A Catalan Christmas' Best Friend

Published in Catalonia Today magazine - December 2012

Reus, December, 2012 - Photo: Elisabeth Magre

For every child (and many adults too), December might be the best month of the year. Christmas means celebration and family reunions. Around the world, Father Christmas visits homes to reward boys and girls with presents. Actually, not every home. Catalonia is not generally on Santa’s route, because there is another guy in charge. He’s called the Tió de Nadal, or Christmas Log. Popularly called Caga tió (crapping log), it is a character in Catalan mythology related to a widespread Christmas tradition. Beginning with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8), one gives the tió a little to 'eat' every night and he is usually covered with a little blanket so that he won’t get cold.

On Christmas day or, depending on the particular household, on Christmas Eve, one puts the tió partly into the fireplace and orders it to 'crap' (the fireplace element of this tradition is no longer as widespread as it once was, since many modern homes do not have one). To make him 'crap', one beats him with sticks, while singing various songs about the Tió de Nadal.

The tió does not drop larger gifts, as those are usually brought by the Three Wise Men. What he does leave are sweets, nuts and torrons. Depending on the part of Catalonia,he may also give out dried figs. When nothing is left to 'crap', he drops a salted herring, a head of garlic, an onion or even 'urinates'. What comes out of the tió is a communal rather than an individual gift, shared by everyone present.

The Tió is not as glamorous as Father Christmas, but Catalan kids love it. Merry Christmas!

Armstrong’s footprint

Published in Catalonia Today magazine - November 2012

Girona, October 2012 - Photo: Oriol Mas

In this lovely street in the old quarter of Girona, built over the ancient Roman road of Via Augusta, Lance Armstrong bought a house to live in while training a few years ago. Since then, several cyclist from different teams have decided to settle in the beautiful city of Girona, with its great weather and good roads with mountains nearby that are perfect for preparing for big races, such as the Tour de France or the Giro d’Italia. Girona quickly became one of the hubs of professional cycling in Southern Europe, and Armstrong was praised as a hero. When he was stripped of his titles by the US Anti-Doping Agency, the reaction here was one of incredulity. People in Girona simply could not believe it. They didn’t want to. At the end of the day, the International Cycling Union confirmed the accusations and banned Armstrong for life, erasing from the book of records his seven Tour de France titles. Girona

– and Catalonia – is in shock. Armstrong is no longer a hero, but his legacy is still alive in the city through the many professional cyclists who have settled in the town.

The next state in Europe?

Published in Catalonia Today magazine - October 2012

When a demonstration of 1.5 million people takes place in the capital city of a country of seven million inhabitants, you can bet that something big is going on.

Add to that the fact that the marchers were demanding "Independence", and you come up with a very strong cocktail. That cocktail is called "Catalonia, the next state in Europe", and the main problem is that Madrid and Brussels don’t want to try it. However, it seems that democracy will eventually force them to take a sip, as the Catalan people expressed their will in the streets of Barcelona last month and will also no doubt do so in the polling booths in the next Catalan elections,. Then, the political options will be polarised between two choices: to remain part of Spain or become an independent state, regaining sovereignity lost 300 hundreds years ago.

Catalonia is at a crossroads and the two paths to follow are dark and painful. On one hand, the cost of remaining part of Spain is poverty and assimilation. On the other, the costs of secession are very high as well. At the end of the day, though, the democratic will of the people will prevail, and that is something unstoppable.

Freedom for Catalonia

Published in Catalonia Today magazine, September, 2012.

Girona, July 29, 2012 - Photo: Manel Lladó

Catalonia wants to rule its own destiny. Polls made this clear a couple of months ago when more than 51 per cent of Catalans showed their support for independence. In Girona, a mega-concert, with dozens of bands and an audience of thousands, became a massive clamour for a change in the statu quo. Politicians are watching with concern as the people themselves push ahead without waiting for them to lead the process. Financial asphyxia from Madrid is bringing things to a head and some analysts are seeing a call for early elections in Catalonia that could become a referendum for independence avant la lettre. Stay tuned, because the best is yet to come.

Enjoy your olympic meal!

London, June 13, 2012 - Photo: SUZANNE PLUNKETT / Reuters

Are you planning to visit London this summer for the 2012 Olympic Games? Then you better get ready fto enjoy the best fo the local cuisine. A menu of oddly named and sometimes oddly tasting traditional British dishes awaits adventurous diners visiting London for the Olympic Games this summer. In this colourful picture you have a nice example: Crumble and custard (clockwise from top L), Bread and Butter pudding, Battenberg cake, and an Eton mess. Yummy! You may think that this is not the kind of menu that the elite sportsmen and sportswomen should eat at their olympic villages, but don’t worry, they won’t. This is only for visitors and tourists. The only sport they’ll practice in London this summer is, precisely, eating and drinking!

Published in Catalonia Today magazine - July-August 2012

Who cares about Gibraltar?

Photo: Malcolm Tredinnick - Wikipedia

One favourite strategy of governments around the world during a time of serious crisis is – instead of solving the problem – to offer the press and public a distraction. If peppered with a huge dose of cheap patriotism, all the better.
We saw an example of this recently with the nationalisation of the Argentine branch of the Spanish oil company, Repsol. We saw it again when the Spanish government protested the visit of the UK’s Prince Edward to Gibraltar, which led to the cancelation of the visit of Queen Sofia to England to participate in Queen Elisabeth II’s jubilee celebrations.
A great deal of Spanish pride emerged in the media, with the same old arguments against the British sovereignty over the Rock, and claims to do whatever is needed to see the red and yellow flag replacing the Union flag.
It is interesting to notice that the Catalan press didn’t join the party. In fact, Catalans have been linked to the British presence in Gibraltar since the very beginning. This picture of Catalan Bay is proof. The place has been called Catalan Bay ever since a battalion of 350 Catalans landed there to join the Anglo-Dutch army that seized Gibraltar in 1704. In that war, Catalonia lost its independence and became part of the Spanish kingdom, after the British crown failed to honour the Treaty of Genoa, which was supposed to guarantee enough support to keep Catalonia independent from Spain.
However, the footprints of the old friendship between the Catalans and the British remained in the name of the fishing village of Catalan Bay. And in the meantime, let’s hope our leaders ignore the distraction strategies and concentrate on what is really important, which is solving the problems we have today. After all, that’s why we vote for them, isn’t it?

Published in Catalonia Today magazine - June 2012

Run, Susi, run!

Yes, I know the following lines seem like a script by Groucho Marx, but you have my word that it’s true. Pictured is Susi the elephant, one of the stars of Barcelona zoo. In 2009, Queen Sofia of Spain wrote a letter to express how worried she was about Susi’s living conditions. Her husband, King Juan Carlos, however, is a well-known hunter and a few weeks ago he was secretly killing elephants in Botswana and taking pictures of himself with a smoking gun beside a dead pachyderm. The press and the public only took notice of the King’s safari trip because he fell and broke his hip. The hunting trip to Africa by the head of the state is just a little annoying when there are more than five million unemployed people in Spain and the county’s economy is struggling to avoid a bailout from the EU and the IMF. To make the story even more absurd, the king happens to be the honorary chairman of the Spanish chapter of the WWF. If I was Susi the elephant, I would run away as fast as I could from this crazy place.

Published in Catalonia Today magazine, May 2012

My flag is not your flag

When it comes to symbols, the argument exceeds the scope of reason and intelligence. It’s very difficult to understand from an external point of view what is going on in many town councils around Catalonia. Many Catalans don’t feel the Spanish flag is their own flag, so they remove it from the Ajuntament building, to leave only the Catalan Senyera and the European flag. Spanish authorities feel that this is an attack on the identity and integrity of the state, and force the local representatives to put the missing flag back. Some town councils argue that the flag was sent to the laundry and never made it back, and on several occasions the battle ends in front of a judge.
In Sant Pol de Mar, as in other cities and towns, the people demonstrate against this imposition, because they identify only the Senyera as their flag, and they even use a ladder to climb and remove the Spanish flag. So the police have to come and put it back again.
It’s a funny situation somehow, but it’s another example of the rising tension between Catalonia and Spain. Divorce is getting closer by the minute.

Published in Catalonia Today magazine, April 2012

No more waiting

Spain is a strange country. It calls itself a democracy but many laws of the fascist dictatorship that ran the country for 40 years from the end of the Civil War to the death of Generalísimo Franco, are still in force, including the amnesty passed by the armed forces before they handed over power.
In Spain, a judge can close down newspapers, jail journalists, arrest dissidents without a reason, and even earn the condemnation of the European courts for failing to investigate allegations of the torture of detainees. The same judge can prosecute dictators from all over the world, from Chile to Cambodia, and yet still be prosecuted for daring to investigate the crimes of the fascist Spanish regime in his own country, because it’s still illegal to do that.
Spain is a democracy but a huge archive of documents confiscated by the fascist regime from town councils, associations, and even individuals, was archived in the city of Salamanca while the legitimate owners of those documents had to fight through the courts for years to get them back. The Spanish democratic government refused for decades to dismantle the archive and return the papers.
After years of legal battles guided by a citizen movement called Comissió de la Dignitat, the papers started to be sent back. A few days ago, a new pack of documents arrived at Catalonia’s national archive, where the families involved were invited to come and receive their documents. The woman in the photograph –Teresa Rovira– waited for almost 70 years to recover family documents that have no other value than as a symbol of the dignity stolen from the dissidents, the ones who lost the battle against the fascists who overturned Spain’s democracy. She has waited for almost 70 years but her patience is now exhausted and, even though the Catalan minister of culture is giving a speech during the ceremony, it is the documents and the restoration of her family dignity that interests her most.


Published in Catalonia Today magazine, March 2012

A job to die for

How we all love those cool modern gadgets with the half-eaten apple pictured on the back. Apple appliances have become a type of identification mark that certifies our belonging to a trendier and more techno world. It should not be forgotten, however, that the other side of the shiny coin of success that has turned Apple into the world’s largest stock-listed company hides a darker story: the factories of semi-enlsaved workers of the Foxconn company in China. The firm’s main client is Apple, but Foxconn also works for Microsoft, HP and Sony, among others.
Foxconn employs around a million people, in a working environment that bears little resemblance to Silicon Valley. Foxconn’s employees, mostly adolescents, live stacked on top of one another in dormitories of 100 beds, and their typical day can easily be summed up as follows: they get up, they eat a bowl of noodles with rice, they work for 15 hours straight, they return to their dormitories, they do carry out their ablutions and wash their clothes and then go to bed, only for the whole thing to start again the next day at 7am. For this they earn around 30 euros a month.
At the same time, Foxconn is an impregnable fortress, and the workers’ mobiles and cameras are confiscated when they first enter the factory. The featured photograph was taken with permission of the company, which does not make it difficult to imagine that the scene portrayed was set up beforehand. However, the serious expressions on the faces of the young people and – above all – the two supervisors walking the aisles, suggest quite a different story about the factory.
Not long ago, more than 150 of the company’s employees climbed up to a rooftop at the Wuhan plant with the intention of throwing themselves off. Individual cases of suicide have happened in their dozens in the past couple of years. Between 50 and 100 years ago, workers were exploited like this here, but it was not a pretty sight. Now we can exploit Chinese workers who, because of their distance from us, need not trouble our consciences.


Published in Catalonia Today magazine, February 2012