Spanish Shilling

Here we are with a fine opportunity to write about Spain, and well done to the bloggers who usually stick to this fascinating subject. The truth is, for we foreigners (expats or immigrants - but that's for another day), we can never learn enough about this marvelous country. There will always be references in everyday conversation we shall miss - unless you had the good fortune to be raised here as a child.

In that case though, your reading will probably be in Spanish - as (y volvemos a lo mismo) their writers will be better informed. Their newspapers are better, too.

But, sometimes we foreigners, with some (or no) experience, decide to start up a newspaper or a magazine, together with some bloke who is going to wander around the bars and sell advertising, another chap with an old van who says he knows the area well and will deliver, a young whizz-kid for the layout on the computer (in my day, it was cut and paste) and a printer that we found - God knows how - up in Ciudad Real who won’t charge too much.

Between the adverts in the mag, we are going to have spaces, which will need filling. We are going to need a writer.

Now, the given. We are in Spain; we are continually learning about this country and we are all, readers and publisher alike, part of the same great adventure. We shall learn together about the geography, politics, language, literature, art, gastronomy, history, flora and fauna, films, music and folklore. What a fabulous opportunity!

But our readers are, apparently, unadventurous, and thus, let’s print articles about lipstick. Articles about the North American fox, about Coronation Street, the First World War, Red China, Marks and Spencer, Manchester, fajitas, Iraq and facelifts; maybe some brainless quizes, rants about Muslims in the British 'homeland' and the price of strawberries in Oxford.

There’s a splendid opportunity to write about sports (if such a thing grabs you), about the victory of the Spanish basketball team, the Spanish Grand Prix champion, our cycling and of course, our football. But no, with the exception of the odd incoherency about or from David Beckham, we will treat you to articles about Fulham or Arsenal.

To remind you further that we are now living in Spain – presumably at our own free will – we will offer you the week’s or even month’s television entertainment. The 'full TV satellite guide' from Britain. Good Lord, it's snowing in Birmingham.

With rare exceptions, the items we shall reproduce for your reading pleasure will appear unsigned. Yet, some poor joe wrote (or translated) them. Writers usually get tuppence for their efforts anyway, but they do like to see their name in print.

When one of our local newspapers prints some piece – apparently to fit some hole on page nineteen next to the advert about cesspit repairs (seventeen years experience, man and boy) – as often as not, there will be no credit for the writer.

Much of the material which appears in our local newspapers and magazines if not about Spain will probably have one thing in common, one general point of union. The articles will come from the Internet.

You can imagine.

‘Geoff, I’ve got a hole on page 32’.

‘Don’t worry, Alice, I’ve found a bit on the Pyramids’.

Another kind of scrip will sometimes float around in a newspaper. Sometimes it will be labelled ‘advertising feature’ and sometimes not. It will be an article handed in by an advertiser with, let’s say ‘not entirely impartial recommendations’ regarding building, eating, investing, shopping, funerals (ahem!) and buying a second hand car. Since these ‘puffs’ are invariably set in Spain, the reader might fall upon them with more enthusiasm and unalloyed relief than they in fact merit.

I like good writers. I think that they make a newspaper worth picking up. I think they entertain and educate the reader.

I think a good writer is worth paying something. I think it’s an opportunity worth taking. 

Forget plagiarism, cynical and bad editing and gratuitous puff pieces. Ask to read something decent about Spain.

I'm dreaming of a blue passport,
Just like the ones I used to know.
Where I need a Visa,
to visit Pisa,
And there is nowhere I can go.

I'm dreaming of a blue passport,
now that we've got our country back.
May our future be dreary
...and shite,
and may all our citizens be white ...

¡Felices fiestas!

The carol is mine, I can't answer for the picture.

Spain has always had an interest in milk, even if, until recently, you couldn’t find a cold glass of it anywhere.

The old milk was a definite bluish colour and came in a 1.5l glass bottle with a narrow top and a metal cramp, like a coke bottle. This stuff could sit in the sun for weeks without losing its taste and often did. Apparently, to help it last, they took the cream out of the milk and added a shot of pig fat. The blue colour came, apocryphally, from the formaldehyde that kept the mixture quiet. This explains why breakfast cereals came to Spain rather late. Pour that broth over your Frosties, it would have eaten them before you could.

Later UHT milks from different companies, now mostly in the handy tetrabrik box, became acceptable for coffees and so on. A cup of (proper) tea would be flustered by this stuff, but you can get used to anything. Now, we even have sippin’ milk in the supermarkets. Tastes good.

While milk has never been considered a serious drink (despite the best efforts of some of the producers to tell us different in the usual kids adverts), it has certainly spawned a whole slew of versions. We have milk with vitamins, milk with calcium, skimmed milk, partially skimmed milk, milk with royal jelly, milk with acidophilus (a handy bacteria apparently found in drool), specially flavoured chocolate, vanilla and strawberry milks, rice milk, soya veggy milk and even the ubiquitous goat's milk (which I still haven't tried). In point of fact, I doubt if many of them ever loitered under a cow. Certainly our pet calf, Petit Suisse, refused point blank back in her heyday to drink one particular brand, the Valencian-produced ‘Leche Ram’. I see the company has since gone pear-shaped. Perhaps the calf knew something.

There's a thing that looks like milk but isn't - the exotic Valencian horchata made out of a tuber called chufa, or tiger nut. Obscure maybe, but served cold it hits the spot. It is also one of those rare drinks that can't be mixed with booze, no. While warm milk will take kindly to brandy, horchata is decidedly abstemious.

At the same time, yoghurt has done just fine. I think I first tried yoghurts here in Spain as a child. The Danone people (a company from Barcelona), were putting out their early flavours by the time I first arrived here in 1966 (they actually started in 1919, selling the stuff in farmacias) and apart from the plain one (add jam and sugar), there was at least a strawberry one going strong. How long they might have lasted outside a fridge is probably best not to think about.

These days, there are an untold number of flavours clogging up the nation’s cold-shelves, with anything that grew on a tree or a stalk being processed into a yoghurt cup (although, if you look closely, most of them won't have the word 'yogur' written on the lid).

For the purists like me, one can even get ‘Greek yoghurt’ (thicker than the usual stuff). I had a summer job in Crete when I was seventeen and took a permanent liking with anything to do with the island, from Katzanzakis to Backgammon. Spain is not, with the notable exception of the oddly-named Oikos, very kind to Greece (try and find a Greek restaurant, a pair of gentleman's crapcatchers or a bottle of ouzo).

Together with the yoghurt, another milk-based little number on the shelves is guajada, a set rennet made from sheep’s milk. It comes in a little stone pot. With a squirt of honey, it’s pretty good.

Where Spain triumphs is with its ice creams. The main area for ‘artesanal’ ices is the interior of Alicante and Valencia provinces, notably Jijona (also famous for its nougat). Heladerías cover the main streets and offer dozens of alternatives. They (thank goodness) are all licenced, so you can put a shot of whisky on top of your tart. In fact, tarta al guisgüi (as the purists would spell it) is one of the best and most august of Spain’s postres, together with the ice-cream bar with two or three flavours (vanilla, strawberry and chocolate), natillas (a custardy thing) and the ubiquitous flan, the crème caramel. Then, there’s leche frita, or ‘fried milk’ – it comes in caramel covered chewy lumps – to try as well (probably just the once).

Before the fridge came along, and those fat blue bottles of Puleva ‘milk’ were still being used for arcane cooking reasons, Spaniards would often put condensed milk (which I think came from Holland) in their coffee. They still do, and as a ‘bonbón’, your morning coffee will give you a good kick-start.

A story from my late wife Barbara Napier from 2011

I was having lunch with some friends, long time Mojácar residents, when one started to recount her recent experiences in a new supermarket that has just opened.

Having lived here for so long, she told us, she was at first amazed by the size and amount of well-known products that she hadn’t seen or thought about since her time in England. After having put her coin in the trolley, she had slowly started to wander aimlessly, her mouth wide open, just admiring and reminiscing over all of the goodies.

The only problem with the giant store, she admitted to us, was that every time she touched the trolley she got a small electrical shock. Not to be deterred from her adventure, she gingerly pushed the trolley around the shop, still getting a shock from the static electricity every time she touched it. it was probably to do with her shoes, she thought.

A salesgirl came up and asked if there was a problem since she had heard my friend shriek several times. My friend explained about the recurring jolt and was politely treated as the girl’s dotty grandmother. The typical middle-aged woman who probably lived alone and most assuredly had a dog that absorbed her world, the type of client you treat with respect but underneath it all are silently laughing about.

My friend - I will call her Linda for the sake of the story – thanked the girl for her concern but bravely said she would continue, and began to carefully push the trolley around by just touching the little plastic pieces on the corners of the push-bar.

When arriving on aisle three, just in front of the butchers’ stand, she leant over to look at some frozen goods in a glass top freezer when -ZAP- she received a much stronger strike which seemed to pass across her chest and, to her unalloyed pleasure, an instant and unexpected orgasm. Linda said that her nipples shot up like chapel hat-pegs as she shrieked in delight, much to the consternation of the butcher, who, for his part, must have thought it was the nice-looking skinned rabbit that must have attracted the customer's abrupt howl.

A dazed Linda tottered to the check-out stand having hardly bought anything; still in a dreamy smile over what she had just experienced. The salesgirl kindly asked if she had a pleasant time and hoped that she would be back. Linda said that she had enjoyed herself thoroughly and would also tell all of her friends about her experience.

She went straight home and e-mailed everyone she knew about her remarkable adventure and told them that they must try it.

On Linda’s return visit to the supermarket that afternoon - she urgently needed some sugar - she found that she still had the same issue with the shock from the trolley. The manager noticed and came up to ask her what the problem seemed to be. As it happened, they were standing just in front of the fridges on the famous aisle three. Perhaps Linda had made her way there on purpose.

She told the manager about the static electricity she kept receiving from the trolley and, while she was on the subject, about the remarkable and invigorating experience served to her by the freezer. He obligingly opened the door of the unit and nothing happened so he asked her to try. Linda told us that, while a little embarrassed about what might happen, and not wanting him to think she was just another dotty old woman, she opened the freezer; and –ZAP- received another instant orgasm. The butcher was shaking with laughter, as the alarmed manager said he would get it fixed right away. Linda told him that there was no need for that and that she really loved his new shop. When arriving at the check-out again, the salesgirl asked once again if she had enjoyed her shopping. Linda replied “more than you will ever know”.

The girl said that they had attached ground wires to most of the trolleys and that on her next visit she should look for a trolley that had a long dangly bit that touched the ground, and politely said once again that she hoped the señora will return. Linda said “Oh! I don’t worry any more about dangly bits, but I will most certainly be back and I have told all of my friends about it”.

Linda was just thinking of a restorative gin and tonic, and maybe even a rare cigarette, as she headed towards the exit when the girl called to her - Señora, you've forgotten your shopping.

I suppose we all know where we stand when we come from the same village. We went to school together, grew up together, had the same football team, priest and accent. We slept with each others sisters (or attempted to) and then, By Gum, we married 'em. 

As we got older we worked the fields together, or opened a bar, or tearfully waved our hankies as one of us went off to Germany to seek his fortune. We bought a television and laughed at the same show; we got older still, sold an old farmhouse to an English family; and finally we died. Our companions went to the mass to see us off and that was that. If somebody remembers to pay for it, there'll be a photograph of us with our donkey or maybe our taxi glued to the funeral stone in the cemetery. 

Now, the extranjeros of course are different. We all came from somewhere else and mostly never knew anyone before we met up here. We could even, if we wished, rewrite bits of our past - not that any true expat would ever ask, or at least, listen to our story. There can, after all, be only so-many generals on the retired list. 

We are older, too. If the average villager is 37, then we are some twenty years their senior, and with poor dietary decisions and too much booze, we will quickly shoot to the top of the queue on the village Sick List. 

The cemetery that serves the village where I live, in a country not my own, is full of fellow Brits. Some of them have bits of English-as-she-is-wrote on the stones, things like 'My Hisband Bernie' and 'We Shall Met Again'. It doesn't matter so much, until you find that they've carved the marble to remember 'Brian' for eternity as 'Brain'. 

One thing though, we know what happened to the villagers, as well as to Bernie, Brain and the rest of us. All except for those who, for one reason or another, disappeared out of our routines. Some were the life and soul of the party, then abruptly went back to Where-ever-it-was that they came from, leaving behind them little more than some memories and a modest bar-bill. Somebody else, of course, quickly took their place.

And we wondered, as we went through the old photographs, what ever happened to Bertha and John, or Gitte, or the drunken Mrs Porridge? 

I suppose that it has become easier, in certain cases, with social media - I learned today of one poor chap who spent time here in our village in Spain and died this weekend in London of some horrible disease. But what of Erna who was a dancer and could still do the splits at eighty? She had come to us 'in her liddle car', because she said, she was heading for Austria but couldn't find the reverse gear. Some family was eventually dispatched from Copenhagen to take her home. But then what became of her...? 

The question is this: can you mourn someone when you don't know if they are dead? 

Now and again, a box arrives with the ashes of someone, who, last time you saw them, was singing something blue in the café down past the bank. He'd gone back to his country (he never did trust foreign doctors), no doubt was attended to by a doctor with a suspicious accent in his own national health service, and - well, the long and short of it - he wanted his ashes to be scattered in Spain. Anyway, the customs have him now and I wonder - does anyone have a spare fifty euros?