You know what this is all about. There is a country not far from here, where I come from, where things have gone a little bit mad.
Children in my good old UK are not allowed to have much fun anymore, lest they should hurt themselves while someone else is looking after them and courts of law get involved… they are often not allowed to run in playgrounds, and should they wish to use Blu Tack at school, they may be required to wear goggles.
In the good old days, I was allowed to take a penknife to school (the teachers only took it away from me once, to engrave my initials on it for me so I wouldn’t lose it, then they gave it back).
We played conkers (without safety glasses!), and in winter the sloping playground was sprayed with water at night to make an impromtu ice-run for the purpose of doing fun, long skidding slides down.
All banned now. No one ever got hurt when I was at school, but you know, just in case…
Adults have less fun these days where I come from too, as far as I can tell. They aren’t allowed to indulge wildly in public in many of the great pagan festivities that used to make life, well, more fun…
They have to STAND WELL BACK at exciting things like fireworks displays, once again, JUST IN CASE. They used to be allowed to get really close to the action, but now they mostly stand at A SAFE DISTANCE behind big barriers erected for their own good.
In fact the entire country where I come from is pretty much a ‘don’t do that, just in case’ culture these days as far as most of the old fun things are concerned, and much of this ‘just in case-ness’ has been enforced by silly but very strict laws.
(It seems the only thing that people are allowed to do with wild abandon and without restriction is to drink lots of alcohol… often until they are very very ill, and often while moaning a lot about all the things they can’t do anymore… This is also very very dangerous, to life, limb, and morale, but ironically it IS allowed and often encouraged as a way to RELAX… But is isn’t very relaxing when someone else that has been doing a lot of wild-abandon-drinking decides he doesn’t like the look of you and wants to kill you, and you don’t have time to retreat to A SAFE DISTANCE. This happens a lot on Friday and Saturday nights, even in nice towns, like Oxford.)
Spain isn’t like this… whereas people from the UK are advised to stand well back all the time, Spanish people like to stand very, very close to the action. Without barriers or hard hats, or security cordons, or silly laws banning fun things they’ve been doing for ever anyway.
For example, if they want to burn down very very flammable wooden statues in very tight streets, while standing very close, despite the risk that the whole city might catch fire and be destroyed forever, then that’s just fine. It happens in Valencia and is called Las Fallas.
If Spanish people (OK, OK, in this case Catalan people who are often unjustly lumped into the geographical notion of Spain for the sake of articles like this, but anyway…) want to stand on top of each other making improbably tall human pyramids, and send small children scrambling to the top of these pyramids at the risk of life and limb, then that’s fine too. They do that in Tarragona alot.
And I can’t say I approve of it anymore, but if Spanish people want to run around in front of half-tonne bulls which could easily trample them to death, then go for it! You can literally grab the poor bloody bull by the horns if you want.
Why is all the above allowed in Spain when you wouldn’t have a chance in hell of getting any of those fun plans past a UK town council these days?
Because people in Spain still believe in letting each other decide how to get their kicks. They still believe in doing crazy things that have been going on for generations, just because, well, that’s what’s been going on for generations, and history is more interesting than health and safety.
Mostly though, I think they just like to feel alive, and their government is often OK with that.
But let’s face it, all this irresponsible free-will-to-act-as-they-please may not last forever.
Far more speed traps on the roads in Spain these days. British people have been moaning about that for years, and I’m sure they are right… it’s a sign, one of those nanny-state things…
Few years back the citizens of a small town in Aragon were told that they couldn’t drop a live goat out of their church tower once a year anymore. Great news for goats, I’m delighted, but again, it could be a sign… Things might start getting BANNED a lot…
But for now, Spanish people seem to have quite a bit more freedom when it comes down to doing mad-crazy-dangerous things just for the fun of it, and that is to be commended (as good ideas go, that one’s dying out). It is just one more of the things that Makes Spain Great.
Discuss…
Graham
5 Jul 09 at 11:48 pm
Couldn’t agree more. Just read today about a school sports day without any parents there as a risk analysis had concluded that “the host school could not “guarantee the children’s safety” from “abductors or paedophiles”
I tweeted it if anybody fancies making it a bit viral look at my Tweets at @grahunt
Madness.
RayTibbitts
5 Jul 09 at 11:59 pm
I have to admit, this is THE greatest thing about Spain, and even though my wife doesn’t believe me when I say it, it really makes Spain stand out and shine above any of the other nations that I know about.
Thankfully, Spain has been slow to adopt the culture that has been stamping out the freedom to just have fun.
I hope they never do.
mcark
6 Jul 09 at 12:13 am
I am amused when I read reports of “lost freedom” in true democratic states. If we are losing freedom, it’s our own fault.
Justin Roberts
6 Jul 09 at 9:19 am
Fantastic post!
The unelected ‘elf and safety gimps run the UK now. It’s gone too far.
At this rate three page risk assessments will have to be done just to cross the road. It’s totally, totally wrong.
AndrewW
6 Jul 09 at 9:20 am
Mcark, you say that like democracy somehow gives people power!? Politicians are all the same. Doesn’t matter who we vote for. They lie to get elected, promise the world, win the election, deliver nothing, hike taxes and screw the economy.
Aloriel
6 Jul 09 at 9:41 am
Hi,
although I agree with many of the things you wrote, we also need to cut off other ones (smoking, etc…).
However, I would like to point out one of your paragraphs:
“If Spanish people (OK, OK, in this case Catalan people who are often unjustly lumped into the geographical notion of Spain for the sake of articles like this, but anyway…) [...]”
erm, what is that? why sometimes you (in plural, foreigners) want to “separate” Catalan from Spain when talking about it? You won’t say Galicia, nor Valencia, nor Andalusia the same way you did it with Catalans, although there are separatists there too, then why you make the difference?
Richardksa
6 Jul 09 at 10:06 am
@Aloriel: Having just returned from a week of conversation with 16 Spaniards, 11 of whom were Catalan, I would say they do it too. The Catalans lumped all the rest of Spain that wasn’t Catalonia into a place called Espain. Catalans regard their little bit of Iberian heaven as a seperate state. In conversation it was “In Catalonia we do this…”. The week was made more complex by having people from the Balearics, Valencia and Barcelona, who considered their bit of East Iberia was different from the other bits. The Castellanos, hailing from such diverse places as Asturias, Galicia and Andalucia were all quite happy to be counted as Spanish.
On another of these language weeks I was told by a Valenciano, “I am Catalan first, European second and Spanish third”.
Funnily enough, I never hear strident language like this from the Galicians, the Asturians, The Andalucians etc.
I like Spain because of its “Live and let live” culture. Its culture is diverse and should be celebrated, but let’s not make this diversity and cause for division.
Oh, and don’t restart the smoking debate. It’s been done to death!
Geoff Harrison
6 Jul 09 at 10:58 am
Agree wholeheartedly with the gist of the article. Us repressed Anglo Saxons have a lot to learn from the Spanish about taking a more gung-ho attitude to life and feeling free to express ourselves. My take on it is that having fun stops being OK is when it starts impacting negatively on other people’s quality of life although I appreciate that it’s often hard to know where to draw the line. One thing I am fairly sure about though is that a bad place to express yourself is behind the wheel of a car since it invariably leads to people, and very often OTHER people, getting hurt. If speed cameras are the answer then I’m all in favour.
bill (Legazpi)
6 Jul 09 at 7:28 pm
@Geoff Harrison – sounds like you are an advocate of John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle
Graham Tappenden
7 Jul 09 at 12:02 am
More madness that you missed out:
- Schools not putting on nativity plays (and if they do, not allowing parents to take photos of their children)
- Angels without wings, because they are considered a fire hazard
- Carol singers in shopping centres being banned for health & safety reasons (or being told that they are too loud), or being banned in hospitals because they pose an infection risk
- Ridiculous dress codes in shopping arcardes
- Fixed penalty fines for chalk pavement drawings
and don’t even think of reading the Three Little Pigs!
Aloriel
7 Jul 09 at 4:55 am
@Richardkska: I will tell you that I spent my weekend with other catalans, and they don’t give that d*mn about the separatism, especially if you go to Barcelona. Furthermore, if you *really* know Valencians, they do not like that pancatalanism that is heard from time to time (especially from that Catalan separatists). And yet, when talking to foreigners in Spain we would use that “in my-region we do it that way” but when abroad we would use “in Spain” much more. And belive me I’ve met a lot of people all around Spain and traveled quite a lot.
Gary
7 Jul 09 at 10:52 am
In Arroyo de Miel three years ago I arrived on the main street for the Reyes parade. With 20 minutes to go there was no sign that this was about to happen. As the time for the parade approached two police cars with blues flashing blocked the roundabout behind us to stop traffic and in the distance the first float appeared. The street filled almost instantly with people streaming from bars and restaurants. The parade edged gently through the throng for 20 minutes. There were no stweards or barriers. The people on the floats hurled sweets at the spectators who inverted umbrellas to catch them. No one wore goggles or helmets. After half an hour the parade had passed by followed by an solitary ambulance and two roadsweepers.
An hour, tread to needle and it was done. I imagine it would have taken that long to organise the diaries of the Health & Safety committe in the UK before anything actually got discussed…
At Berlin Cabaret in Madrid there is a raised dancefloor with no handrail – unthinkable in the UK – yet no one falls off.
Imagine the face of the Health and Safety officer if Maceiras opened a branch in London and wanted to get permission to perform a queimada?
“You want to drape the restaurant in fishing nets then pour 2 gallons of neat alcohol into a huge cauldron and set fire to it, then you want to scoop up flaming liquid in a ladle and pour it from a heitht back into the cauldron. All this in a crowded restaurant in the dark….?”
I don’t think so!!
Richardksa
7 Jul 09 at 12:08 pm
Living in Spain can change your perceptions. If some oik in England sounded his horn/had a loud conversation with his mates/let off fireworks outside my open window at 3am I would be p*ssed off. Here, I am happy that someone is having fun – and sometimes it’s me!
Kralizec
7 Jul 09 at 1:29 pm
Nice reference to the Catalan/Valencian fire festivities (Falles, etc), Ben, but I must say we’re already having some trouble with EU laws on fireworks… According to the EU, there should be a minimum distance of 15 metres between the fireworks and the spectators; now check these videos of Correfocs and Cordà, and imagine how boring would they be if we respected those safety measures:
Correfocs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYnARmLAyPA&feature=related
Cordà: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCvy6q_sx8Q
ValenciaSon
7 Jul 09 at 1:32 pm
Most Valencians are diametrically opposed to referring to themselves as Catalans and I wouldn’t advise referring to a Valencian as Catalan. There’s a reason why the Autonomous Community of Valencia has Valencian as their official language, besides Castillian.
Kralizec
7 Jul 09 at 2:03 pm
I’m Valencian and I consider myself Catalan. The names Valencian and Catalan, when speaking about languages, are completely interchangeable.
The predominantly anti-catalan areas are just the cities of València and Elx, wich have a tiny (and decreasing) percentage of Valencian speakers; people who defend the separation between Valencia and the rest of the Catalan-speaking areas, what we call “blavers”, usually don’t speak the language.
Please, don’t speak about things you don’t know.
Gary
7 Jul 09 at 8:51 pm
@Kralizec – ValenciaSon may well have consulted his father upon this one as I seem to remember VS saying his dad was actually from Valencia…
ValenciaSon
8 Jul 09 at 2:45 am
Mare meua! Com una ovella seguix a la rabera!
urgellenk
8 Jul 09 at 10:59 am
Kralizec,
Being Valenciano does not necessarily mean that you know better. Your opinion may be as valid as any one else’s, but from your post it is clear that your knowledge of your local area obscures the general picture in the region of Valencia or that you are simply doing some wishful thinking here.
It is easy, even for somebody living in Malaysia or Alabama, to check the sentiment of the citizens of the Comunitat Valenciana towards pan-catalanism or the inter-chargeability of Valenciano and Catalan languages. Political parties have clearly voiced out their views on these issues, and the poll results election after election are there to be checked by anyone with internet access. Those results are absolutely divergent from the situation that you describe, not only in València and Elx, but reflect quite well the opinion of ValenciaSon.
I am perfectly aware of the “blaver” phenomenon in the city of Valencia (and in Valenciano-speaking areas of the Ribera and the Horta), but you must also agree that one does not need to be a “blaver” to be diametrically opposed to referring to oneself as Catalan, which is what ValenciaSon wrote, and describes very well the feeling of a large majority of the residents throughout the region of Valencia.
Parubin
8 Jul 09 at 11:05 am
I beg to differ. Lively fun and madness is not something that happens only in Spain.
There are abundant picturesque examples all around.
My favourite place for freewheeling fun is the Coney Island amusement resort (in Brooklyn, NY) with all these fantastic, colorful, outdated, worn down and sometimes creepy rides, amusements and all sorts of popular attractions.
My last time in NYC I visited the freak-show in which a tattooed fat gut stuck a screwdriver up his nose. Not no mention a rather unsetting attraction called ‘Shoot the Freak’, live human target in which you got a paintball gun to shoot to a poor fella who was running a hiding in a torn down plot.
See pictures here :
http://www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com/bigmap/brooklyn/coneyisland/shootthefreak/index.htm
Good-old-days carefree fun is alive and well not only in Spain.
(BTW, I heard the Coney Island amusements where being torn down to be replaced with new urban developments. I hope this is not true, or if so, I wish I could visit for the last time in my next visit to NYC, due this coming octuber).
Valenciana09
8 Jul 09 at 4:32 pm
To say that català and valencià are different languages is as absurd as saying that the Castilian spoken in Spain and the one in Chile are different languages. There are different expressions, accents, vocabulary, idioms and even some verb conjugations, but when it comes down to it… el català occidental i el oriental are the same basic language.
doors and windows
8 Jul 09 at 5:21 pm
My son watches Postman Pat and there is a scene where one of the kids tries to climb a tree but Postman Pat or one of the other adult characters stops them saying “That’s far too dangerous”. Dear me, we really are going too far.
SarahHeartburn
8 Jul 09 at 7:55 pm
But I really wish the folks who are taking up bike riding as a form of public transportation would wear helmets, ok? Head injuries are not fun. I see maybe one out of 15 people here in the center of Madrid with a helmet on.
Javi
9 Jul 09 at 12:43 am
Same thing when comparing to the US.
However, look at the number of spanish kids dead by stupid accidents like falling from a roof, fireworks blowing fingers and the list goes on and on.
Geoff Harrison
9 Jul 09 at 10:44 am
Thanks @Legazpi, I didn’t know I was an advocate of the ‘Harm Principle’, but now that I’ve looked it up, yes, I guess I am! It just comes down to respect, whatever culture you’re from.
Maureen Dolan
10 Jul 09 at 3:56 pm
Yes, my brother just told me he got a fine (doubled up for cheek) for throwing down a cigarette end in Glasgow. Yes, we´re being watched, and in my wildest dreams, I´m sure the eugenicists (zat a wurd?) are morphing into the geneticists who will champion the greed and pride of the few powerful to the detriment of the rest of us “fun-loving” few, living in chaos. (They´ll mess about with our genes, the ones that make us fighters). They´ll take a while to get to primitive Spain, but they´ll get here in the end. What´s the old saying, “eat , drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die”? It should apply to us Brits and does apply to the Spaniards. But we´re living in postmodernism, folks, where all categories, all genres, all traditions collapse, even the simplest notion of democracy. Perhaps it´s cynicism (oh no, not cynicism, that copping out of one´s civic duty) when nowhere sounds better than anywhere else? I´m an old Marxist-cum-feminist who has cared about the excluded, especially women, and where deportes de riesgo are concerned, I´d like to hear about abortion. To my mind, I don´t see the fun of my kid being harried into a backward, macho, Roman gladiatorial notion of what an animal is and seguing indiscriminatorially into pregnancy as the glory of the empire. Fuck beasts, fuck women, qué más da. As we know, money is at the base of all morality but I see it as the civic duty of the town in which I´m living to provide danger- free fun for all of us. Call me a snob, but I see that as culture. Bring us culture in adequate surroundings at an adequate price. And we´ll cost the state very little. We´ll have fewer, but happier, children, and we´ll warn them of the dangers of conkers, dangers much less worrying than burning down papier maché creations or the deplorable state of road safety in this country. As far as I´m concerned, Spain is a backward country, and the day somebody puts my daughter´s eye out is the day I´ll not be responsible for my actions.
Janey
10 Jul 09 at 9:13 pm
Actually, this is changing. My nephew’s school does not allow any photographs at the yearly christmas show. And my sister in law doesn’t let her kids go outside w/o her. They live in a Barcelona suburb.
To support your point however, she does allow my 10 year old nephew to play with firecrackers — often.
ang
17 Jul 09 at 2:10 pm
it’s important to remember a couple of things when looking at the uk’s relationship with h&s. firstly – we brought this problem on ourselves. look at the ‘injury lawyer’ business sector – too many people are looking to make money and blame someone for ‘accidents’. secondly, the daily mail/express is where these things are usually covered, and these papers look to apportion blame in their coverage of news. they are hypocritics and scare-mongerers and articles in these (and other) publications should be cross-checked and independently verified.
too much of the uk media tries to paint it as a horrible place to live, when this is simply not the case. indeed much of the so-called problems are easily avoided by a pragmatic approach and some positivity.
if h&s legislation tries to look for and offset potential risk in every aspect of life, then so be it; but it is our own reaction to the legislation that makes our lives interesting and fulfilling or otherwise.
mallorcaman
19 Jul 09 at 2:24 pm
Cheese rolling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOyQBSMeIhM
Zach
23 Jul 09 at 2:25 pm
The best thing the socialist government has done is drastically reduce traffic deaths ( much more heroic than fighting ETA as far as I’m concerned) And how do you do this? through rules.
Same with smoking in bars and restaurants, same with noise, same with peeing in the street. I find none of these things charming and I’m a little tired of the “spain is different” attitude that says it’s an expression of latin vitality to be disrespectful.
The amazing thing is, so many Spanish are sick of these things but don’t do anything about. that’s another big problem here: complacency.
Zach