Comment from philip
Time: August 18, 2005, 2:21 am

Great conversation! nice stereo seperation! More!

Comment from César
Time: August 18, 2005, 11:37 am

My experience here in London in the subway and everywhere is that londoners say SORRY for everything, even if they touch you for half a second because they have to pass through. I think there’s a high, high inflation on some words that at the end of the day have no meaning at all.

You are right, Ben, when you say that spaniards are quite nationalistic in terms of cultural matters like food, monuments and so on, but it is not the kind of nationalism that make the foreigner foreign for ever. If you speak the language and like our way of life, you are one of us. My experience in Germany, for intance -I am not such a long time in Britain to have a founded opinion about Britain- is that no matter how well you speak the language, no matter how much you like the country, you are and stay an “ausländer” for ever and ever (I say that but I like Germany very, very much)

I like this kind of marital discussions. It´s like being at yours, at your living room. ¡Seguid así!

Marina - Me encantan tus intervenciones, pero si de entrada ya sabes de qué va a ir el programa deberías, a mi modo de ver, de tener unas notillas a mano, que no vería nadie, aunque fuera sólo de vocabulario, para que tu discurso fuera más fluido. Espero no ofenderte. Un abrazo

Comment from Sumeera
Time: August 18, 2005, 4:41 pm

Hi Ben,

I love your podcasts and look forward to more. I have never been to Spain but I would love to go for a visit there soon. I do learn a lot from your podcasts. Daily little things interest me most. I live in NYC and love to hear about other cities in case some day I’d want to visit or even move there.

Keep it going!

Comment from Marina
Time: August 18, 2005, 4:59 pm

Hola Cesar,

Tienes toda la razón con tu comentario, no veas la impotencia q siento cuando estoy con el micrófono delante y no me vienen las palabras q busco…

Lo q pasa es q siempre me pilla el toro; te cuento como preparamos este último podcast para que te hagas una idea:
Llego de trabajar después de una jornada bastante larga, y sin tiempo para descansar o relajarme un rato, Ben me “invita” a ir al Retiro a hacer un podcast. Lleva el equipo de grabación y una hoja de papel con varias ideas q comentamos camino del Retiro, durante este proceso se nos ocurren algunos puntos / anéctdotas / noticias concretas de las q hablar. Justo antes de entrar en el Retiro compramos un boli para tomar unas cuantas notas. Finalmente una vez pasada la valla comienza la grabación.

Moraleja: Tendré q pedirle a Ben que me diga el tema del podcast con un día de antelación para poder llevar los deberes hechos y así poder matar dos pajaros de un tiro; dar calidad al podcast y de paso consolidar mi fluidez con el Inglés.

Gracias,
Marina.

Comment from Erik
Time: August 18, 2005, 6:05 pm

This was an amazing podcast. I think these types of discussions are very valuable. It gives a very real, very personal viewpoint of differing cultures. This is just the kind of discussion that I love having with friends and people I meet in countries I visit.

Comment from César
Time: August 19, 2005, 11:21 am

Marina, guapa, es una buenísima idea saberlo con un día de antelación. La verdad es que lo tuyo es de tener muchas ganas de ayudar en las grabaciones de Ben sin hacerlo en tu lengua materna. Lo tuyo tiene mucho mérito; él únicamente necesita sentarse, tener las ideas más o menos claras y a largar. A él le sale muy bien y cada vez mejor, pero tú eres la contraparte perfecta y, aunque no siempre estoy de acuerdo contigo, me interesa tu punto de vista. Te saldrá mejor con el tiempo y lo malo es que como Ben no “se te quiere comer” en las grabaciones parece como si él rebajara su expresión por no hacerte quedar mal y al final eso le quita ritmo a la grabación.

Me encantaría que te animaras a hacer tú una grabación en español o que los dos hicierais de vez en cuando una en español para vuestros ADMIRADORES de habla hispana y para que veais cómo funcionan los papeles cuando se cambia de idioma. Sería un PUNTACÍSIMO. Al fin y al cabo sois una pareja bicultural y binacional. ¿Qué te parece, Ben?

Cambiando de tema: Ben tiene razón cuando habla de la “Lowless Spain”. A mí me da la sensación de que tenemos leyes que están sobre el papel sólo y que luego no se cumplen y lo peor de todo es que la gente lo ve normal. Cuando uno vive fuera, uno se da cuenta de que las leyes están para regular las relaciones de los ciudadanos entre sí y para facilitar la vida social; en nuestro país parece ser que las leyes están para “jodernos” y para restringir nuestra libertad. Tal vez sea un poco exagerado, pero algo de eso hay, ¿no crees?

Comment from César
Time: August 19, 2005, 11:23 am

Sorry, I wanted to say LAWLESS

Comment from Ben
Time: August 19, 2005, 11:43 am

César, yes, there is less respect here for many of the laws than there is in the UK (although to say Spain is lawless is definitely going a bit far!) - why is that? Are the Spaniards ust more relaxed about everything in general? I think it is thatthe English are just far more strict from a long way back. The more harshly you punish people the more respect they have for the law…

Comment from César
Time: August 19, 2005, 12:16 pm

Yes, Spain´s easy going and that is what many “guiris” like of Spain.

I´m really very, very, very spanish, but I definitely want my country to change in quite a few things, such as life imprisonement for crimes related to terrorism, child abuse, partner´s homicide and so on.

It´s a shame that you are sentenced to hundreds of years for murdering ten people and then you could be out of prison after 15 or 20 years if you´ve been a “good” guy in jail. That happens in Spain, I think that´s more than unfair, it is just nearly stupid and naive.

-

Comment from Marina
Time: August 19, 2005, 1:07 pm

Me gustaría hacer una diferenciación q creo q no quedó clara en el podcast:

Por supuesto q creo q las leyes están para regular, y creo q en muchos
casos en España sería bastante necesario controlar su cumplimiento mucho más de lo que se controla ahora, el tema del tráfico es un ejemplo ideal o el que pones tu de la violencia doméstica. Sin embargo yo pienso q en muchos otros aspectos es mejor educar q prohibir; me explico, una persona que se ha educado en un ambiente de prohibición continua, cuando
se ve en una situación en la q por cualquier motivo no existe dicha prohibición lo único q le produce es un descontrol total y yo creo q el control para muchos aspectos de la vida tiene q venir de dentro, es decir autocontrol, aquí el ejemplo del alcohol es único.

Quizá la confusión venga de comparar cuestiones con consecuencias muy diferentes; como pueda ser matarse en un coche o incluso matar a otras personas con cogerse una “simple” borrachera.

Comment from César
Time: August 19, 2005, 5:27 pm

Mejor dicho, imposible

Pingback from Notes from Spain » Blog Archive » My podcasting kit.
Time: August 19, 2005, 6:10 pm

[…] Since podcast 12 I have been using this binaural stereo mic, the high sensitivity version - sound seeing tours are MUCH better in stereo (Before that I used a similar mono lapel mic.) You need an extra adaptor lead though as the jack is too fat to plug straight into this i-river - I believe they solved this with the iRiver 899 by putting the mic input on the side. […]

Comment from JB en Sevilla
Time: September 16, 2005, 6:17 pm

Dear Ben & Marina,

Thank you for your contribution to providing such an interesting and entertaining forum about Spain and spanish life.

I would like to comment on some of your points raised in your last broadcast as an foreigner living in Seville.

*Road deaths and lawless Spain

The use of law in Spain has a long history of being used as an instrument of oppression, coersion or subversion against the general populace. From inquisition to Franco the view of laws is at best something to endure and worst something to ignore entirely. Law enforecent is seen as the “lackeys” of those in power, not to be trusted. In it’s entirety this has produced a, “catch me if you can” attitude that pervades the whole culture.

The law here is not seen to provide you with liberty - because it never had. Liberty for Spanish folk is something you take until you are caught. Hence, when they leave their cups, bottles and wrapper everywhere, it is an act of liberty for them - where’s the cop to stop them anyway? That’s why they laugh at you or are offended that YOU - “Jonatan Guiri” - points out to the sign saying “NO SMOKING” - YOU are disrespecting them!

The question of being civic, i.e. the promotion of civil or polite behaviour in society through law, is something of a novelty rather than a fundemental ideal.

Drinking

Spanish use drink in a purely social context not as a drug issue. People here really would not care a jot if you sat in your house and got smashed drunk every day of the week as long as you are not seen as being drunk on the street.

We on the other hand tend to use alcohol as a drug irrespective of local. We drink to get pissed, thus we have very tough controls on what is in fact, a drug and poison, therefore, liscencing controls and law law enfor cement is very much in evidence in the U.K.

National pride

Where does it come from?

The Spanish are historically xenophobic. There country and all their colonies were founded in xenophobia, ideas of cultural superiority and ethnic cleansing. In their oppression of all other races, cultures and languages here in Spain (catalonia, basques, valencians) to the whole of their part of the Americas (forgetting Brasil - which is hardly free of their latin inheritance either) was made to suffer for their diversity - a crushing, conquest and erradication of anything “foreign” or not CASTILLIAN. In their desire to have a mono culture for Spain, spanishness really been made a true mono culture, built on selfishness, ignorance and fear.

Their nation pride - if it can really be called that - comes from their lack of knowlege of anything else or knowing how to appreciate them when they come across them. When they travel abroad they tend to be offended by everything although they may not say it.

The price they pay for this history is as we see now - their chickens still comming home to roost - catalan and basque separation, problems of intergration with immigrants, endemic corruption, nepotism, lack of inventiveness - they have no ability to take self critism, be self critical or objective.

Food and holidays

I agree with Marina for the most part . But in the end it’s a monoculture that prevails. The way I demostrate this is by being able to name every possible menu in every Spanish restaurant in Andalucia before seeing the menu - Spain is very predictable and quite frankly they like it like that. The spainsh are not very good a revolutions cultural, industrial or otherwise.

In the future I would like to suggest the following themes to tackle,

1. the spanish believe nepotisim is the same the world over. In the end what’s wrong with helping those closest get in to a position in life - it’s who you know not what you know!

(Think about this the next time you wait for 40 minutes to pay in a cheque, look for 30 minutes someone to help you in a store, get the wrong forms etc. remember the person you are dealing with got there because of his cousins mate or uncle and not because they have worked hard and MERIT their post through an equal, meritocratic society!)

2. Should the memorial “la Cruz de los Caidos ” to Franco outside Madrid be destroyed because was built by political prisoners.

3. Spanish people have no idea of their history

4. Spanish life is “mañana”

5. Spanish education

i could go on forever… keepup thegood work

Comment from Ben
Time: September 20, 2005, 8:30 am

Yes, good point about the monoculture. The menu thing also holds true for every other part of Spain as well. Once you’ve seen a couple of ‘typical’ menus you’ve seen them all, and sometimes that can be a bit irksome. But perhaps it’s the monoculture that keeps Spain so special - there is a lot less of the dilution you see in other countries such as the UK. Then again the UK is a great example of sultural diversity - just look at the choice of world cusine available in every city… which is the better model? There are merits in both I think. The monoculture and idiosyncracies of Spain are what have kept me here so long - a genuineness that’s hard to find in western Europe these days.

Comment from César
Time: December 7, 2005, 5:42 pm

Hi JB !

Your vision about Spain, its culture and history is so negative that I can hardly understand why you are still here. Well, I hope you enjoy the stay until you go back home where the ……. (whatever) are not historically xenophobic.

¡Pobres sevillanos, qué cruz tendrán que cargar ahora!