U. Cronin's Blog, page 17

Short Story: the Newly-weds (Part II of III)

Apart from their time beside one another in the church and afterwards during the photo session, Claire and Gerry had spent very little time together on their wedding day. They had sat together during the meal but each had found … Continue reading →

The Humble Talo

In the parts of northern Spain I frequent (the Basque provinces of Alava and Guipúzcoa) one of the simplest and most delicious foods is the talo. Consisting of a thick cornbread tortilla wrapped around chorizo, chistorra, cheese or even chocolate, … Continue reading →

The Spanish Christmas Lottery — Wouldn’t Happen in Norway!

My powers of predicting the future are normally in the range of slim to non-existent but I can foretell what the main news will be here in Spain tomorrow, December 22, 2014. For this day is the day of the Spanish Christmas … Continue reading →

Don’t Fob Off my Beer!

I’ve been reading Ian S. Hornsey’s classic textbook Brewing of late. As well as getting the low-down on how to convert raw graminaceous grain into the bubbling, sparkling, frothing, nutritious and delicious beverage we know as beer, I’ve also been … Continue reading →

You Wouldn’t Know Anyone Anymore

A great cant of my father’s was “You wouldn’t know anyone anymore”. I remember him saying this ironically while on a train when he came to visit me in Madrid. Amidst all the different races and languages travelling beside us, … Continue reading →

St. Vincent, Joy Eslava Theatre, Madrid, Nov 26 2014

St. Vincent is without doubt one of the artists of 2014. She has been everywhere and done everything (Letterman, Portlandia, Jools Holland, Glastonbury, every summer festival you care to mention), clocking up what must amount to millions of air and … Continue reading →

Coll-die and doodie-baa

Here’s two words for you now, chosen not because of any similarity in meaning but because they are both double-barrelled and pronounced in the same way, with the stress placed on the second part of each pair: doodie-baa and coll-die. These may … Continue reading →

Short Story: The Golfers (Part III of III)

It was on her final full day in the village before flying back to Dublin, with her and the old man on their third or fourth round of the nine holes, that she played her most memorable stroke of what … Continue reading →

Short Story: The Golfers (Part II of III)

Night times were when she felt most alone. It being mid August and the harvest being mostly in, the village fiesta was in full swing. All of the inhabitants had organized themselves (mostly along the lines of age) into what … Continue reading →

Short Story: The Golfers (Part I of III)

It was an ugly village, probably the ugliest place Tara had ever been. She had been expecting the typical Spanish village portrayed in travel guides: gleaming-white huddles of houses topped by terra cotta tiles, balconies spilling bougainvillea onto narrow, twisting … Continue reading →