the food that poured out of El Porrón’s tiny mom and pop kitchen was sensational, from the oysters, kidney and liver we had to start with to the arroz bogovante – a soupy Murcian version – that was the main course. This was after I was almost taken out by a chilli, bitten right on the seed, that lurked within the octopus stew.

The drinks, Catalan style, came arse about face with red wine followed by cava and finishing off with gin and tonic. It reminded me of the Guardian’s fictitious cricketer columnist Dave Podmore who once organised a reverse gala dinner which started with the assembled party vomiting in the car park, followed by cigars and brandy and ending six hours later with canapés and cocktails.

Ah yes, Christmas. We left one tale of airport woe (South Americans seeing their Christmas home go up in dust after budget airline Air Madrid stopped flying) to another one (Heathrow shut down for three days because of fog). And it was foggy. The first we saw of Luton airport was when we touched down in the mist and the next day Ben and I crossed Hampstead Heath in truly sepulchral dense fog. It’s cleared but only to leave a uniform greyness that does London few favours.

But since then almost every minute has been sparkling, catching up with friends and family, eating various Christmas feasts or lazing around reading and watching TV. Two shows were taken in – the peerless Monty Python’s Spamalot and Mary Poppins – while Santa was more than good to me with a wonderful selection of books, CDs and best of all, the complete films of Powell and Pressburger in one box set.

We’re off on Friday to New Year in Scotland. Have a great one…

Good news, bad news

Good

• the sun is still shining in Barcelona and it remains freakishly warm for this time of year
• the city is aglow in soft, white and very calming christmas lights
• the markets are looking magnficent. we went to La Boqueria to pick up a goose and a duck for a pre-christmas dinner with friends and we reminded what a special place it was.
• the very bourgeois delis and wine shops around us have the christmas best on with displays of whole hams, cava, nuts, dried fruits and turron filling their windows, while the flower stalls have dozens of poinsettias for sale.
• It's Chanukah! and the city's jewish community celebrated with an open air party in the park by our flat. Yiddish music in the heart of Barcelona
• We ate at Cinc Sentits and it was as good as ever

Bad

• It looks like the Ashes are over
• United and Barca both lost. Not a goal between them
• Too much sun means no snow in the Pyrenees. The ski resorts lost the December holiday weekend and now it looks like they will lose Christmas as well.

Two more reasons to hate Chelsea

1) craven attempts to muzzle the press: From 101 Great Goals

The Daily Mirror turned down an interview with Jose Mourinho, once the club
demanded copy approval. Chelsea demanded the interview appear in question and
answer form and also demanded “a 400-word sidebar about Chelsea’s charity work - written by the club - that could not be substantially changed.”

The interview with Mourinho ran on Friday in the Times, the Daily
Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Sun. All four papers ran the requested sidebar
about Chelsea’s charity work with children’s cancer charity CLIC Sargent.

Shame on those papers

2) ludicrous attempts to be the 'biggest brand in the world'. From Matt Dickinson in The Times:

I bumped into two gangs of English lads walking into the Nou Camp last week before Barcelona’s Champions League match against Werder Bremen. They were on a trip to Barcelona to pay homage to one of the world’s great clubs, with its cathedral of a stadium. They took in the museum and then were among 100,000 fans treated to a spellbinding show from Ronaldinho. No doubt a few beers were sunk afterwards.

When Peter Kenyon, the Chelsea chief executive, recently talked of his aspirations to build “the world’s No 1 club”, it was hard to think what would be an accurate measure. Perhaps this is it. Chelsea can claim that honour when you walk into a random match at Stamford Bridge and bump into a group of gawping, awe-struck Catalans.

The good and bad of London

Sorry. Posting has crawled to a snail’s pace what with work, travel etc. Just back from five days in London – the longest I have spent there since we moved here - where I got a dose of everything that was good and bad about the city.

Good was seeing my family, making time to meet lots of old friends, a terrific Citywire Christmas party, the elegant Christmas lights of Bond Street and discovering two (in their own ways) great places to stay: here for cheap, clean, all rooms look the same with the lights off and here for affordable (by London standards) luxury.

Bad? The sheer crappiness of the spine of the city centre – most of Oxford Street, Tottenham Court Road, Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue - just cheap, grimy, tacky and downright unattractive. Is there any major city in the world that lets its commercial heart wilt like this?

The shops in these areas are almost uniformly trashy – Selfridges and John Lewis excepted. A new report by a Mayoral commission here backs this up and says in effect ‘something must be done’. Yes, like Crossrail, a cross twon fast rail project which has been in limbo for the thick end of 20 years now.

More? mind-numbingly expensive taxis and public transport that gets worse as yet more money is spent on it. And the press – nasty, brutish and trivial.

Here’s a really crap story from the trip. After a fantastic night out of Japanese-style karaoke (ie with friends, not in front of 150 strangers; try it here) we faced the task of getting the two female participants back to south London at 1am.

We somehow hailed a black cab and a mini cab at the same time. The black cab driver refused to take them as it was more than 12 miles (as is his right) but he then became very threatening when they tried to get into the mini cab (which was not licensed to pick up on the street). He wedged his cab in front of the mini cab, got out threatening and screaming at us and started to dial the police.

In other words - he wasn’t prepared to help two women get back home in the small hours and he was quite prepared to ensure nobody else did.

We demurred, the caveman departed and the women got back in their mini cab. But what an unpleasant experience.

Ben meets Diego

A friend told us the Villareal team were staying at the ghastly Hesperia Tower hotel ahead of the game so we took Ben down to get some autographs. And despite the best efforts of the officious and rather nasty security staff there, he met Diego and got his signature. Given his weak performance in the game it was the best thing Diego did all day ...

The hotel is extraordinary. Yes it looks truly luxurious and its restaurant has just won a Michelin star, but you wonder what guests who have booked when they arrive and find themselves wedged between a motorway, one of Spain's biggest housing estates and Barcelona's biggest hospital. The local shopping is not the elegant boutiques of Passeig de Gracia but an electronic superstore. It's handy for the airport but so is everywhere in Barcelona. Most odd...

A magic moment

There are few moments truly magic in football - so much is overrated -but there was one such moment last night at the Camp Nou.

It was a comfortable enough game, Barca beating Villareal 3-0 as we got up to leave a few minutes ahead of the rush. We paused as Barca had one last attack. Xavi crossed; Ronaldinho, back to goal on the penalty spot, chested the ball, swivelled around and launched the ball with an overhead kick that flew into the net. It was an astonishing goal. At that second everyone in the ground - players and spectators - realised that they had seen something truly special. Ronaldinho wheeled away in utter joy, stripped off his shirt (for which he was duly booked) and was mobbed by his team mates. Ben and I went mad and Ben said he felt completely energised. the crowed waved their white handkerchiefs, as they do here. Very, very special.

Such a nice young chap

Craig Bellamy, Liverpool footballer: from the BBC

Premiership footballer Craig Bellamy grabbed a woman by the throat after
they bumped into each other at a Cardiff nightclub, a court has heard.

A witness says in court:

'I began to walk through the gap and Craig Bellamy was walking in the other
direction and he bumped into me. He was quite aggressive, he was just swaggering
around," she said.

"I turned around and said to him: 'Excuse me why couldn't you wait in
that gap there?'"

She said Mr Bellamy swore at her, saying she was too
fat to get around and called her a "slag".

Nick Clarke

The death from cancer of Nick Clarke, one of the BBC's greatest radio news journalists is truly awful. He was just 58.

He was sans pareil as a radio news presenter with a fantastic radio voice, living proof that for serious journalism it is an unbeatable medium. He started his career on BBC local TVnews in the North West which is where I grew up. And a wonderfully nice man by all accounts.

Bad luck Barca

First they lose Eto'o out for six months
Then their captain's father dies in a horrific work accident
Then the peerless Messi is injured; three months out
And Saviola is out for six weeks.

Oh yes and Edmilson, Xavi and Belleti injured as well...

andd two crucial champions league games to come ...

Big news

After a prolonged period of humming and hahing, we have decided to stay a while longer in Barcelona. Not sure just how long but a while.

We have also been very busy moving into a new flat which we secured through a stroke of good fortune. It’s very big, with a large terrace, and in one of Barcelona’s poshest areas, really far too grand for the likes of us. But it overlooks a gorgeous park and is very close to the centre of town and has the city’s most renowned chocolatier (and that is saying something) round the corner.

For those who saw the old flat, it’s much bigger, brighter and lighter. Most importantly (ha! – Sarah) it is very close to the Camp Nou where Barca play. You can see a few pix here

Other changes include Rebecca moving to the British school where she is vvv happy despite having to make an early start to get the school bus. Ben remains at St Peters but is trying out for a local football team and now has Sky Plus to play with. Both speak ludicrously good Spanish while their parents struggle along

However Sarah’s heroic endeavours to purchase of a flat full of furniture from Ikea deserve unlimited praise - think Brent Cross with better weather but the monumental task of saying: ‘But your website said you definitely had the Splaark bookcase in white with 50 cm shelves in stock ’ in a second language.

So, come visit, whether it’s for beach, mountains, football, culture, eating or drinking. Just not all at the same weekend …. Contact details below.



Address: C Josep Bertrand 13 1-1, Barcelona 08021
Phone: 003493 201 6209 but 0207 078 7659 is our internet phone which will probably cost you less.
Richard: Richard@lander.com or 0034 697912769
Sarah: sarah.barclay@gmail.com or 0034 697912766
Rebecca: rebeccalander@yahoo.co.uk or 0034 697912767
Benjamin: funkylovesmanu@hotmail.com

Only in Scotland

7.15 am in the business lounge at Glasgow airport, a man helps himself to a breakfast of a marshmallow teacake and a glass of red wine. Truly a breakfast of champions

It's raining coke, hallelujah!

From Spain's 20 Minutos:

A plane flying in from Ghana, which had already made a stopover in Amsterdam, had to make an emergency landing at Barcelona’s El Prat airport during the early hours of this morning when a passenger started vomiting because one of the ‘cocaine balls’ he was carrying in his stomach burst. In total, he vomited four of the 101 balls he was carrying.

The incident occurred at around 4.15am. The passenger, a 37-year-old Ghanaian, was later transferred to Barcelona’s Hospital de Bellvitge where he was operated on.

In total, surgeons managed to remove 97 of the cocaine balls from his stomach and intestines. When measured, the 101 balls weighed 1.798 kilos.

How depressing

Having to buy reading glasses. At my age. It's that or totally give up on the A-Z ...

Guess who's back, back again

WOW london is amazing and I love it and wouldn't it be nice to maybe live there one day and I got lots of shoes and a mirror shaped like a heart and I had cupcakes for lunch and anyway yeah barcelona is nice too I guess.
On monday I start my new school and on tuesday we move flat to which I can only say ndfjasdbnfjasdnjfnsdajkfansdjkfnfjkn.

Pix galore

We've finally got round to choosing and printing some pictures. You can see them on screen here, featuring us in locations asdiverse as San Sebastian, Cadaques, Studland Bay and Valencia and with various Lander visitors here in Barcelona.

this time next year

I shall be 50. But it was great fun turning 49 even though I was away from my family at the time and Barca marked the day by going down rather tamely at Chelsea.

Sarah's present was a beautiful Mont Blanc roller pen, Becca got me some extremely fashionable socks from Purificacion Garcia (a beautiful fashion label in Barcelona) and Ben bought me a Barca shirt with Messi, my favourite player on the back. You really can't do better than that.

And last night we went out with our dear friends here, who have been particularly nice to us, to Danzatoria an extremely upmarket night club in one of the most elegant parts of town, where we ate, drank and even danced until the small hours. Raging against the dying of the light etc etc...

Light posting continues as Sarah and Bex travels and we prepare for our flat move.

A great football weekend

• Chelsea lost both their main goalies ahead of Wednesday's game with Barca. Yes I am sorry they're injured, and Cech seems seriously so.
  

But I find Mourinho, preditably hurling blame all around, so boorishly despicable now that I can find no more sympathy than that. Bob Wilson as ever is the voice of sense:

"I was sad to hear Jose's comments after the game," Wilson told Five Live's Sportweek programme. "Keepers expect to get bumps and bruises, it's part of what we do. We don't want to be protected all the time."

• United looked fantastic beating Wigan
• Ronaldo got sent off and will miss the Madrid Barca game next weekend. Cappello going mental at the end of this is very funny ...
  
• Barca beat Seville 3-1 without looking at all convincing but ...
• I was there and I got to see a Ronnie free kick that went in and ...
• A glorious goal from Messi
• And finally. A game with two the softest penalties you will ever see and the most blatant penalty not awarded plus a real life Hand of God goal. It's all here.
  

Gentle Girona

Seeing as I will be in London on my real birthday come Wednesday, we kicked the celebrations off early here.

It was a long holiday weekend so we hopped up to Girona on Friday morning to eat at El Celler de Can Roca, the celebrated 2 rosette restaurant run by the 3 Roca brothers we had heard so much about.

Never can such a wonderful restaurant be so modestly situated - in a non-descript part of town, next to the cafe which the Roca parents still run. Inside it is lovely, friendly and small, rather than pompous and overpowering like so many upscale places.

It was empty as we wondered in at 1.45 and packed by 2pm as the 2nd glass of cava arrived. and for the next two hours we had the most fabulous treats from the a la carte menu. I had the most sublime mushroom souffle, a custard type of consistency filled with a boiled egg followed by piglet with a reduction of quince and garclic.

The dessert was an amazing 'Trip to Havana' consisting of a Mojito ice and a chocolate ice cream cigar, complete with grey sugar 'ash' that let off the most wonderful cigar aroma as you ate it. Happy days...

We stayed overnight in Girona and it was complete revelation. It's just an hour from Barcelona and it is criminal that we havent seen it before. The old town, including the narrow streets of the ancient Jewish quarter and the pastel coloured buildings backed on to the river were the higlights, along with the huge and rather oddly proportioned cathedral. It's a quite backwater compared with Barcelona and all the better for it.

We stayed at the very sleek AC Palau de Bellavista which had beautiful large modern rooms with every parent's added bonus of free breakfast for children and a free minibar (although not alas free movies, hence Ben's 12-Euro charge for watchign Wallace and Gromit...). Fantastic views over the city, as the name implies, and at £68 a room, hugely recommended.

The big international

Forget the Euro 2008 qualifiers. Tomorrow night in the Camp Nou we have, er, Catalonia vs the Basque Country in what will doubtless be an orgy of yellow and red infested nationalism.

It will all be slightly surreal with all the two 'nations' best players off representing Spain against Switzerland. More surreal still is the wish of the presdient of the Basque Football Federation president that one day the two teams might meet in the World Cup. You could argue this one both ways given that Great Britain fields four teams and we have the likes of San Marino and the Faeroe Islands wasting the time of all against whom they play.

The match coincides with one of the those almighty storm in a teacup rows that blow up here, concerning a television advertisement in support of separate Catalan sports teams. A local court has banned the ad, not on political grounds, but because of its use of children.

Saturday afternoon at the films

There is nothing like peeling off on your own on a Saturday afternoon to watch a film that interests nobody else in your family.

So this afternoon I snuck off to see Neil Young: Heart of Gold, a documentary about The Great Man by Jonathan Demme. More precisely a concert film of him recording a new album plus some old great songs in Nashville. A lovely film about a brilliant performer. You wanted to applaud after very song but it was probably not the right thing to do in the cinema...

I feel like I should say something

Life is a little bit complicated right now and also I have a lot of Spanish homework and I've started learning german which isn't fun and so far I can't even spell the word for hello.
Today I watched an episode of Scrubs which made me laugh.
I've just realised I have absolutely nothing to say here.
Well, have a nice tuesday.
Or don't, I really couldn't care less.
Peace out
Rebecca

Gourmet Garrotxa

We had an amazing weekend in the La Garrotxa Volcanic Zone Natural Park, around two hours drive north of Barcelona. The weather was stunning - v hot, blue skies. Not only did we stay in the beautiful and charming Mas Garganta, a gorgeous Casa rural with lovely rooms and land, and visit several of the stunning nearby volcanoes, but we found what might just be the hidden restaurant jewel of Catalonia.

We stopped at Restaurant Mas Nou for a sandwich and drink after a walk on Saturday and immediately booked for Sunday lunch. What we expected was some hearty Catalan country fare; what we got was extraordinarily beautiful and exquisit cooking, heavily influenced by the 'new tapas' more often seen in Barclona.

Tiny stuffed potatoes, spoonfuls of aubergine puree, a pink martini granita and miniscule cupfulls of pumpkin soup with parmesan. They were all in the 8 course 'picar picar' starters which cost 12 euros. Or there is the full 20 course meal of this type for an astonishingly low 26 euros. and there is also the duck, rabbit, slow cooked lamb and other dishes that come from these parts.

Utterly sensational. Lunch for all four of us was under 80 euros, an astonishing price for such great food. It's a tiny room - just 24 seats - and only open on weekends in winter, so book now. Well worth a detour as M.Michelin likes to say.

No lipstick allowed but ...

This has been my first real business trip to London since the Great Liquid Security Scare of August. The queues at Gatwick security are slightly longer than normal as our shoes come off and full body searches the norm. The staff are wonderfully friendly under the circumstances and after a lengthy consultation with seniors, I am allowed to take on Bicarbonate of Soda so that proper cakes may be baked in Barcelona.

But after all the jettisoning of liquid pre security, one enters the Aladdin’s cave of duty free where any variety of flammable alcoholic beverages in glass bottles can be taken into the cabin. As my brother in law points out, break a few of these on seat backs and you have some pretty lethal weapons at your disposal. A charming and cultured man, he grew up in Glasgow where arming oneself like this was a fairly standard Saturday night procedure …