It's not about the soup.  Man in Alora makes a bid for top  tourism job.

Today is The Day of the Pilar. It is also The Day of España and the day of the Guardia Civil Annual garden party to which we have not been invited once again. Rain is forecast.

It's been a helter skelter few weeks here in Álora. There's been so much going on that Mrs. Sanchez and I have met ourselves coming back going to and fro and back and forth to all the events and festivities. We totally missed the 'Día Mundial de Turismo' (World Day of Tourism) though. We take tourism very seriously here.

If you have visited this fine town as a tourist you may have followed the signs for 'Información Turistica' . It's a fairly safe bet that you didn't find our Tourist Information Office. It's tucked away in the Municipal Museum down at the bottom of our street. (If you can make out the name of our street).

 You have to pick the right time to visit too.

There's another tourist office on the other side of town which I have only seen open twice in 15 years.

Horario (Opening hours)
De Lunes a Viernes de 10:00 a 14:00 h. (Monday to Friday 10 till 2)

Cerrada según temporada y organización de eventos.(Shut depending on season and organisation of events)

This year's World Tourism Day  theme was 'Tourism and Community Development' and the events were recorded by the official town photographer.  Everyone gathered in the `'Plaza Baja', where our Museum Curator and Tourism Officer,  María José,  briefed the gathered enthusiasts on the day's programme.

                                                             Spot the tourist

Sopas Perotas, long suffering readers of this organ may remember, is Álora's famous signature dish. Every year thousands of hungry visitors cram the quaint narrow, cobbled historic streets of the Casco Historico (HIstoric Quarter) and queue patiently, spoon in hand, in the hot October sun to get a free plate of the sopas (not a soup at all) and wash it down with a cold beer from one of the three bars in the famous Plaza Baja de la Despedía. This is one of the two days in the year when the bars down in the Plaza Baja make any money (See 'The Bar That Never Makes Money' Aug 2014.) I'm delighted to say that this was a bumper year. Even Manolo up in Bar Madrugón got in on the act this year. He couldn't give to stuff away fast enough and was even spotted smiling by the official town photograper.

                                                          Is that a smile?

I have been asked to point out that the two ladies in the picture as just good friends.

Mrs. Sanchez and I missed all the excitement completely; and this gives me a chance to mention the small following this organ has in the far south west of Ireland. Hi there Clonakilty in County Cork.(Cloich na Coillte)!  Well, our friend, Mary Gosling , who comes from this fine place,  which is famous for its black (AND white) puddings, fell downstairs and broke her shoulder and was in such a bad way that we forsook our free plate of Sopas Perotas and rushed her to the hospital in Málaga, which everyone calls El Clinico, where she was given a sling, strong pain killers and a cd of the x-ray of her broken shoulder to take back to Ireland to show to her friends and the staff of Cork Hospital on her return to Hibernia. The good news is that she will not need an an operation after all and that the shoulder isn't  even broken. It must be the healthy Irish air.....or a miracle. (apparently they happen all the time on the Emerald Isle.)

 The other good news is that Graham and Mary gave us some  of Clonakilty's second most famous product.

               
                                                                Mmm.

Its other most famous product is Gosling Games and Gifts which Mary and Graham run. Get your orders in early for Christmas.

                                                    A popular corner ofd Álora

You can't really blame people, especially non Spanish speaking ones  for not turning up at carefully planned events like The World Day of Tourism. It's quite hard to find out what's going on in Álora. Official events are advertised on the Álora website (which is in Spanish) but for other events you have to keep an eye on los carteles (posters) that appear on walls and windows. Here are few of the current ones.

 An exhibition of paintings by Alora resident Shinji Naganawa
(we went there on Friday)

 A weekend of tapas in Pizarra
(missed this one))

 English lessons?

 Footie match?
(no)

 Yoga lessons?
(Mrs. Sanchez goes there every week)

  A weekend celebrating the bandits of El Burgo
(missed that one)

 An evening of Flamenco by Japanese performers.
(Went there last night and very good it was too!)










Painting and Drawing lessons (free)









Here's one I like

'Why do you steal my plants when you can grow your own?'








Javier Diaz Ocaña, who is Manolo's son and works in Bar Madrugon was in fits about this one. Javier has an odd sense of humour.








 If you give someone (unspecified) 3€ you can go for a walk and have a free Paella.  Count me in.


The weather here is still warm and sunny. It's un verano de membrillo' (a quince summer) (an Indian summer) but the campo (countryside) is still very dry and our olive crop will not be worth picking.  The pantanos (reservoirs) up above El Chorro are getting very low. We went up there yesterday with Tommy and Ana Prima. El Caminito del Rey should be ready to walk on by January. You won't be able to keep Mrs. Sanchez and me off it.

There's a rumour going round that the new swimming pool will be opening soon too.. Cuando las ranas crien pelo. (When frogs grow hair) as we say here.

Javier of Bar Cafe Madrugón, has taken to calling me 'Lagareño' which is clearly some form of abuse and greatly amuses the locals while I sip my mitad doble (large coffee with milk. 1.20€).  My research tells me that El Lagar is roughly the part of Álora on the other side of the river Guadalhorce where  local wine was produced before phylloxera destroyed all the vines in the nineteenth century so a 'lagareño' is someone who lives there. I can't see any harm in being associated with wine making so I encourage him.

                                 Javier Diaz Ocaña (on the left, with his friend Bartolo)

 More good news... you can now buy a souvenir mug with a picture of our street on it. Only 10€(!) from Antonio's new tobacconist and souvenir shop up near the ice cream parlour.  Also on sale are Alora fridge magnets, Alora key rings  'I love Alora' Tee shirts and expensive postcards. (You may remember that Antonio was forced to have his red house painted white at his own expense by the Ayuntamiento (town hall)) and so he probably needs some extra cash. Antonio says they all went like hot cakes on World Tourism Day.

October  12th. 2014

When the crow goes up the tree the skunk comes under the door.

  When the crow goes up the tree, the skunk comes under the door.

                          
                              View from the castle 10.00 am. September 28th. 2012

Three years ago yesterday, after a night of heavy rain, Álora woke up to the worst flood in living memory. The River Guadalhorce, bloated by over 200 litres of water per hour per square metre pouring down the hard, parched hills, broke its banks, sweeping away vehicles, livestock and people. I took Tommy the dog for his usual morning walk up around the castle and from up there the extent of the flood was shocking.

                                          .The morning of 28th. September 2012


Scores of people had very lucky escapes as their furniture disappeared down the river along with their dogs and horses. Two people were found clinging to the branches of a tree. Many, including a local estate agent, had not realised that they were living on a flood plain. Not many were insured.
When the water levels dropped, the steel road bridge which had joined the Barriada del Puente for 70 years was revealed. It had snapped in two. A section of it is now decorating  a traffic island.

                                                            Two days later.                 

                                                     Today 8.30 am (no bridge).

Nobody expected such a flood and people were quick to apportion blame The dam up at El Chorro which harnesses the Rio Guadalhorce for electricity generation was the obvious culprit, but there is never enough water up there to cause a flood like this. Some of the Brits who live up the valley blamed the ayuntamiento for not clearing out the arroyos.(river gulleys). In fact, the explanation was simply that all the mountains and hills that feed the streams that then feed the Guadalhorce were bone dry following months of drought. The prolonged downpour around Álora was the heaviest recorded that night in Andalucía. The water poured off the hills without soaking in and all in a short disastrous burst.

Perhaps we should have heeded this old Spanish refrán (proverb):
,
'Septiembre, o seca las fuentes o se va los puentes'
(September either dries up the fountains or carries away the bridges).

As  you would expect, there are many Spanish sayings about the weather. Some of them translate well -others not so well. Many use animals and birds and they rhyme.

Hasta la cuarenta de mayo no te quites el sayo. (Don't take of your sayo until May 40th.)

Cast not a clout till May is out.




a sayo (a very sexy mediaeval under garment).









En abríl aguas mil.     (It rains a lot in April)

Cuando la perdiz canta, señal es de agua. (When the partridge sings it's going to rain).

Cuando la corneja va rasante saca bufanda y guante
(When the crow goes up the tree, wear gloves and a scarf.)

Gato que mucho se lava, cerca está el agua.
When the cat washes itself a lot, it's going to rain.

I've got lots more of these. I can guarantee that nobody in Álora will have heard them before. I've just been up to La Plaza de la Fuente Arriba (the top square which is really a triangle) to try them out. Manolo of Bar Madrugón just did one of his growls and tapped his temple. Antonio (Mayito) Mayo,on the other hand, had an authentic Álora dicho (saying) for me.

'El agua de mayo no cala un cayo.'  I have no idea what this means except that it is about rain in May (It's just a coincidence that his surname is Mayo) and it has to do with rain on maize husks and mattresses (perhaps).

As I am writing this, the smell of cannabis is seeping into the house again. It's skunk weed I think because it smells awful. They are probably growing it up the street. It's not illegal to do that in Spain and, according to my research, you can smoke it at home (if you join a cannabis club) but not in the street and you can grow three plants at home too, but not using lights as these could be a dangerous fire risk for your neighbours. It's illegal to sell it, though. When I went for my el Jueves magazine on Wednesday, it was next to a marijuana magazine on the display.

I wonder if there's a weather expression involving cannabis.

Here's a sad story.

 

 

This is wall tile. You can see this design in the Alhambra in Granada, the Alcázar in Sevilla, in our hall and in many many bars in Andalucía. 

A good friend of ours bought a house here in Álora and used these tiles for the front of the house. Muy tipico. He was rightly proud of his facade but made a confession. He thought he had paid 1€ for each tile but had made a mistake (anyone could have done it) and paid 10€ per tile. Oops. They are hand made and, in my opinion, worth every centimo. He sold the house in July this year.

Last week I passed the house on the way up to the castle with Tommy. All the tiles had been removed and four bulging sacks stood outside. My immediate thought was to buy the tiles from the new owner and put them in or on  my house. Not to be. All but this one were broken and about to be dumped. The new owner didn't like them. I'm looking forward to seeing what goes up instead. But here's a thing. Apparently the ayuntamiento of this fine pueblo has decreed that this type of tile (called a 'Sevilla') must not be put on the facades of houses here because it not at all 'tipico'. (Our friend will kill me for writing this. Sorry mate.) He paid 1000€ for those tiles!

Readers of this organ may recall the 'case of the red house' down our street which was forcibly repainted white by agents of the ayuntamiento.The bill was sent to the owner.

September 29th. 2014

Juanito Sanchez

Man Back in Álora. Nothing Has Changed. It's Still the Same. Good Morning.

Man back in Álora. Nothing has changed. It's still the same. Good Morning.

                                               Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Back in Álora at last. After an uneventful voyage on the Good Ship Pont Aven and two half days on Spain's still open roads, we slotted into the parking space , reserved  for us by Harry upstairs, on Calle Benito Suarez.

We are old hands on the Brittany Ferries now and used to the routine for moving Tommy from the car deck to his prison cell on Deck 10. Dog owners have to use Lift E which is the only one that goes up as far as Deck 9. Tommy has to wear a muzzle, which he hates, in the lift full of dogs and anxious dog owners. A fight in such a confined space doesn't bear thinking about and fortunately the owners are usually well behaved. This time, however a couple of 'civilians' tried to gatecrash our lift. 

'Do you 'ave a dog sir?' enquired the pretty French lift girl in a charming French accent.

'No, but I've got a wife with a bad leg'.

This should have resulted in a puzzled silence during the ascent, but I ventured,

'Not much good for taking for walks then.'

How we laughed!

Once on board, many of the 'frequent travellers' headed straight up to deck 9 to grab a seat with a good view - of a wall.

I managed to get an upgrade on Tommy's cell so it more than made up for the 'muzzle humiliation'. He was 'as happy as Larry' when we left him behind bars on his blanket and went for a glass of Muscadet in the Piano Bar.

After a night in Chinchon, off we drove into the heart of La Mancha , famous for its windmills and cheese. It is also the setting for Spain's most famous novel,(can you name another one?)  El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel De Cervantes.

Windmills in La Mancha

Manchego Cheese

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza

Not many people know this, but Miguel de Cervantes actually lived in Álora for 5 years, (1587 to 1593), just 20 metres down the street in La Plaza Baja. He was working as a tax collector for King Philip 2nd.

                                                                See! It'!s true

Four years after he left Álora he was arrested for 'discrepancies in his accounts over the last 3 years' and locked up in Seville's prison. Our ayuntamiento (town hall) says they should get to the bottom of it in a day or two, just after the new swimming pool opens....and the new hospital opens.

The space where his house was is now 'El Mirador de Cervantes' from  where one can take in the beautiful views out towards El Hacho and La Canca providing that  you can ever find the door unlocked. I happen to know that the lady who runs the kiosko next door has a key and will let you in if you buy some sunflower seeds, palomitos, caramelos or ciggies

                                               El Mirador de Cervantes, Alora


Mrs. Sanchez and I were present at the opening of the mirador  and I managed to get in one of the photographs. See if you can pick me out from among the hysterical crowds.

Coincidentally, we bumped into the 'Man of La Mancha'  when we stopped for breakfast on the way down at the charming little town of Tembleque.

       Mrs. Sanchez couldn't resist having her picture taken with the Don and Sancho.

I couldn't wait to see how the town had changed during the 3 months away. I was particularly looking forward to the speeding fines and other preposterous demands for money that would be waiting for me on the coffee table. No nasty surprises this time . Only the water heater and a few dead cockroaches marred our triumphal return.

The first week back is always problematic. After weeks of not speaking Spanish and the relentless advance of presbycusis we expect to have a few problems with communication, but usually we can get by with guesswork and a basic knowledge of 'perote'.

¡Me alegro mucho verte/os!       I'm very pleased to see you

Same here                                Igualmente

¿Cuanto tiempo sin verte/os?         How long has it been?

¿Y la mujer/señora?                                       How's the wife?

Bien gracias, Trabajando en la casa    Fine thanks, doing the housework.

¡Qué calor !                              It's been hot!

¿Te apetece una cervecita?  Fancy a beer?

¿Es el papa catolico?             Is the pope a Catholic?


And that takes care of Day 1.

Changes we have noticed.

1. The one way system has reversed again.
2. Bar Correos is going to shut again.
3. La Bodega has changed hands again.
4. A new statue has been put on the fountain in La Paza Baja again.
5. The Deputy Mayor has resigned and taken a highly paid job in the private sector.

                                       The fountain in La Plaza Baja de la Despedía

Bar La Posada has changed hands again. (It's  a 'teteria' (tea shop) now).Plus ça change plus c'est la même chose  as my mother used to say.

Last night we went for a meal a Bar KaÑas with Harry and Wilma. The food is good but you'd have to go a long way to be treated worse that they treat you there. The tortilleras are the worst in town; and believe me, they are not in short supply.

Tomorrow is the day of the Romería when The Virgin of the Flowers (our town's patron virgin and this year sporting her new cloak) will be loaded on to a cart pulled by big cows and festooned with flowers and transported  to  el Convento de las Flores (her home). The procession will include lots of decked out tractors, horse drawn carts and several comedy items. Manzanilla and beer will be free flowing in the heat of the Andalucian morning and afternoon. There may be 50 to a hundred horses and riders  too, leaving the route with that heady aroma much loved by rose growers.

The Romería celebrations were toned down considerably  after the tragic murder of a young girl during the festivities of 2002, but even before that, the bars in town were told to close their doors to prevent trouble as drunken caballeros returned to town worse for wear.
Paco Alegría who runs Bar Alegría in the main square told me last night that he was working there one day when a pissed up equestrian rode into the bar demanding drink. Enough's enough I say. Now all the bars shut at midday (an approximate time).

STOP PRESS...............El Camino del Rey  nears completion. 

Juanito Sanchez September13th. 2014.

Tales from the Alhambra and other Birmingham Tall Stories. Man not in Álora Yet.

                       Tales From the Alhambra and Other Birmingham Tall Stories.

                                                   Yossarian (Irving Washington)


With only a week to go before Mrs. Sanchez, Tommy and I join the swallows and head south, we spent a delightful day out with our good friend Tom in one of the many interesting  'Heritage Quarters' of Birmingham, The Jewellery Quarter.  Others include 'The Chinese Quarter', 'The Gay Quarter', the Glum Quarter and the Benefits Street Quarter.); the sum of the parts being greater than the whole.

After a slap up nosh at Anderson's in Mary Ann Street, St. Paul's Square (another Heritage Quarter in it's own right) we climbed up the hill to one of Brum's best kept secrets, The Pen Museum.

                                             The Birmingham Pen Museum

Unlike many modern museums The Pen Museum has shunned most of  the interactive gimmicks designed to relieve today's hyper intelligent inquisitive children of the difficult activity we used to call 'looking at things'. The museum is chock full of all kinds of pens, or more accurately, pen nibs . It would take days to look at all of them and,as we only had half an hour before closing time, Mrs. Sanchez made a pen nib (under the watchful eye of a nice young chap from Sutton Coldfield) while Tom and I exchanged witty reminiscences of our schooldays including  the pleasures of inkwells, ink monitors, blots, blotting paper, woollen pen wipers, flicking ink and making darts out of broken pen nibs etc.. We could tell that the young curator was more interested in our entertaining memories than working the nib machine as he kept reminding us how much  time we had left.

Did you know that Birmingham was 'the global centre of the steel pen nib industry'? Well it was. During the boom years 8,000 people were making steel pen nibs, 70% of them being women. All the 'presses' were 'manned' by women who turned out 18,000 pens a day for 7 shillings a week. (35p). (a lot of money in those days.)

                                        Mary Ann Cotterill 'slitting pen nibs'.

In the early 18th. century there was a massive global demand for pens, even though hardly anyone could read or write, including most of the workers in the pen factories.

                                                  Pens from the 'olden days'

As most people know, before steel pen nibs, people used to write with swan or goose feathers, (the word 'pen' comes from the name for a female swan), sticks, brushes, slate pencils and primitive wooden typewriters. The rise of steel pen making in Birmingham ruffled the feathers of the goose population who were branded 'Luddites' by the more enlightened and progressive Brummies when, forced into penury by lack of demand for their feathers,   they staged mass protests, goose stepping up and down the City Road . Fights between opposing gangs were common. The avian 'Beaky Blinders' were no match for the 'Nibbers' who  would attack the hissing geese with darts made from broken pen nibs. Pendemonium!

As we were shown the way out, my eye was caught by this poster:

I had no idea that this perennially popular story had been written by that great American Washington Irving (1783-1859),  let alone that he wrote it in Birmingham on the exact spot where The Pen Museum sits now! Why were we not informed about this? I sometimes think that Birmingham deliberately conceals its best treasures to avoid being swamped by tourists.

The man who is regarded as the first American Man of Letters lived  with his sister, Mrs. Van Wart and her husband Henry in the Jewellery Quarter from 1815 to 1824 where he also wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow which was later made into a film starring Jeff Goldblum. It was based on the Bracebridge family who lived in Aston Hall in those days, just up from the Villa Ground and which today is another of Birmingham's hidden treasures.

Irving had left America after a series of financial failures and lack of success as an author. He didn't really do his popularity any favours by never publishing anything under the same name twice. Here are some of his pseudonyms:

Geoffrey Crayon
William Wizard
Launcelot Wagstaff
Jonathon Oldstyle
Jeffrey Archer
Diedrich Knickerbocker  (There is a town in Texas named after him, not to mention Washington DC.)

After sponging off his brother-in-law for 5 years and following a disastrous dalliance with Mary Wolstencroft Shelly,  he was given the choice of getting work in a pen nib factory or going to Europe. Off he went to Andalucía where he he found free lodgings in the Alhambra in Granada. There he wrote Tales of the Alhambra  which is now world famous having been translated into 716 languages and 180 dialects including Argy-Pargy and Ego-Leygo.
Washington Irving is a legendary figure in Southern Spain. Many 'granadiers' have named their children after him. He was responsible for attracting millions of rich tourists from all over the world to Granada, but particularly from the USA. In those days Andalucia was a very poor area and still is.

 There is a Hotel Washington Irving in Granada, which is hoping to regain its 5 star status soon.

and a Ruta de Washington Irving for the more energetic tourist.

Washington Irving returned to America in 1832 but was sent back to Spain to be America's Minister for Spain . The last we heard of him he was played by Alan Arkin in the film version of Catch 22 where he applied his literary skills to the censoring of letters under another imaginative pseudonym, Irving Washington.

 Juanito Sanchez September 3rd. 2014

Too much monkey business. Man still not in Álora.

Too much monkey business. Man still not in Álora.

                                                              Monkey Lisa

In three weeks Mrs. Sanchez and I should be bobbing along in the Bay of Biscay, destination Santander and Álora amid stories of drought, mass graves and new management in 'The Bar That Never Makes Any Money'. I can't wait to get back.

Last Saturday Tommy (the dog) took ill just in time for all the normal vets in Birmngham to close for the weekend. He's a bit of a wus at the best of times when it comes to minor ailments  (I don't know where he gets it from) so it was only when, after several vomits and   he was shivering like an eskimo naturist, that I convinced Mrs.S.  we should seek medical advice. An hour later I was £138.00 lighter and Tommy was well on the way to recovery. A follow up visit to another licensed bandit on Sunday morning (£85.00) to check his temperature made it  an  expensive weekend. I am not looking for sympathy or anything but it was interesting that the first vet he saw was from Barcelona. Vets' fees in Spain are a fraction of those here in Great Britain so it makes sense for Spanish veterinarios to head up to Birmingham to seek  their fortune.

         
              Spanish vets about to leave for Birmingham. No wonder they're beaming.

It's Monday now and Tommy seems fine, if a little constipated, but who wouldn't be after having thermometers and fingers rammed up one's bum .

I rang our neighbour in Álora this morning because I'd heard a rumour that the ayuntamiento (town hall) in Álora had announced that it's 'the worst drought in living memory' and so they will be turning all the water off for a week. This would mean certain death for most of the plants in our garden which is watered regularly while we are away by our kind neighbours, Harry and Wilma  and a lady called Ana Vasquez. Wilma has heard nothing about the corte de agua and the garden looks as beautiful as usual. I can't resist showing you a photo.

 That's Mrs. Sanchez taking a break from painting the walls.

That brings me to 'The Bar That Never Makes Money'.
 According to my neighbour, the present 'owners' of a local bar have left and it is under new management. The last time I saw it the bar was called La Bodega but it has also been Pedro's, Bar,  Bar Las Chicas and La Perosia and it never seems to make any money. When it was run by 'Pedro' it was a typical small Spanish bar used by the locals. I don't think Pedro made a living from it but it was a place for people to meet, have a tapa or two  and a drink. Along with  most of the bars in Álora it is rented from the owner of the property and the 'rentee' is responsible for the fittings, electricity, gas etc. When Pedro gave it up it was taken over by two English women (Las Chicas) who spent a good deal of their own money knocking the place about, extending it, putting in satellite TV and trying to attract the growing number of Brits in and around Álora by putting on Quiz Nites, Sunday Roasts, Curry Nights, Fish and Chip Nights, English Football and All Day Breakfasts, which, as everybody knows are what most people want when they move from England to live in Spain.
      It did quite well for a few years until Las Chicas fell out and got out and it remained closed until along came a man with a fat wallet and no sense. Sunny (not his real name),  spent £40,000 plus on doing the place up again, got an English couple to manage it and then cleared off back to England to wait for the money to come rolling in.
 Even the same attractions as before failed to bring the crowds in and then the recession started to bite. The takings didn't cover the rent, electricity, gas and 'security' let alone the wages of the managers. Sunny became impatient and was convinced that the managers were ripping  him off. Threats were made and alliances formed. Sunny took to coming to Alora, sitting outside 'Oscar's' (the bar on the opposite side of the square) with his henchmen to scowl threateningly  across at his folly,  La Perosia,  making the occasional skirmish into  his bar to threaten the managers and grab the framed 'licence' off the wall . (It was only a photocopy. Ha!). Fights broke out across La Plaza Baja and Ennio Morricone was brought in to write the theme music for what became known as 'Bar Wars'.

                                           'Standoff in the Plaza Baja c. 2010'

 When the dust settled, Sunny fell out with his best mate and retreated to England, never to return. La Perosia closed once more only to be snapped up by the boss of 'Oscar's' who had always had her eyes in it. She renamed it La Bodega, and ran  it into the ground again. Apparently she has emigrated to Mozambique but not before selling the 'goodwill' etc. to some new innocents for a substantial sum. No news on the new name yet, but 'The Bar That Never Makes Any Money' has finally made someone a bit of dosh and is open for business.
I wish the new owners the best of luck.

I keep coming across the words mono (monkey) and mona (female monkey) in my Spanish reading and  I can't get a real grasp of how and when to use them in everyday use. They seem to have a bewildering number of meanings, some of them completely contradictory.

Un mono can also mean a boiler suit, an ugly person, the joker in a pack of cards, a policeman a doodle and monos animados are cartoons.

Una mona (a female monkey or Barbary ape) can mean a hangover, a copycat, marijuana and a cake.Mona can also mean 'blonde'.

                                                      'To sleep off a hangover'


But what about these:

'Eres el último mono'        'You're a nobody'

'Tienes monos en la cara'  ' (you've got monkeys in your face)' 'You look as if you've come                                               from Mars'

'¡Vete para freir monas'!         ('Go and fry monkeys!)  ' Get lost!'

'Se estan haciendo monos'   ( 'They're making monkeys of each other') They're making eyes at each other     
But then:

'¡Qué sombrero mas mono! '   'What a nice little hat!'


'Es muy mona de cara'        ' She has a lovely face'


I'd steer of all monkey expressions if I were you.

I do like this proverb, though.

'If the monkey dresses in silk, it's still a monkey.'

Apologies to all chimpanzees for misrepresenting you.

August 20th. 2014