Sunday 14th October 2012
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| Cooking for a family lunch on Saturday |
Hi again everyone,
I hope your week has been good. Mine has been fine and quite uneventful but
there has been lots of news that meant a lot to me and I will comment on in
this week’s post.
On Monday my
latest book arrived from Amazon, my novel of the week, “The Casual Vacancy”, JK
Rowling’s first novel for adults after the Harry Potter saga. I was interested to know what it was all
about, having read that this so called “big novel about a small town” was set in
the fictional town of “Pugford” on the border of Wales but is actually inspired
by her own home town, Tutshill which she is supposed to despise and includes her
experiences at the local comprehensive, a nightmare of a place.
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| JK Rowling's new book, The Casual Vacancy, my novel of the week |
The
central plot is a battle for the vacancy left on the parish council following a
councillor’s death. Here everyone is at war in a small town way over local
politics. In a way it is a criticism of prejudices and hang-ups as well as the terrible snobbery of
the middle class. It sounds boring and has been criticized as such by
some media but I suspect they haven’t read the book till the end. Some of it is uphill, but as you get to the
end you are riveted by the doings and dealings of her characters, nearly all of
whom she most obviously hates. No wonder
the people of Tutshill have protested. One
villager is quoted as saying: ‘I suppose she’s got a
bit of a chip on her shoulder. This has always been a happy area.’
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| Tutshill where J.K. Rowling is from and the town that inspired her new book |
Without giving
the story away, I must say she has some great lines which have you in stitches,
some very explicit sex descriptions and an awful lot of bad language. I haven’t counted but I think the four letter
word beginning with “f” must be the most repeated word in the book. However the novel, a sort of tragic comedy,
with a lot of realism is actually damned good.
I finished it yesterday afternoon and have found myself thinking about
it ever since and am sort of missing the nasty or unfortunate characters and
hoping that there will be a sequel. This
is not Harry Potter but it’s good stuff and a great read.
This week much
of the UK news was peppered with stories about Jimmy Saville, an icon of
British TV who first became famous in the 70’s with the TV ads to get people to
wear seatbelts. I always remember his
famous phrase “clunk click every trip” but today that is tinged with
disgust. I always thought this man was a
bit of a creep. I mean you just have to
look at some of his photos, like the one below, to realize he was not exactly “normal”.
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| Jimmy Saville, the creep for me |
He went on to present his own charity show called “Jim ‘ll fix it”, supposedly bringing ill and underprivileged children’s dreams come true. He died last year in his 80’s and now one year after his death, people have come forward claiming he sexually abused them when they were children and used the programme to do so. These people were often underage boys and girls, some as young as 10. They have done so after a documentary about the paedophile side of this ghastly man by the ITV. The BBC apparently knew, or it was common knowledge that his predatory behavior went on but they turned a blind eye. The BBC has a lot to answer for in this case, perhaps more so than Jimmy the creep for whom, unfortunately, it comes too late.
Straight after
the news of this awful man, comes the news on Tuesday of a very courageous young
girl, Malala, aged 14, from the Swat valley, once called the Switzerland of
Pakistan. She stood up to the Taliban
subjugation of women where she lived and had become well known for promoting
the education of girls and denouncing the atrocities of who can only be known
as thugs.. For this she nearly died on
Tuesday when angry Taliban men boarded her crowded school bus and shot her with
a near fatal bullet close to her brain.
But Malala has not died and is out of danger for the moment, although
the Taliban have sworn they will try to kill her again. Meanwhile she has
become an icon in Pakistan where people are outraged and are protesting,
something the authorities and people have never really dared to do for fear of
the revenge of these thugs. Malala’s was
one of the few voices to take them on, perhaps now there will be more. I hope so.
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| Malala the courageous Pakistani girl |
Wednesday was
Red Cross day, at least in Spain and is known as the Red Flag day. Oli was to be reporting on the members of the
Spanish Royal family’s participation as patrons of this wonderful organization. She and her TV team were present where the
Princess Letizia was presiding over one of the tables where people queued up to
donate in exchange for the famous Red Cross flag sticker, in the centre of
Madrid. In other places nearby the Queen
and her daughter were also presiding over Red Cross tables but of course it is
Letizia who is more newsworthy.
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| Oli reporting on the Red Cross flag day |
Here you can watch Oli’ s reports if you fast forward to 12.07 and 12.46. She was unlucky to just miss the arrival of
the Crown Prince who made an appearance at all three tables a few minutes after
her live reporting. It was the second
time Olivia was to report on the Royal Family and I was proud to watch her do
so.
On Thursday we
had the pleasure of the company of Susana for lunch, upon her return first from
Santa Pola and then from Barcelona where she had given a training course to new
colleagues from her company Aramark. It
was the first family lunch for a long time and it was good to get Suzy’s news.
On Thursday
too most of the world heard of a Chinese author, Mo Yan, for the first time
ever as he was given this year’s Nobel Literature prize. It was also the first time, I think, that a Nobel
prize has been awarded to a writer embraced by a communist regime. The Chinese government is delighted, just as
it was reviled by the award of the 2010 peace prize to dissident Liu Xiaobo. I wonder if
this is politics to appease the Chinese.
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| Mo Yan the Chinese writer and this year's Nobel Literature Laureate |
I know nothing
more about Mo Yan but have read he is the Chinese equivalent of Franz Kafka, so
I will probably not be reading his books, preferring the likes of JK Rowling or
Ken Follett and other less high brow writers.
On the same
day the literature laureate was announced, a bomb shell exploded in the sports
world. Finally the truth came out about the lies and doping of Lance Armstrong
who I now know for sure cheated his way through 7 Tours of France. For on Thursday the USADA published a 1000
page report and denounced what they called "the most
sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has
ever seen". You can read the full report here. I waded through some of it
yesterday and read many of his team mates testimonies, some of whom I knew such
as George Hincapie, Kevin Livingstone and Frankie Andreu when they rode for
Motorola. At that time I don’t think they did take drugs. I read later that it all started at the Milan San Remo in 1995 (I was there at the time) and that Lance was furious they had done so badly so commented to one of his team mates it was time to start on EPO. How sad.
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| Me with Johnny Weltz and Frankie Andreu, Lance's best friend at the Tour of Spain in 1996 |
I never saw anything, but of ourse it would have been hidden from me. This was cloak and dagger stuff. The report makes
amazing reading and presents overwhelming evidence against the famous Texan who
since its publication has remained practically silent on his usually very
active Twitter account. Up till now it
seems he did everything he could from bullying to threatening to lawsuits to
silence those few who tried to tell the truth, but he cannot stop them all,
including Tyler Hamilton. The latter, a
former team mate, has just published a book called “The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping,Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs”. I
ordered it this morning on Amazon.es and look forward to reading it this
week. I always remember seeing Lance at
the Tour of Spain when he had just recovered from cancer. Knowing his aggressive character I had heard
that the illness had changed him for the better. So I asked Frankie Andreu if this was
true. He answered me: “oh no, he’s still
the same old son of a bitch”. And he was
because he bullied his team mates and made them drug their bodies too whether
they wanted to or not. It is common knowledge, despite the code of silence in
the cycling world that is now gradually being broken, that his generation of
cyclists doped to perform to an extraordinary extent but he was the greatest of
them all and has now sullied that sport for ever. I wonder how long it will take until he is
stripped of his 7 Tours of France. If
that hasn’t happened yet, it is partly due to the cycling ruling body, the UCI,
who do not come out well in the USADA report either and look like they also
have a role in covering up Lance’s story, in the same way as his and his team’s
doping doctors, such as Pedro Celaya (I remember him as the Motorola team
doctor; he spoke with a fast Basque accent I could hardly understand) or
masseurs such as Freddy Viaene (the nice friendly Belgian soigneur who used to
make bacon sandwiches with mustard which I hated for me at some of the races)
or team coach where the spotlight is also on Johan Bruyneel, a very shady
character in the cycling world who I remember once shouting at me when he rode
for the ONCE team asking where the phone I had promised him was. Since the report has been published he has
been fired as coach of his current team but even covers that up too by saying
on his Twitter that he has resigned. For
me these people are just as much to blame as Lance. However it isn’t just Lance and his team
mates who have taken dope. This is a
practice that has gone on always and probably explains the code of silence from
many top and ex cyclists today. How can
they condone Lance Armstrong when they themselves are not free of guilt? And if
his titles are to be stripped, maybe theirs will too. And where would the investigation start, with
Eddie Merck or Tom Simpson who died in the Tour of France on Mt. Ventoux
because of doping in 1959? The only hope
here is that the Armstrong doping issue will clean up the sport forever.
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| Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel both equally guilty of doping in cycling. |
Friday was a national holiday and brought with it a three day weekend. It was the day of celebrations for Hispanic nations and also the day of the Spanish saint, Pilar. It was also the day the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded. I was astonished to see that this year’s prize went to the European Union, far too big an entity I thought and just as ridiculous as the prize to Barack Obama. It sort of under minded the importance. I understand that the European Union was awarded the prize for its role in uniting the continent over the last six decades but it comes at a time when the Union is at its weakest, embroiled in the Euro crisis and found it surprising that it came from a nation, Norway, which has always refused to join. It came also during the week the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, visited Greece where she was greeted by protesters with Nazi salutes, not exactly a peaceful event! Maybe though it will serve to strengthen the Union, but I for one could have thought of more deserved peace prize winners, such as Vicente Ferrer for his outstanding service to the poor people of India.
That night we
discussed the peace prize and the euro crisis and unemployment in Spain with
our friends Roberto and Mari Carmen over dinner. We went to Síbara which serves great fish and
chips and came up to speed on the lives of our friends whom I hadn’t seen for a
long time. As we left the restaurant, Eladio and I commented on just how civilized
their relationship is given that they are now divorced.
On Saturday we
had another family lunch and Juli came too.
The photo illustrating this week’s post is of me cooking in the kitchen.
Notice the pc with FB on the screen, the maps on the wall which are an
inspiration for travelling, as well as Elsa at the door wanting to come in for
the umpteenth time. For the record I
made Russian pelmeni with sour cream sauce (Smetana), roast chicken with
vegetables cooked in honey and mushroom risotto. After lunch it was sunny and Suzy was going
to sunbathe but Eladio had decided that yesterday was the day to cover the
swimming pool. So we made a joint effort
of putting on the cover and were all a little sad to see this as a symbol of
the end to summer.
That night the
girls were to celebrate Anita’s birthday as they had done Dave’s the night
before. They call their group of
friends, “la manada” or the herd and here you have a photo of them on Friday
night with part of the “manada.
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| The girls (in stripes Suzy left and Oli right) with part of the "manada" celebrating Dave's birthday |
Whilst they were preparing for the birthday do, Eladio and I had a date at the cinema. I had bought tickets to see the new film, The Impossible. It is a Spanish made film but shot in English and stars Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor and is about the 2004 Tsunami in South East Asia. The story is based on the experiences of a Spanish family, Maria Belón and Enrique Alvarez and their three young boys who amazingly survived the tragedy.
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| Members of the Spanish family with the cast who starred in the film The Impossible based on the family's tale of survival of the 2004 tsunami in South East Asia. |
Eladio called the film the wave, and in a way he’s
right because the replica on screen of the “wave” or tsunami was the most
important moment of the film. I think
they used 12 million litres of water at the film studios in Alicante to make it. The film was beautifully made and had me
crying at all the right points and also left me wanting to know more about how
this, up till now anonymous Spanish family, coped with returning to normal life
after their awful and incredible experience.
It also made me understand what it must have been like to live through
the Tsunami and just how terrifying and devastating it was. Well done Juan Antonio Bayona for making this
great film.
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| The Impossible a great film |
Afterwards we
went to Ginos for dinner and an ice cream at Hagan Dazs for “pudding” which had
me feeling guilty. Luckily I slept well
afterwards.
Today Sunday
is a cool Autumn day with rain threatening any time. Olivia will be leaving very soon for Galicia
from where she will be reporting this week.
After publishing this week’s entry, we shall probably read a bit in the
lounge – how different from reading outside in the sun – and then go for our
daily walk. You know us, creatures of
habit, usually.
And the week
ahead will be busy and I hope a good one.
Meanwhile I
wish you all the best and sorry for too much international news and not much
about home, but as you see it’s been very quiet here and there is not much to
tell.
Cheers for now
Masha
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