I was recently asked (in reference to my new Madrid Confessions audiobook), just what was so great about Spain, so I’ve decided to dedicate a mini-series this summer to answering just that question. First up, the honesty system…

It never ceases to amaze your average Brit that you can walk into most bars in Spain, order as much as you like to eat and drink, and pay nothing until you are about to leave when, quite often, the barman will ask you to remind him what you had!

Clearly there is massive room for abuse here. Had 5 cañas one night but only want to admit to 4? The worn out guy in the sweat-stained shirt who’s been working since 7 am isn’t going to notice… but as far as I know, this system is rarely exploited.

The most amazing example I’ve seen of the honesty system in practice was in San Sebastian.

You walk into a bar there and find the bar top covered in plate after plate of incredible tapas, or pintxos as they are known up there (see photo above), help yourself to as many as you like, and then casually inform the barman (who hasn’t been taking a blind bit of notice of your eating habits) just how much you’ve had. You then pay him and leave.

Can you imagine how much that system would be abused in other parts of the world if suddenly introduced over night? Yet in Spain this has been going for years. The bar owners trust the customers, and the customers basically act honestly in return…

…Except for those that feast outrageously then ‘do a runner’, or a simpa as it’s known in Spanish, but that’s a tale for another time… All in all, the honesty system is without doubt one of those things that puts the ‘great’ into Spain. Would you dare to abuse it?

This post answers one of the many intriguing questions tackled in the ‘author q and a’ bonus that comes with the outrageous Madrid Confessions audiobook.

My new audiobook ‘The Madrid Confessions’ is out right now!

I’ve posted a special video explaining absolutely everything (what it’s about, the cool bonus, my insane guarantee…!)

Watch the video (and get a special fast-movers discount), right here:

http://www.notesfromspain.com/shop/madrid-confessions.html

I can’t wait to hear what you think!

At Notes from Spain we love to introduce you to little-known corners of this exceptional country, to highlight things you might only discover if you’ve been living here for years… and today’s video is no exception. You can watch it here:

Our 1,000 Euro Secret

(My new audiobook, The Madrid Confessions, includes plenty more “little-known corners of this exceptional country” secrets far more intimate than this one, make sure you sign up for the early discount on the same page as the video!)

Here’s a screenshot from my iPhone (my sister claims having an iPhone makes me a yuppie, I think she’s right) of all the people twittering within 25 km of me, here in Madrid, right now…

It’s a cool feature of an iPhone app called Tweetie, and just one more way to get addicted to Twitter. I can spend minutes scrolling through all this digisura…

I mean, in the above tweets we have not only information about a random stranger’s sex life, but a poem about the Rio Duero… it’s an art form, I swear… and I can’t actually tell if I’m trying to be cynical anymore. I love it, am fascinated by it, and at the same time find it absurd (in the philosophical sense… if you know what I mean).

In any case, it seems Twitter, like Facebook, has had a swift integration into Spanish online life …and whenever things are a bit quiet here on the blog, you can always find and follow me on Twitter I promise to reveal to you … well, stuff of great interest!

For once, when surveyed on a nationwide scale, the Spanish population’s biggest worry is no longer local, separatist terrorism. The biggest worry for the average Spaniard is now the country’s financial situation. As one newspaper puts it, “El paro ‘quita el sueño’ al 75,2% de los españoles” - The fear of unemployment keeps 75% of Spaniards awake at night.

And well they might worry. As the unemployment figures creep towards 4 million, some say things will get as bad as 5 million unemployed by the end of the year, accounting for an unprecedented 20% of the working population.

Madrid keeps it’s head held high, it’s economics based largely on wealthy service industries, but the situation on the Mediterranean coasts must be going downhill quickly. Where once there were always new houses to be built, equipped and furnished, now there are no more eager buyers, and nothing to be built.

The question is, for a country that has experienced and enjoyed exceptional growth and prosperity over the last 10 years, what might a Spain with 5 million unemployed workers soon look like? And can anything be done?

How as a ‘healthy’ 17-year-old I longed to be allowed to stay up late enough to watch those Spanish films on channel Four with the red triangle displayed prominently in the top right-hand corner of the screen, when anything that came out of Spain or France, had subtitles, and ended up on British TV late at night, was bound to have a decent bit of flesh in it.

At last, my dreams are to be fulfilled! El Pais, Spain’s most respected of newspapers, is giving away soft porn every weekend for the foreseeable future, starting next Sunday with ‘El Portero de la Noche’ - “The Night Watchman” ( … the “naughty” night watchman, I imagine…)

Under the banner “Vuelve el Erotismo” (Erotic is Back), this latest get-something-free-with-your-paper campaign is likely to send sales through the roof. As I said to the wife, better get down to the kiosko early next Sunday for a chance of getting the first instalment, especially at 1 Euro a pop!

But hang on a minute (says the old British person still hiding inside me), free ‘dirty videos’ with El Pais? Can you imagine The Times of London, or the venerable Sunday Observer giving away this sort of ‘filth’? It’s a disgrace!

For more details, be very careful about checking out the special promotional webstie, www.quevuelvaelerotismo.com - just don’t look behind the third door for the good stuff… a blooming disgrace, that’s what this is…

[rant]

Now we have a baby in tow we obviously need to find places to eat that are non-smoking. This is hard.

OK, there are options available via a quick search at www.nofumadores.org, but if we try to think of favourite old restaurants that are smoke free, we can only think of four. Two are pretty expensive for a weekday lunch, one is completely over the other side of town, and the last is a wonderful Hare Krishna center where you sit on the floor and eat rather delicious Tali, but again, quite a metro ride away.

So come on Spain, SORT IT OUT!!! If the French, the English, Irish and Italians can all do without smoking in restaurants and bars, why can’t Spain? In brand/image terms, this smoking thing is going to make your country start looking pretty intelectually and sociologically backward pretty soon.

Yes I know you passed some half-arsed ‘less-smoking’ law a few years ago, but it only applies to places over 100m sq., of which there are about 3 in Spain, and everyone ignores the legislation anyway!

I also realise that at street level, hardly anyone really gives a damn. A friend told me the other day about going into a bar with 3 sets of parents, each with small children in prams/strollers, and ALL of the parents smoking! The smoke was so bad that my friends left the bar! We see parents breathing smoke over their kids every single day, so this is not an isolated, or surprising, case…

So come on Spain, work on your self-image AND your nation’s health a bit, and get with the damn program. Look at the French! No one smokes like the French (except the Spanish), yet they have done it - 100% non-smoking bars and restaurants now a pleasure to be in, a pleasure to enjoy that wonderful food in. Spain Spain Spain. How long til you sort this out?

[/rant]

Feel better now. Still can’t find anywhere smoke-free and local for lunch though. Grrrrrrrrr

Two things happened recently to make me start thnking about Spain and the love of all things new.

Firstly, I was going over past comments recently, and came across this, from Bill:

“The contemporary Spanish like to look forward, not backward. They like to live in brand new flats, drive brand new cars, build new railways, etc. They’re not interested in the past so much…”

Secondly, while Marina is on maternity leave, I’m putting together a series of special advanced Spanish pocasts with our friend Isabel (who is currently helping with everyone’s written Spanish in the forum).

We are planning to make a recording about how the Spanish would never be seen dead wearing second-hand clothes from a charity shop, something that is both common and seen as perfectly acceptable in the UK in most social groups.

I’d love some input on this. Why do the Spanish run from the old and embrace the new? Why are there no second hand/charity shops in Spain? Will all this change as the ‘crisis’ (set to get worse in 2009) means that out-and-out mad mass consumerism has to calm down, and people might have to reconsider their views on the merits of buying second-hand?

Your thoughts would be much appreciated.

Every now and again a comment come up on this blog that is worthy of special attention. This week it’s from Angel, who commented on the Essence of Spain post, as follows:

“Essence of Spain:
Corte Ingles,
Thousands of people everywhere,
being kicked out of the sidewalk by spanish people,
being not understood every time I open my mouth,
rudeness of people,
splendid sea food,
beautiful cities,
dog shit and piss everywhere,
waiters in bad mood,
pretty people
bitchy girls.“

Ouch. or Ayyyyy as they say in Spanish. Let’s address Angel’s list point by point:

1. “El Corte Ingles”

OK, actually I quite like this one. Despite meaning ‘The English Cut’, the Corte Ingles does have something very Spanish about it… but what? Can anyone help me define it? (And why, if this is so, is it that despite my total love of Spain, I can’t spend ten minutes in there without going slightly mad!)

2. “Thousands of people everywhere”

Dude, it’s a country, of course there are people everywhere!

OK, maybe the point is that the Spanish have a smaller personal-space-bubble than say, us Brits, and don’t mind hanging out in larger numbers, closer together. But that’s a good thing. Unless you’re trying to find a spot for your towel on Gandia beach at 1 p.m. any day in July…

But head off the beaten track, go to Soria, Extremadura (which roughly translates as ‘extra tough’), or the backs-of-beyonds of Castilla y Leon, and you won’t find anyone! Think of it like this, there are less people in Spain than the UK, and Spain is about 3 times bigger!

3. “Being kicked out of the sidewalk by spanish people”

OK, when it’s raining, you have a point. Umbrella control not great in Madrid.

4. “Being not understood every time I open my mouth”

Learn more Spanish! (Try Notes in Spanish!)

5. “Rudeness of people”

Let’s definitely not get into that again.

6. “Splendid sea food”

Some of the best in the world I hear… Expecially in Galicia. Walk into any port town, find the most down-to-earth looking bar or restaurant, experience seafood heaven! (So says Marina).

7. “Beautiful cities”

Muy bien.

8. “Dog shit and piss everywhere”

Could be worse. In Madrid we have men on special motorbikes sent round to hoover it up. And if you think it’s bad here, have you been to Paris recently!?

9. “Waiters in bad mood”

No, no, they’re just being professionally, um, stern.

10. “Pretty people”

Can’t argue with you there.

11. “Bitchy girls”

Better argue with you here! (In case the wife reads this!) It’s not bitchiness, it’s what’s called National “caracter” - Remember, Spanish girls take no s**t…

What do you make of Angel’s analysis?

My friend Alistair and I were in an Asturian place this evening, just off Madrid’s Calle Narvaez.

Propped up on the booze-shelf behind the bar was a photo of the owner, a fat grin below his thinning ‘tache, mountain pine forest behind… Here he is, the wild man, holding an absolute honest-to-god WOLF between his outstetched arms, tail in one hand, jaw (toothy and twisted towards the camera) in the other. A sticky red smear on it’s tawny belly the only clue that it had recently been shot to death.

I asked the (bigger moustache, combed-over hair, quintessentially Spanish) barman: “That’s a wolf, right? It’s huge!”
He said: “Yes, I’ve seen it, the head’s in the bar’s window display”
Me: (Nice…) “When was that photo taken?”
Barman: “Last year”
Me: (WTF?!) “Where?!”
Barman: “In Zamora Province”

… Jo’er.… so they are still shooting wolves in Spain. Wolves! There’s something so medieval about a wolf! And something so heartening to discover that they are still wandering around the wilder corners of Spain. Or not, as the case may increasingly be…

What’s to be done about the shooting of wolves?