The Visigoth

the visigoth

A Real Market for Barcelona's Manteros

A Real Market for Barcelona's Manteros

After years of friction with the local authorities, Barcelona’s street salesmen – manteros - might finally be able to sell goods in peace. That’s the idea of a new enterprise which would see the creation of a special bazar with 60 stalls run by the members of an association of manteros. Instead of imitation Nike shirts or Dolce Gabbana shades, however, the stall-owners would offer ’mercancía legal’; ie. arts and crafts, jewellery, African textiles, recycled goods, outlet fash

Who is: Susana Diaz

Who is: Susana Diaz

In one sentence, make it snappy: Buxom blonde, born in ’74, mother of one, Real Betis fan and a former cosmetics saleswoman, Susana Diaz is the current President of the Junta de Andalucia. Yes, but isn’t she also… Yes, just this last week Mrs. Diaz has announced she will be campaigning to become the first ever female leader of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE). Who are otherwise known as: the ailing giant of Spanish Politics. Because: Like their Labour Party counte

Bowling for Columbidae: Reducing BCN's Pigeon Population

Bowling for Columbidae: Reducing BCN's Pigeon Population

Topic: Too many pigeons. How many is too many? According to the Generalitat, BCN's population of the cooing columbidae genus is currently believed to be about 85,000. One pigeon for every 20 or so humans. Or one per every four hipsters. Doesn't sound so bad, really. The problem is the infections, parasites and diseases they carry around with them. The pigeons, that is. Eg. Pigeon faeces carries over 60 forms of disease - known as zoonoses - which can be potentially harmful to

An Unfamiliar Sagrada

An Unfamiliar Sagrada

When it comes to the Expiatory Church of the Sacred Family - the Sagrada Familia - everyone sees something different. It's the honeycomb crown on the city’s skyline. It's a gospel, a bible, in stone. It's a three-dimensional intersection of helicoidal columns. It’s ‘the last great sanctuary of christendom’ (Gaudì), or 'Sugar loaves and anthills' (Nikolaus Pevsner). It's either 'the most hideous building in the world' (George Orwell) or 'a marvel of technical perfection' (Walt

Can Valldaura: Completing the Material Circle

Can Valldaura: Completing the Material Circle

High above Cerdanyola del Vallès in the hills of Collserola is a masia with a fascinating past. Its been a home to Barcelonese Counts, to Cistercian monks and to a brick factory owned by a wealthy industralist family. Now its old brick kilns are home to Valldaura Labs, a groundbreaking experiment in sustainable living whose mission is to revolutionize the way mankind interacts with his environment. Here in this modernist farmhouse, whose foundations date back to the 12th Cent

Jungle Frank: Celebration of a Spanish Eccentric

Jungle Frank: Celebration of a Spanish Eccentric

The author of sci-fi classic Dune, Frank Herbert, once said: 'Behold, as a wild ass in the desert, I go forth to work.' Substitute the desert for the jungle, and it could apply fittingly to the career of 'Wild' Frank. The Frank in question, a 47-year old from León, is impulsive, opinionated and doesn't stand about on ceremony. As likely to cuss a cameraman as leap on top of a lemur, for a number of years the veterinarian, TV presenter and former tennis coach, real name Franci

What is: A Nini

What is: A Nini

Everyone knows what a hipster is. Don't they? The word brings to mind a carefully-coiffured beard. The bare, stripped floorboards of a trendy cafe with a chalkboard. A bowl of organic muesli, perhaps, poised over a lumberjack's shirt. The imagery, the cliches are now so embedded. No-one, of course, claims to be a hipster. Though a lot of us probably seem to be one. Now, what about a 'Nini'? Hmm. A Neither-Nor? Something to do with gender, perhaps? Careful! Ok, other associati

Who Is: Iñigo Errejón

Who Is: Iñigo Errejón

Pablo Iglesias is the iconic face of Podemos, his ponytail and goatee, instantly recognizable to any Spaniard. But Iñigo Errejon is its busy little idea engine. The son of a Spanish Worker's Party member, the campaign strategist is unmistakably of the Podemos 'casta'; prodigiously young (only 32 at time of writing), and a refreshingly plain-talking academic with a background in social activism. As a student working on his doctorate in political sciences at the Universidad Com

Tres Xemeneies: The Future of a Barcelona Icon

Tres Xemeneies: The Future of a Barcelona Icon

The thermal power station has been stripped; the machinery has gone, the offices have been destroyed, the pontoons reaching out into the sea have been dismantled. All that remains are the turbine hall and the skeleton of the three iconic towers, which produce no energy. But the Central Térmica de Sant Adría, also known as 'Les Tres Xemeneies', or more euphorically, 'la Sagrada Familia de los obreros', remains an icon of the Barcelona skyline. The 200 metre tall chimney towers

The Desertification of Spain's Drylands

The Desertification of Spain's Drylands

The Guadalentín Valley in Murcia. If you've ever driven to Andalucía along Spain's east coast, chances are you've passed through it. Home to the towns of Lorca and Alhama de Murcia, it's an arid corridor making its way from the sea at Guadamar de Segura to the town of Puerto Lumbreras, backed by the stark massifs of the Sierra Espuña and Carrascoy. The Guadalentín River has been described as the wildest in Europe; bone-dry at one moment, it can fill up with a violent torrente

Sobrepesca: Spain's annual fish supply already gone

Sobrepesca: Spain's annual fish supply already gone

The Spanish love their seafood. A cliché backed up by statistics. With 42kg of fish per capita, Spain consumes double the EU average. Only Portugal and Lithuania consume more - 56 kg and 43 kg respectively. But a worrying trend has been confirmed recently with the announcement of a report by the UK-based economical and environmental thinktank New Economics Foundation, who have been monitoring trends in the fisheries industry. The reports states that midway through May, Spain

Benito Muros: The Spaniard leading the fight against Planned Obsolescence

Benito Muros: The Spaniard leading the fight against Planned Obsolescence

It all started with a light bulb. At the beginning of the 20th Century the American firm General Electric decided it was no longer in their best economic interests to make long-lasting light bulbs. So experiments began, and a way was found to make lightbulbs that would fizz out after 1000 hours. GE convinced other light bulb-producing companies to do the same and the so-called Phoebus Cartel was born. Essentially it was a platform to ensure that light bulb technology never ad

Bright Lights, Pig City: Barcelona's Wild Boars

Bright Lights, Pig City: Barcelona's Wild Boars

Typically they roam in groups of 3-5, led by a dominant matriarch. Males tend to hunt alone or with a younger escudero, or guard. They've got copper-brown pelts, long snouts and short tusks. Chances are, if you've ever been walking in Barcelona's green lung, the Parc Collserola, you've seen one. Sus scrofa, in Latin. Jabalí, in Spanish. Or senglar in Catalá. The wild boar. Over the last 10-15 years, sus scrofa has reproduced with unprecedented profusion, filling the oak fores

Who is: Sant Jordi

Who is: Sant Jordi

Occupation: Patron Saint of Catalunya. And lots of other places. Appearance: Visored helmet, chainmail. Tunic emblazones with a red cross on it. You mean Saint George, that Italian chap who killed a dragon. Contrary to his traditional depiction, experts now claim the Saint was from Capadoccia in Turkey. But yes. The one who, in European Christian folklore, rescued the damsel from the dragon. And inspires all that book for a flower stuff on April 23. Explain. The scent of ros

Barcelona's La Mina: A District Divided by Clan Warfare

La Mina. The Mine. A district of some 10,000 inhabitants in the outskirts of Barcelona, straddling the Besós River and part of Sant Adriá. For many years a name associated with social instability, controlled by rival Gypsy clans. The Baltasars. The Zorros. The Peludos. The Cascabels. A barrio continually associated with heroin problems. According to the municipal cleaning service, since last summer the number of syringes being found in La Mina's park, which divides the distri

Catalonia: Monolingual State

Might an independent Catalonia become a one-language state? That's what is proposed by a manifesto created by a Catalan linguistic platform called the Grup Koiné, comprising of 250 translators, writers and ex-politicans. The document, titled 'Per un veritable procés de normalització lingüística a la Catalunya independent' ('In favour of a real process of linguistic normalization in an independent Catalonia') has caused several heated debates in parliament, over its inflammato

A-Z of Spanish Corruption

A-Z of Spanish Corruption

From embezzling money destined for humanitarian organizations to expensive building projects bankrolled by public money and never finished, or notorious tarjetas black to taxless governmental slush funds, people in the corridors of power - city councils, bank directors, political party members, even the Spanish monarchy – have for years been finding imaginative ways to diddle the Spanish public as a matter of routine. Between 2008 and 2013 politicians in the Comunitat Valenci

The Spanish Cult of Phantom Buildings

The Spanish Cult of Phantom Buildings

Back in 2012, BCN World was dreamed up as a macrocomplejo turístico with thematic leisure parks and casinos, shopping and convention centres and a hotel with a capacity for 12,000 guests. It was all to be bolted conveniently on to Salou’s Port Aventura and opened sometime this year. At the moment of writing, however, BCN World is a vacant space in a dusty descampado, gathering tumbleweed while it waits for a green light from the Plan Director Urbanístic (PDU). Could it be yet

The New Camp Nou

The New Camp Nou

Images have come out this week of the architectural project for the ‘nou’ Camp Nou. The winning design is a collaboration by the Japanese engineering firm Nikken Sekkei and local architects Joan Pascual and Ramon Ausió (who were responsible for hotel Diagonal Zero and the Electra school in Terrassa). It could be ready in about four years’ time, depending on the Ajuntament’s willingness to back it (more of that later). In the meantime the club has issued a statement celebratin

Artur Mas and The Catalan Mercado de Pescado

Artur Mas and The Catalan Mercado de Pescado

Name: Artur Mas Age: 60 Appearance: Trendy glasses, a jaw you could break your fist on, and a quiff like a Kanagawa wave. WTF? ‘The Great Wave at Kanagawa’ by Japanese artist, Katsushika Hokusai. It goes from left to right. Got it. Back to Arturo: No-one calls him that anymore. Mas changed his name to the more Catalan-friendly Artur in 2001. Origins: A Spanish poltician and economist, Mas hailed from an important Sabadell textile family and worked in the private sector early

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