The Boy and The Coconut Tree

As politicians on the right make profit from the terrorism in Manchester last week (but do deals with the spreaders of hate in Saudi Arabia) I wanted to say why they don't speak for me, a British man, not a flag waving patriot but someone who likes what this country is despite its flaws (flaws which have nothing to do with migrants or religions), flaws that politicians could fix if they were not simply interested in feathering their own nests and profiting from the suffering of others. Last night I was drinking with one of my friends who was born in Spain, raised in the UK, for me that is a typical weekend. He is straight, the rest of us were gay, again a normal night out in London.  Next week I will be having dinner with my American friend married to an Indian man, his best friend and his sister, again, a normal event in modern Britain. This morning I was served coffee by Simona from Italy and later today I had my eyes tested by Sanya, a British Muslim and was served in ...

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...