Tim Parfitt's Blog, page 4
January 21, 2024
Letter from Spain #38
I thought I’d heard about most of Spain’s traditions, but I wasn’t aware that 17 January was the day of San Antón (Saint Anthony Abbot, or even Antoni Abat in Catalan), and that hundreds of Spanish pet owners therefore took their animals to church this week to have them blessed by priests with holy water, in celebration of the saint’s day.
According to reports from Madrid, ‘a few dogs barked, but most animals waited patiently to be sprinkled with holy water on the steps of the baroque St Anthony's Church’ in the centre of the city. The priest Angel Garcia then said Mass in front of dozens of pets inside, also to ‘some barking from the pews’.
I didn’t actually take Molly to my local church in Sitges this week (the photo below is from September 2021), because (1) I don’t think they were blessing dogs in my town, and (2) I don’t think Molly would have appreciated it.
Anyway, Saint Anthony the Great, also known as Anthony the Abbot, was an Egyptian Christian monk - and he sounds like he was a decent enough guy. Born in 251 in Egypt, he died in 356, apparently on 17 January - which is why the day has become his saint’s day. According to tradition, he had a special connection with animals and they were often drawn to him. Legend has it that he learnt to communicate with animals during his times alone in the desert. He spoke to them and they spoke back to him - so he was a sort of Doctor Dolittle, I guess.
Anthony was initially known as the patron saint of pigs, because he would preach to pigs, birds and some other animals (and they would listen attentively to his words) - but then he got an upgrade or promotion and eventually became known as the patron saint of all pets.
In art, Saint Anthony is often surrounded by animals, or holding a pig or other animal. The ‘Temptation of Saint Anthony’ is a repeated subject in the history of art, dealing with ‘the supernatural temptation’ reportedly faced by Anthony during his time in the Egyptian desert. It’s been painted by Michelangelo, Bosch, Cézanne, Mattheus van Helmont, among many others - including Salvador Dalí (below), and which hangs in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, in Brussels.
Painted by Dalí in 1946, it shows Anthony kneeling in a desert and holding, in a traditional exorcism gesture, a cross made from two sticks in order to ‘ward off the temptations that are assailing him’. The canvas shows the temptations: Triumph, Sex, Gold and Riches.
As Anthony is believed to have had the ability to heal animals and protect them from harm, the pet owners across Spain who mark San Antón by taking their furry friends to a local church for a blessing, do so in order for their pets to have protection for the year ahead.
This quirky, cute tradition, however, merging religion and superstition, gets out of hand in some areas of the country, where not only dogs and cats get sprinkled with holy water, but geese, ponies, horses, sheep, ferrets and rabbits get dragged out, too.
But like with many things in Spain, there’s a paradox with a tradition that is supposedly meant to celebrate the protection of pets and animals, but which in some towns and villages looks more like they’re simply terrorising them. It’s the same with Spain’s new animal welfare law, that excludes hunting dogs and (of course) bulls.
In areas of Mallorca, people dressed up as devils this week and walked the streets setting off firecrackers for their pets … which the animals must love. But it’s mild to what takes place in the village of San Bartolomé de Pinares in the province of Avila (Castilla y León), where they held ‘Las Luminarias’ to celebrate the eve of Saint Anthony’s Day.
Simply put, around 100 horses jump through bonfires in a ‘purification ceremony’ every 16 January night. At full gallop, the horses emerge from the darkness and race through a string of bonfires in an ancient ritual to ‘ward off sickness’. It apparently dates back to the 18th century when an epidemic devastated the region’s horse population. When the epidemic finally disappeared, people began to believe that the smoke protected the animals … and that’s how the tradition continues.
Despite criticism from animal rights groups over the years, organisers insist that the horses are never harmed due to precautions taken by riders to cut horse hair and avoid burns. Every year (although it was cancelled during Covid), the event is attended by vets and firefighters brought in by the local authorities.
This week, the Spanish animal rights party PACMA, ‘Partido Animalista Con el Medio Ambiente’ (that also makes a brief appearance in The Barcelona Connection!), campaigned once more against the tradition, posting the following message and video on X (formerly Twitter):
‘One more year, we document the mistreatment of the horses of the Luminarias de San Bartolomé de Pinares. Last Tuesday the horses were forced to jump over the flames, in an absurd tradition. We ask that the authorities prohibit these “celebrations” that only cause stress and danger.’
What would Saint Anthony the Great think? What do you think?
This past week in Spain, we’ve also had more on the so-called Catalan Operation and CatalanGate. I spoke about this and other Spanish news on the radio, in my fortnightly discussion with Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe. Below is the chat from Wednesday 17 January if you’re interested:
The Barcelona Connection - ResearchI will start posting some notes about Chapters 78 onwards from next week …
Previous links to my research notes are here:
Chapter 66 in Letter from Spain #37 (Séverin and Hendrik)
Chapters 59 and 63 in Letter from Spain #36 (Benjamin visiting the Dalí Museum in Figueres).
Chapters 50, 52 and 57 in Letter from Spain #35 (Benjamin on the train to Figueres).
Chapters 48 and 51 in Letter from Spain #34 (G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’).
Chapters 48 and 51 in Letter from Spain #33 (Picasso Museum).
Chapters 39 and 42 in Letter from Spain #31 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 36 in Letter from Spain #29 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 29 in Letter from Spain #28 (Nîmes to Barcelona and tollgates).
Chapters 28 and 32 in Letter from Spain #27 (Pedralbes and Jaume, the Marquès de Guíxols).
Chapter 26 in Letter from Spain #26 (pijos and Beltrán Gómez de Longoria).
Chapter 25 (again) in Letter from Spain #25 (Benjamin’s thoughts on Púbol, Figueres and Port Lligat-Cadaqués).
Chapter 25 in Letter from Spain #23 (Benjamin and Elena on the Passeig Marítim).
Chapters 22 and 24 in Letter from Spain #22 (Plaça Sant Jaume & Nîmes).
Chapter 21 in Letter from Spain #21 (the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya - MNAC).
Chapter 18 in Letter from Spain #20 (Nîmes).
Chapter 16 in Letter from Spain #19 (Marta Soler visiting the offices of La Vanguardia).
Chapter 15 in Letter from Spain #18 (Sants, Les Corts and the Plaça de la Concòrdia).
Chapter 14 in Letter from Spain #17 (introducing Inspector Vizcaya and Marta Soler).
Chapter 13 in Letter from Spain #16 (the painting - the possible study of The Hallucinogenic Toreador by Salvador Dalí).
Chapters 10 and 12 in Letter from Spain #15 (Isabel Bosch and Lieutenant Trias).
Chapters 8 and 11 in Letter from Spain #14 (Benjamin at Girona Airport and finding the Marqueses’ home in La Bisbal).
Chapter 7 in Letter from Spain#12 (Séverin and Jürgen).
Chapter 5 in Letter from Spain#11 (Elena in Girona).
Chapters 3-4 in Letter from Spain#9 (Marcos Constantinos in Hampstead, plus Benjamin at the UEA & Stansted).
Chapter 2 in Letter from Spain#8 (the home of the Marqueses de Guíxols, not far from La Bisbal d’Empordà).
Chapter 1 in Letter from Spain#7 (Benjamin waking up at the service station).
The Barcelona Connection - Reviews, News & EventsLinks to reviews & articlesA review of The Barcelona Connection by Michael Eaude has been published in the October edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
Here’s the link for a review of The Barcelona Connection by Dominic Begg that came out in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
You can also click here for the latest reviews on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads and at Barnes & Noble.
The book is available on Amazon or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from. It can also be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBN number: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
You can also click here for the Kindle edition of A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid.
For professional enquiries and foreign rights for The Barcelona Connection, please contact my agent Justyna Rzewuska at the Hanska Literary & Film Agency.
January 14, 2024
Letter from Spain #37
Life expectancy in Spain is currently one of the highest in the world - 84.19 years, a 0.15% increase from 2023 - 81.50 for men and 86.81 for women.
In 1974, the population aged 65 years and above in Spain was just 10.2%. It’s now 20.7% - and it’s growing at an average annual rate of 1.46%.
According to a report by Spain’s Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) issued in October 2022, life expectancy at birth in the year 2071 in Spain could become 86.03 for men and 90.05 for women.
I have always been impressed with how well the elderly folk look and live in Spain. I’m 63, but there are some tennis players in my group who are in their late 70s - and others playing who are in their early to mid-80s (and they play better than me).
You can put their good health and longevity down to some or all of these reasons: the ‘Mediterranean Diet’; the number of days of sunshine; the walking/strolling habits and emphasis on physical activity; friends, family and community spirit; social life, celebrations and a ‘no rush’ attitude; an occasional afternoon nap; plus a robust public health system … oh, and a decent glass of red wine with most meals.
At the same time, I’ve also always been impressed with how Spain looks after and looks out for its elderly population - at a family and community level, but also (dare I say it) at government level - with the Spanish government increasing its pension spending by more than 10% in March 2023, and 4% more is forecast for this year.
The reason I mention all this is because (touch wood) I’m looking forward to growing old (or older) in this country. It means I’ve also been paying more attention to friends and acquaintances when they start talking about pensions - something that in the past I have always done my best to avoid discussing, because the word ‘retirement’ has never been on my radar, and the word ‘pensioner’ even less so.
What started out as something recommended to me by a friend to ‘possibly check out’, however, has turned into something that could (in fact will) have a very positive impact on me in later life (in the not too distant future) … touch wood again that I get that far.
I’m talking about state pensions.
I worked in London at Condé Nast from the age of 18, in 1978. I was already aware that I’d accumulated enough years to qualify for a full state pension in the UK - thanks mainly to good advice from my father to send voluntary social security contributions while working in Madrid.
Now I have some good advice to give my own sons and anyone else: never throw away your pay slips (or nominas, in Spanish).
This is what happened to me recently:
A friend told me that I should ‘possibly check out’ my state pension status in Spain, because ‘you never know’, he said, ‘you could possibly be able to claim something here as well’ (at least from the age of 67, I think it might be). The thought had never occurred to me - despite having worked in Spain on and off, I mean officially, for around 15 years, and more as a freelance.
When I discovered that the minimum 15 year figure was key to getting some sort of Spanish pension, I went to see a gestor (who turned out to be brilliant) to check my work history and social security contributions in Spain, and to see if I might qualify in due course. But this is when things initially went pear-shaped …
The gestor found that I’d worked in Spain for just 7 years and six months - mainly at a magazine group in Barcelona, jointly owned by Grupo Godó and Grupo Planeta, where I started in June 2007.
Yes, I said, but I also worked for Ediciones Condé Nast SA in Madrid from February 1988 until March 1996 … so that’s another 8 years, at least, that I worked in Spain …
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘Yes, I did,’ I insisted. ‘Look, I even wrote a book about it … A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid …’
‘Well, it doesn’t show up on your social security history …’
Shit.
This conversation happened just before Christmas. I spent several nights wondering who was to blame - me, Condé Nast, Planeta, Godó, or the Spanish Labour Ministry? Who could I sue? Where to start? Then I realised that in the research and writing of A Load of Bull (and for its future prequel and sequel), I’d kept every single letter, memo, employment contract and much, much more … somewhere.
On 28 December - which my gestor kindly reminded me is the Day of the Holy Innocents in Spain, the country’s April Fools’ Day, when everyone is allowed to play practical jokes on one another - I spent over three hours in a storage unit here in Sitges, working off the turkey by moving, opening and unpacking box after box of books, files and you-name-it … until I found all my pay slips from nearly 9 years of working in Madrid (some 35 years ago).
It turns out that I had a different social security number in Madrid to the one I was assigned when I started working in Barcelona. The gestor could see this immediately from all the payslips, as they also had two different ‘prefixes’ - one given for those working in Madrid, another for Barcelona. It should never have happened and we have a message from Spain’s ‘Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration’ as follows:
‘Currently it is impossible for this to happen due to existing controls, but before all our procedures were computerised it was common for duplications to occur in cases (like this one) in which a worker changed provinces. If [his social security number] did not appear in the files of the new workplace and he did not notify them that he already had one, he was assigned a new number.’
The brilliant gestor has resolved it all online, and my work history record in Spain and social security contributions have all been corrected. I repeat: never throw away your pay slips.
The Barcelona Connection - ResearchSo … it seems some readers were shocked with Séverin’s actions in Chapter 66, when he visits Hendrik in hospital.
A friend sent me a message to say that he was ‘slightly surprised by your imagination and details of gratuitous violence’.
Personally, I don’t think anything Séverin did was necessarily gratuitous … it was just Séverin being Séverin. I mean, I didn’t have much control over him once he got going.
Someone else wrote: ‘Your research into the nasty side of life and violent descriptions made me wonder where you actually come from.’
In one of the review links below, someone also wrote: ‘My one objection would be the all-too-vivid descriptions of grotesque maiming and pain, as I am one of those odd people who likes their murder mysteries without a lot of violence.’
Well, I think you should decide for yourselves. If you haven’t read The Barcelona Connection yet, then you know what to do … ;)
Next week we’ll start looking at Chapters 78 onwards …
Previous links to my research notes are here:
Chapters 59 and 63 in Letter from Spain #36 (Benjamin visiting the Dalí Museum in Figueres).
Chapters 50, 52 and 57 in Letter from Spain #35 (Benjamin on the train to Figueres).
Chapters 48 and 51 in Letter from Spain #34 (G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’).
Chapters 48 and 51 in Letter from Spain #33 (Picasso Museum).
Chapters 39 and 42 in Letter from Spain #31 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 36 in Letter from Spain #29 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 29 in Letter from Spain #28 (Nîmes to Barcelona and tollgates).
Chapters 28 and 32 in Letter from Spain #27 (Pedralbes and Jaume, the Marquès de Guíxols).
Chapter 26 in Letter from Spain #26 (pijos and Beltrán Gómez de Longoria).
Chapter 25 (again) in Letter from Spain #25 (Benjamin’s thoughts on Púbol, Figueres and Port Lligat-Cadaqués).
Chapter 25 in Letter from Spain #23 (Benjamin and Elena on the Passeig Marítim).
Chapters 22 and 24 in Letter from Spain #22 (Plaça Sant Jaume & Nîmes).
Chapter 21 in Letter from Spain #21 (the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya - MNAC).
Chapter 18 in Letter from Spain #20 (Nîmes).
Chapter 16 in Letter from Spain #19 (Marta Soler visiting the offices of La Vanguardia).
Chapter 15 in Letter from Spain #18 (Sants, Les Corts and the Plaça de la Concòrdia).
Chapter 14 in Letter from Spain #17 (introducing Inspector Vizcaya and Marta Soler).
Chapter 13 in Letter from Spain #16 (the painting - the possible study of The Hallucinogenic Toreador by Salvador Dalí).
Chapters 10 and 12 in Letter from Spain #15 (Isabel Bosch and Lieutenant Trias).
Chapters 8 and 11 in Letter from Spain #14 (Benjamin at Girona Airport and finding the Marqueses’ home in La Bisbal).
Chapter 7 in Letter from Spain#12 (Séverin and Jürgen).
Chapter 5 in Letter from Spain#11 (Elena in Girona).
Chapters 3-4 in Letter from Spain#9 (Marcos Constantinos in Hampstead, plus Benjamin at the UEA & Stansted).
Chapter 2 in Letter from Spain#8 (the home of the Marqueses de Guíxols, not far from La Bisbal d’Empordà).
Chapter 1 in Letter from Spain#7 (Benjamin waking up at the service station).
The Barcelona Connection - Reviews, News & EventsLinks to reviews & articlesA review of The Barcelona Connection by Michael Eaude has been published in the October edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
Here’s the link for a review of The Barcelona Connection by Dominic Begg that came out in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
You can also click here for the latest reviews on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads and at Barnes & Noble.
The book is available on Amazon or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from. It can also be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBN number: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
You can also click here for the Kindle edition of A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid.
For professional enquiries and foreign rights for The Barcelona Connection, please contact my agent Justyna Rzewuska at the Hanska Literary & Film Agency.
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
January 8, 2024
Letter from Spain #36
Only in Spain could Balthazar be cast as a blackface bullfighter. Yes, it’s that time of the year when the blackface issue has cropped up again. To be honest, I didn’t realise they still did it, but they do - and it seems that in many towns and cities they’re proud of it and they don’t even see what the ‘issue’ is.
I’m referring to the traditional eve of Epiphany parades that took place for the Three Kings - Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar - when many Spanish children receive their Christmas presents. The Three Kings Day itself is preceded by processions on 5 January evening, in which their majesties parade through the streets, showering the crowds with sweets.
In Christian lore, Balthazar is usually depicted as middle eastern or black. In the past (although it still goes on), many Epiphany parades held in Spain have long featured his role played by a white man - sometimes a local councillor - in black make-up.
It’s true that in recent years, opposition has grown to the practice, and many towns and cities have dropped the tradition. Madrid’s former left-wing mayor Manuela Carmena, for example, ended the practice in the Spanish capital in 2016 (outraging the hard right-wing in the process), and the city now employs a black actor to play the role in its parade, which is broadcast live across the country.
However, as part of this year’s festivities, Madrid City Council hired a firm to produce personalised video messages from the Three Kings, which parents in the Chamartín neighbourhood of the capital could request for their children.
One version featured a white man wearing dark face paint representing Balthazar, who spoke in a mock-West African accent and grammatically incorrect Spanish, sparking accusations of racism.
‘It’s incredible that among the 120,000 residents of Madrid who are of African descent, they were unable to find a single one who can play the role of Balthazar,’ said Eduardo Rubino of the left-wing Mas Madrid party, describing the accent as ‘pathetic’ and ‘pure racism’.
Anti-racism groups went further, calling the videos ‘disgusting’, and that it was ‘unforgivable and irresponsible’ that racism could emanate from an institution such Madrid City Council.
The council initially seemed to infer that a black actor hired to deliver Balthazar’s messages had gone down with Covid, and so they had to quickly hire someone else who was available, but who unfortunately ‘wasn’t black’. Then they finally apologised, albeit putting the blame on the company contracted to make the videos.
Between 20 to 30 videos featuring the man in blackface were sent out, the city’s deputy mayor, Maria Inmaculada Sanz Otero, told reporters.
‘It is obviously not the right person to feature in these videos. It’s a regrettable mistake on the part of the company charged with this activity,’ she said, before adding that the council had asked for explanations from the company.
Antoinette Torres, the founder of Afrofeminas, an online community seeking to boost black womens’ visibility in Spain, said there was a ‘lack of political will to tackle racism’ and that nationwide legislation was needed to protect minors and end practices such as blackface.
‘Normalising these tendencies leads to things that shouldn’t be tolerated in the 21st century are still happening in Spain,’ she said, mentioning last year’s hanging of an effigy depicting black Real Madrid player Vinícius Jr from a bridge.
She said that many Spaniards do not see blackface as racist because the education system does not teach the country’s past links to slavery and colonialism. She may be right …
In researching the news, I learnt that in the eastern town of Alcoy (Valencia), dozens of people who were acting the role of pages alongside their kings in Friday’s event, had their faces painted black and with exagerrated, red-painted lips. According to reports, some ran along the edge of the crowd high-fiving children.
In the eve of Epiphany parade in Seville (Andalusia), the role of Balthazar was enacted by a local businessman, José Luis Cabeza, with his face painted black and wearing an outfit inspired by a bullfighter’s ‘suit of lights’ costume. According to El Diario online newspaper, Cabeza is ‘a renowned bullfighting fan who has even tried his hand at being a bullfighter’. Only in Spain could Balthazar be cast as a blackface bullfighter …
The northeastern town of Igualada holds the oldest parade in Catalonia and most of its around 800 participants wear blackface - but the people there defend the use of it, saying they mean no harm and are just continuing a tradition.
‘We don’t consider ourselves xenophobic nor racist, nor do we consider racist the fact that some people dress up and apply make-up to act in a role and to bring joy to kids,’ said Eduard Creus, who leads the private organisation behind the parade, according to a Reuters report.
I’m old enough to remember seeing the Black and White Minstrel Show on TV, and which I always found a bit weird and creepy, at the very least.
I realise there’s a thin line with certain satire - but should there be? Robert Downey Jr only just got away with it in Tropic Thunder, playing an Australian actor so committed to his role as an African-American sergeant, he’s had surgical skin-darkening procedures. And, of course, there was Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G persona - but I think his caricature was more of an ingenious device for revealing racism. Wasn’t it?
Anyone, however - and especially in Spain - who has any doubt about the racist and ‘toxic legacy’ of blackface minstrels should read this article in The Guardian by David Olusoga. Here’s a quote:
Blackface minstrelsy was a bizarre and disturbing form of racial impersonation founded on cultural appropriation. It took the creative output of enslaved African Americans and weaponised it against them. Minstrelsy was not merely a reflection of American racism – it also became one of the great engines of that racism, propagating and reinforcing ideas that were used to justify slavery and then segregation. It disseminated racial terms and racial stereotypes so potent that some are still with us in the 21st century. It was literally racism made into an artform.
To end this week’s post on a lighter note, I hope you’ve had a wonderful Christmas, and/or Three Kings Day, and I wish you a very happy and healthy New Year. Spain is now back to work and I will be blogging regularly again throughout 2024. Sometimes on a Sunday, sometimes a Monday … but stick with me. There’s a lot of exciting things going on!
The Barcelona Connection - ResearchIn my last post before Christmas, I said that I’d now relate a few notes about Chapters 59 and 63 - about Conso, the Dalí Museum in Figueres itself, and Benjamin going inside to view ‘The Face’.
Conso - her luminous, excited eyes sparkled, as ever the eccentric yet gentle character she’d always been, her face criss-crossed with laughlines and deep creases from a lifetime of squinting in the Catalan sun - is one of my favourite minor characters in the book. She’s based on a combination of three eccentric, colourful friends I’ve had the fortune of knowing over the years - one from Condé Nast in Spain (in Barcelona to be precise), one from the literary world, and a chain-smoking family friend.
If you haven’t been to the Dalí Museum in Figueres yet, then you must - and if you can, please take a copy of The Barcelona Connection with you and then send me a photo! They told me they’d be stocking the book at the museum, but I’m not sure if they’ve got round to it yet.
I’ve been to the museum many times, for research and pleasure. On one occasion, I actually videoed (I don’t think it was allowed) exactly what Benjamin does (on page 345), after heading through the Palau del Vent room and finding the oil study, The Face on the wall of the ‘Workshop’ - although he didn’t have the background noise that I have in the short video below …
Benjamin took a deep breath and approached the work, framed in a glass case. A label on the wall described it as a ‘Study for The Hallucinogenic Toreador’ and painted between 1968-1970. He counted the twenty pin nails on either side of the canvas, with fourteen on top and bottom, then took out Conso’s phone to look at the shot of Jaume’s version, holding it up to compare and squint at both paintings …
Next week I’ll comment on Hendrik and Séverin in Chapter 66 …
Previous links to my research notes are here:
Chapters 50, 52 and 57 in Letter from Spain #35 (Benjamin on the train to Figueres).
Chapters 48 and 51 in Letter from Spain #34 (G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’).
Chapters 48 and 51 in Letter from Spain #33 (Picasso Museum).
Chapters 39 and 42 in Letter from Spain #31 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 36 in Letter from Spain #29 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 29 in Letter from Spain #28 (Nîmes to Barcelona and tollgates).
Chapters 28 and 32 in Letter from Spain #27 (Pedralbes and Jaume, the Marquès de Guíxols).
Chapter 26 in Letter from Spain #26 (pijos and Beltrán Gómez de Longoria).
Chapter 25 (again) in Letter from Spain #25 (Benjamin’s thoughts on Púbol, Figueres and Port Lligat-Cadaqués).
Chapter 25 in Letter from Spain #23 (Benjamin and Elena on the Passeig Marítim).
Chapters 22 and 24 in Letter from Spain #22 (Plaça Sant Jaume & Nîmes).
Chapter 21 in Letter from Spain #21 (the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya - MNAC).
Chapter 18 in Letter from Spain #20 (Nîmes).
Chapter 16 in Letter from Spain #19 (Marta Soler visiting the offices of La Vanguardia).
Chapter 15 in Letter from Spain #18 (Sants, Les Corts and the Plaça de la Concòrdia).
Chapter 14 in Letter from Spain #17 (introducing Inspector Vizcaya and Marta Soler).
Chapter 13 in Letter from Spain #16 (the painting - the possible study of The Hallucinogenic Toreador by Salvador Dalí).
Chapters 10 and 12 in Letter from Spain #15 (Isabel Bosch and Lieutenant Trias).
Chapters 8 and 11 in Letter from Spain #14 (Benjamin at Girona Airport and finding the Marqueses’ home in La Bisbal).
Chapter 7 in Letter from Spain#12 (Séverin and Jürgen).
Chapter 5 in Letter from Spain#11 (Elena in Girona).
Chapters 3-4 in Letter from Spain#9 (Marcos Constantinos in Hampstead, plus Benjamin at the UEA & Stansted).
Chapter 2 in Letter from Spain#8 (the home of the Marqueses de Guíxols, not far from La Bisbal d’Empordà).
Chapter 1 in Letter from Spain#7 (Benjamin waking up at the service station).
The Barcelona Connection - Reviews, News & EventsLinks to reviews & articlesA review of The Barcelona Connection by Michael Eaude has been published in the October edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
Here’s the link for a review of The Barcelona Connection by Dominic Begg that came out in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
You can also click here for the latest reviews on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads and at Barnes & Noble.
The book is available on Amazon or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from. It can also be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBN number: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
You can also click here for the Kindle edition of A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid.
For professional enquiries and foreign rights for The Barcelona Connection, please contact my agent Justyna Rzewuska at the Hanska Literary & Film Agency.
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
December 17, 2023
Letter from Spain #35
One of the stories in Spain that caught my attention this week is that of 14 airport workers arrested in Tenerife for allegedly stealing around €2 million worth of goods, including €13,000 in cash, from tourists’ checked-in luggage over a period of several months. 20 others are still under investigation.
The Sur-Reina Sofía de Tenerife airport in the Canary Islands handles about 11 million passengers a year, most of them European tourists. Police started to investigate matters after an increase in passenger complaints about items missing from their luggage.
The thefts occurred as baggage was being placed in the aircrafts’ hold. When the suitcases were transferred to the planes, they were loaded and unloaded at a slower pace and with greater distance between them. Inside the hold, thieves forced open the bags out of sight, took out valuables and then shut them again, leaving the bags with the appearance of not being tampered with.
According to the Guardia Civil’s statement, each alleged member of the gang was in charge of one of the actions of the crime: choosing the flight, hiding the stolen effects, removing them from the airport facilities, selling them to jewellery dealers or through the internet, and the distribution of profits.
The police carried out several searches, both at the lockers of the airport workers and in their private vehicles and homes. They seized 29 luxury watches, 120 items of jewellery, 22 high-end cell phones and assorted electronic devices. The suspects had sold many other items online or in local stores, police believe.
It reminded me of an ingenious method of stealing from luggage that happened here in Catalonia back in June 2011 … ingenious if you weren’t a victim of it, of course.
The Catalan police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, based at Girona-Costa Brava Airport, had received complaints that several thefts had been taking place from suitcases during bus journeys from Girona airport to Barcelona.
Receiving a tip-off that a passenger on a bus about to leave for Barcelona had left a suspicious suitcase in the vehicle’s hold, the police found a man ‘folded like a circus contortionist’ inside the case. He carried a cell phone and was equipped with a small backpack, a headlamp and a sharp object to open zippers or locks.
After detaining the passenger and the man inside the suitcase, the police unravelled their scam:
One of them would buy a bus ticket to go from Girona airport to Barcelona. Then they’d go into an airport bathroom and the other man, apparently 1.78 metres tall, would get inside the 90 x 50 cm suitcase. The one who’d bought the bus ticket would then drag the suitcase to the bus and put it in the hold alongside other passengers’ luggage.
During the 90-minute journeys, the ‘contortionist’ would come out of the suitcase and start searching for valuables from other luggage to put into a smaller backpack. He’d put his headlamp on so that he could use both hands, and then once he’d taken what he wanted, he’d get back inside the suitcase until his companion took it out when they reached Barcelona.
So … just watch your luggage if you’re travelling to Spain.
Anyway, the other big story this week was the leader of the far-right Vox party, Santiago Abascal, saying that there would come a time when ‘the Spanish people would want to string up (PM Pedro Sánchez) by the feet’ …
I spoke about this and other Spanish news on the radio this week, in my fortnightly discussion with Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe. Below is the chat from Wednesday 13 December if you’re interested.
Also on Wednesday, I took part in a discussion in my local town of Sitges, as part of L’Eco newspaper’s ‘Repensar Sitges’ (‘Rethink Sitges’) Conference - the sixth time they’ve run it. The topic was whether Sitges is, or comes across as, a closed or open town, specifically for international residents and visitors. If you’re interested, and if you can understand Spanish (and some Catalan) - or especially if you can understand my dodgy Spanish - then here’s the video of the discussion:
2023 has been a great year - and 2024 is going to be even better. I will be blogging here again from Sunday 7 January. Until then, to all of you who have subscribed or read parts of this blog and newsletter since I launched it in April with the publication of The Barcelona Connection, I wish you, your families and loved ones a wonderful Christmas and a very healthy and happy New Year.
The Barcelona Connection - ResearchBenjamin’s thoughts and reaction to the toddler on the slow train to Figueres in Chapters 50, 52 and 57 provoked a few comments from readers about his character. One reader didn’t think that Benjamin should have reacted (or should have been thinking) about the snivelling kid in the way he did - and that he ought to be ‘above’ that. Another (actually a friend) also thought it was ‘out of character’ and that it was more likely an incident that had happened to me, personally. Well, yes, he was right - it did - although not on a train to Figueres. I encountered a ‘Theo’s brother’ incident on a train from Liverpool Street to Ipswich in the UK once - but enough said about that.
I once got a very slow train from Barcelona to Figueres by mistake. I had intended to get a fast train, but - like Benjamin - I jumped on the first train that was going there. It stopped everywhere. I decided to use it for the book, mainly because I needed a time lapse before Benjamin finally arrived. At the end of Chapter 57, he steals (or ‘borrows’) a bicycle that is propped up near a fountain in the little plaza opposite the station. Here are some random images from one of my trips to Figueres, when I was carrying out research for the book. In my next blog (on 7th January), I’ll write about Conso, the Dalí Museum in Figueres itself, and Benjamin going inside to view ‘The Face’ …
Previous links to my research notes are here:
Chapters 48 and 51 in Letter from Spain #34 (G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’)
Chapters 48 and 51 in Letter from Spain #33 (Picasso Museum).
Chapters 39 and 42 in Letter from Spain #31 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 36 in Letter from Spain #29 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 29 in Letter from Spain #28 (Nîmes to Barcelona and tollgates).
Chapters 28 and 32 in Letter from Spain #27 (Pedralbes and Jaume, the Marquès de Guíxols).
Chapter 26 in Letter from Spain #26 (pijos and Beltrán Gómez de Longoria).
Chapter 25 (again) in Letter from Spain #25 (Benjamin’s thoughts on Púbol, Figueres and Port Lligat-Cadaqués).
Chapter 25 in Letter from Spain #23 (Benjamin and Elena on the Passeig Marítim).
Chapters 22 and 24 in Letter from Spain #22 (Plaça Sant Jaume & Nîmes).
Chapter 21 in Letter from Spain #21 (the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya - MNAC).
Chapter 18 in Letter from Spain #20 (Nîmes).
Chapter 16 in Letter from Spain #19 (Marta Soler visiting the offices of La Vanguardia).
Chapter 15 in Letter from Spain #18 (Sants, Les Corts and the Plaça de la Concòrdia).
Chapter 14 in Letter from Spain #17 (introducing Inspector Vizcaya and Marta Soler).
Chapter 13 in Letter from Spain #16 (the painting - the possible study of The Hallucinogenic Toreador by Salvador Dalí).
Chapters 10 and 12 in Letter from Spain #15 (Isabel Bosch and Lieutenant Trias).
Chapters 8 and 11 in Letter from Spain #14 (Benjamin at Girona Airport and finding the Marqueses’ home in La Bisbal).
Chapter 7 in Letter from Spain#12 (Séverin and Jürgen).
Chapter 5 in Letter from Spain#11 (Elena in Girona).
Chapters 3-4 in Letter from Spain#9 (Marcos Constantinos in Hampstead, plus Benjamin at the UEA & Stansted).
Chapter 2 in Letter from Spain#8 (the home of the Marqueses de Guíxols, not far from La Bisbal d’Empordà).
Chapter 1 in Letter from Spain#7 (Benjamin waking up at the service station).
The Barcelona Connection - Reviews, News & EventsLinks to reviews & articlesA review of The Barcelona Connection by Michael Eaude has been published in the October edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
Here’s the link for a review of The Barcelona Connection by Dominic Begg that came out in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
You can also click here for the latest reviews on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads and at Barnes & Noble.
The book is available on Amazon or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from. It can also be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBN number: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
You can also click here for the Kindle edition of A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid.
For professional enquiries and foreign rights for The Barcelona Connection, please contact my agent Justyna Rzewuska at the Hanska Literary & Film Agency.
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
December 10, 2023
Letter from Spain #34
It’s been one of those weeks in Spain when many people only worked for two days. I’m assuming most of you know what a normal puente (bridge) is, but if not then here goes:
In the UK, for example, a bank holiday is always arranged to fall on a Monday, regardless of its official date. Such a thing is unheard of in Spain. 1st May is 1st May, and if it falls on a Tuesday or a Thursday, then it remains on that Tuesday or Thursday.
When it does, what happens here is that many people also take off the Monday or Friday - ‘bridging’ a long weekend to include the bank holiday. They block these holidays out in their diaries a year in advance. They know how to enjoy life, you see.
This week we’ve had two national holidays that fell on Wednesday 6th and Friday 8th December - the Constitution Day and the Immaculate Conception Day, respectively. This meant that most of the country took off Thursday, too.
In my first December of living in Madrid, back in 1988, nobody had warned me about any of this. That year, 6th and 8th December fell on a Tuesday and a Thursday. So, as I wrote in A Load of Bull - what happens when Spaniards happily celebrate their Constitution on a Tuesday, followed by an Immaculate Conception on a Thursday? Do they take two puentes, going to work only on the Wednesday? Cojones, do they. They do the viaducto. They take off the Monday, Wednesday and Friday, too.
Anyway, because we’ve had a double puente in Spain this week, things have been relatively quiet. The five left-wing Podemos MPs finally admitted that they find it ‘impossible’ to continue belonging to the Sumar alliance - something that was inevitable - and they have instead become part of the ‘Mixed Group’ in the Spanish Parliament, which includes three other MPs from Navarra, Galicia and the Canary Islands.
I don’t think this really affects anything as far as Pedro Sánchez being able to run his coalition government is concerned, but it’s certainly another indication of the demise of Podemos.
What else has happened?
We’ve had two ‘spies’ at Spain’s Secret Intelligence Service (CNI) arrested for allegedly passing confidential information to two US Embassy staff - who have reportedly since been kicked out of Spain. It all happend back in September-October and is only just coming to light … but no-one in authority is saying much about it, not just because it’s been a double-puente week.
Then a guy called Jaime del Burgo, who is Queen Letizia’s former brother-in-law, claimed he had an affair with her during the early years of her marriage to King Felipe VI, in a bizarre post on X (formerly Twitter), which was later deleted. You can read about it via the link below:
The Barcelona Connection - ResearchFiction mirrors reality …
I mentioned the Picasso Museum chapters in The Barcelona Connection last week.
During my research and writing the book, there were a few visits to museums by the world’s heads of state (and the ‘first wives club’) that actually took place in Madrid and Barcelona - so I felt that it was more than possible that my fictional G20 wives might visit the Picasso Museum in Barcelona (and eventually the Dalí Museum in Figueres) as part of their G20 spouse programme, while the summit is being held in the Catalan capital.
Thus begun the G20 spouse programme, perhaps with more prominence given to Spanish, Moorish and Al-Andalus art over Catalan art than the Barcelona authorities might have preferred … but it was a fair preamble to the surrealist and architectural marvels that lay ahead for the first wives’ club over the next few days in the work of Gaudí, Picasso, Miró, Dalí and Tàpies …
The first three press photos below, released by Moncloa, show NATO leaders and other heads of state visiting the Prado Museum for a dinner and concert during the summit held in Madrid in June last year. Queen Letizia, meanwhile, also played tour guide to NATO’s first wives (& husbands) club, with a trip to see Picasso’s Guernica in the Reina Sofía Museum. The last two photos are from the Spain-France Summit in January this year, held at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC) in Barcelona, which also included a get-together at the Picasso Museum.
Fiction mirrors reality with regards the ‘art attacks’ mentioned in the book, too. In November last year, just as I was going through one of the final re-writes and edits of the book, two environmental activists stuck themselves to the frames of Francisco Goya’s famous Las Majas paintings at the Prado Museum in Madrid. They also scrawled graffiti referencing the +1.5C global temperature target on the wall between the paintings.
I just had to include it as part of Beltrán Gómez de Longoria’s obsession with eco-terrorist attacks at other museums across Europe - and these were happening in ‘real life’ during the same time as writing the book. They included two protesters who threw tomato soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in London, others who splashed pea soup onto a Van Gogh masterpiece in Rome, and then the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci in the Louvre and Girl with a Pearl Earring by Vermeer in The Hague were also targeted. Cake or mashed potatoes were used - in The Barcelona Connection I have the activists using gazpacho - but luckily the paintings were covered by glass and therefore undamaged.
Next week I’ll add some notes about Benjamin on the train to Figueres (and which has actually provoked a couple of questions from readers about his character) …
Previous links to my research notes are here:
Chapters 48 and 51 in Letter from Spain #33 (Picasso Museum).
Chapters 39 and 42 in Letter from Spain #31 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 36 in Letter from Spain #29 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 29 in Letter from Spain #28 (Nîmes to Barcelona and tollgates).
Chapters 28 and 32 in Letter from Spain #27 (Pedralbes and Jaume, the Marquès de Guíxols).
Chapter 26 in Letter from Spain #26 (pijos and Beltrán Gómez de Longoria).
Chapter 25 (again) in Letter from Spain #25 (Benjamin’s thoughts on Púbol, Figueres and Port Lligat-Cadaqués).
Chapter 25 in Letter from Spain #23 (Benjamin and Elena on the Passeig Marítim).
Chapters 22 and 24 in Letter from Spain #22 (Plaça Sant Jaume & Nîmes).
Chapter 21 in Letter from Spain #21 (the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya - MNAC).
Chapter 18 in Letter from Spain #20 (Nîmes).
Chapter 16 in Letter from Spain #19 (Marta Soler visiting the offices of La Vanguardia).
Chapter 15 in Letter from Spain #18 (Sants, Les Corts and the Plaça de la Concòrdia).
Chapter 14 in Letter from Spain #17 (introducing Inspector Vizcaya and Marta Soler).
Chapter 13 in Letter from Spain #16 (the painting - the possible study of The Hallucinogenic Toreador by Salvador Dalí).
Chapters 10 and 12 in Letter from Spain #15 (Isabel Bosch and Lieutenant Trias).
Chapters 8 and 11 in Letter from Spain #14 (Benjamin at Girona Airport and finding the Marqueses’ home in La Bisbal).
Chapter 7 in Letter from Spain#12 (Séverin and Jürgen).
Chapter 5 in Letter from Spain#11 (Elena in Girona).
Chapters 3-4 in Letter from Spain#9 (Marcos Constantinos in Hampstead, plus Benjamin at the UEA & Stansted).
Chapter 2 in Letter from Spain#8 (the home of the Marqueses de Guíxols, not far from La Bisbal d’Empordà).
Chapter 1 in Letter from Spain#7 (Benjamin waking up at the service station).
The Barcelona Connection - Reviews, News & EventsLinks to reviews & articlesA review of The Barcelona Connection by Michael Eaude has been published in the October edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
Here’s the link for a review of The Barcelona Connection by Dominic Begg that came out in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
You can also click here for the latest reviews on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads and at Barnes & Noble.
The book is available on Amazon or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from. It can also be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBN number: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
You can also click here for the Kindle edition of A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid.
For professional enquiries and foreign rights for The Barcelona Connection, please contact my agent Justyna Rzewuska at the Hanska Literary & Film Agency.
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
December 3, 2023
Letter from Spain #33
Never missing a chance to fly by private jet, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez arrived at COP28 in Dubai on Thursday by way of an Airbus A310, the Spanish government’s Falcon 900 jet and a Super Puma helicopter. He then made a speech telling the public and private sectors to mitigate the effects of climate change. It was his second trip to the Middle East in less than a week, also using private jets - but more on Sánchez and his Falcon in a minute.
King Charles, Rishi Sunak and David Cameron travelled in three separate private jets from the UK to the same conference. That’s right … one jet each … although Sunak’s office has insisted that his own jet uses ‘sustainable aviation fuel’.
Apparently, 70,000 people are expected to turn up in Dubai over the next few weeks for COP28. Think about it. 70,000 people flying to an oil-rich country to talk about climate change. This is up from 49,704 at COP27 last year in Sharm el-Sheikh (Egypt) and 38,457 at COP26 in Glasgow (Scotland).
At COP27 in Egypt last year, around 315 private jet journeys took place, according to a UCL study - and this is despite the fact that fewer world leaders attended, as many were busy flying private jets to a G20 summit in Bali. [By the way, I’m focusing on private jets, COPs and G20s this week, as it coincides with the chapter notes I’ve reached below on The Barcelona Connection, for those of you who are interested …]
For a journey from London to Dubai, private jet travel is 11 times more polluting than a commercial aircraft, 35 times more than train and 52 times more than coach travel - and of course a private jet can only accommodate a few ‘VIPs’.
In my research into all this, I discovered that the Conversation UK is compiling a report by a team of academic experts to estimate the carbon footprint of travel to this year’s COP28 in Dubai, for different modes of transport including private jets. The ultimate aim is to dissuade future climate conference attendees from using private jets, unless absolutely essential for security reasons. Good for them.
Which brings me back to Pedro Sánchez …
The main photo for this week’s letter is courtesy of Moncloa, (Spain’s 10 Downing Street or the White House). They kindly issued some photos to the media back in June 2018 of the Spanish prime minister wearing sunglasses - in a sort of James Bond or George Clooney pose - while travelling in a private aircraft on a trip to Brussels. Sánchez has been ridiculed ever since by most of the Spanish media, with regards his love of using the Falcon 900 private jet.
An analysis by Greenpeace showed that Spain occupied fourth place on the list of EU countries with the most flights made by private jets in 2022, with a total of 45,633 flights.
There’s a website - falcondespega.es - dedicated to monitoring all the trips of the Spanish government’s VIP planes - admittedly not just used by Sánchez but for military personnel, too. From my calculations, from 1 January 2023 until 30 November 2023, there have been 1,410 flights, emitting 27,960 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
It’s well reported that Sánchez uses his private fleet of planes for short trips, such as a trip of less than 45 minutes that he made to the Doñana Natural Park in Andalusia earlier this year to criticise the environmental policies of the right-wing opposition party, the PP, who are in government in that region. The trip could have been made by commercial flight, train or car, but Sánchez chose the Falcon, which not only emits the same amount of CO2 per flight hour as an average European citizen in three months, but the estimated cost of each flight hour is also €6,000. But, hey, it’s not his money.
In July 2018, Sánchez also came under fire for using the Falcon jet to fly himself 263 miles to see The Killers perform at a rock concert at the Benicàssim Festival.
He’d flown there - it’s held in Castellón, in the Valencia region - from Madrid for a 45 minute meeting with the Valencian regional president, a second get-together with Castellón council members … and then on to the concert. I think he was still wearing his sunglasses.
The Barcelona Connection - ResearchIn writing The Barcelona Connection, I combined a G20 taking place in Barcelona alongside a parallel UN Climate Change Conference - as this has happened in other cities, without it being the annual ‘COP’ event. A G20 often coincides with a COP, too - and in 2021, the G20 leaders meeting in Rome all flew immediately to the COP in Glasgow - so at least in my book I have them flying less!
In Chapters 48 and 51 the action moves to outside the Picasso Museum, where Elena is observing the G20 wives, trying to get Nicole to help her with her story …
She wondered why the press were so obsessed with the G20 spouses’ outfits, and what the spouse tour was really for, what it had to do with the millennium development goals, for example, like eradicating extreme poverty, or reducing child mortality, or helping to fight climate change. They’d all flown to Barcelona in private jets, the hypocrites …
Some photos below are from my research for where Séverin is standing, after watching the motorcade of G20 spouses being dropped off and guided inside the museum …
Séverin noticed that many of the press photographers, those without access to the museum, were being directed to the back entrance, to the Plaça de Jaume Sabartés, where there was more space. Each photographer then took up position behind a security barrier to take shots of the spouses once they emerged from the museum after their tour. A large crowd of on-lookers had also gathered there. Séverin nudged his way into the throng, as near to the front as he possibly could, blending in with the crowds as just another spectator. He watched … and he waited.
Next week I will also cover some notes on other VIP visits to museums in Spain, as well as the ‘art attacks’ …
Previous links to my research notes are here:
Chapter 39 and 42 in Letter from Spain #31 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 36 in Letter from Spain #29 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 29 in Letter from Spain #28 (Nîmes to Barcelona and tollgates).
Chapters 28 and 32 in Letter from Spain #27 (Pedralbes and Jaume, the Marquès de Guíxols).
Chapter 26 in Letter from Spain #26 (pijos and Beltrán Gómez de Longoria).
Chapter 25 (again) in Letter from Spain #25 (Benjamin’s thoughts on Púbol, Figueres and Port Lligat-Cadaqués).
Chapter 25 in Letter from Spain #23 (Benjamin and Elena on the Passeig Marítim).
Chapter 22 & Chapter 24 in Letter from Spain #22 (Plaça Sant Jaume & Nîmes).
Chapter 21 in Letter from Spain #21 (the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya - MNAC).
Chapter 18 in Letter from Spain #20 (Nîmes).
Chapter 16 in Letter from Spain #19 (Marta Soler visiting the offices of La Vanguardia).
Chapter 15 in Letter from Spain #18 (Sants, Les Corts and the Plaça de la Concòrdia).
Chapter 14 in Letter from Spain #17 (introducing Inspector Vizcaya and Marta Soler).
Chapter 13 in Letter from Spain #16 (the painting - the possible study of The Hallucinogenic Toreador by Salvador Dalí).
Chapters 10 and 12 in Letter from Spain #15 (Isabel Bosch and Lieutenant Trias).
Chapters 8 and 11 in Letter from Spain #14 (Benjamin at Girona Airport and finding the Marqueses’ home in La Bisbal).
Chapter 7 in Letter from Spain#12 (Séverin and Jürgen).
Chapter 5 in Letter from Spain#11 (Elena in Girona).
Chapters 3-4 in Letter from Spain#9 (Marcos Constantinos in Hampstead, plus Benjamin at the UEA & Stansted).
Chapter 2 in Letter from Spain#8 (the home of the Marqueses de Guíxols, not far from La Bisbal d’Empordà).
Chapter 1 in Letter from Spain#7 (Benjamin waking up at the service station).
The Barcelona Connection - Reviews, News & EventsLinks to reviews & articlesA review of The Barcelona Connection by Michael Eaude has been published in the October edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
Here’s the link for a review of The Barcelona Connection by Dominic Begg that came out in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
You can also click here for the latest reviews on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads and at Barnes & Noble.
The book is available on Amazon or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from. It can also be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBN number: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
You can also click here for the Kindle edition of A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid.
For professional enquiries and foreign rights for The Barcelona Connection, please contact my agent Justyna Rzewuska at the Hanska Literary & Film Agency.
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
November 26, 2023
Letter from Spain #32
It’s not really a letter from Spain this Sunday, because I’m in England, catching up with family and friends … some dear friends who I’ve known for 56 years. I arrived on Thursday and return to Barcelona on Tuesday. It’s been great, and the fun’s still going on … so this is just a very brief letter from England before I rejoin the party.
Whenever I come to England, here are the top five questions I get asked from new acquaintances if and when I tell them where I live:
When did you arrive?
When are you going back?
Do you speak Spanish, then?
What’s the weather like there now?
What do they think about us , about Brexit?
This time I was also asked what’s going on with Spanish politics and ‘all that Catalan stuff’. Read my blog, I wanted to say, but didn’t.
Just before I left for the UK, I’d spoken on the radio again about Spanish politics and other news from Spain, in my fortnightly discussion with Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe. Below is the chat from Wednesday 22 November if you’re interested.
I imagine that those who are against amnesty are still protesting in the Calle Ferraz of Madrid outside the PSOE headquarters, but I’m not sure - and I know they were trying to start a general strike on 24 November, but that clearly failed.
In the meantime, Pedro Sánchez has got on with the job. He’s formed his new cabinet, with more women than men - which is good - and without the more ‘radical’ Podemos figures of Irene Montero and Ione Belarra, which I think is probably also good, despite their good intentions.
He then travelled to Israel, the West Bank and Egypt, and visited the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt together with the Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo - and he’s upset the Israelis with his comments, after calling the ‘indiscriminate killings of innocent civilians’ in the Palestinian territory ‘completely unacceptable’. But we’ll talk about that next week.
Sorry for the short post this week, but here’s the radio clip:
The Barcelona Connection - ResearchI’ll be back next week with further notes and comments regarding the research, locations and characters in The Barcelona Connection …
Previous links to my research notes are here:
Chapter 39 and 42 in Letter from Spain #31 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 36 in Letter from Spain #29 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 29 in Letter from Spain #28 (Nîmes to Barcelona and tollgates).
Chapters 28 and 32 in Letter from Spain #27 (Pedralbes and Jaume, the Marquès de Guíxols).
Chapter 26 in Letter from Spain #26 (pijos and Beltrán Gómez de Longoria).
Chapter 25 (again) in Letter from Spain #25 (Benjamin’s thoughts on Púbol, Figueres and Port Lligat-Cadaqués).
Chapter 25 in Letter from Spain #23 (Benjamin and Elena on the Passeig Marítim).
Chapter 22 & Chapter 24 in Letter from Spain #22 (Plaça Sant Jaume & Nîmes).
Chapter 21 in Letter from Spain #21 (the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya - MNAC).
Chapter 18 in Letter from Spain #20 (Nîmes).
Chapter 16 in Letter from Spain #19 (Marta Soler visiting the offices of La Vanguardia).
Chapter 15 in Letter from Spain #18 (Sants, Les Corts and the Plaça de la Concòrdia).
Chapter 14 in Letter from Spain #17 (introducing Inspector Vizcaya and Marta Soler).
Chapter 13 in Letter from Spain #16 (the painting - the possible study of The Hallucinogenic Toreador by Salvador Dalí).
Chapters 10 and 12 in Letter from Spain #15 (Isabel Bosch and Lieutenant Trias).
Chapters 8 and 11 in Letter from Spain #14 (Benjamin at Girona Airport and finding the Marqueses’ home in La Bisbal).
Chapter 7 in Letter from Spain#12 (Séverin and Jürgen).
Chapter 5 in Letter from Spain#11 (Elena in Girona).
Chapters 3-4 in Letter from Spain#9 (Marcos Constantinos in Hampstead, plus Benjamin at the UEA & Stansted).
Chapter 2 in Letter from Spain#8 (the home of the Marqueses de Guíxols, not far from La Bisbal d’Empordà).
Chapter 1 in Letter from Spain#7 (Benjamin waking up at the service station).
The Barcelona Connection - Reviews, News & EventsLinks to reviews & articlesA review of The Barcelona Connection by Michael Eaude has been published in the October edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
Here’s the link for a review of The Barcelona Connection by Dominic Begg that came out in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
You can also click here for the latest reviews on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads and at Barnes & Noble.
The book is available on Amazon or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from. It can also be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBN number: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
You can also click here for the Kindle edition of A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid.
For professional enquiries and foreign rights for The Barcelona Connection, please contact my agent Justyna Rzewuska at the Hanska Literary & Film Agency.
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
November 19, 2023
Letter from Spain #31
As expected and predicted last week, Pedro Sánchez was officially voted in as Prime Minister again on Thursday, without any of the protesters (including some fascists and ‘Cayetanos’) getting near enough to the parliament house to storm it, much to their frustration I imagine.
They were mostly kept to the nearby Plaza de Cánovas del Castillo (sometimes referred to as the Plaza Neptune), next to the Hotel Palace - a block away from my old flat in Lope de Vega, in the wonderful and crazy days of A Load of Bull. Apparently a few protesters threw eggs at some of the socialist MPs as they left the Spanish Congress, but other than that, the protests were peaceful enough.
Not so peaceful in the Calle de Ferraz, however, where demonstrations outside the PSOE headquarters have been taking place for over two weeks now, and look set to continue. This week, we’ve had the regular neo-Nazi groups, other protesters holding up blow-up sex dolls, and even the alt-right hero and conspiracy theorist Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, making an appearance.
Carlson was in town to ‘interview’ the far-right Vox leader, Santiago Abascal. If you can stomach it, you can watch the full hour of it on ‘Tucker on X’. I only lasted for the first 55 seconds, because this is a transcript of what he says at the start …
‘Spain is a relatively small country in Western Europe, but what happens here tends to act as a preview for what’s about to happen in the rest of the West. So when a couple of weeks ago, the founder of the populist Vox party, was shot in the face here in Spain, we paid attention. The shooting came at exactly the moment when the left in Spain is trying to take over the country extralegally, pardoning terrorists, offering amnesty to terrorists, against the Constitution, in order to take complete control. Something very much like this happened in the last century, in the 1930s, when tens of thousands of people, mostly Christians, were slaughtered in the aftermath, shot in the head, buried alive, which was the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. So we thought it would be worth coming to Spain to see what’s happening here. We went to a protest, and we spent a great deal of time with the leader of the Vox party, Santiago Abascal …’
I don’t even know where to start dissecting this utter bullshit, so I’m not going to. What’s worrying, however, is that Carlson’s got 10.7 million followers on X (formerly Twitter) and the ‘interview’ has already been viewed over 9 million times. Many of those who have left comments seem convinced that ‘most of Europe, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand are descending into tyranny’ - that ‘the leaders of these nations are in bed with globalists’ and that ‘they’re all corrupt traitors’. I sometimes feel I live in a different world.
Dozens of retired Spanish military officers clearly also live in a different world - their own little world. Many of them signed a manifesto this week urging Spain’s armed forces to oust the newly re-elected Sánchez.
The 56 signatories to the letter, ranging from ex-generals to colonels and captains, have been embroiled in other scandals in the past, related to their fascist stances.
This latest manifesto expressed concern about the state of Spain, suggesting that all branches of government and the judiciary have been corrupted and that Spanish officials disrespect the armed forces, fail to defend Spain’s borders from immigrants, and have been illegitimately manipulating the law to pardon Catalan criminals.
Citing Article 8.1 of the Spanish Constitution, which says the armed forces must defend the constitutional order, which the retired officials said is in ‘grave danger’, they urged ‘those responsible’ to remove Sánchez from his post and trigger fresh general elections.
El Pais reported that the manifesto had caused discomfort among active military personnel, annoyed that the retired officers were presenting themselves as if they were their spokespeople. Retired Major General Rafael Dávila wrote on his own popular blog: ‘Do not use the military as a defence of your interests in the face of the clear failure of your ideas.’
The saga continues … as does the polarisation in Spanish politics.
The Barcelona Connection - ResearchI’d previously mentioned the Hotel Arts which appears in Chapter 36 in Letter from Spain #29 of The Barcelona Connection - and the hotel appears again in Chapters 39 and 42 - with the latter being personally one of my favourites, bringing together a bunch of characters who coincide in a somewhat surreal setting, with Benjamin’s reaction to them all.
US Secretary of State Chuck Patterson Jr and Lisette (‘call me Dixie’) Dijckhuijsen make an appearance here - and I’ve certainly met a few ‘call me Dixies’ over the years.
One thing I’m specifically proud of in the book is that I believe it includes a complete cross-section of everyone you might ever meet (or be wary of) in Barcelona - every ‘social class’, although I don’t like that term. As one reviewer has said: ‘You will see great differences of wealth and class, beginning with the major character of the Marquès de Guixols, who has not much left other than his title and a huge masía … then there are squatters, eco-activists, and sleazes in lowlife hotels, as well as self-promoting politicians …’
Benjamin himself also sees one specific section of Barcelona society at the Hotel Arts:
While praying for Elena to answer the call, he gazed around at the other guests. It looked like a snap-shot of Barcelona’s in-crowd or jet-set, with many glitzy and glam women looking bored stiff alongside identical men in light-blue suits and beards talking too loudly, all running their fingers through their hair or slapping one another on the back.
Previous links to my research notes are here:
Chapter 36 in Letter from Spain #29 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 29 in Letter from Spain #28 (Nîmes to Barcelona and tollgates).
Chapters 28 and 32 in Letter from Spain #27 (Pedralbes and Jaume, the Marquès de Guíxols).
Chapter 26 in Letter from Spain #26 (pijos and Beltrán Gómez de Longoria).
Chapter 25 (again) in Letter from Spain #25 (Benjamin’s thoughts on Púbol, Figueres and Port Lligat-Cadaqués).
Chapter 25 in Letter from Spain #23 (Benjamin and Elena on the Passeig Marítim).
Chapter 22 & Chapter 24 in Letter from Spain #22 (Plaça Sant Jaume & Nîmes).
Chapter 21 in Letter from Spain #21 (the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya - MNAC).
Chapter 18 in Letter from Spain #20 (Nîmes).
Chapter 16 in Letter from Spain #19 (Marta Soler visiting the offices of La Vanguardia).
Chapter 15 in Letter from Spain #18 (Sants, Les Corts and the Plaça de la Concòrdia).
Chapter 14 in Letter from Spain #17 (introducing Inspector Vizcaya and Marta Soler).
Chapter 13 in Letter from Spain #16 (the painting - the possible study of The Hallucinogenic Toreador by Salvador Dalí).
Chapters 10 and 12 in Letter from Spain #15 (Isabel Bosch and Lieutenant Trias).
Chapters 8 and 11 in Letter from Spain #14 (Benjamin at Girona Airport and finding the Marqueses’ home in La Bisbal).
Chapter 7 in Letter from Spain#12 (Séverin and Jürgen).
Chapter 5 in Letter from Spain#11 (Elena in Girona).
Chapters 3-4 in Letter from Spain#9 (Marcos Constantinos in Hampstead, plus Benjamin at the UEA & Stansted).
Chapter 2 in Letter from Spain#8 (the home of the Marqueses de Guíxols, not far from La Bisbal d’Empordà).
Chapter 1 in Letter from Spain#7 (Benjamin waking up at the service station).
The Barcelona Connection - Reviews, News & EventsLinks to reviews & articlesA review of The Barcelona Connection by Michael Eaude has been published in the October edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
Here’s the link for a review of The Barcelona Connection by Dominic Begg that came out in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
You can also click here for the latest reviews on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads and at Barnes & Noble.
The book is available on Amazon or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from. It can also be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBN number: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
You can also click here for the Kindle edition of A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid.
For professional enquiries and foreign rights for The Barcelona Connection, please contact my agent Justyna Rzewuska at the Hanska Literary & Film Agency.
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
November 12, 2023
Letter from Spain #30
Barring any last-minute surprises, such as the storming of the Spanish parliament by fascists and/or ‘Cayetanos’, Pedro Sánchez will once again be officially voted in as prime minister this coming Thursday 16 November. He will achieve what he wanted to cling on to since first becoming PM back in June 2018: power.
I can understand - up to a point - the anger of those who oppose him.
This is a man who has said that granting an amnesty to all those facing legal action for their involvement in the 2017 Catalan illegal referendum and other actions carried out between 2012 and 2023 will be ‘positive for Spain’ because it will calm the waters inside Catalonia. He has insisted that amnesty is in the ‘interest of Spain, and in defence of co-existence between Spaniards’. Previously, however, he’d repeatedly rejected amnesty as being ‘unacceptable’ and ‘unconstitutional’ - and in order to govern now, he has to depend on the support of the fugitive Carles Puigdemont, whom he wrote off earlier this year as ‘history’.
So, no one believes that Sánchez is granting an amnesty out of political necessity; it is simply his ruthless ambition to cling on to another term in office. I can therefore understand those who are protesting against him, and who mistrust him - but I also feel that their anger is perhaps based blindly on the fact that ‘Mr. Handsome’ has again won, rather than on the finer details of what is still just a ‘proposal’ of amnesty (at the most, a ‘draft bill’) - and which might never even become a reality.
Let me try to clarify what I mean:
Sánchez clearly likes a risk. He likes to gamble, politically, and he’s won many times in the past. He’s a politician - a ruthless one - and he’s certainly seen off several ‘opponents’ over the years: Susana Díaz (for the PSOE leadership); Mariano Rajoy (ousting him as PM through a vote of no confidence); Albert Rivera (former leader of the Cs party, now ‘kaput’); Pablo Casado (Rajoy’s successor to lead the PP); Pablo Iglesias (former Podemos leader and Sánchez’s deputy PM, when it suited him) - and now also Alberto Núñez Feijóo (Casado’s successor and despite winning the most votes in the 23 July general election, still unable to form a government).
Sánchez’s coalition government had already granted pardons to several jailed leaders of the Catalan independence movement back in June 2021. That was a gamble and it also provoked nationwide protests across Spain - but it paid off, and it certainly helped to defuse the Catalan political crisis.
This time Sánchez, with the promise of introducing an ‘amnesty bill’ and blanket pardoning to win the support of the JxCat and ERC parties - for his own political gain - is clearly playing with fire. But yet again, I believe it will pay off … at least for him, politically. As I have written here before, I don’t think granting an amnesty will ever lead to another Catalan referendum - and those who are protesting about the fear of Spain being ‘broken up’ are wasting their time.
All Sánchez has done is secure the support of the Catalan JxCat and ERC parties, as well as the Basque, Galician and Canary Islands MPs, in addition, of course, to the Sumar alliance of left-wing parties - in order to be voted in officially as prime minister again. He’s done it with just the ‘promise’ of introducing this ‘draft amnesty bill’. By doing so, he’s left the PP and Vox alone and together.
Under the deal signed on Thursday between the PSOE socialists and JxCat, both parties have recognised their vastly different points of view on the Catalan political conflict but have ‘agreed to work together to resolve it’. JxCat has said it will propose holding another self-determination referendum but not do it unilaterally, as in 2017. Instead, it would be under Article 92 of the Constitution, which would require the authorisation of the Spanish prime minister, the Spanish Congress and the king – and that ain’t gonna happen.
As for the amnesty, it seems that the entire Spanish judiciary has already condemned it, arguing that a blanket amnesty would undermine the rule of law and contradict the settled judgment that the 2017 referendum was indeed illegal. Any ‘blanket pardoning’ will be challenged in the courts - the PP and Vox opposition parties will see to that - and anything that ends up in the Spanish courts can take years to resolve. Even the European Commission is keeping an eye on things, with Didier Reynders, the EU’s justice commissioner, having written to Sánchez expressing his ‘serious concerns’ about the proposed amnesty law. Personally, I think Sánchez will be careful not to piss off the EU as I’m sure his ambitions include a top role there in the future …
I’m not saying the amnesty won’t happen, but it might not. What I am saying is that I don’t think Sánchez will care either way in the end. He’s already secured another term in office. He’s also secured leaving the PP and Vox out on their own (with a Navarra MP), with the PSOE having the support of all other parties. And if the amnesty doesn’t go through, thanks to the right-wing and far-right, then the polarisation of Spanish politics will become even greater.
Sánchez’s ability to govern will remain dependent on his new allies, of course - but I don’t think any of them will wander off course and support the PP and Vox to force him out of office. Like him or not, that’s politics for you, and that’s his ruthlessness.
I spoke about Sánchez, Puigdemont and the amnesty issue on the radio this week, in my fortnightly chat with Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe - although this was before the PSOE-JxCat agreement had been signed. Here’s the chat from Wednesday 8 November if you’re interested:
The Barcelona Connection - ResearchI’ll be back next week with further notes and comments regarding the research, locations and characters in The Barcelona Connection …
Previous links to my research notes are here:
Chapter 36 in Letter from Spain #29 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 29 in Letter from Spain #28 (Nîmes to Barcelona and tollgates).
Chapters 28 and 32 in Letter from Spain #27 (Pedralbes and Jaume, the Marquès de Guíxols).
Chapter 26 in Letter from Spain #26 (pijos and Beltrán Gómez de Longoria).
Chapter 25 (again) in Letter from Spain #25 (Benjamin’s thoughts on Púbol, Figueres and Port Lligat-Cadaqués).
Chapter 25 in Letter from Spain #23 (Benjamin and Elena on the Passeig Marítim).
Chapter 22 & Chapter 24 in Letter from Spain #22 (Plaça Sant Jaume & Nîmes).
Chapter 21 in Letter from Spain #21 (the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya - MNAC).
Chapter 18 in Letter from Spain #20 (Nîmes).
Chapter 16 in Letter from Spain #19 (Marta Soler visiting the offices of La Vanguardia).
Chapter 15 in Letter from Spain #18 (Sants, Les Corts and the Plaça de la Concòrdia).
Chapter 14 in Letter from Spain #17 (introducing Inspector Vizcaya and Marta Soler).
Chapter 13 in Letter from Spain #16 (the painting - the possible study of The Hallucinogenic Toreador by Salvador Dalí).
Chapters 10 and 12 in Letter from Spain #15 (Isabel Bosch and Lieutenant Trias).
Chapters 8 and 11 in Letter from Spain #14 (Benjamin at Girona Airport and finding the Marqueses’ home in La Bisbal).
Chapter 7 in Letter from Spain#12 (Séverin and Jürgen).
Chapter 5 in Letter from Spain#11 (Elena in Girona).
Chapters 3-4 in Letter from Spain#9 (Marcos Constantinos in Hampstead, plus Benjamin at the UEA & Stansted).
Chapter 2 in Letter from Spain#8 (the home of the Marqueses de Guíxols, not far from La Bisbal d’Empordà).
Chapter 1 in Letter from Spain#7 (Benjamin waking up at the service station).
The Barcelona Connection - Reviews, News & EventsLinks to reviews & articlesA review of The Barcelona Connection by Michael Eaude has been published in the October edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
Here’s the link for a review of The Barcelona Connection by Dominic Begg that came out in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
You can also click here for the latest reviews on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads and at Barnes & Noble.
The book is available on Amazon or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from. It can also be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBN number: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
You can also click here for the Kindle edition of A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid.
For professional enquiries and foreign rights for The Barcelona Connection, please contact my agent Justyna Rzewuska at the Hanska Literary & Film Agency.
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
November 5, 2023
Letter from Spain #29
Soon after 1 October 2017, while reporting on the fallout of the independence referendum here in Catalonia - banned by the central government of Mariano Rajoy - I soon realised that the Catalans were never going to achieve their aim, anyway - not because of the crackdown from Madrid, which actually helped their cause, but because of the squabbles between their own political groups.
Despite all wanting the same thing (independence), the two main pro-independence parties - Esquerra Republicana (ERC) and Junts per Catalunya (JxCat) - couldn’t agree on how to achieve it, and they still can’t (not that they’ll ever achieve it, anyway).
There was a moment - a very brief moment - in the build up to 1 October 2017, and on the day itself, the day of the illegal vote - when it looked like they might achieve it, or at least achieve ‘something’. Building up to it during September that year, there’d been two million Catalans on the streets clamouring for it. On the day itself Catalonia was on the front page and screen of every news outlet in the world, with Angela Merkel reportedly phoning Rajoy and telling him to stop the Spanish police beating up innocent voters (although he later denied the call ever took place).
The day itself certainly put Catalonia on the map, but the Catalan pro-indy parties had no idea how to follow through on anything - and I don’t think they ever had a plan in the first place. They can’t even agree on how to govern in a coalition in Catalonia right now, so how they could ever achieve independence and then govern an independent Catalonia is anyone’s guess.
Fast-forward six years. During those six years we’ve had the trials in Madrid, the ‘self-imposed exile’ (or those who ‘fled’ to Brussels, you choose), the imprisonments and the pardons.
Now we have a possible ‘amnesty bill’ for all Catalan pro-independence figures still facing legal action following that 2017 referendum - and the Catalan parties still can’t agree on whether to accept it.
The background to it all, of course, is that Pedro Sánchez is seeking their support in order to be officially voted in as Prime Minister again. If he doesn’t achieve that by 27 November, then Spain will hold yet another general election, possibly in mid-January. In exchange for their support, the ERC and JxCat have demanded the amnesty, fiercely opposed by Spain’s right-wing and far-right parties. I’ve given my own view about the issue of granting amnesty or not in Letter from Spain #21 and #25 and so there’s no need to repeat it all here.
The ERC group has already agreed to the draft terms of the amnesty bill proposed by the socialist (PSOE) party of Sánchez. In addition, other requests in their ‘Dear Santa’ letter - such as the transfer of the Catalan Rodalies commuter rail network so that it is managed and controlled from Catalonia and not Madrid - have also been granted, as well as writing off some €15 billion of Catalan debt.
Meanwhile, Carles Puigdemont - head of the JxCat party and who was the Catalan president during the illegal referendum and then ‘fled’ to Brussels a few days later (where he is now an MEP) - is still dragging his feet on whether to accept the amnesty bill proposal, when he was the one who had demanded it in the first place.
Why? When he himself would be free to return to Spain from Brussels under the amnesty terms …
Is his reluctance to sign an agreement with the PSOE linked to the power struggle between his party and ERC in Catalonia? It seems so. According to journalist Enric Juliana writing in La Vanguardia, Puigdemont wants to ‘impose a narrative’ about the agreement that is different than that of the ERC’s, and so ‘the last word must be his’.
Personally, I think he’s pushing his luck.
I used to feel much more sympathetic to the Catalan pro-independence cause, but I’ve seen and witnessed the anger and frustration of what’s happened in the last six years on many Catalan friends, and they feel not only let down but totally cheated. One particular friend, a stand-up comedian, uses laughter to get over it. Part of his routine relates how he poured himself a beer to celebrate Puigdemont declaring independence on 27 October 2017, but before the glass had even touched his lips, Catalonia was no longer independent.
Independence lasted 56 seconds.
The Barcelona Connection - ResearchThe Port Olímpic and particularly the Hotel Arts feature quite a bit in The Barcelona Connection (making their first appearance from Chapter 36) - with the hotel itself being where many of the fictional G20 dignitaries are staying, including the US delegation.
Just before the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, I practically lived at the Hotel Arts midweek - which I mention in A Load of Bull. I was in charge of the Barcelona office of Condé Nast at the time, and instead of commuting backwards and forwards from the Madrid head office, we pulled off an ‘intercambio’ with the hotel - which means advertising (or I think it was ‘editorially’-designed advertising) in exchange for accommodation. This is from A Load of Bull:
I asked the office in Barcelona to find somewhere like my original Madrid apartamento in the Centro Colón. But instead of a greasy turquoise apartamento, they found me the sumptuous Hotel Arts in the Olympic port, forty-four storeys high with panoramic views on all sides over the city and Mediterranean. It didn’t take us long to find ways that Vogue and the hotel could work together, and I virtually moved in during the weekdays, lock, stock and banderilla. Here, in a huge bath-robe, in my pastel-coloured penthouse-suite with marble bathrooms (yes, plural) on the thirty-something floor, if I wanted the Bang & Olufsen CD-player to open I simply clapped my hands. I’d never seen something so sophisticated - and I don’t think Spain had, either. In fact we’d come a long way, Spain and I, since the days of my crackling radio-casette player in the Colón.
I’ve been lucky to have stayed at the Arts on a few other occasions over the years - and so when Mitch Gibson takes in ‘the panoramic views of Barcelona and the Mediterranean Sea from a conference room on the forty-second floor’ of the hotel in Chapter 36 of The Barcelona Connection, I know exactly where he’s standing, with ‘the top three floors of the hotel transformed into the US HQ for G20 week’ …
The hotel’s terrace restaurant also appears in a later chapter with characters at a cocktail party there, but I’ll write about that in a future post …
Previous links to my research notes are here:
Chapter 29 in Letter from Spain #28 (Nîmes to Barcelona and tollgates)
Chapters 28 and 32 in Letter from Spain #27 (Pedralbes and Jaume, the Marquès de Guíxols)
Chapter 26 in Letter from Spain #26 (pijos and Beltrán Gómez de Longoria).
Chapter 25 (again) in Letter from Spain #25 (Benjamin’s thoughts on Púbol, Figueres and Port Lligat-Cadaqués).
Chapter 25 in Letter from Spain #23 (Benjamin and Elena on the Passeig Marítim).
Chapter 22 & Chapter 24 in Letter from Spain #22 (Plaça Sant Jaume & Nîmes).
Chapter 21 in Letter from Spain #21 (the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya - MNAC).
Chapter 18 in Letter from Spain #20 (Nîmes).
Chapter 16 in Letter from Spain #19 (Marta Soler visiting the offices of La Vanguardia).
Chapter 15 in Letter from Spain #18 (Sants, Les Corts and the Plaça de la Concòrdia).
Chapter 14 in Letter from Spain #17 (introducing Inspector Vizcaya and Marta Soler).
Chapter 13 in Letter from Spain #16 (the painting - the possible study of The Hallucinogenic Toreador by Salvador Dalí).
Chapters 10 and 12 in Letter from Spain #15 (Isabel Bosch and Lieutenant Trias).
Chapters 8 and 11 in Letter from Spain #14 (Benjamin at Girona Airport and finding the Marqueses’ home in La Bisbal).
Chapter 7 in Letter from Spain#12 (Séverin and Jürgen).
Chapter 5 in Letter from Spain#11 (Elena in Girona).
Chapters 3-4 in Letter from Spain#9 (Marcos Constantinos in Hampstead, plus Benjamin at the UEA & Stansted).
Chapter 2 in Letter from Spain#8 (the home of the Marqueses de Guíxols, not far from La Bisbal d’Empordà).
Chapter 1 in Letter from Spain#7 (Benjamin waking up at the service station).
The Barcelona Connection - Reviews, News & EventsLinks to reviews & articlesA review of The Barcelona Connection by Michael Eaude has been published in the October edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
Here’s the link for a review of The Barcelona Connection by Dominic Begg that came out in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
You can also click here for the latest reviews on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads and at Barnes & Noble.
The book is available on Amazon or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from. It can also be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBN number: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
You can also click here for the Kindle edition of A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid.
For professional enquiries and foreign rights for The Barcelona Connection, please contact my agent Justyna Rzewuska at the Hanska Literary & Film Agency.
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