The Boy and The Coconut Tree

5 weeks into my Barcelona teaching adventure and I think I’ve finally hit the ground running (though I am sure you are supposed to say that at the beginning of an adventure, not 5 weeks in, but you know what I mean, well anyone who knows me will know what I mean? Now I’ve written about national stereotypes before and will probably do so again, they are interesting but can be annoying when they are true. My students, not those in the school as they are mostly on time and I get paid regardless, the other students, the students whose offices etc I travel to or sit in cafes near their offices waiting for them, those students. Punctuality is not a strong point, I am tempted to teach them the word, have the spell it and use it in a complex sentence, well I will do if they turn up. The latest act of or rather lack of punctuality was Thursday when my 530pm student texted me at 525 pm to tell me she wasn't able to make it and was busy at work. I am sure she knew she was busy at work at...

There are good sanctions, ok sanctions and then there is bloody mindedness. Take Cuba as an example. As most of you know, I’ve been to many countries including one that is communist and had a rather bad war with the USA that cost millions of lives (mainly local, Vietnamese civilians) and it is an easy place to get to and buy American goods and it is possible to use American owned websites to arrange that holiday. So this gets me to the subject of Cuba.   I was trying to help a friend book a trip to Cuba and as the local travel agent had quoted him a price of over E2000 for 8 days I suggested we hit the internet to find a better deal. Seems sensible, the internet was supposed to encourage competition. Wrong. Not when it comes to Cuba! First I went to   Kayak.com   – Cuba doesn’t exist in their databases, it has been wiped off the map. Next I went to   Expedia . com   (and I even tried the Spanish and British sites), again, Cuba doesn’t exist. ...

More of my musings and homages to Catalonia. No Orwell pun intended! On Sunday I saw towers made of people and it wasn’t some freaky horror movie but an unusual but impressive Catalan tradition. These towers of people or Castellers   are basically, teams of towns folk climb up in a sort of gymnastic display, trying to make the tallest and most stable human tower as possible, despite a few wobbles, most of the towers were easily 4 or 5 people high (20-30 feet in old money) and they did this in 30c heat. I am not sure of the historic purpose of it all and I am sure it is something brave and noble but it is worth seeing once or twice though I am being coerced into seeing them at least 5 times and I am practising my surprised face which I can usually only express once or twice.  The completed tower Starting the tower In other things that have been crossing my mind in the heat are things like: Do Spanish dogs understand English? Anecdotal evidence wo...