Tim Parfitt's Blog, page 12

Letter from Barcelona (6): Expats & Gibraltarians. Rajoy should focus on trying ‘dialogue’ with Catalonia instead of laying claim to ‘the Rock’.

It’s interesting how it has taken Gibraltar to shake things up a little bit. Since last night it’s been one of the top stories on BBC and Sky News, with the inevitable “rock in a hard place” headlines (ho-ho-ho). It is on the front page of most of today’s papers, here in Spain and in […]

Letter from Barcelona (5): Since when has ‘dialogue’ been a ‘demand’?

I dreamt the other night that a 72 year old man called Mr.Margallo was begging and bribing me to stop writing anything nice about Catalonia. In exchange, he promised to drop all his plans to take control of Gibraltar after Brexit. Then I woke up. Or at least I think it was all a dream […]

Letter from Barcelona (4): Surely The Guardian can make a better video of ‘expats’ in Spain?

In the 20 years I have lived and worked in Spain (in Madrid and Barcelona), I’ve always tried to avoid reading any British newspaper article containing the words ‘expats’ or ‘costa’ in the headline, especially if illustrated with an image of a sunburnt-tattooed beer-gut in Union Jack shorts, or someone vomiting on a hen-night in, […]

Letter from Barcelona (3) – I wasn’t ‘#JoHiEra’, but I know many who were …

There’s a social media hashtag of ‘#JoHiEra’ that suddenly became very fashionable and popular, especially in Barcelona, just before midnight on Wednesday. It’s Catalan for ‘I Was There.’ I couldn’t and can’t use it, however, because I wasn’t there. I can only invent something pathetic like ‘#NoHiVaigEstarPeròConecAMoltaGentQueSi’, which I think means, ‘I Wasn’t There But […]

Letter from Barcelona (2) – An open-top Bugatti … and flowers for Hitler.

They’re holding the annual Barcelona to Sitges vintage car rally today. I took part in it 23 years ago – in March 1994. For some reason we’d got involved as co-sponsors to promote the Spanish edition of GQ magazine, which we were to launch in November that year. I say I ‘took part’ – but […]

Letter from Barcelona (1) – Carnival season in the Spanish courts

It’s carnival season here. I don’t mean the pre-Lent boozy processions. I mean that the Spanish courts are hosting a carnival – an on-going circus, to be frank – almost a total ‘masquerade’. At least it seems like it. This week, Iñaki Urdangarin, the brother-in-law to King Felipe VI of Spain, was found guilty of […]

Eddie Izzard & the challenge of doing stand-up in Spanish …

Here’s an article I’ve written for this week’s The New European newspaper: a conversation with Eddie Izzard in Barcelona about performing stand-up comedy in Spanish, which is something I have insanely decided to try. Below is a PDF of the article, but you can (and should) also subscribe right here to ‘The New European’ …    

Instagram v monthly fashion magazines; catwalks & meal tickets: Absolutely Fashion – Inside British Vogue

My starting salary at Condé Nast’s Vogue in London in November 1978 (aged 18) was £2,500 per annum, plus, crucially, “luncheon vouchers to the value of 60p per day”. I was reminded of the luncheon vouchers whilst watching the first part of the documentary Absolutely Fashion: Inside British Vogue (BBC2), having finally caught up with […]

Standing-Up (18): How do you judge comedy?

I tried stand-up comedy 30 times during the period of 12 months, from October 2012 to October 2013 (this time last year). I ‘performed’ in Barcelona, Madrid, London, New York and Edinburgh. Most of it is documented in these ‘Stand Up’ blogs. It all started with Logan Murray’s brilliant comedy course, continued for a while […]

Gracias, Grazia …

You will eventually be able to read about this in much more detail (if you wish) … in a sequel to A Load of Bull (Spanish edition Mucho Toro), currently with the working title of A Load of Barça. But here’s a snippet: I was relocated to Barcelona in June 2007 to run a magazine publishing company, with […]