Category: Articles

• November 8, 2021

  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…
• October 9, 2021

  So, how was your summer?

    [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, Sept. 2021.]   When people ask me this question I’ll be able to say it was unique. I had some novel experiences.    Because the Spanish government doesn’t seem to have the ability to get its Social Security department to pay welfare benefits properly, I…
• August 29, 2021

  Extract from “Slow Travels in Unsung Spain”

  Slow Travels in Unsung Spain eBook and Paperback       Contents 1 To Zaragoza –  a local train not actually on strike – The Distress Jazz Club – a public scolding – “Ah, Cricket!” – “Hoy, Mañana” – top mantas and ‘poor quality’ sperm – the river Ebro – “here there are no tourists” – but George Orwell was…
• July 25, 2021

  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…
• June 24, 2021

  Living the reality

    [This review was first published in Catalonia Today magazine here.]   [Writer Carrie Frais: Pic by Poppy Maidment] Who are these people? “Immigrants temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than the one[s] in which they were raised.” This to me is a much better explanation than the word expat (or expatriate) which I…
• June 20, 2021

  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…
• June 18, 2021

  “50 years of Greenpeace” — My interview with their spokesperson in Catalonia

     [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, April 2021.] 1. What is your name (and position?)   Fernando Fernández, Mobilization Coordinator of Greenpeace in Catalonia.   2. What do you think is currently the most important issue for Greenpeace in Catalunya and what is Greenpeace doing about this issue?   For Greenpeace,…
• April 2, 2021

  A bigger hassle

    [Pic: JOSEP LOSADA: Protesters in Barcelona] [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, March 2020.]   Riots, disturbances, protests, brutal human rights violations, night-time shenanigans or “police-community liaison?”   The events that began immediately after the election here in Lleida, Barcelona and Girona (as well as Valencia and Madrid) can be called…
• February 24, 2021

  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,’…
• January 13, 2021

  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…