aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com
A View of Madrid: Castañas asando sobre una fuego abierto
http://aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com/2009/12/castanas-asando-sobre-una-fuego-abierto.html
Monday, 7 December 2009. Castañas asando sobre una fuego abierto. Normally there would be no reason for me to be interested in anything the slightest agricultural. News of the European Common Agricultural Policy would have me yawning. A bumper grain harvest would mean nothing. Even a good year for grapes and the wine-makers, unless grown around Bordeaux, would not get me excited. Then a friend gave me the news. 8220;This has been a very good year for castañas”, she said. The nutritional facts about chest...
aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com
A View of Madrid: December 2011
http://aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com/2011_12_01_archive.html
Monday, 12 December 2011. Marmite and what's this Radio Four? We all have our rituals. One of mine is to start each Saturday with coffee, toast and Marmite and to listen to either the News Quiz or the Now! I mean, did you notice the reference to Marmite. In the UK this foodstuff divides the nation. For the uninitiated, it is a dark, salty, almost black, paste made originally from the grunge found at the bottom of brewer's vats. You could almost describe it as industrial waste! This shop sell everything f...
aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com
A View of Madrid: Peaceful Protests, Past and Present
http://aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com/2012/04/peaceful-protests-past-and-present.html
Monday, 30 April 2012. Peaceful Protests, Past and Present. Saturday evening traffic flow meant the bus was making slow progress, but as the number 53 turned off Goya on to Recoletos with twenty minutes to go, I knew I would make it. It was just a matter of a right at Cibeles, the penultimate stop, and a swift final zoom up to Sol. But I was cutting it fine. It was a very important date. But “NEW Spain”? Carlos III on horseback in the Plaza del Sol. Leopold de Gregorio, Marqués of Esquilache. As king of ...
aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com
A View of Madrid: April 2012
http://aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com/2012_04_01_archive.html
Monday, 30 April 2012. Peaceful Protests, Past and Present. Saturday evening traffic flow meant the bus was making slow progress, but as the number 53 turned off Goya on to Recoletos with twenty minutes to go, I knew I would make it. It was just a matter of a right at Cibeles, the penultimate stop, and a swift final zoom up to Sol. But I was cutting it fine. It was a very important date. But “NEW Spain”? Carlos III on horseback in the Plaza del Sol. Leopold de Gregorio, Marqués of Esquilache. As king of ...
aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com
A View of Madrid: Madrid - No solution for pollution?
http://aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com/2012/02/madrid-no-solution-for-pollution.html
Saturday, 18 February 2012. Madrid - No solution for pollution? Let’s begin with something quite disgusting. During my first winter in. I caught a cold. That’s not unusual, it’s normal to catch colds in winter and I had had them before. What was new to me was that this was the first time I had to visit a pharmacy and declare myself “constipado”, and that when I blew my nose, (this is the disgusting part) what came down was black. Soot black. I had been in. I had read that. I’m no expert, so I’...
aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com
A View of Madrid: November 2011
http://aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com/2011_11_01_archive.html
Sunday, 27 November 2011. John Lennon said, “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans”. Well, I have made a plan. It faces me from the cork board on the wall behind my computer. It is a printed spread sheet telling me where I have to be from now until the end of the year. My life has suddenly become more than busy. One chance encounter led to a twenty five percent increase in my teaching duties – and took me to new areas of Madrid I had not seen before. I have written about Mad...Is Madr...
aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com
A View of Madrid: July 2011
http://aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html
Saturday, 30 July 2011. I’m learning Spanish, not trying to offend you. Honest! I think it was Oscar Wilde who said, “Experience is the name we give to our mistakes”. Experience can be a good teacher, unless you are a politician, but that’s another story! I also think there’s some truth in saying the greater the mistake, the greater the learning possibility. And what greater source of potential embarrassment could there be than that of attempting to communicate in another language. I wrote a long time ago.
aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com
A View of Madrid: God's work in progress
http://aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com/2012/02/gods-work-in-progress.html
Wednesday, 1 February 2012. God's work in progress. The somewhat eccentric shape of Antonio Gaudi’s church of the Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família. Is only classed as minor, then I would love to see a major one. His strange design continues to climb heavenward. Here, just outside. This is happening now. In a small town called Mejorada del Campo a man is building a church. And he too has his critics. Justo Gallego Martínez was born in Soria in 1925 and became a monk. He contracted tub...
aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com
A View of Madrid: October 2011
http://aviewofmadrid.blogspot.com/2011_10_01_archive.html
Wednesday, 5 October 2011. Madrid Suburbia - On Route 66. The Poet Antonio Machado claimed there were two. He was writing about the divide caused by the Civil War, but as I wrote in my last post, there are still two. The one the tourist experiences and the one in which we live. The visitor knows the centre of the city including the infamous “Three Ps”. Away from that centre they would get a different, and more truthful perspective of the city. Exiting from the metro station, serving the two Colonias of S...
