In Spain, bullfighting evokes a bygone era, a traditionalist view of the country – for either right or wrong.

But now Catalunya – that independent-minded region in the north-east of the peninsula – has broken ranks and banned it (although it won’t take effect until January 2012).

The Canary Islands had banned bullfighting way back in 1991, but given the lack of fights that took place there anyway the move was of limited impact nationwide. Catalunya, by contrast, is a much bigger and more culturally, politically and economically important region.

So is this a major step towards the wholesale end of bullfighting in Spain? Or just another example of Catalunya’s gradual cleaving from the rest of the country, an expression of its separate identity and autonomy?

A bit of both, I think.

Bullfighting is a minority interest among the general public in any case, and particularly among the younger generation. Unless they suddenly get a taste for it in later life, that decline will only continue.

Meanwhile, Spanish state TV’s decision to stop live bullfight coverage back in 2007 is one indication of how opinions are changing. Catalunya’s decision may then serve to mobilise nationwide opposition further.

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1. Catalan Christmas
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3. Football: The Way to a Nation’s Heart

Not in my balmy corner of Spain, I hasten to add. In Norway.

I was conducting a phone interview with a banking executive in Oslo this morning, and this is the weather report she gave me.

By contrast, I was sitting with my office balcony door open, with the sunshine pouring through. It must have been about 20 degrees here today, and that’s much cooler than it has been the rest of the month. Last weekend I saw people still swimming in the sea (although I must confess it’s a bit chilly for me now).

Norway consistently rates well in various quality of life measures such as its work/life balance, income levels and environmental performance. And for years it has dominated top spot in the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index (HDI) table.

Evidently the country has a lot going for it. Except its geography. Spain’s sunshine seems much more appealing.

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Yet Catalunya has its idiosyncratic traditions too. One – less common in Barcelona but found across the rest of the region, especially in rural areas – is tió de Nadal (the Christmas log).

They can be bought in various sizes, but essentially it is a hollow tree log, commonly raised on one end by short stick legs, and with a painted face and stuck-on nose on the front (I know, but bear with me on this). The tió is ‘fed’ every night in the run up to Christmas, and then on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, depending on your preference, it is beaten with a stick to a special accompanying song and ordered to poo out its treats of sweets or nuts and the like.

It may sound somewhat bizarre, but is – or so I am told by the teachers at my daughter’s school – magical for the children.

Meanwhile, across Spain the big present-giving celebration is not December 25 as in North America and some other parts of Europe, but Epiphany (January 6). For this is the day when the Three Kings (los Reyes) came to see Jesus in the stable, bringing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Nevertheless, Santa Claus and Christmas Day gifts are slowly encroaching into the Spanish calendar – the power, I guess, of Disney and Coca Cola!

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1. Catalan Ban Spells the End of Bullfighting?
2. Here Comes The Sun

Financial Pages in Spain – David Jennings http://financialpagesinspain.blogspot.com/

I was involved in UK financial services for over 30 years, with experience in banking, insurance and pension planning. When I first bought a property in Spain 10 years ago I was astonished at the sheer bureaucracy of home ownership here. I am resourceful and I use Google extensively, but yet again I found frustration as I researched all things Spanish. Everything I ‘Googled’ was effectively an advertisement.

Ten years later, more grey hairs and full of personal experience, it’s my time to fight back.

My blog contains financial information, but does not give personal financial advice and does NOT include a single financial services advertisement. I guarantee that I will never advertise those financial institutions who wrap up information in biased adverts. Please check me out. Just like Paul Allen, if you bring forward a subject I can post, I will make my blog available to you. I am also pleased to answer your questions. Happy blogging.

Biography

I am David Jennings and generally known as DJ. I have been battling with Spanish bureaucracy for 10 years. Fortunately, I have over 30 years experience of banking, insurance and pensions in the UK and was not going to let them stand in my way. I still hear ‘urban myths’ from British people in Spain. So I want to bring together, without advertising, my experiences that I can pass to others. I am 59 years old and my financial services experiences are available to you all.

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Having been brought up in England in a Protestant household – albeit with a Roman Catholic father (although that is another topic in itself) – it’s not a holiday I was familiar with until moving to Spain. But then so much of Roman Catholic theology and practice remains something of a mystery to me, despite it’s communality with the UK’s ‘national’ religion. Which I suppose is what makes living in Spain – or for that matter any other country – so interesting.

And I have to say, I quite like the idea of squeezing another public holiday in before Christmas too …

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We’re on first name terms, José and I. Not surprising, given the number of times he’s had to come to our house in the four years we’ve been living here.

He must have fixed that blind at least half a dozen times. This time it had come off the roller on one side and jammed half up. Lucky really, as on previous occasions it’s got stuck when all the way down, leaving the lounge shrouded in gloom and forcing us to climb through the window if we want to get out onto the patio. Fortunately we only had to wait three days for José to show up this time around too.

While he was here he mended the kitchen window as well, as it keeps sagging on its hinges, making it almost impossible to open. It’s only about the fourth time he’s had to sort that one out though, so I shouldn’t complain.

As for the window in our daughters’ bedroom … well, that’s another story.

We’d asked about it while the house was still under construction. One day, while visiting the site to check on progress, we found the builders about to install the windows. There would be a tilt-and-turn one in the kitchen, and another in the downstairs bathroom.

“Could we have the same mechanism in the second bedroom?” we asked.

The architect, developer and the head of the building firm consulted. “No, it’s not possible,” we were told. The frame was too small to support its weight, they said. Being ignorant of such matters, we shrugged our shoulders.

Eventually the house was finished – two months late, so six months early by Spanish standards – and we moved in. But the sliding patio door locks kept breaking (too much weight on the door for too flimsy a lock it turned out), so we called José back in … six times.

During the course of one of his visits I pointed to the kitchen window. “Is it possible to have the same mechanism in the bedroom upstairs?” I asked.

“Of course,” he replied. “I just need to add a piece to the top of the frame.”

I explained to him what I’d been told about the frame being too small. He shook his head. Nope, complete rubbish. It would cost me about 50 euros to get it changed though. Ah, that explained why the developer had said no.

So José said he’d come round and sort it out. Which he did, several weeks later. He took the window off its hinges and returned to his workshop to add the necessary pieces. A couple of hours later he was back, as promised. Unfortunately, he could only put on one piece of the necessary mechanism, he explained. They were missing the other bit, but he’d order that and return to install it as soon as it arrived. It would take ten minutes to do.

We waited. I called and left a message with his secretary. A few weeks later I ran into José in a local shopping mall. “Yes, of course,” he said. “I’ll give you a call and come round in a couple of weeks.”

We waited.

I called again and left another message.

A little while after I bumped into José in town. “I’ll come one day this week,” he told me. “I’m not sure which, but I’ll call and let you know.”

We waited.

I called and left a message. I went up to the factory. José had popped out but would be back in five minutes. Could I come back then?

I returned half an hour later. José was still out. I talked to his dad, who owns the business. He’d speak with José when he returned and get him to come see me.

We waited. I called and left a message with the secretary. Nothing.

It’s now two years since José first came to change the window. So I took the opportunity while he was fixing the blind to ask him if there was any progress on the missing part for the bedroom window. I should have known better.

José shook his head sorrowfully. Unfortunately, he told me, the guy who manufactured the pieces has gone out of business (which hardly came as a shock).

The good news though is that over the last decade José has installed the same style of window in many other houses around town. So all we have to do now is wait for one of them to be knocked down or have their windows changed and he can nab the missing piece we require.

Shouldn’t take too long, I figure. Another five years or so and I’m sure we’ll have it sorted.

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It is a common lament among expatriates. Virtually every ‘move abroad to a rustic farmhouse’ book to have appeared in recent years (Under the Tuscan Sun, Driving Over Lemons, The Olive Farm, you know the type) seems to be filled with their renovation disasters, as if it’s a prerequisite for publication.

Wary of facing similar reconstruction nightmares, my wife and I opted instead to buy a new-build house when we moved to Spain. Little did we know what hassles it would produce.

For starters, the house was two months late in completion. Not bad really, by Spanish standards. Unfortunately, that also meant we had a house signing and new baby within two days of each other. Far from ideal.   

And very soon after we found there were problems with rising damp (in the house that is, not the baby). Fortunately, it has been rectified by the developer … although it was interesting that they used a Dutch company to resolve it!

Irony of ironies though, the workman who came to inject the damp-eradicating solution into our walls also managed to drill into one of the central heating pipes at the same time. As a result, when we put the heating on later in the year all the water from the boiler flooded out of the broken pipe and under our kitchen floor, further soaking the walls and requiring another workman to demolish half our kitchen in search of the leak. It was like living through the Flanders and Swann song, The Gas Man Cometh.

And we’re not the only ones to have suffered. In a nearby block of apartments built by the same developer they couldn’t even get the floors level. As a result, everything tips at an angle or slides towards the corners, something not as easily fixed.

Then there are all the horrific tales in the press of people’s houses in other parts of Spain being demolished because they’ve been built without planning permission, or across a right of access.

All this may be stereotyping the Spanish building trade. But stereotypes have to come from somewhere.

And it’s not as if the actual skills of the workmen are any less good than you’d find elsewhere. Many of the ones that have come to our house – and we’ve seen legions – have been knowledgeable and proficient.

This is just a guess, but I put it down instead to time pressures. Basically, during the boom time there was too much money to be made, and buildings needed to go up too fast, for the individual workmen to spend the time needed (and probably they’d like) on doing a bang-up job. The upshot was corners got cut.

So while surveys in Spain may not be the norm, and no doubt the estate agent will tell you it’s not necessary, if you’re going to buy a property here get one done. It will save you a lot of money and a ton of angst further down the road.

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The beginning of the month sees the start of the school holidays in France, and so we get the French influx as people hop across the border. They are followed by ever growing numbers of Dutch and Belgians and Germans. Then, at the end of July, the Brits start to roll in. And once we get into August it’s the Spaniards, many of whom stick to tradition and have the whole month as vacation.

From now through to August 31 the beaches will be packed, the restaurants and bars mobbed, the roads chock full of cars with foreign plates driven by people who haven’t a clue where they’re going.

It’s both a boost and a bane.

I hate the fact that I can’t even get in the car park at the local supermarket, and that the check-out queues will stretch back to the ends of the aisles. That the idyllic and almost deserted beachside pathway we stroll along most days out of season will become so crowded that there’s now a 50-50 chance of getting run over by a cyclist or out of control roller-blader.

But I like the life the summer, and its tourists, bring to the place. Like so many coastal places, our little fishing town can be somewhat ghostly through the winter. But in summer it’s pulsing.

And of course we get to enjoy the blessed golden days and balmy nights that attract the tourists in the first place. It’s the price, I suppose, of paradise.

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It is also the noisiest night of the year. Fire, with its purifying qualities, is one of the three symbols of the festival. As such it is traditional to light bonfires, as the flames are supposed to scare off the imaginary creastures that come out at night, and to ward off bad luck for the remainder of the year.

And along with the bonfires come huge organised firework displays, as well as a general and continuous explosion of rockets and firecrackers from every quarter, which lasts right through until dawn. Of course, you can imagine what licence for uproar this gives to the local kids.

A second symbol associated with Sant Joan is water, which is supposed to have curative powers on this night. According to the Barcelona city council’s website (http://www.bcn.es/santjoan/en/simbols.html), it is also customary to collect thyme, rosemary and verbena, as the powers of medicinal plants are thought to increase during this period.

Taken together, the Christian religious festival and these pagan Midsummer symbols that underlie it speak of purification and health, of rebirth. Not that many of the celebrants looked all that rejuvenated on the feast day itself I noticed, having been up most of the night. Nevertheless, the fiesta seemed to me a fitting reminder to all of us to make the most of the passing year.

To this end, it should mean celebrating our health and summer’s blessings. And also to seek out our own form of “rebirth,” in the sense of creating a better life for ourselves, whatever form your goals may take.

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Instead, I shall be focusing on the fortunes of my adopted country, Spain. I’ve put money on Spain in major football tournaments and been disappointed too many times in the past to get carried away. All the Spaniards I’ve spoken to seem to feel the same way, recognising their team as the perennial underachievers.

Still, the eternal optimist inside me can’t help but wonder if this year may really be the one. Many of Britain’s football pundits seem to think so too.

Individual talent has never been in question. It’s that cohesiveness as a unit that lets them down … and the reason why Germany always seem to do so well, even when they have a dearth of individual brilliance.

So is the Spaniards’ failing down to a lack of organisation, of belief? Quite possibly. It’s certainly something the German team never seem to be in short supply of.

Commitment? Maybe that too. There were reports in years gone by of severe divisions and antagonism in the Spanish camp, particularly between the Real Madrid and Barcelona players, who carry the burden of their great team rivalry and its political backdrop.

I read not long ago that FC Barcelona defender Oleguer Presas, a radical Catalan nationalist, didn’t want to play for the Spanish national squad and only agreed to join up with them when invited in 2005 because of pressure from the Barça president and the threat of not being able to play for his club. Can you imagine an English player being so antipathetic to representing his country?

And it is a not uncommon attitude among the wider Catalan population, many of whom refuse to cheer the Spanish national side. Centuries of centralist “repression” have left their mark!

Hopefully there is more unity and more belief in the Spanish squad this year though. And I, for one, will be cheering them on to the final.

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