Gautier

This is what you want if you want to revive your romantic interest in the foreign country you've chosen to live in, to remind yourself of why you're there: a copy of Théophile Gautier's A Romantic in Spain. I've just ordered myself a copy to see whether it has the desired effect. That's Theo above, looking not unlike a slightly more arty version of another hero of mine. 

Teaching
In response to a bitter letter about teaching in El País written by high school teacher Emilio Garoz, the ever-perceptive Juan José Millás reacted thus in his weekly column:

“Many times, trying to understand the situation of educators, I imagine them abandoned in hostile territory where everyone has deserted them. Discredited by families, poorly paid by the state, looked down upon or hated by students, [teachers] are asked not to get upset and to pretend everything is running smoothly, so as not to alter the routines of parents, undersecretaries or even students, who are too busy with other serious matters to address the demands of this group of idiots. But what can we expect, anyway, of someone who has decided to devote his life to teaching? If some young person expressed the desire to become a teacher at home, his or her parents would march them straight to the psychologist to see what the devil was wrong with the kid’s head. This means we have delegated the task of constructing the future to a group of professionals who only deserve our disregard. We really are stark raving mad. Garoz’s letter was the desperate cry of someone who has already lost all hope. The problem is that along with his hopes, the future goes to hell, too.” (Quoted from El País, English edition, 19th June).

That sounds about right to me.

Half-Time
Soccer. At half-time, it's Spain 0 Portugal 0. A high-energy battle of wills. The Portuguese have been busy but fruitless, the Spaniards fruitfully doing their business.

The streets of Madrid seem pretty empty at the moment. This game will probably come second only to the royal wedding in terms of viewing figures - unless they get through, of course.

Love it.

They didn't get through: a 1-0 defeat to Portugal. Tomorrow the papers will say, as they've always said, that Spain has the players, but not the attitude, for this kind of competition.

Qué pena, vaya. But not compared, let's be honest, to the goings-on in this book, which I intend to get hold of.

Puerta del Sol, Sketched

The extremely well-travelled Prof. Katsuaki Sato of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology has allowed PdS Blog to use his fine sketch of the Puerta del Sol. (Double click on it to see it better.) Many thanks to him for that. More work by Prof. Sato can be seen here.
 

Hungary for Spanish
Just spotted the opportunity for that pun.

Tirso and Authenticity

"Authenticity," writes Michael Billington, the Guardian's theatre critic, "is currently the buzz word. Orchestras play baroque music on period instruments. Shakespeare's Globe offers "original practices" performances. And now the Royal Shakespeare Company is getting in on the act. On July 24, as part of the Spanish Golden Age season in Stratford's Swan, audiences will be sexually segregated according to old Spanish custom: men in the stalls, women upstairs, in an experiment crudely designated "Girls on Top"." Full article, where you learn a couple of things about Golden Age Spanish theatre and which is "anti-authenticity", here. And his less than thrilled review of Tirso de Molina's La venganza de Tamar here. 

Hockney in Córdoba

The Arches in the Mosque at Córdoba, as seen by David Hockney. Kind of naive, no?