Tit for tat: WikiLeaks in Spain

Long live John le Carre! May all my favourite espionage novel-writers like Robert Ludlum, Len Deighton, Frederik Forsythe, Ian Fleming ( Oh, right he's dead isn't he?) come out of the cold. There's plenty of work for film stars that played their characters too - the spy specialists of whom we never tire - the Pierce Brosnans, Michael Caines, Matt Damons, Tom Cruises, George Clooneys and the like. And why? Cos the Cold war is back!  In El Pais newspaper today we read about a reverse Spanish Xmas Log gesture where the Russian Government have just sent home on Xmas Eve two Spanish diplomats for activities 'over and beyond their official brief', ie spying? In fact political adviser Ignacio Cartagena and First Secretary, Borja Cortes-Breton, were expelled probably for nothing more than the fact that in November the Spanish Government on the advice of the Spanish CIA ( the CNI or the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia) sent packing two Russian diplomats accused of dire offences of a similar vagueness. In other words a-tit-for-tat expulsion. But then who knows what goes on in the grey and murky area of diplomatic intercourse between countries of once opposing ideologies.

It's incidents like these that make increasingly complex espionage films so popular and even make for 'Spy 3' sequels - think of Bourne and Bond for example. They also give rise to spoof spy films which take the piss out of not only the 'espionage' type films but also the concept of ever taking spying seriously. It might as well be Mars where the action is played out, the whole thing is so alien to normal life. Complex plots used to be played out in Berlin before The Wall came down, the divided city which separated the Western from Eastern bloc countries, then the action shifted to any countries which were vaguely near to China or North Korea. London, Washington and New York even Dubai and Delhi have always been favourites and of course Paris, the most sought after location for agents and ex-agents and killers of agents and ex-agents. particularly of a Middle East background or affiliation But Spain? Not really.

But yet perhaps there is a link with Madrid and this film world spy thing. It's in the 'spoofers', the spy films that satirise spy films. And let's face it many of which have been as highly successful. as the films they satirise even their titles strive to be amusing. I mean take the French 'The Tall Blonde Man with One Red Shoe' and its sequel and equally intriguing 'Return of the Tall Blonde Man with One Black Shoe' or surely the longest title for a (spoof) spy film, 'How to destroy the Reputation of the Greatest Secret Agent in the World' as played by Jean-Paul Belmondo. Full of cliches was the punniest of all, the American 'Spy Hard' with its hero, Dick Steele or Agent WD-40 playing out as so many do the myth of the irresistible sexual potency and attraction of spies.

So it's here that the link with Spain and Spy movies is, in the spoof variety. The meeting of the two 'Mr Beans' one called Atkinson and the other called Zapatero, the A-Z of the spy world as it were. One of the unfortunate aspects of the Spanish leader is his remakable ability to look like he's an understudy for Rowan Atkinson when the latter is  playing the role of Johnny English in the film of the same name - a spy hero who commits incredible gaffes yet gets away with them (mostly). The film satirises the way that 'serious' films project for the public what they think 'real 'spies do. Spain has politicians who commit the most incredible gaffes too and in general get away with them. One wonders if this is what real politicians do?

You could say then that PM Zapatero has about as much chance of lifting Spain out of the current mess it's in as Johnny English had of exposing and defeating Britain's spying enemies, the film's baddies, off his own bat. However it's important to both to keep things appearing 'complicated' as it is the key word that joins the two. I have watched 'Syriana' twice, once in Spanish and once in English and decided that in neither version was I able to decipher what the hell George Clooney and Matt Damon were doing. When I read the Spanish newspapers I get a similar view of political leaders whether they be Spanish, American - or Russian.

Ronaldinho: a footballer more sinned against than sinning

Certain overpaid  -and underworked - categories of people keep the tabloid newspapers filled with their detrius and drivel: their marriages, infidelities, divorces and their tantrums. Pop stars and professional sports stars are two glaring  examples - witness the Tiger Woods Story of recent months and the endless George Michael saga. Both categories spawn latter-day gods who make obscene amounts of money, yet too often they reveal themselves as humanly flawed, less than God-like with their unsuccessful attempts to reconcile private selves and public obligations.  And when that happens the paparazzi  pounce. As we ordinary mortals all know, happiness doesn't sell papers, dirt and disasters, whether public or personal, do.

This week's Spanish  newspaper sports pages are no exception. Most featured a new episode in the checkered career of  ex-BCN resident and player, the 30 year-old Milan club's footballer Ronaldinho who is rumoured to have been a bad boy yet again. Not too long ago he was a Barça player and in trouble with their Christ-reborn figure, trainer and saviour Pep Gardiola, for not training hard enough and enjoying the Barcelona night life too much. Despite his obvious talent as a footballer (and entertainer) after a couple of seasons as the club's rising star, he was starting to fit the new Barca team philosophy like the Lion King would Lady Gaga's bikini.  Eventually Milan (or Berlusconi the club's owner) decided he might have a future in Italy after he gave the businessman/politician a promise to play there 'till he hung up his boots'. As with Barça he initially fitted in well even regaining some of his old flair, but latterly he had been seen more on the bench than the pitch, a non-starter for most of the important Champions League matches and he's reportedly had several arguments with Milan's trainer, the aptly misnamed Allegri. A case of deja vu!

This week when in Dubai for the club's winter training sessions he not only missed training (for stomach problems again!) but was also reported coming back to the hotel late after going to discotheques (hardly  Barcelona or Milan quality but enough to keep him out till 7am.) He reportedly (!) left the team without even saying 'goodbye' and boarded a plane to Brazil. He was last seen sunbathing at a beach resort. Rumour has it he wants to play for a  Brazilian team, probably Gremio, where he first started his career.

Ronaldinho's case is an example of a young red-blooded man whose personality doesn't fit a hardline approach, (known as the 'philosophy') of a club,  in the case of Barça and Milan ones that are making a lot of money out of him. If off-field exploits make players perform less well, teams start to lose matches and shareholders money for after all football is a business. It's not easy for an individual with  such talent and flair as Ronaldinho to accept being treated like a schoolboy and being told off by the 'headmaster'. Some players can take it,  realizing that their careers as footballers don't last for ever. Ronaldinho can't.  Messi his equally brilliant Argentinan ex-teammate at Barca seems to be able to. I suspect much of the problem hangs on your personal relationship with your trainer. If that's bad you may as well leave.

However there another side to this coin to consider. Money. There's a strong arguement that top football players morally should give 120% on and off the field since they are paid such huge salaries. In sport unlike with pop stars who also earn huge amounts, wide differences in character and attitude are frowned upon. Pop stars are expected to ruffle the establishment's feathers, to wear outrageous clothes, to take drugs, to wreck hotel rooms, to fuck fans. The bad-boy image sells disks.  Sports stars wear suits and blazers when they travel together as a team. They eat together, play together while the Big Daddy manager takes care of everything. Step over the line and party too much however and you get slapped down.

Legal contracts bind  players to clubs and their philosophy. In Ronadlinho's case at Milan we're talking an eight million euros a year contract.  Maybe like Barça, Milan have a right for that amount of cash to expect him to toe the line more. English Premier Club team Blackburn Rovers are said to have offered him 20 million over three years if Milan would sell him in the January sales or 'transfer window' as they call it.  Milan want eight million euros since he has one year left of his contract - not out of the question for Blackburn's  ebulliant chicken based economy but certainly too much for lowly Brazilian club like Gremio who he seems to want to return to even though he'd play for a fraction of what he now gets at Milan.

Football has always had and will continue to have its casualities and its successes. George Best spent all his money on whiskey and women and died broke. Paul Gascoyne had his fight with alcohol and Madona his with drugs. Stars like Ronaldo and Beckham have their heads screwed on better and have remained successful. Or have agents with their heads screwed on better to make sure they remain so.  Ronaldinho's agent is his brother and he also has his sister and mother working for him. Perhaps it's a mistake to mix family and business. Maybe he's made enough money and at thirty wants to enjoy himself before settling down. Maybe he was just an example of a player who wanted to samba through life and the football field was just another dance hall for him. Kinda sad though to see the end of a player who enjoyed playing. His goofy smile and brilliant individualism will be missed by the fans but not by trainers who wanted to wipe it off his face. Adios amigo.

Catalunya's National Front.

Today I had my mailbox stuffed with electorial propaganda. I usually chuck this kind of stuff into the nearest bin - as a foreigner I can't vote in the elections anyway. But today but one flyer caught my eye. On the front was a cross printed against the phrase "Control immigration" with 'immigration'' highlighted. There was also a picture of the candidate who wanted my vote - he looked remarkably like my gym trainer, Marcus, a 'typical Catalan' face. On the back was a list of the things he promised to do if I voted him in. Amazingly, out of the ten issues highlighted by Sr Josep Anglada of the PXC party eight consisted of 'crimes' levelled against non-Spaniards. Unbelievably, as a foreigner I found myself guilty of dire crimes against (Spanish) humanity? And he wants me to vote for him. Assassinate more likely! I mean, look what the man would do to me if he got in.

For starters he'd immediately deport me if I was an illegal immigrant or a teenage delinquent.
He wouldn't allow me to wear my burka -in public - nor allow me to build mosques on any public land. If I was part of a South American gang terrorising residents in the local parks and squares he'd deport me right away. If I had a shop and wanted to keep open to catch the on-the-way-home-from-work crowd, he'd want to take my licence away, cos what I was doing would be unfair competition. As a foreign shopkeeper he thinks I'm probably part of the Mafia anyway. And if I went into selling fake handbags or DVD's on the street to make a living then God help me!

He'd certainly change all this reserving places in schools for my kids rubbish, cos he says there's no room for Catalan kids is there? My children would lower the standards of any school they were in -they'd prevent all those hard-working motivated Catalan kids from progressing quickly enough. Finally there should be no free health cards for me and my type because we clutter up the local clinics and prevent sick Catalans from being attended to.

This man certainly doesn't beat about the bush does he. He goes to town on the naming of names: he pole-axes the Chinese, the Pakistanis, the Moroccans, the Latins and by inference any one who is Muslim. He's sexist in picking on burka wearers.

Hey wait a minure you might say. There's plenty of sense in what the man says. He appeals to voters over 99 who are terrified by gangs and get their handbags snatched off them every day. He has a point too about the health centres - all these bloody Brits down in the south getting their new hips and kidneys on the cheap. Can't even get my Viagra prescription these days the queues are too long. Bloody health tourists!

But underneath this right wing garbage passed off or disguised as an electoral campaign there's something more sinister at work. It's a policy riding on the popular back of xenophobia and pure racism. It's no better than Oswald Mosely's National Front in the UK in the thirties. And what was the political climate then? An economis crisis just like now. Mosely blamed the foreigners for everything and whipped up feelings in the worker class. Look around there are plenty more examples around you. It's what Penn and more recently Sarkozy did in France, what Berlusconi says in Italy. It's the politics of the British National Party . Come to think of it isn't that how Hitler did so well too in Germany?

So Herr Anglada will you get my vote? Like hell you will! Now what can I post in your letterbox? Plans for a mosque in a space near you! Spanish architect though.

Update: day after elections - 29 November.
The PxC party didn't get any seats in the Catalan Parliament, but overall 72,000 people voted for its racist policies. Let's see what happens in the Municipal elections next year on which Anglada intends to concentrate. He was reported to have said said he had been greeted by voters after the election with cries of 'Anglada for President!' Dream on Señor:

Barcelona Town Hall: operation clean-up

The Ciutat Vella, the old bit of Barcelona, its core, is fast becoming its bete boire too. Often in the news, usually negatively, because of robberies, residents' protests, noise and the disgusting state of its streets, it's now hitting the headlines in a positive way. The Town Hall want to make it a referent for culture and good taste. Bravo. An admirable concept even though it's a bit of a turn-around.

According to La Vanguardia, the mayor and the president went down there last week checking on the status quo - though it seems they didn't seem to notice a lot. I mean if they can't see a man peeing all over the pavement as they walk past what chance have they of seeing the zone's deeper problems? The Vanguardia's photographers saw him and branded him an 'immigrant' - though he could equally well have been a Catalan who couldn't locate one of the few public toilets around - but for a photo-shoot 'immigrant' is somehow more compelling. More cachet.

The dignitaries did see one of this zone's new symbols-to-be, the new cultural centre, Filmoteca taking shape and a definite (remember AVE!) opening date of March 2011 was mooted. Though how many of the old biddies who currently attend cultural films in the current building off posh and safe Diagonal will venture into the darkest jungly depths of Cuitat Vella at night remains to be seen. Opening night would be reminiscent of that old Monty Python sketch 'The grannies of Notlob'. Or not, when they don't turn up.

Operation clean-up of the area also started the same week in a diffent way - a moral one - when the police began to get rid of the prostitution which apparently has been endemic in the area for more than a hundred years - where hasn't it? Usually moral clean-ups in BCN are more like LAPD episodes, ie high-profile with lots of noise, doors being broken down and half-naked girls been thrown into police vans. And largely a waste of time and money. For once, using their collective intelligence, this time they tried the Swedish Method (which is not, as you might think, a sexual position) arresting and fining clients instead of the girls). With positive results too. Most fines were paid on the spot to avoid wives seeing the official letters in their post-boxes, and secondly, the number of men seeking extra-marital services dropped to such an extent that the prostitutes began complaining about the lack of business.

The new master plan for the zone is a good compromise - in theory. It will re-define areas, vetting any new businesses, moving those labelled 'entertainment' or 'touristic' away from residential areas. It will hope to draw in heavyweights to give the zone more class and the residents more peace.

The trouble is officials sanctioning the clean-up of Ciutat Vella forgot to look at what was happening under their noses first. It seems corrupt government officials have for some time been taking under-the-table payments - big ones too, including cash, investments, and property -from the owners of flats in that same area who wanted government licences for short-term holiday letting. Not a good start to a clean up. Mmm, should be some interesting election speeches this month.