Brush up your Spaniard. A bit below the belt.

 

 

 

Brush up your Spaniard. A Bit Below the Belt

 

 

 

 

Just over five weeks to go before we head to Portsmouth or Plymouth to board the good ship Pont Aven for Santander. I will check carefully which this time as I did drive to Portsmouth instead of Plymouth once. How we laughed.

 

That leaves  5 weeks to brush up my Spanish. How's it done? By meeting Spanish speakers at the weekly get together on Hurst Street?  By listening to Spanish Radio and TV via the internet?  By reading Spanish newspapers online? By watching DVDs in Spanish?  Reading a Spanish novel?

I had planned to do all these and I've ended up doing what I always do which is to go through the 5 exercise books full of words and phrases I have picked up over the last 12 years. They are falling to bits now and I get through about a page a day before taking Tommy out for his morning walk. I test myself on vocabulary (right hand page) and 'useful phrases' (left hand page).

 

 

                                                       A selection of good intentions

 

 

Some time ago I reluctantly had to accept that I don't use most of the words and hardly any of the phrases. They are all proper Spanish as I wouldn't have taken the trouble to write then down neatly if I hadn't heard them used or seen them written down somewhere. I do know that on many of the occasions I've dipped into my treasure chest and used one in public I have been met with blank stares. I usually give it one more go just to be sure. I never get round to crossing them out in the books so I come across them again from time to time. I usually have a Spanish novel on the go and I suppose many of this useless stuff has come via the written word. Some I have obviously copied down wrongly but mostly they are words I thought would be useful, like andámio (scaffolding), amusing , like  un tragaldabas  (a greedy person, or someone who eats doorknockers) or rude and offensive.

 

Out of 39 of these Man in Alora blogs the second most popular, by a wide margin, has been 'Insulting Behaviour' so in an effort to play to my strengths  here are a few which may amuse.

 

Those of a sensitive disposition my prefer to check their e mails, facebook or Twitter. You have been warned.

 

Confunde el velocidad con el tocino (he confuses speed with fatty salt pork) which means 'He doesn't  know his arse from his elbow'  is a good one to start with as there are many expressions in Spanish which use below the waist anatomy.

I used  nalgas, in good faith, to mean 'arse' until Antonio Martos told me it was not correct. It's in the dictionary too. The most popular word  for 'arse' is culo, of course, and crops up everywhere, especially por el culo (up the arse) as in 'me da por culo tener que trabajar' (I hate work) or le dio unpuntapié en el culo (he kicked him up the arse) or ¡Vete a tomar por el culo! or ¡Métetelo por el culo! (**** you!).

 

 

 

Curiously, un culillo ( a little arse) means a drop left at the bottom of a glass and 'Culo que veo, culo que deseo' (Arse I see, arse I want) means 'If I see something I have to have it'.

Another word for arse is posaderas which should not be confused with posadero which means an innkeeper or posadera, his wife.

 

I've just had a break (un descanso) for a bowl of warming soup. One of the words I have in my collection but have never used is un descansillo (a little break or rest) which means 'the landing on a flight of stairs'. I'm very fond of that one and look forward to a chance to use it.

Now back to the rude ones.

 

The rudest word I know in the English language (let me know if you have a ruder one) is, astonishingly, used all the time in Álora by men and women alike and as far as I can tell, in the rest of Spain. I am referring, of course,  to '****'. See!, I can't bring myself to write it. It's that offensive. But not in Spain.

In general it's used to give emphasis.  It is used to mean 'For heaven's sake!'  as in '¡Vámonos ya , coño! (Come on, let's get a bloody  move on!) or '¡Ni hablar, coño, ni hablar!' ( Not on your bloody life!).

Here's a few to remember:

 

¿Como coño?              How the hell/f*** etc.

¿Donde coño?             Where the hell? etc.

¿Porqué coño?            Why the etc.?

¿Qué coño?                   What the etc?

 

¡Ni que coño!              My arse!

 

¿Que coño quieres?    What on earth do you want?

 

Lo hice porque me salió del coño    I did it because I bloody well felt like it.

 

Viven en el quino coño  or pino        They live in the fifth **** or pine (in the back of beyond )   ????????????????

 

The dictionary I have says that coño is also the nickname for 'a Spaniard'. I wouldn't chance it if I were you. You could get a puntapié en el culo.

 

 

 

                                                          What on earth am I reading?


Here's a few of my favourites:

¿Cuando se te puso la mosca detrás de la oreja?  When did you get the fly behind your ear? (When did you find out?)

Ha visto mas pollas que los urinarios de la mesquita vieja. She's seen more penises than the urinal in the old mosque. (She's been around) (might be a bit out of date.)

Es mas quemado  que el cenicero de un bingo. He/She is more burnt out than the ashtray in a bingo hall.

Tiene menos dinero que una puta en cuaresma. He/She's more broke than a whore in Lent.

No tiene pelos en la lengua. He has no hair on his tongue. (He doesn't mince words).

¡Véte a freir esparrago!  Go and fry asparagus (Piss off!)

Es mas lento que un desfile de cojos. He's slower than a parade of cripples

January 22nd. 2012



Man still not in Alora. Bar LoD'Antonio

                                               Man Still Not in Álora. Bar LoD'Antonio

Six weeks to go before our return. My elder sister is at this moment at 21 Benito Suarez where the water heater has packed up again. Those ********s are ******* useless. Another call to the Fagor man and another 40€ call out fee when we get back.  If anyone has been following my garage saga (see Blog #2 'All the Excitement is Over') you'll be pleased to hear that after nearly 8 years I can use my garage. I went in twice before coming back to Brum and then the door wouldn't open so that was that. Our neighbour  is now using it while we're away and the door is still working. Result or what? No. He's just called  me to say someone has left a note on his windscreen saying that he's not allowed to be there.  Hey ho.

While I was writing the last post about the visit of Los Reyes Magos I had a tweet from Epi, (Señor Sanchez to me) our alcalde (mayor) giving his condolences to the family of a child that had been killed during the procession. I presumed it had happened in Alora and me quedé pasmado (I was speechless). The tragic event did take place but in Malaga and I believe the child was crushed under a vehicle while trying to pick up sweets. Thanks to Peggy and Tom for putting me straight. Terrible thing.

I have just been contacted by someone wanting to know if I am alive.

Anyway, Chris Gray has said he likes the popular series 'Favourite Bars' so it's time for...

Lo D'Antonio (Antonio's)

In my opinion LoD'Antonio does the best tapas in town, certainly within the radius of 'The Vuelta'.
This bar is run by Antonio  Gil who used to eat too many of the delicious platos prepared in her tiny kitchen by his longstanding (there's no room to sit down in there) cook.
This is what he looked like when he took over the bar.

When Antonio and his cousin Paco opened the bar it was called Bar La Rampa (on calle La Rampa) and still has that name on the sign outside. As a young man Antonio travelled round the world and had a motorbike. He is, therefore, worldly wise and does not say much. He has a white board on the wall and every week  a quotation from one of the great philosophers is written there in felt tip in Spanish. He has a big flat screen telly in there which I believe has never shown a football match and these days not even 'Spain's most popular TV chef'' Karlos Arguiñano gets a look in.

                                                                  Karlos Arguiñano

I must say something about this man. He seems to be on the TV. screens of every bar I go into and his programme is very popular with men in bars. They always find something about his cooking to argue about. Arguing is a popular pastime which sits comfortably with tapas and cañas (small beers). You could be forgiven for thinking that the men of Álora do a lot of cooking. They do not. They just know a lot about cooking and are almost prepared to come to blows about, for example, whether or not a calamarito is the same as a puntillita (they are both baby squids as far as I can make out) or how long to boil pulpo for a pulpo a la gallega. (best cooked from frozen apparently).
Mr Arguiñano does know how to cook. He is a Basque and the men there really do know how to cook and have their own 'cooking clubs'.  He is also admired by Heston Blumenthal and Jamie Oliver. So there. He is now 64 years old, a multi millionaire and owns his own TV production company. He is a big investor in the Basque sport Pelota and owns part of La Sexta TV channel.  His catchphrase is 'rico, rico y con fundamento'.( tasty, tasty and with nutritional value) and he uses parsley in almost all his recipes.  Shrewd viewers of his show will notice that every piece of kitchen equipment from knives to nutmeg graters proudly displays the name of its manufacturer. I am told he has a luxury yacht too.

Except for during Semana Santa Antonio's big screen shows rock videos. He is a big fan of The Rolling Stones, (he has adopted the 'tongue logo' ) ,the Beatles ( he has a display of framed EP covers on the wall, most of which were not released in the UK) and a Spanish rock band called Tabletom. (he has a signed and framed t shirt on the wall) He likes Cowbell too. http://www.myspace.com/cowbelltheband

When times were better LoDantonio used to fill up at 2.00pm. with tapeanders and people just passing through the town. (The bar is the first one you will see after parking your car in the town car park). It was a favourite of Jaques Laurelhet  and his 'coterie' too. Jacques was  French and had been  an Alora resident for many years. He was a painter and his paintings could be found all over town; in people's houses, in bars, public buildings and on most of  posters for the annual  feria and the flamenco festivals.

 

The Peña Flamenca (Flamenco Club) with Carmen de Carmen. All the artwork on the back wall is by Jacques

 

There is a photo of him on the wall in LoDantonio aged about 18 playing guitar in  a rock group. A good drawing of Antonio Gil by him is up there too. Jacques was very popular in the town and everyone was saddened by his death.

                                                                   LoDantonio
I have spent many happy hours with a tapa and a caña in front of me staring at the above scene. At the far end beyond the kitchen roll is the kitchen. The cook is in there somewhere. There used to be a clock on the wall where the bottles are that was a 36 hour clock (I think.  Chris could tell you if you should meet him) which seemed to make more sense as the afternoon went on and somebody might say,  'Oh it's  quarter past 36  we'd better have another'.  Above the entrance to the kitchen is a diagram showing the origins and branches of the various palos of flamenco. One of them, the 'Malagueño' was invented in Álora. One of the town's two prominent cantaores (singers), Manuel 'El Pibri' is a regular at LoDantonio along with many flamenco aficionados, such as Pepe Rojas (of sheep's testicle fame) and El Rubio who rides around on a scooter and turns up at the bar with flowers, herbs and other cosas del campo like 'sweet lemons'.

                                                     'El Pibri' with Emilio Cortes (guitar)

    
                                                              The Peña Flamenca

Nearly all the bars in Álora serve tapas and even larger portions (media raciones or raciones). Some have a chilled display counter, as does LoDantonio but none that I know of has a chalkboard with the day's fare. Usually you have to ask, '¿Hay tapas?' or '¿Qué tapas tienen?' and listen to a rapid recital of what's on offer. Sometimes Antonio has more than 20 tapas to offer, most of them cooked.
For some reason, if I ask, '¿Qué hay de Tapas?' he always smiles and replies. 'Muy bien gracias'. (very well thankyou). I don't understand why and so I've stopped doing it.

If you haven't seen this yet you are in for a pleasant surprise


http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/this-is-a-flash-mob-playing-here-comes-the-sun-in-a-spanish-unemployment-office/267084/#.UPE2ctkXswE.twitter

January 15th. 2013

The Kings' visit to Álora.

Today is 6th. January. Epiphany. The twelve days of Christmas are over  and I must take down the coloured lights from the front of the house.  Maureen decided the Christmas tree had to go on Friday and it now lies abandoned on the patio waiting for me to get the shredder out.

In Álora, where I am not, it is el día de los Reyes Magos del Oriente, or Reyes Magos for short. Today is the day when Spanish children receive their Christmas presents. Last night the cabalgata (cavalcade) will have passed through the streets with the three kings and their pajes (pages or servants) on decorated floats pulled by tractors or 4x4s. I will add some photos when they appear later today on the Alora website http://www.alora.es/Inicio/N.asp?IdArticulo=4145.
The pajes,  (usually pretty young things) throw caramelos (sweets) to the crowds lining the streets. The last time we were there for Christmas we stood in our open doorway, expecting a good shower of sweets to land in the hall, (very handy for next year's Halloween). The caramelos are rock hard and thrown with some force and sting when they hit you in the face. They could take your eye out!

In Cádiz the kings ride on camels and the Madrid cabalgata is screened on national television. The first recorded cabalgata in Spain  was in Alcoy in Alicante province (1886) a town which has no other claim to fame than  being the origin of the rarely heard saying:
 tener más moral que el Alcoyano ("to have a greater morale than Alcoyano") which refers to a 'famous' football match played by FC Alcoyano when the losing home team begged the referee to allow extra time so that they could scrape a draw.

Last week Los Reyes found time to set up shop in the Casa de Cultura so that hundreds of young Perotes could deliver their Christmas wish lists. Then off they went to spread good cheer at two of Álora's residencias (old people's homes).

 

In Spain the Reyes are supposed to represent three different continents, Africa (Balthazar), Asia (Caspar) and Europe (Melchior). Many Chinese Christians believe that one of them came from China. In Spain there has been growing concern that Balthazar is usually played by someone in 'blackface' and there has been a move away from this practice. In Alora we have a 'genuinely ' black'



 Balthazar. And four servants too!

 

 

The current pope, Benedict XVI or Joseph Ratziger as he is always referred to in Spain has caused a bit of a stir down our way by saying in his book 'The Childhood of Jesus' that the three wise men came from Andalucía http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2012/11/28/andalucia/1354129464.html which is, of course, to the west of Bethlehem.

 

Incidentally the only suggestion of there being three in number comes from Matthew's gospel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_2:1 where  three gifts are mentioned. It has just been presumed that they had a gift each. Matthew is the only one of the canonical gospels to mention the Magi; a word meaning 'wise men' or 'sorcerers' which goes back from Latin to  Greek to Persian.

By 500AD. they had been promoted to kings.

 

 The word magi is the plural of Latin magus, borrowed from Greek μάγος magos,^[6] as used in the original Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew. Greek magos itself is derived from Old Persian maguŝ from the Avestan magâunô, i.e., the religious caste into which Zoroaster was born. (Wikipedia).

 

 

 

                                               Watch out for those caramelos. They hurt

Please note the warm sunny weather.

 

 

.

 

 

 

Man not in Alora. Four lakes and a bit of tripe

Man Not In Alora. Four Lakes and a Bit of Tripe

 

 

If you go down to the roundabout with the Moorish arch on it (The nostalgic Brits call it 'Marble Arch') and carry on up the road you will eventually come to El Chorro.  There is a small village on the other side of the dam. In 2005 the population was 78 but I suspect that the figure is higher now due to its popularity with British settlers. It is part of Álora municipality and you can get there twice a day on the M340 bus. I'm not sure if you can get back. We tend to go by car.  There is a railway station there, a hotel, La Garganta, a campsite, a church, a bar , a hydro-electric plant and a lake which we thought, for a time,  was 'the lakes' which we had read about in the Rough Guide to Andalucía.

                         The El Chorro Dam with the railway station and La Garganta behind

We still  tend to use 'El Chorro' to mean 'The Lakes' although the three much bigger lakes or embalses or pantanos(reservoirs) that you can see from the plane as it approaches Malaga airport.are actually part of Ardales, Teba, Campillos and Antequera and are a few kilometres from El Chorro. To get to them you drive past the dam towards the spectacular limestone gorge el Desfiladero de los Gaitanes or La Garganta del Chorro as it is also called. No matter how many times I've passed this way I always stop to look up the lake at the gorge and the Caminito del Rey that clings to  the cliff.

 

El Desfiladero de los Gaitanes 

 

The Caminito del Rey (The king's little path) was built in 1904 for the workers building the hydroelectric plant to be able to cross between the two waterfalls, El Chorro  and El Gaitanejo  without having to climb down the mountain and back up again.  Alfonso X111 paid a visit there in 1921 to inaugurate the newly built El Chorro reservoir. There is a stone 'seat' by the lake to commemorate the event.  The engineer, Rafael Bejumea was made a count by the king for his work and in 1953 the lake was renamed El Conde de Guadalhorce (the count of Guadalhorce). They say that the king walked on the caminito named after him but I doubt it.

The Caminito del Rey is visited regularly by adventurous and foolhardy people. It has always been  a favourite with the suicidal.

 

 

These days it is in a very bad state and from time to time the Alora authorities announce that restoration will start. There is a big chunk of it missing at its start, just by the railway tunnel which people tell me was removed by the council to avoid the costly recovery of mangled corpses. However, I know that the path there was actually destroyed by Messerschmitt bombers near the end of 'Von Ryan's Express' (1965) starring Frank Sinatra and Trevor Howard.



                                            The Camino del Rey being bombed. (before).

                                                                     And after

Von Ryan's Express was mostly filmed in Italy but for the last scenes Frank Sinatra came to El Chorro and stayed at the Pez Espada Hotel in Torremolinos. Whilst staying there Frankie was arrested after breaking a photographer's camera. Apparently an aspiring  Cuban actress told the press that she was Frankie's lover to gain publicity. Mr. Sinatra was fined 2,500 pesetas and rushed to the airport,  but not before spitting on the floor in front of a photo of Generalisimo Francisco Franco.
The bar in the Hotel Pez Espada where the incident took place is now called 'Frankie's Cafe'.

This film is now very popular
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmDhRvvs5Xw

This is good too
http://www.adventureworldwide.net/stories/en-el-vientre-de-la-bestia


The Conde de Guadalhorce, the Guadalteba and the Guadalhorce reservoirs supply Málaga and much of the Costa Del Sol with water. There's no public transport to The Lakes.

                                                    El Conde de Guadalhorce (built1921)

 

If you manage to get there you can swim, fish,  paddle a canoe or even pedal a pedalo on the Conde de Guadalhorce and there are bars and restaurants which fill up at weekends. It's a popular spot. Maureen broke her leg going down to the lake for a swim, so watch your step. Have a coffee in the Posada del Conde instead. The camarero is called Juan. He thinks Álora people are brutos (rough, stupid, ignorant or uncouth).
 

We take Tommy for long walks near the  El Mirador bar/restaurant. You can walk for miles without meeting anybody else. In February you can see these little wild daffodils which I think are called Hoop Petticoat Daffodils or Campanillas Chicas and in March, Bee Orchids.

 

Campanillas Chicas

 

 

                                                            Bee Orchid (Orquídea Abeja)

El Mirador is mostly an open air restaurant and gets mixed reviews from people I know who have been. The chips are always OK. We went once in the winter and had to fight for a table inside near the open fire. I had Migas which means 'breadcrumbs'. I was a bit put out when that was exactly what it was. I've never ordered it again anywhere. It seems to be on every menu and lurks there to trap an innocent adventurer; quite the opposite of Callos which means 'tripe' but is full of stuff like chorizo, morcilla, pigs' feet, tripe  and chick peas (garbanzos). A porky delight. Don't order it in Bilbao though. It really is only tripe. (unless you are really fond of tripe).

01/01/2012