Comment from Stuart
Time: January 29, 2008, 11:39 pm

We haven’t seen much food in a while. Can’t go wrong with food.

Comment from Brendan
Time: January 30, 2008, 9:32 am

How about something on the Spanish mainstream music scene?

Comment from Andrew
Time: January 30, 2008, 9:34 am

Almost endless…
1) Tales from the streets of Madrid. Spanish daily life is fascinating: more people photos
2) More guest bloggers/posts
3) Don’t avoid talking about the forthcoming election and life under Zapatero
4) Follow-up on Don Justo
5) More Daily Mail stuff if you must
6) Women will play an even greater role in Spain’s future success: let’s hear from them and about them: highlight the appalling murder rate of women by their partners
7) Highlighted news stories
Books about Spain/written by Spaniards
9) What do you think of Spanish radio…do you listen…anything to recommend?
10) Agree that food with a nice photo always gets my tummy rumbling (ref: pollo al ajillo)

Comment from Andrew
Time: January 30, 2008, 9:38 am

Funny, an eight with a close bracket turns into a smiley wearing ray-bans

Comment from ValenciaSon
Time: January 30, 2008, 2:55 pm

1). The youth’s perspective of Spain as their home You could cover school, music, technology their social scene in urban and rural settings.
2). Spain’s real estate from the buyers’ perspective and sellers’ perspective in urban and rural settings.
3). The future of Spain both culturally and technologically.
4). Food from different regions both traditional and emerging trends in Spain
5). Fashion updates in Spain
6). Updates on the Spaniards’ Global View
[8] Just wanted to try this

Comment from luke
Time: January 30, 2008, 5:36 pm

Off the top of my head, in no order:
1. Realist updates on the realities of life -eg. cost of living, house prices, immigration etc
2. Difficult subjects: the civil war/el caudillo, regionalism, ultras, terrorism (eg. will the terrorist sucess in affecting the previous election mean it’s more likely to happen again?) etc
3. Cultural events - Barajas airport, exhibitions, youth culture etc.
4. Escapist romanticism - ‘la vida dulce’ in Spain.
5. Everyday life. Characters from the street.
6. Pros and cons of different areas. Madrid versus Barcelona etc.

Comment from Ben
Time: January 30, 2008, 6:42 pm

Thanks for all the ideas so far, keep them coming!!

Comment from Gary
Time: January 30, 2008, 7:44 pm

Something from the regions and provinces, not necessarily the coast, about which I know very little… here are the ones I havent been to and I dont think you’ve covered, Some of them i havent even heard of!!!

Alava, Castellon, La Rioja Albacete, Cuidad Real, Leon, Segovia, Cordoba, Lleida, Soria, Cuenca , Lugo, Tarragona, Asturias, La Coruna, Teruel, Avila,Toledo, Badajoz Granada, Murcia, Guadalajara , Navarra, Valladolid, Burgos, Guipuxcoa, Vizcaya, Caceres, Huelva , Palencia, Zamora, Cadiz, Huesca, Pontevedra , Zaragoza, Cantabria, Jaen, Salamanca

couple of years work there

Comment from Gary
Time: January 30, 2008, 7:45 pm

@ Andrew - so it does

Comment from ValenciaSon
Time: January 30, 2008, 8:25 pm

How about a visit to the House of Lladro? (8)

Comment from Ben
Time: January 30, 2008, 9:30 pm

Thanks again to all for the suggestions, they shall be acted on! New smiley included

I’ve just started by posting a particularly fine example of Spanish Cuisine:

http://www.notesfromspain.com/2008/01/30/is-spanish-food-oily-plato-alpujarreno/

Keep the suggestions coming, please, I’m re-inspired already!

Gary - I would LOVE to get to some of those places this year. I suspect I haven’t got out enough recently!

Comment from Ben
Time: January 30, 2008, 9:34 pm

P.S.

See chart half-way down here:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Smilies

Comment from richardksa
Time: January 30, 2008, 11:07 pm

The street music of Madrid, from the mariachi band in Sol, through the buskers in the Metro to the Chinese(?) guy who plays in Preciados would make a wonderful program. It is entertaining and often of excellent quality. There was a girl playing guitar and singing at Canal Metro this week who should be recorded.

Comment from Pepino (Dave Hall)
Time: January 31, 2008, 4:36 pm

I echo Gary´s post. I´d love to learn more about the less headline-grabbing regions. I live in Spain, but I haven´t even taken scratched the surface as far as exploring goes, so I´d love to “virtually” explore via NFS and then pick the places I want to go myself in person. There is the other option of course whereby I´m happy to take a big fat NFS expense account and write the reports myself….! Was that a “yes” I heard?? My bags are packed!!!

Comment from Petrichor
Time: February 2, 2008, 6:52 pm

Spanish cuisine, from what I have read, tends to include a lot of meat and seafood. I would like you to write about some local vegetarian dishes and whether vegetarians (be they spaniards or tourists) have a tough time finding stuff that they can eat. I myself am not a vegetarian but I’m not very fond of meat.

Comment from Dawn
Time: February 2, 2008, 8:41 pm

How about something about the “other” wine regions? Everybody knows about sherry, Rioja, Ribera del Duero…but what about Toro, Somontano, Txakoli… especially since a lot of those places are also lovely places to bike! (I know. One track mind….)

Comment from Amy
Time: February 4, 2008, 12:56 am

I must second (or third?) the notion of bringing back the food/food culture podcasts back… I really miss them (maybe cause we love food?). I also would love to hear from chefs in Spain. I love the idea of hearing about the music scene in Madrid so some of the readers from far away could get to know some new artists. Maybe they have mp3’s of songs they’d allow you to post on your website? What about some local, quirky news stories? We saw plenty of those around 6PM on the news when we were in Madrid. Also, debates about the political situation in Spain. Maybe people with various views and ideas? amy @ http://www.neverfull.wordpress.com

Comment from Janelle
Time: February 5, 2008, 11:40 am

Hi Ben and Marina,
I just thought of this, but tomorrow is the Burial of the Sardine in Madrid and I always wish I could go to it and mourn the poor fishy’s death, but I cant tomorrow. It seems like a fun thing to see. Maybe we could live vicariously through you??

Comment from Jonny
Time: February 6, 2008, 11:13 pm

perhaps i’m just repeating what my wife (Amy @ neverfull.wordpress.com) and many others have written, but bring back the cuisine from spain podcasts, perhaps with a concentration on “interesting” madrileno dishes - I’m thinking callos a la madrilena right now, but there are plenty of other more easily palatable ones, I’m sure.

also, I really enjoyed the ramirez guitarreria and the flamenco club podcasts, so more on Madrid’s/Spain’s music scene would be very welcome.

anyway, keep doing what you’re doing.
Jonny

Comment from luke
Time: March 8, 2008, 10:43 am

“will the terrorist sucess in affecting the previous election, mean it’s more likely to happen again?”

This is a quote from myself on ‘What do you want to see next on Notes from Spain?’. In the last election the PP were favourite to win and would’ve kept troops in Iraq.
What happened yesterday was tragic. However, I’ve been fearing something worse. I was on a cercanias train coming into Atocha with the morning commuters three days before the bomb hit similar morning commuters. It hit the hardworking people who couldn’t afford to live in central Madrid. With respect to the latest victim’s family, I’m thankful that there wasn’t loss of life on the scale of the last election.