David Baird's Blog, page 3
February 14, 2015
AN ESCAPIST FINDS A NIGHTMARE IN SPAIN!
WE’RE ALL ESCAPISTS AT HEART, dreaming of another life in another place without the nagging worries that go with our daily routine.
However, if you take the big step and launch yourself into a new life, a ���simple life��� in a totally different environment, it can turn out rather more complicated than you expected.
In the case of one not-so-innocent Britisher, his escapist dream turn turns into a dramatic adventure with sinister surprises lying in wait.
Don���t Miss The Fiesta!, a thriller set in a Spanish village, takes the lid off the surprises that could await a stranger in an outwardly tranquil Andalusian pueblo.
Beneath the village���s placid surface lurk dark secrets and a nightmare of guilt dating back to Spain’s Civil War.
When the outsider arrives, old hatreds soon surface. He falls for a delightful village girl ��� only to find himself embroiled in local rivalries and calls for vengeance.
���It���s so easy for strangers to stumble into situations they don���t understand,” comments author David Baird.
Much of his book is based on personal experience ��� he has lived in Spain for many years. The characters in the book are figments of his imagination, but true-life incidents sparked the idea for the plot.
“Some friends thought they had found a rural shangri-la and sat back to enjoy the simple life. Then came midnight knocks on the door and other strange incidents and they found they had become involved in fierce family feuds.���
Born in Shropshire, David Baird has worked around the world as a journalist, from Fleet Street and Toronto to Sydney and Hong Kong. His books have also been published in German and Spanish.
Don���t Miss The Fiesta!, his first work of fiction, is on sale at English-language bookshops in Spain. It can also be bought direct from the publishers, Maroma Press, on this site and from Amazon.co.uk. To save postage costs, buyers can also download it at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/15830
His travel books include Sunny Side Up ��� The 21st century hits a Spanish village and Back Roads of Southern Spain.
Maroma Press also publishes Baird���s non-fiction book Between Two Fires. Historians Ian Gibson and Paul Preston have praised this well-researched account of a forgotten war waged by the anti-Franco guerrilla movement in Spain in the 1940s and 1950s.
January 22, 2015
Caviar — from Spain
For more than 50 years residents of Spain’s Granada province have known where to go for the finest fresh trout. They have flocked to the restaurants of Riofrío, a hamlet on the main highway between Granada and Málaga, to eat trout nurtured by a fish farm.
Trade is still brisk, but — unbeknown to most visitors — just a few metres away from the trout tanks a whole new industry has been created. While not abandoning the trout, the Piscifactoría de Sierra Nevada has invested in a big way in producing top-quality caviar.
It’s been a long process. It started in 1983 in a leafy valley where crystalline water gushes from a mountain spring. The first caviar (a mere 20 kilos) was not marketed until the year 2000. Demand from home and abroad has outpaced supply, but among the more than 400,000 sturgeon in Riofrío’s fish tanks thousands are nearing the age when their eggs can be harvested.
The Piscifactoría claims that it has more sturgeon than any other similar enterprise and that it is the only sturgeon nursery in the world employing a 100-per-cent certified ecological process. At tastings attended by international experts Riofrío caviar has come out ahead of better-known products from Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, poaching and pollution have reduced by 80 per cent the famed sturgeons in the Caspian Sea and stocks in Russia’s rivers are equally depleted.
Although caviar can be stored for up to six months in the correct refrigerated conditions, it is at its best when consumed within six days and the Sierra Nevada company prides itself on delivering fresh caviar fast. Twenty per cent of production goes for export, while the remainder is sold in Spain, chiefly to restaurants and shops.
The Sierra Nevada fish farm dates back 1956. It was founded by the Domezain family from Navarra and the initial aim was to produce trout to supplement infants’ diet — those were Spain’s hungry years. Business flourished. Sales soared and restaurants at Riofrío flourished.
In the early 1980s, however, trout sales slumped, partly due to intense competition from other fish farms. A rethink was necessary and the decision was made to try breeding sturgeon. It was a gamble which would require heavy investment and years of patient research.
In 1983 a dozen sturgeon for breeding were acquired from Italy. They were of the Acipenser naccarii species, native to southern Europe. Once this species thrived in the waters of the Río Guadalquivir. Indeed, the sturgeon is said to have inhabited this earth 250,000 years ago along with the dinosaurs. It was fished by Phoenicians and Romans.
Riofrío offered several important advantages for the establishment of a sturgeon fishery. First, an abundant supply of fresh, unpolluted water from a snow-fed acquifer beneath the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The water gushes from the rock at an ideal temperature for trout and sturgeon, between 13 and 16 degrees Centigrade all year around. And it emerges at a rate of between 2,000 to 3,000 litres a second.
Many years of breeding and research were needed before there was any return. Investigation into the characteristics of the naccarii species has involved Cádiz and Granada universities and Russian and Italian researchers. A shark-like fish with a toothless mouth and four feelers on the underside of its long snout, the sturgeon grows from egg to maturity at the Sierra Nevada fish farm.
The naccarii species does not produce caviar until it is 16 to 18 years old, twice as long as the Caspian Sea’s beluga sturgeon (Acipenser huso). Fourteen years passed before any sturgeon flesh, much in demand, could be marketed and only in 2000 was the first Riofrío caviar harvested.
Males are kept until they are 12, when they weigh around 15 kilos, and then sold for their flesh. Females enjoy more privileged treatment. Each one has a chip inserted with details of its age, diet and other details. It is then returned to the water until it is at least 16 years old and weighs 40 to 50 kilos. An ecograph and a biopsy determine if the optimum moment for removing eggs has arrived.
Under the auspices of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), Riofrío is collaborating with Iranians and Russians to help rebuild their sturgeon resources and introduce the latest technology.
Caviar ��� from Spain
For more than 50 years residents of Spain���s Granada province have known where to go for the finest fresh trout. They have flocked to the restaurants of Riofr��o, a hamlet on the main highway between Granada and M��laga, to eat trout nurtured by a fish farm.
Trade is still brisk, but ��� unbeknown to most visitors ��� just a few metres away from the trout tanks a whole new industry has been created. While not abandoning the trout, the Piscifactor��a de Sierra Nevada has invested in a big way in producing top-quality caviar.
It���s been a long process. It started in 1983 in a leafy valley where crystalline water gushes from a mountain spring. The first caviar (a mere 20 kilos) was not marketed until the year 2000. Demand from home and abroad has outpaced supply, but among the more than 400,000 sturgeon in Riofr��o���s fish tanks thousands are nearing the age when their eggs can be harvested.
The Piscifactor��a claims that it has more sturgeon than any other similar enterprise and that it is the only sturgeon nursery in the world employing a 100-per-cent certified ecological process. At tastings attended by international experts Riofr��o caviar has come out ahead of better-known products from Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, poaching and pollution have reduced by 80 per cent the famed sturgeons in the Caspian Sea and stocks in Russia���s rivers are equally depleted.
Although caviar can be stored for up to six months in the correct refrigerated conditions, it is at its best when consumed within six days and the Sierra Nevada company prides itself on delivering fresh caviar fast.��Twenty per cent of production goes for export, while the remainder is sold in Spain, chiefly to restaurants and shops.
The Sierra Nevada fish farm dates back 1956. It was founded by the Domezain family from Navarra and the initial aim was to produce trout to supplement infants��� diet ��� those were Spain���s hungry years. Business flourished. Sales soared and restaurants at Riofr��o flourished.
In the early 1980s, however, trout sales slumped, partly due to intense competition from other fish farms. A rethink was necessary and the decision was made to try breeding sturgeon. It was a gamble which would require heavy investment and years of patient research.
In 1983 a dozen sturgeon for breeding were acquired from Italy. They were of the Acipenser naccarii species, native to southern Europe. Once this species thrived in the waters of the R��o Guadalquivir. Indeed, the sturgeon is said to have inhabited this earth 250,000 years ago along with the dinosaurs. It was fished by Phoenicians and Romans.
Riofr��o offered several important advantages for the establishment of a sturgeon fishery. First, an abundant supply of fresh, unpolluted water from a snow-fed acquifer beneath the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The water gushes from the rock at an ideal temperature for trout and sturgeon, between 13 and 16 degrees Centigrade all year around. And it emerges at a rate of between 2,000 to 3,000 litres a second.
Many years of breeding and research were needed before there was any return. Investigation into the characteristics of the naccarii species has involved C��diz and Granada universities and Russian and Italian researchers. A shark-like fish with a toothless mouth and four feelers on the underside of its long snout, the sturgeon grows from egg to maturity at the Sierra Nevada fish farm.
The naccarii species does not produce caviar until it is 16 to 18 years old, twice as long as the Caspian Sea���s beluga sturgeon (Acipenser huso). Fourteen years passed before any sturgeon flesh, much in demand, could be marketed and only in 2000 was the first Riofr��o caviar harvested.
Males are kept until they are 12, when they weigh around 15 kilos, and then sold for their flesh. Females enjoy more privileged treatment. Each one has a chip inserted with details of its age, diet and other details. It is then returned to the water until it is at least 16 years old and weighs 40 to 50 kilos. An ecograph and a biopsy determine if the optimum moment for removing eggs has arrived.
Under the auspices of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), Riofr��o��is collaborating with Iranians and Russians to help rebuild their sturgeon resources and introduce the latest technology.
October 8, 2014
TYPHOON HITS HONG KONG
NOSTALGIC for the old days? Well, maybe not, after reading David Baird’s latest novel. The author vividly captures the atmosphere of the so-called Pearl of the Orient thanks to his years working in Hong Kong as a journalist — both when it was a British colony and later when it returned to Chinese rule.
From the first lines of Typhoon Season, you’ll find yourself on a roller-coaster ride, encountering a body floating in the South China Sea, a missing heroin stash, a doomed love affair, corruption in high places… 
After years away Clive Spillman is returning to Hong Kong. Memories flood back as not-so-heroic hero Clive Spillman reflects : “A crazy time to visit. The air would be as thick as soup, the humidity overpowering.”
Even as the Cathay Pacific Jumbo banked over the South China Sea for the approach, he wasn’t sure why he was returning….
Soon Spillman tangles with Triad gangsters, crooked policemen, sophisticated socialites with secrets to hide, a kung-fu film star with lethal fists. When he asks too many questions he ends up running for his life.
“Typhoon Season is a tightly constructed thriller that moves along at a cracking pace,” reported the Sunday Morning Post (Hong Kong) reviewer.
A Times of London correspondent noted: “Thrilling novel…brilliantly evokes life in Hong Kong in the lead-up to the 1997 Handover to China.”
“Fluent prose and pithy plot-making,” judged The Correspondent reviewer (Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club).
Typhoon Season (ISBN: 978-84-614-6589-7, published by Maroma Press) is on sale from Amazon and other online outlets such as Hong Kong-based http://www.paddyfield.com/mainstore2/details.php?prod=9788461465897&
It is also available as an ebook at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/205789
Contact the publisher for further information: http://maromapress.wordpress.com/
July 27, 2014
LAURIE LEE IN SPAIN
WANDER along the seafront of a certain lesser-known Spanish resort and you will find a phallic-looking structure bearing a small plaque.
It honours a penniless youth whose writings helped put the town, Almuñecar in Granada province, on the tourist map.
“Laurie Lee? Who he?” Spanish visitors may ask.
But in his native England Lee is a celebrity — and this year the centenary of his birth has been celebrated with special events and the publishing of new editions of his books.
On his last visit to Spain, he reminisced with writer David Baird about his life and loves and As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, the vivid account of his trek across Spain in the 1930s.
They talked on a hillside overlooking the Mediterranean, near Almuñecar, where more than 50 years earlier a British destroyer had whisked him to safety at the start of the Spanish Civil War.
Over one, two — or, possibly, a few more — glasses of wine, he reminisced about what inspired some of the most lyrical travel writing in the English language.
He had a mischievous, raffish air and, as ever, he was attended by beautiful, adoring women, wife Kathy and daughter Jessy.
Women played a major role in his life, whether in Spain, where he encountered “strange vivid girls . . . with hair like coils of dripping tar and large mouths, red and savage” or when he was weaving his spell around upper-class British lasses, fiddling while they yearned.
His book about growing up in the Cotswolds area of England, Cider With Rosie, is regarded as a classic, adopted as a school textbook.
“I spent a lot of time on a bike looking for girls. Then I realised that poetry was a means I had to declare my love. The important thing about a poem is that it must end strongly, just as a love affair should not peter away but end strongly.”
Born poor and without influential connections, he had little formal education, leaving school at 14.
“I had to find my own language and tone of life — an immensely pleasurable occupation,” he recalled. “When you go to university, you are inundated with other writers, but I think I was relieved of that pressure. I was not under any influence.”
His reading gave him a taste for what he called “fat-bacon language”, the sort that engraves itself on one’s memory.
His advice to writers: “Use language which doesn’t trip the tongue. If you can’t think of a word, leave a gap. Don’t use a second-class word because you are in a hurry — leave it for a day or so until the word comes.
Look out over the Mediterranean at dawn and you will find that Laurie’s description still holds true: “The stars snapped shut, vermilion tides ran over the water, the hills around took on the colour of firebrick, and the great sun drew himself at last raw and dripping from the waves . . . “
March 22, 2014
SPAIN’S HISTORIC MEMORY ��� What it’s all about
DECADES after Spain tore itself apart in a civil war the pain lingers on.��The Ley de la Memoria Hist��rica, a recently enacted law, aims to heal some of the old wounds but has only succeeded in exacerbating the fierce debate.��
Passions are still fierce, not just about the war itself but about the repression that followed during the long years of dictatorship. The country has yet to come to terms with events that occurred more than 50 years ago, not least those of a desperate guerrilla conflict which raged in the 1940s.
Thus, Between Two Fires ��� Guerrilla war in the Spanish sierras��could not be more timely.��This important ��book throws fresh light on a��struggle which ��� thanks to strict censorship ��� went largely unreported both in Spain or in the rest of the world.
Author David Baird has scoured official archives��from Barcelona to Washington��and interviewed scores of survivors to dig out the true story behind the anti-Franco resistance movement.
Years of research lie behind this account of��what happens when humble country folk find themselves in the front line in a secret war. Leading the guerrillas against Franco���s Civil Guard was a legendary figure, Roberto, a veteran of the Civil War and the French Resistance, charismatic but doomed.
Guerrilleros, villagers, Civil Guards give a moving account of bloodshed and betrayal,�� courage and heroism. Little did they know that as the guerrilla war raged, politicians as far apart as London and��Moscow were pulling the strings.
In the words of noted British historian Paul Preston: ���As exciting as any thriller, yet deeply moving, it deserves to be read by everyone concerned with the history of contemporary Spain.���
See the pages of this Maroma Press website for more details and how to order this fascinating and significant book.
SPAIN’S HISTORIC MEMORY — What it’s all about
DECADES after Spain tore itself apart in a civil war the pain lingers on. The Ley de la Memoria Histórica, a recently enacted law, aims to heal some of the old wounds but has only succeeded in exacerbating the fierce debate.
Passions are still fierce, not just about the war itself but about the repression that followed during the long years of dictatorship. The country has yet to come to terms with events that occurred more than 50 years ago, not least those of a desperate guerrilla conflict which raged in the 1940s.
Thus, Between Two Fires — Guerrilla war in the Spanish sierras could not be more timely. This important book throws fresh light on a struggle which — thanks to strict censorship — went largely unreported both in Spain or in the rest of the world.
Author David Baird has scoured official archives from Barcelona to Washington and interviewed scores of survivors to dig out the true story behind the anti-Franco resistance movement.
Years of research lie behind this account of what happens when humble country folk find themselves in the front line in a secret war. Leading the guerrillas against Franco’s Civil Guard was a legendary figure, Roberto, a veteran of the Civil War and the French Resistance, charismatic but doomed.
Guerrilleros, villagers, Civil Guards give a moving account of bloodshed and betrayal, courage and heroism. Little did they know that as the guerrilla war raged, politicians as far apart as London and Moscow were pulling the strings.
In the words of noted British historian Paul Preston: “As exciting as any thriller, yet deeply moving, it deserves to be read by everyone concerned with the history of contemporary Spain.”
See the pages of this Maroma Press website for more details and how to order this fascinating and significant book.
February 15, 2014
WHERE NOISE IS A WAY OF LIFE
SILENCE is not just golden. It is a commodity they don’t make any more. Noise has become inescapable.
Climb the highest mountain and you will be buzzed by lowflying aircraft, find the loneliest beach and sound systems or speedboats will shatter the calm, plunge into Alpine wilderness and snowmobile hooligans will assault your solitude.
Spain is the perfect place to study noise because it has so much of it. In fact, the Spanish press frequently reminds readers – with a touch of pride? – that after Japan this is the world’s noisiest country.
High-decibel noise seems to be an integral part of Spanish life. Indeed, anybody frequenting the average bar is a candidate for an ear-drum transplant. Television, stereo, radio, and coffee-grinder will quite likely all be operating at the same time, accompanied by the constant jangle of coin machine jingles.
Hubbub is equated with fun, especially in discos. Studies suggest that loud music encourages people to drink more, but many of the youngsters regularly submitting themselves to this acoustic torture do not appreciate the long-term consequences. More than 30 per cent of disco-goers among Valencia University students were found to have diminished hearing capacity.
In theory, 65 decibels of daytime sound are acceptable or at least endurable, while at night you should snatch some sleep if the level is below 45. But disco music soars to far above 100 decibels and an aircraft taking off registers more than 130, enough to rattle window-panes and give heart attacks to unsuspecting cows.
Oddly enough though, in whichever country you are, complaining about noise somehow categorises you as a killjoy. Noise has come to be associated with vitality and youth, quietness with boredom and old age. But the clamour does reach special levels in Mediterranean countries, for distinct cultural and climatic reasons.
A good deal of social life occurs in public rather than in the privacy of the home. After 6pm the streets of Northern Europe often have a funereal atmosphere. Not so those in Mediterranean climes.
It has been that way from early times. Nearly 2,000 years ago the satiric poet Juvenal complained that it was impossible to sleep in Rome. “Carts passing through the alleys and the swearing of muleteers stuck in traffic jams would keep awake even the Emperor Claudius,” he spluttered.
September 8, 2013
WHEN THE TYPHOON STRIKES
“Typhoon season. A crazy time to visit.
The air would be as thick as soup, the humidity overpowering. Even as the Cathay Pacific Jumbo banked over
the South China Sea for the approach, Clive wasn’t sure why he was returning.
Perspiration trickled down his neck, as though in anticipation of the heat that would greet him. But this was a cold sweat. So m any years. Would he know anybody? Would anybody know him?
His stomach was tying itself into a knot. He tried to kid himself that it was excitement. But he knew it was something else, a sense of unease. Should he really be returning to Hong Kong? Up to now he had tried to push the real reason to the back of his mind. What a charade! Why did he fool himself?”
After years away Clive Spillman is returning to Hong Kong. Memories flood back — and unanswered questions. In Typhoon Season, you’ll find yourself on a roller-coaster ride as Spillman battles Triad gangsters, crooked policemen, sophisticated socialites with secrets to hide, a kung-fu film star with lethal fists. When he asks too many questions he ends up running for his life.
A body floating in the South China Sea, a missing heroin stash, a doomed love affair, corruption in high places…David Baird’s latest novel has all the ingredients to make it a best-seller. Baird vividly captures the atmosphere of the so-called Pearl of the Orient thanks to his years working in Hong Kong as a journalist — both when it was a British colony and later when it returned to Chinese rule.
Published by Maroma Press, Typhoon Season is a fast-paced thriller, now available as an ebook, ready to be downloaded to your Kindle, computer or other device.
“Typhoon Season is a tightly constructed thriller that moves along at a cracking pace,” reported the Sunday Morning Post (Hong Kong) reviewer.
A Times of London correspondent noted: “Thrilling novel…brilliantly evokes life in Hong Kong in the lead-up to the 1997 Handover to China.”
Order the paperback from bookshops. Or buy it online direct from the publisher on this website. Or via Amazon.
The ebook edition of Typhoon Season is published by Smashwords. Find it at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/205789
This is David’s second work of fiction. His first, Don’t Miss The Fiesta!, is a chilling tale about a stranger who seeks the simple life in a Spanish village only to find himself embroiled in passionate intrigues.
In the words of one reviewer, it is “a vibrant account of the secret lives of so many real-life Spanish villages for long trapped between the hammer of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, and the anvil of cruel medieval religious obligations”.
August 4, 2013
Seeking Winter Sun ��� A Spanish Travel Adventure
EVERYBODY remembers the first time they stepped on to Spanish soil. Dazzling light, dramatic landscapes, colourful personalities, pungent smells���they make an impact on the most travel-jaded.
You may be exhilarated or exasperated, enthralled or appalled, but you cannot remain indifferent, for this is a land which invites extreme emotions.
However, my first visit contradicted all the stereotypes for I came away convinced that the rain in Spain fell mostly on green, misty hills inhabited by short, broad people who wore large berets and carried black umbrellas everywhere. This impression arose from a day trip from France to San Sebastian.
To cross the border I had to contend with the legendary bureaucracy. General Franco still ruled and journalists were not welcome.
���Just for one day?��� The Spanish consul eyed me suspiciously. ���And you���re on holiday? Hmmm���well, I can stamp your visa but you must promise not to write anything.���
Naturally I nodded, although we both knew it was a ridiculous request. Now I realise that it was a first lesson in how Spain functions: establish human contact and what moments before appeared out of the question is suddenly possible.
Years later I returned to Spain, this time with my wife. Fleeing the British winter, we were searching for a place in the sun. We headed south.
Arriving late at night in a coastal city, we stumbled through darkened streets seeking a cheap hostal. Next morning, as we prepared to go for breakfast, my wife put on her thick overcoat.
���Why are you wearing that?��� I asked her.
���I don���t want to catch cold,��� she replied.
���But look out there,��� I said, pointing through the window at the street below. The passersby were in blouses and shirt sleeves. Not a coat or a scarf in�� sight.
We had arrived in the land of eternal summer. And it felt great. Taking a bus along the coast, we passed fields of sugar cane and found a humble fishing village. Women were drawing water from a fountain and the odour of frying churros and coffee wafted through streets uncluttered by traffic, except occasional herds of goats.
It was the ideal bolthole. Now and again I bought the local newspaper just to confirm that we were in the right place. The heavily censored stories, each ending with the exhortation “Viva el Caudillo!”, all conveyed the same message: Spain was an oasis of peace and prosperity while the rest of the world was in turmoil.
One day we trekked up a dry riverbed to a village perched way above the coast, a mere splash of white on the hillside. Mules plodded along the narrow main street lined with immaculately whitewashed houses. So rare were visitors that a gaggle of giggling children followed us about.
After trying the local wine, we drifted happily back to the coast as the setting sun tinged the sierras with gold. It was good to be alive. And, did we but know it, we had just visited the pueblo which would become our home
