Life in Cartagena

Spain isn't one of those places where you need to add a folded banknote to oil the wheels of each and every transaction. It's an orderly, organised and well administered European country. That doesn't mean to say that there are not plenty of dodgy deals producing lots of dodgy money. There must be someone out there whose house deeds show what they actually paid for their house but there won't be many. The usual routine is that the buyer and seller agree both a price and what percentage of that price will show up on the deeds and transaction documents. The rest is handed over in cash. This is usually done in a back room of the notary's office. The notary turns a blind eye. Spain is an expensive place to contract employees because the "national insurance" is so high. One way around that is for employers to pay some of the contract as cash in hand so they are able to show a lower salary on the official contract. That way the employee gets the protection...

Once upon a time I'd have been there. Slightly bemused no doubt but I'd have been there. Today, the day of the eighth General Strike in Spain's history since the return to democracy, I went to work much as usual. There was a lot of police activity; there were patrol cars parked up the side-streets in the town centre whilst groups of bored police officers lounged around taking the sun. There were big Guardia Civil  4x4s parked on several of the strategic roundabouts in and out of the industrial estate with most of the Guardia sporting a smart new uniform that looked just a little more menacing than the old one. Outside one of the union offices a few workers lounged around taking the sun. They looked like extras from a Mike Leigh film. Car coats a plenty. On the way home from my early morning shift I came across the main march in Cartagena. Lots of nice red banners and crowds of photographers. The town centre seemed generally open for business as usual. At the of...

It was lottery day here yesterday, well maybe the day before yesterday if I type as slowly as usual and I end up posting on Saturday. Thursday was the day of the  fat one; el Gordo. As usual the number singing children of San Ildefonso and who would carry away the new fatter than ever prize was  the big news story for the morning news. We have a new president though. Mariano Rajoy. Señor Rajoy and his new ministers had been sworn in the days before. The media stuttered but there was no doubt in my mind that the lottery ended up being relegated to second place. Something almost unheard of. The lottery here is huge. What I found even more impressive though was the support for the new man. Not necessarily a political support but just the hope - the hope against hope - that this man and his new team can pull the country out of the deep hole that it's in. A hope that had the left leaning press pulling their punches. A hope that had hard bitten radio journalists finishing t...

It wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say that Maggie loves the musician Pat Metheny. But for her I'd know him vaguely as a bloke who made a record with David Bowie years and years ago. Cartagena has an annual Jazz Festival. We went to see Ryuichi Sakamoto a couple of years ago, possibly someone else too . This year people on the bill have included Wanda Jackson, Bettye Lavette, Herman Dune, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Sly Johnson, Ryuichi Sakamoto (again), the Cowboy Junkies and lots more. A new conference centre, El Batel, was recently completed in Cartagena. It's all walls of light and big open spaces. The auditorium has been used for some of the jazz concerts. And guess who was on the bill of the Cartagena Jazz Festival programme at the new conference centre tonight - got it in one eh?, Pat Metheny. And we went. He's not a personal favourite of mine but I thought it was a good concert and as we were on the front row we had a good view. Such a good view inde...

I'm feeling a bit left out.  It's the day of the General Election today for both lower and upper houses of parliament and I can't vote. I'm not complaining as such but I'd much rather be able to vote for the Spanish politicians who affect my life rather than for the British ones who are largely irrelevant to me. I can vote in UK General Elections, in European elections here in Spain and in the local Spanish ones. Neither country allows me to vote at the regional level I've just had a wander around the area close to our house to have a look at some polling stations. I found three in maybe a twenty minute walk - one was in a church building, one in a museum and one in a school. They weren't exactly overwhelmed with voters but there was a steady trickle of people exercising their franchise. The system here is that you vote for a party. The parties put forward a list of candidates in each area and the number of candidates elected from each list is decided ...

My Auntie Eileen used to live near Leyburn in North Yorkshire. She was a Conservative supporter. One day she invited my family to a Con. Club do near to her house. Family winning out over ideology I accepted the invitation and enjoyed a frank exchange of views with Leon Brittan, the candidate for the forthcoming elections. To give him his due he bought me a wine and I was weak enough to accept it. Years later I made it very plain to Jonathan Djanogly, the Tory candidate for Huntingdon, that I would rather buy my own. As my Uncle Steve said "The Conservatives could put up a donkey here and it would win." True for Richmond, true for Huntingdon. It's much the same in Murcia where we live. Blue as they come. Not a lot of election activity. But Andalucia is different. Andalucia has been Socialist since the return of democracy to Spain. At the last elections though, the local elections, for the first time the Socialists took a trouncing in the region. We skipped over the ...

We've got a General Election here on 20 November. Interesting date, anniversary of Franco's death. It looks as though the socialists, the PSOE, are going to take a right pasting at the hands of the conservative PP. Everyone is so sure that it's going to happen that I wouldn't be surprised if the turnout is pathetic. Official campaigning in Spain starts a couple of weeks before the election date with no campaigning the day before. So midnight last night was the start line. The normal routine is that there are lots of photos of the big candidates pasting up an election poster somewhere as midnight strikes. No photos like that in my paper this morning. In fact I haven't seen any posters in the streets yet although the volume of political tweets and posts to my Facebook page has rocketed in the past few hours. No, the only time that I noticed that we are now in full campaign mode was that there were a couple of political adverts on the radio as I was getting breakf...