Category: (More) Society and Social Issues
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Wine and a whine
(A gripey, grapey piece from me this month…) [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, June 2022.] As a reptile – I like to think of myself as one of those lizards that runs across the hottest desert sands with a high knee action like an Olympic hurdler, though in reality I’m probably more of…
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Hands on
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, May 2022.] On a crisp but sunny early afternoon last month, I took myself to (lower) Sant Gervasi-Galvany, part of Barcelona city. I had volunteered to be interviewed for a documentary and before stepping through the door of the rented film studio on the building’s 8th floor,…
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More Borics please
[This article was first published under the title “Was it sexism?” in Catalonia Today magazine, February 2022.] Was it sexism? It wasn’t widely reported in the English language media but Gabriel Boric, the new leftist President of Chile has a Catalan mother, María Soledad Font Aguilera, who was originally from the working class area of Badalona bordering Barcelona. Instead, his father’s…
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The Game
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, Dec. 2021.] [Photo: Andreu Puig] Millions of people are now playing it. Plenty are as desperate and traumatised…
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Death cafes
— An interview with Catalonia convenor, Jordi Abad Lalanza [This article was first published in Catalonia Today, Nov. 2021] Q. What do you think is the most important thing people should know about Death Cafes? They are informal gatherings where we talk about death related topics. It is a space of complete trust. It’s non-therapeutic…
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More than teaching
[Photo of a 1-to-1 lesson by ANDREU PUIG] [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, October 2021.] Dear reader, It seems I have misled you and that I was wrong about something I suggested in this column last year. In an article titled “House closed”, which was published in November, I wrote about how the International…
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Let there be profits
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, July 2021.] September 14, 2010, 5pm. I’m pacing in little circles outside an office on Carrer Igualada in Vilafranca del Penedes. I’m the last person in a queue. There’s half a dozen people in front of me and we are waiting for the door…
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Needled
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, May 2021.] [Photo: Oriol Duran, Barcelona.] You could call me one of the lucky ones; one of the chosen few. A week ago, I had my second dose of Moderna Covid-19 vaccine at Bellvitge Hospital in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat just outside Barcelona. This was the same…
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Eva’s eye
[Photo: Eva Parey, from Expulsiones Anunciadas] (This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, Feb. 2020.) Even if you just look at the titles of just a few of her solo exhibitions before you focus on the poignancy of her photography, you can get an idea of the scope of Eva Parey’s work: ‘Expulsions Foretold,’…
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Captured
[A surveillance camera in Barcelona. MANEL LLADÓ.] [A version of this article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, January 2021.] “I’m the only foreigner in the Catalan government,” Italian, Francesca Bria used to sometimes say when introducing herself to a public audience. In the two years leading up to the pandemic, her team’s…
Brett Hetherington 