In the summer Sevilla’s hell, in the winter its paradise.
I was in the Andalusian Capital at the invitation of UN-HABITAT to better understand why cities and regions in the world are concerned about the legitimacy of municipalities engaging beyond national boundaries. Basically, the question is, “Is international twinning legal?”, but more of that later.
Before the conference began I was already in Spain, so yet again Derbyshire didn’t have to pick up the tabs for my travel. I’d been to the Primera Liga game between Real Betis and Celta Vigo. Being a fan of Betis is the equivalent of being a Manchester City supporter in England’s greatest city. Both Sevilla and Manchester United topped their respective leagues at the turn of the year whilst their fellow clubs languished in the lower reaches.
However, that’s where the similarities end.
Back in 1936, Betis won the Copa del Rey. The players and management were Communists, so General Franco had them all shot. Horrendous though this sounds, the international value placed on human life at the time was not high. At the time of Franco’s indulgence, Hitler was exterminating thousands of gypsies and in Russia a year later, Yezhov signed order 00485. As a result 350,000 were arrested and 247,157, mainly Poles were shot. Nor were atrocities confined to Europe. During the so-called Rape of Nanjing at the end of 1937 between 150,000 to 300,000 Chinese civilians were murdered by the Japanese.
These events from the ‘30’s offer a perspective on present day involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. More importantly, they remind us of the important role that the EC has played in sustaining peace between Member States who spent the whole of their previous history warring, murdering, and mutilating each other. Perhaps it’s something that Euro sceptics need to bear in mind when having their wilder separatist fantasies.
I was in the Andalusian Capital at the invitation of UN-HABITAT to better understand why cities and regions in the world are concerned about the legitimacy of municipalities engaging beyond national boundaries. Basically, the question is, “Is international twinning legal?”, but more of that later.
Before the conference began I was already in Spain, so yet again Derbyshire didn’t have to pick up the tabs for my travel. I’d been to the Primera Liga game between Real Betis and Celta Vigo. Being a fan of Betis is the equivalent of being a Manchester City supporter in England’s greatest city. Both Sevilla and Manchester United topped their respective leagues at the turn of the year whilst their fellow clubs languished in the lower reaches.
However, that’s where the similarities end.
Back in 1936, Betis won the Copa del Rey. The players and management were Communists, so General Franco had them all shot. Horrendous though this sounds, the international value placed on human life at the time was not high. At the time of Franco’s indulgence, Hitler was exterminating thousands of gypsies and in Russia a year later, Yezhov signed order 00485. As a result 350,000 were arrested and 247,157, mainly Poles were shot. Nor were atrocities confined to Europe. During the so-called Rape of Nanjing at the end of 1937 between 150,000 to 300,000 Chinese civilians were murdered by the Japanese.
These events from the ‘30’s offer a perspective on present day involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. More importantly, they remind us of the important role that the EC has played in sustaining peace between Member States who spent the whole of their previous history warring, murdering, and mutilating each other. Perhaps it’s something that Euro sceptics need to bear in mind when having their wilder separatist fantasies.
But back to Seville. I learned that the first ever municipal international twinning agreement between Bristol and Hannover is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Today, there are 34,000 municipal twinning links across the 26 member states of the EU. So popular is twinning with English speaking parts of Europe that it was alleged that Ireland was now full, as indeed is Derbyshire. At a rough count an impressive one million Europeans a year are annually engaged in intercultural exchange.
How much better that millions are visiting each other in a spirit of mutual friendship, rather than with the intent to kill? But what if all this twinning is illegal? Well first of all it isn’t, secondly, even if it is, who in their right mind would want to stop it and even if they tried, who would support them?
There are no certainties in life. Progress is never smooth. But I was rather pleased at the start of 2007 to be in Spain with German, French, Italian, Welsh and Somali citizens seeking to further expand and understand municipal links with Serbians, Turkish Cypriots, Moroccans, Israelis and Americans.
May we continue to progress and may municipalities carry on being key leaders in the search for world peace and harmony.
5 JANUARY
At the start of every year hotel, flight and car hire prices are cheap. For me, four days in Spain in a Punto came in at only £51. So when I got a notice on the car window advising me that I faced a parking fine of £52, what had first appeared a bargain subsequently began to look like a liability. I don’t know whether I’m going to avoid payment of the fine because instruction on how it might be annulled were difficult to understand. A tiny envelope hidden under the windscreen wiper carried the following orders......
Their vehicle has been denounced. If you want to paralyze the sanction procedure we remind him that he/she can make it following these instructions.
It denounces to park without qualifying distinguishing characteristics. It has a term of 60 minutes from their imposition. To go to the nearest retailer and to negotiate the annulment rate that indicates him in the accusation.
It denounces to surpass the time authorised in the qualifying distinguishing characteristic.....
That's the point at which I decided to drive off and pray for an administrative error.
Santa’s sleigh isn’t geared to daytime temperatures in excess of 20 Celsius, so instead of visiting Spanish children in December, the three Kings step in, and hand out presents to children after they’ve gone to bed on the 5th January. Of course, any celebrations are an excuse for a festival in Spain and the streets and calles of cities fill with chariots whose occupants shower the watching populace with millions of sweets. Some catch the proffered toffees, whilst the more astute use upturned umbrellas to ensure Spanish dentists stay in business for the rest of the year. Its fun, t’s free and a joy to behold as parents and grandparents grovel around for spilled sweets to keep their excited siblings happy and fulfilled.
Where I stood, a thousand kids were playing on the street corners and in the plazas. They were running, racing, jostling, squealing, cheating and being children. Young girls verging on womanhood joined in, then checked and remembered that they were becoming more sophisticated. Restaurants tills were by now pregnant with expectation. Frustrated residents had already abandoned themselves to the bars. Tables filled even before the procession arrived. More strikingly for an Englishman abroad, throughout the whole celebration I saw no-one with a can of alcohol, no drunken behaviour, no yobbishness, no louts and felt no threat of violence and no fear of attack on the lonely walk back to the hotel.
6 JANUARY
Whilst the bullfighting ring in Cordoba (actually it’s a square) was the first constructed in Spain, the one in Sevilla was a close second. Compared with the Roman Amphitheatres in Nimes, Arles and Bayonne, Spanish rings are relatively modern and at this time of year subject to extensive renovation in anticipating of the start of the season.
In Sevilla, from mid-April and for next 30 days there are daily fights, each commencing at 5.00 pm and lasting the 2 hours it takes to dispose of six bulls. Bullfighting has always been brutal and it wasn’t until 1928 that the horses, from which the picadors prod the back of the bull’s neck, were given protection from the horns of their assailants.
In recent years the odds against the bulls have significantly lengthened. At the turn of the 20th Century, 6 men a year would die in Sevilla as a result of gorings, trampings and other unfortunate incidents that are part and parcel of the bullfight. But since 1992 there have been no human deaths in the Sevilla ring. Most people I know think bullfighting is uncouth and maybe they are right, but as the UK Government has found, legislation to ban blood sports (in this case foxhunting) is one thing. Enforcing it is something else.
The problem of enforcement has not deterred my old mate Robert Evans MEP from launching a European Parliament campaign to stop the EU subsidising farmers who breed the 40,000 bulls slaughtered in the ring each year. I have to wish him luck even though I’m an officianado.
On the wider front, I’m often wrong, but wouldn’t wager any money on bullfighting being banished this century. Its as embodied in the Spanish, Basque and Catalan cultures as is the right to carry a gun in America and the right to drive as fast as the car will go is considered a human right by so many Germans.
My first night in Sevilla is a shock as I ponderously retrace my steps past the Alcazar and the Cathedral and find that the whole town is awash with water. When I round a corner, a man in orange waterproofs squirts a few litres in my direction. Sevilla municipality doesn’t sweep the streets every night, it washes them clean 365 times a year.
7 JANUARY
For the British, Spain and Sherry are synonymous. When Sir Francis Drake used to visit Spain he allegedly never left without 300 barrels of Sherry in the hold of his boat, though I'm not sure whether they ewre paid for or stolen. With the Sherry triangle only an hour’s drive south of Sevilla, a visit to the bodegas of Jerez is a must. I chose Gonzales Byass – makers of Tio Pepe, Croft and a host of other branded sherries, brandies and vinegars. The tour was fascinating, the techniques deployed to mature the Sherry and maintain consistently are impressive, but the tasting was a disappointment. A glass of fino followed by one of Croft is about as stimulating to the taste buds as a slice of dry bread. If you want to go tasting in Jerez I suggest you try somewhere else.
People in Mediterranean countries love to swank. Sunday is the day to swank on. I remember by mum, who was a mill girl in Lancashire, used to tell me that Saturday night in Northern England was the time when everyone paraded up and down in their best clothes. But in Britain it’s a lost tradition, at least in most parts. The probable exception is perhaps the banks of the Tyne where men bare their chests to the icy December blasts coming from the Continent and girls clamber into dresses designed to reveal more flesh than a page 3 Sun pin-up.
In Sevilla the opposite is the case. The temperature gauge in the Plaza Espana read 18 C (65 F) but Sevilla’s men and women are clad in fur lined coats, knee length boots or thick woollen stockings. Top coats and scarves alike are subtle browns, with tinges of green, rich fauns and sombre yellows meticulously mixed for every stroll. The kids are out too. Hundreds of them, similarly dressed to the nine’s, showing off their new clothes and running amok whilst locals greet workmates and family with an enthusiasm that suggests that they have not met for years, whereas in fact they were in the same street the week before and had exchanged exactly the same greetings.
Sevilla starts to wake up at around 8.00 pm and there’s a good 7 hours of eating and gentle sipping to be done before the tapas bars and the entertainment places start to close down.
Tasty tapas, barrels of brandy, homemade and home produced foods of fabulous diversity are available on every corner. Black puddings, piquant chorizo sausages, cow’s stomach in tomatoes (tripe), tinned tuna and deep fried polpo and calamares are common to almost all menus. Then, of course, there’s paella, olives, succulent breads basted in tomatoes and latticed with savoury anchovies. Then comes the main course and afterwards the flamenco.
I manage to go to a flamenco show every night. Just like bullfighting can grow on you the more you understand its subtleties, so I find too that flamenco is much more than clog dancing with castanets. The dancers can talk with their feet, drum with their feet, bang and blast and boom with their feet whilst their accompanists sing, clap and strum guitars to a complex rhythm that challenges those of use more familiar with three/four time.
For me, flamenco is fabulous because you don’t have to join in. You can admire from near or far from front or side. You can be tempted by the occasional glimpse of calf as the women lift their skirts and sneer their way through their routines, but as long as you shut up and watch, no-one tries to drag you on to the dance floor. The more you watch the more your admiration grows. With a clatter of shoes and the click of castanets, the plaintive contribution of the main singers challenges your general tonal expectations and meant for me that I still have to work out how sliding tones can be so compatible with the crisp melodies which emerge from the guitar.
8 JANUARY
The UN Habitat Conference began at Spanish time, only 20 minutes later than it was programmed to start. The Germans and Brits had been there at 10.00 a.m. prompt and by 10.30 a.m. the Italians and Africans were also at their places. The Russians arrived at 10 o’clock and signed in. They had finally obtained visas. The Italian tea service they bought as a gift was left at the door. They departed at 5 minutes past 10 and were never seen again.
No-one told the Mayor of Sevilla that his Development Officer was translating the speech of the Deputy Mayor at the Conference. The Deputy knew his stuff and presented as one would expect a professor to do so. It was a good start but by the time he had finished the trend for the conference was set. We were an hour behind time and all contributions, mine included, took this as a cue to talk as long as the audience stayed awake.
A challenging contribution from the Harvard Law School’s Prof Gerald Frug on the legal issues pertaining to International Municipal Twinning arrangements sparked lively discussion as did Diana Lopez Caramazana’s attempt to create an international league table. Nothing gets the nationalist juices flowing like a table that unfairly puts you firmly at the bottom. When Professor of Law Dr. Fernanda Nicola, aided by the aristocratic Clementine do Brosses finished the morning session it was three o’clock. We were late, but not in Spanish time. Fernanda seemed delighted to evade immediate questions and fortified herself with a few glasses of red in order to respond robustly to any challenge to her presentation following lunch.
International conferences are often the key to accessing buildings not usually open to Joe and Josephine public. So it was with our invitation to a private evening opening of the Reales Alcazares. The King of Spain still has a room there for when he visits Sevilla, just as in the bull ring he has his own private box to view the demise of torro from the shade. Forget the history, the place at night is just atmosphere. A trickle of water, salt cod from the sea, warm stillness and good company combine to make the first half of the night memorable. Recollections beyond midnight are equally fond but cloaked by plunging into waves of Rioja and the rhythm of flamenco.
9 JANUARY
When there’s a presentation to make about Derbyshire then the adrenelin flows. Yesterday’s formal session hadn’t finished until 7.00 p.m., so there had been no time to write and prepare. Fortunately I can get by on two and a half hours sleep, so by the time conference was underway again I’d done my first five hours of the day. A brilliant, considered contribution from Sweden’s Ambassador Hans Corell, former legal adviser to UN President Kofi Anan, makes the start of the day stimulating and it stays that way.
Where I stood, a thousand kids were playing on the street corners and in the plazas. They were running, racing, jostling, squealing, cheating and being children. Young girls verging on womanhood joined in, then checked and remembered that they were becoming more sophisticated. Restaurants tills were by now pregnant with expectation. Frustrated residents had already abandoned themselves to the bars. Tables filled even before the procession arrived. More strikingly for an Englishman abroad, throughout the whole celebration I saw no-one with a can of alcohol, no drunken behaviour, no yobbishness, no louts and felt no threat of violence and no fear of attack on the lonely walk back to the hotel.
6 JANUARY
Whilst the bullfighting ring in Cordoba (actually it’s a square) was the first constructed in Spain, the one in Sevilla was a close second. Compared with the Roman Amphitheatres in Nimes, Arles and Bayonne, Spanish rings are relatively modern and at this time of year subject to extensive renovation in anticipating of the start of the season.
In Sevilla, from mid-April and for next 30 days there are daily fights, each commencing at 5.00 pm and lasting the 2 hours it takes to dispose of six bulls. Bullfighting has always been brutal and it wasn’t until 1928 that the horses, from which the picadors prod the back of the bull’s neck, were given protection from the horns of their assailants.
In recent years the odds against the bulls have significantly lengthened. At the turn of the 20th Century, 6 men a year would die in Sevilla as a result of gorings, trampings and other unfortunate incidents that are part and parcel of the bullfight. But since 1992 there have been no human deaths in the Sevilla ring. Most people I know think bullfighting is uncouth and maybe they are right, but as the UK Government has found, legislation to ban blood sports (in this case foxhunting) is one thing. Enforcing it is something else.
The problem of enforcement has not deterred my old mate Robert Evans MEP from launching a European Parliament campaign to stop the EU subsidising farmers who breed the 40,000 bulls slaughtered in the ring each year. I have to wish him luck even though I’m an officianado.
On the wider front, I’m often wrong, but wouldn’t wager any money on bullfighting being banished this century. Its as embodied in the Spanish, Basque and Catalan cultures as is the right to carry a gun in America and the right to drive as fast as the car will go is considered a human right by so many Germans.
My first night in Sevilla is a shock as I ponderously retrace my steps past the Alcazar and the Cathedral and find that the whole town is awash with water. When I round a corner, a man in orange waterproofs squirts a few litres in my direction. Sevilla municipality doesn’t sweep the streets every night, it washes them clean 365 times a year.
7 JANUARY
For the British, Spain and Sherry are synonymous. When Sir Francis Drake used to visit Spain he allegedly never left without 300 barrels of Sherry in the hold of his boat, though I'm not sure whether they ewre paid for or stolen. With the Sherry triangle only an hour’s drive south of Sevilla, a visit to the bodegas of Jerez is a must. I chose Gonzales Byass – makers of Tio Pepe, Croft and a host of other branded sherries, brandies and vinegars. The tour was fascinating, the techniques deployed to mature the Sherry and maintain consistently are impressive, but the tasting was a disappointment. A glass of fino followed by one of Croft is about as stimulating to the taste buds as a slice of dry bread. If you want to go tasting in Jerez I suggest you try somewhere else.
People in Mediterranean countries love to swank. Sunday is the day to swank on. I remember by mum, who was a mill girl in Lancashire, used to tell me that Saturday night in Northern England was the time when everyone paraded up and down in their best clothes. But in Britain it’s a lost tradition, at least in most parts. The probable exception is perhaps the banks of the Tyne where men bare their chests to the icy December blasts coming from the Continent and girls clamber into dresses designed to reveal more flesh than a page 3 Sun pin-up.
In Sevilla the opposite is the case. The temperature gauge in the Plaza Espana read 18 C (65 F) but Sevilla’s men and women are clad in fur lined coats, knee length boots or thick woollen stockings. Top coats and scarves alike are subtle browns, with tinges of green, rich fauns and sombre yellows meticulously mixed for every stroll. The kids are out too. Hundreds of them, similarly dressed to the nine’s, showing off their new clothes and running amok whilst locals greet workmates and family with an enthusiasm that suggests that they have not met for years, whereas in fact they were in the same street the week before and had exchanged exactly the same greetings.
Sevilla starts to wake up at around 8.00 pm and there’s a good 7 hours of eating and gentle sipping to be done before the tapas bars and the entertainment places start to close down.
Tasty tapas, barrels of brandy, homemade and home produced foods of fabulous diversity are available on every corner. Black puddings, piquant chorizo sausages, cow’s stomach in tomatoes (tripe), tinned tuna and deep fried polpo and calamares are common to almost all menus. Then, of course, there’s paella, olives, succulent breads basted in tomatoes and latticed with savoury anchovies. Then comes the main course and afterwards the flamenco.
I manage to go to a flamenco show every night. Just like bullfighting can grow on you the more you understand its subtleties, so I find too that flamenco is much more than clog dancing with castanets. The dancers can talk with their feet, drum with their feet, bang and blast and boom with their feet whilst their accompanists sing, clap and strum guitars to a complex rhythm that challenges those of use more familiar with three/four time.
For me, flamenco is fabulous because you don’t have to join in. You can admire from near or far from front or side. You can be tempted by the occasional glimpse of calf as the women lift their skirts and sneer their way through their routines, but as long as you shut up and watch, no-one tries to drag you on to the dance floor. The more you watch the more your admiration grows. With a clatter of shoes and the click of castanets, the plaintive contribution of the main singers challenges your general tonal expectations and meant for me that I still have to work out how sliding tones can be so compatible with the crisp melodies which emerge from the guitar.
8 JANUARY
The UN Habitat Conference began at Spanish time, only 20 minutes later than it was programmed to start. The Germans and Brits had been there at 10.00 a.m. prompt and by 10.30 a.m. the Italians and Africans were also at their places. The Russians arrived at 10 o’clock and signed in. They had finally obtained visas. The Italian tea service they bought as a gift was left at the door. They departed at 5 minutes past 10 and were never seen again.
No-one told the Mayor of Sevilla that his Development Officer was translating the speech of the Deputy Mayor at the Conference. The Deputy knew his stuff and presented as one would expect a professor to do so. It was a good start but by the time he had finished the trend for the conference was set. We were an hour behind time and all contributions, mine included, took this as a cue to talk as long as the audience stayed awake.
A challenging contribution from the Harvard Law School’s Prof Gerald Frug on the legal issues pertaining to International Municipal Twinning arrangements sparked lively discussion as did Diana Lopez Caramazana’s attempt to create an international league table. Nothing gets the nationalist juices flowing like a table that unfairly puts you firmly at the bottom. When Professor of Law Dr. Fernanda Nicola, aided by the aristocratic Clementine do Brosses finished the morning session it was three o’clock. We were late, but not in Spanish time. Fernanda seemed delighted to evade immediate questions and fortified herself with a few glasses of red in order to respond robustly to any challenge to her presentation following lunch.
International conferences are often the key to accessing buildings not usually open to Joe and Josephine public. So it was with our invitation to a private evening opening of the Reales Alcazares. The King of Spain still has a room there for when he visits Sevilla, just as in the bull ring he has his own private box to view the demise of torro from the shade. Forget the history, the place at night is just atmosphere. A trickle of water, salt cod from the sea, warm stillness and good company combine to make the first half of the night memorable. Recollections beyond midnight are equally fond but cloaked by plunging into waves of Rioja and the rhythm of flamenco.
9 JANUARY
When there’s a presentation to make about Derbyshire then the adrenelin flows. Yesterday’s formal session hadn’t finished until 7.00 p.m., so there had been no time to write and prepare. Fortunately I can get by on two and a half hours sleep, so by the time conference was underway again I’d done my first five hours of the day. A brilliant, considered contribution from Sweden’s Ambassador Hans Corell, former legal adviser to UN President Kofi Anan, makes the start of the day stimulating and it stays that way.
A Conference is like a crepe suzette. For those unfamiliar with this most delicate of French pancake creations, the art of the crepe suzette is to smear the thinnest of pancakes with a mixture of sugar, butter, orange rind and Grande Marnier. You then fry the pancakes in butter, folding them into quarters as you go, making sure they at hot, but don’t burn. When they are ready…that’s the difference between the cook and the follower of recipe books…the cook knows when they are ready…..a glug of Grande Marnier is poured into the pan and your cigarette lighter ignites the alcohol, turnig the outside of the pancakes into a sublimely crisp toffee. Timing, confidence and ingredients are critical, but when it all comes together there is no more tantalising and satisfying a plateful of pudding.
So it was with this conference. There was humour, crisp analysis, surprise, good relationships and good listening for all. Lots of delegates wanted to visit Derbyshire after my presentation, though I’m not sure whether it was the pictures of Kinder Scout or my description of the profusion of the hallucigenic mushrooms which will attract them.
10th JANUARY
Yesterday ended at around 4a.m. when the German guys I had started talking to finally managed to sink their last pint and the flamenco dancer put her baby back into the pram and headed homewards through the confusingly narrow streets of the old city. Without a map I would have been totally lost. Indeed, even with a map I had struggled to find my way round Sevilla. It wasn’t until the second day that I twigged that the confusion arose because the map was printed East/West, rather than North/South. When I headed toward the sun at midday I was going East rather than South. They should never allow country boys into big cities huh?
Since I'd arrived in Andalucia, I’d had endless sunshine and sunny nights. The new year’s resolutions on drinking and diet had been spectacularly broken. As I was flying back Ryan Air with their stingy 15 kilo baggage limit there was no chance of taking the Rioja back with me, so me and Robert Rowlands polished it off in the hotel lobby before I headed off for the airport bus.
In spite of last night's short burst of sleep that qualified as a night of slumber, reading Simon Sebag Montefiori’s “The Court of the Red Czar” kept me awake. As we touched down in Liverpool, Stalin had murdered another 5 million people. Perhaps 40,000 bulls is 40,000 too many, but compared to the humans old Joe slaughtered it seems a modest number. On reflection, perhaps I should have beem less flippant about the disappearing Russians after all.
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