Legend has it that on one of the several occasions that Real Madrid was wooing Arsène Wenger in the hope of persuading him to become the team’s new coach, he visited the Bernabéu to meet with senior club officials. After the meeting, as the unimpressed Arsenal boss drove away from the stadium, he said to his translator: “Real Madrid thinks it’s a big club, but it behaves like a small one.” When Real crashed out of the Champions League at the last-16 stage after drawing 1-1 against Lyon at the Bernabéu, the gap between the club’s lofty ambitions and reality was plain for all to see. This year, of all years, was when the nine-time European champions were supposed to return to the top of the … [Read more...] about What now for Real Madrid’s €250-million flops?
March 11’s divisive legacy
In the middle of February, the Spanish government announced that it was going to “repair” the memory of the poet Miguel Hernández, a Republican former goatherd who was jailed by the dictator Francisco Franco and died in prison in 1942, at the age of 31. The Socialist government pledged to offer Hernández, whose centenary is being celebrated this year, “the tribute, the memory and the admiration that his work merits,” said Deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega. “We all share that same rejection of any form of oppression, that same rebellion in the face of injustice and that determination to dream and create a decent country and a better world.” The news of this homage … [Read more...] about March 11’s divisive legacy
Falklands commentators wage virtual war
In his account of the Falklands War and its build-up, The Land that Lost its Heroes, Jimmy Burns wrote: “In a sense it was the last war of modern times not subject to immediate scrutiny. The concept of twenty-four-hour news and Internet-based ‘real time’ was yet to come.” Twenty-eight years after the conflict, as tensions between Buenos Aires and London rise once again following the British decision to start drilling for oil in waters around the small Atlantic islands, news, real-time and otherwise, rages, with the media voicing the opinions not just of its columnists and editorial boards, but also readers and citizen journalists. What’s more, with the click of a mouse, a journalist in … [Read more...] about Falklands commentators wage virtual war
How long can ETA ride on?
Few pieces of news can have more effectively conveyed the notion that ETA is on its knees than the arrest in mid-February of an alleged member of the violent separatist group while he was cycling through Guipúzcoa with a handgun and false papers in his backpack. Interior Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba insisted that Ibai Beobide was on no innocent jaunt. “He wasn’t practicing sport, because nobody does sport with a gun and a pen-drive,” he said, adding that the detained man had “the worst intentions.” With Spanish and French security forces making a seemingly never-ending string of arrests of ETA militants and leaders over recent years, often in stolen vehicles, this seemed to be an … [Read more...] about How long can ETA ride on?
The red-and-white underdog roars
It’s not easy being an Atlético Madrid fan. There’s the administrative and boardroom chaos, the unbalanced books and the revolving door of coaches, each hailed as a saviour before being dismissed as a false prophet. There are the financial scandals from the years when Jesús Gil was president, leading to his arrest in 2000 for embezzling his own club. And then there is the ultra hooligan group, among the most violent and xenophobic fans in Europe. And that’s before you get to the football itself. Atlético has one of Spain’s most impressive trophy cabinets: nine league titles, nine Copa del Rey titles and the European Cup-Winners’ Cup. This is a European giant, albeit one which has been … [Read more...] about The red-and-white underdog roars
Navigating the impossible?
For someone who sets such great store by being photographed alongside the right people, January 28 was a fairly awful day for the Spanish prime minister. At the Davos World Economic Forum, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was pictured sitting between Greece’s Giorgos Papandreou and Latvia’s Valdis Zatlers. The inference was clear: Spain was in the same boat as Greece, which the EU has now agreed to help resolve its enormous public financing problems, and Latvia, which has Europe’s highest unemployment rate at nearly 23 percent. Much was made of the gaff by Zapatero’s handlers, who failed to put him in more reassuring company. But it was only the beginning of a perfect economic and political … [Read more...] about Navigating the impossible?
Kitchen Colossus takes time out
In 1959, the jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins stunned his colleagues and admirers by withdrawing from the music scene. Popular and critically acclaimed he may have been, but the self-styled “Saxophone Colossus” was also jaded, feeling he had taken his music as far as it would go in a certain direction. For the next couple of years the only place he would play in public was on New York’s Williamsburg Bridge, where his tenor horn accompanied the sound of passing boats and trains. New York’s jazz scene may seem a long way from the kitchens of the Costa Brava, but Catalan chef Ferran Adrià, for many an artist every bit as accomplished as Rollins, has just announced his own withdrawal from … [Read more...] about Kitchen Colossus takes time out
Catalonia, immigration and populism
The attorney general’s announcement on January 20 that plans by the Catalan town of Vic to stop registering undocumented immigrants on its census were unlawful appeared to bring the furore surrounding the case to a close. After an outcry on the part of immigrant and human rights groups, Joaquin de Fuentes Bardají insisted that any immigrant should be able to register in their local municipality with just a passport (a visa or other documents being unnecessary) and therefore gain access to health and education services. But while Vic now appears unlikely to push ahead with its controversial initiative, this town of less than 40,000, just under a quarter of whom are migrants, has managed … [Read more...] about Catalonia, immigration and populism
Unmasking the weaver of dreams
There is an unforgettable scene in Gerald Martin’s biography of Gabriel García Márquez, when the Colombian writer, who is leading a hungry and desperate existence in Paris, spots his hero Ernest Hemingway wandering down the street in Paris one morning in 1957. García Márquez, shy but determined not to let his idol walk on by, shouts out: “Maestro!” Hemingway replies: “Adiós, amigo!” and disappears. The image of a young, still undiscovered García Márquez chasing after a writer he reveres contrasts sharply with that of the García Márquez we have come to know. For at least the last 20 years he has been an easy-going grandfather figure, oozing gnomic bonhomie and magical tales. In the … [Read more...] about Unmasking the weaver of dreams
American breakfast and prayers for Zapatero
The decision by Spanish leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to accept Barack Obama’s invitation to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on February 4 has sparked plenty of controversy and even outrage on the political right, as critics accuse the “lay” prime minister of hypocrisy. The Prayer Breakfast is seen as a meeting place for political, economic and social figures and while it does have a clearly religious dimension, Zapatero’s decision to attend has nothing to do with prayer and everything to do with his relationship with the US president. Putting aside the Spanish political furore over the breakfast, the invitation itself looks like a significant development as Zapatero … [Read more...] about American breakfast and prayers for Zapatero