Spanish Carols

There is not really a tradition in Spain for the type of Christmas carols that we know in more northerly parts of Europe. Some of those carols are known here and have their own Spanish versions, such as Venid Fieles (Adeste Fiedeles), Al Mundo Paz (Joy To The World) and Noche de Paz (Silent Night), but the real Christmas singing tradition here is based on a large group of songs called Villancicos.

The villancico was a popular form of poetry and singing in Spain, Portugal, and their colonies, for several centuries, starting in the second half of the 15th and continuing into the 18th. The style declined in popularity in more recent times and the term "villancico" gradually came to represent little more than a Christmas carol. (Well, perhaps carol isn't really a good translation, for songs such as White Christmas, Jingle Bells and Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer are also referred to as villancicos. The more-encompassing term Christmas song might therefore be more appropriate.)

Despite, this degeneration, the medieval musical influence can still be gleaned in the villancicos that remain popular around the Christmas period. This is aided by the often medieval flavour of the music and its instrumentation, which still often consists of little more than a simple drum, a zambomba (a friction drum, or, in Dutch, a rommelpot), and some tambourines (panderetas in Spanish). In the Comunidad Valenciana, a dulzaina might also be used and in Andalucía, the villancico has become particularly popular performed in flamenco style, accompanied by guitars, castanets, hand-clpping and the cajón.

Villancicos are most often sung by groups of children (who, strangely enough, seem to have little musical ability) and this adds to the naivety of the whole. A glorious exception to this rule is provided by the flamenco performers of villancicos, who transform the simple songs into superbly exciting numbers: look out for a group called Raya Real in this respect.

So why not scrap the traditional carols this year and instead go for a more Spanish form of Christmas entertainment? You can find plenty of sites online where you can listen to villancicos, performed both well and badly, and lots of CDs are available in the shops, too, though these are of equally diverse quality.

Navidad Digital is a good place to start. Not only does the site offer many, many villancicos, it also allows you to hear carols in French, German, Italian, Latin and English. (In addition, you will find information about Belenes, recipes for traditional end-of-year fare, and hundreds of photos.)

And here is a short list of some of the more popular and traditional villancicos:

• La Marimorena
• Campana Sobre Campana
• El Burrito Dabanero
• Ya Viene La Vieja
• Los Peces En El Rio
• Arre Borriquito (Arre Burro Arre)
• Alegría Alegría
• Fum Fum Fum
• Rin, Rin
• El Chiquirritín

¡Felices fiestas!

Chopsticks

Some thirty-odd years ago I was "into" Bonsai. I had lots of little trees and enjoyed the hobby for several years. During that time, I learned a great deal about plants in general, not just Bonsai, and also discovered the greatest gardening tool ever known to man.

Chopsticks.

You know, the things with which you eat Chinese food (delicious!). Marilyn Monroe played Chopsticks in her glorious film, The Seven Year Itch, together with Tom Ewell, but that was on the piano and a different story entirely.

The art of Bonsai originated in China, so it is perhaps not surprising that the chopstick has remained linked to Bonsai care. (For a brief history of chopsticks, as well as other information about them, look here and here). From Bonsai I learned that a wooden chopstick could function as an excellent water gauge, dipping it into the soil, removing it after a while, and checking the dampness of the wood. As well as using chopsticks or parts of chopsticks for shaping, separating, and styling Bonsai, they have one use which is particularly suitable to other forms of cultivation: root separation.

When repotting a plant, it is often advisable to clear out the old soil from between the roots and to ensure that the roots are evenly spread in the plant's new pot. This can be best achieved with a chopstick!

Chopsticks come in various sizes and have differently shaped points (the Japanese chopsticks tend to be shorter, more often round along their whole length, and more pointed than their Chinese cousins), so keep a few different ones handy in order to be able to select the most appropriate one for the task. Larger plants with large root masses might benefit from some running water when the roots are being teased loose, but this should not be necessary for plants from normal and small-sized pots. Simply use the chopstick to gently tease the roots loose and to remove the soil which is caught between them: because of the slightly flexible and natural aspect of the wood, the chopstick will fulfil this task admirably and will cause far less damage to your plant than a metal item, such as a fork. Later you can use the chopstick to spread the roots evenly over the new soil before covering them and fixing the plant.

I also use chopsticks to push soil up against cacti stems, to ensure that the soil is well tamped down, though not excessively, at the sides of the pot, to nudge a cactus into its correct position in its new medium, to act as a fixed support for a while until a less than stable cactus has settled down, and countless other ways. Why, only just the other day I used a chopstick to unclog a leaf-sucker (garden vacuum).

I'd still like to have played Chopsticks with Marilyn, though…

Bye Bye UK (if only)

It really is time for the UK to make its mind up as far as its membership of the EU is concerned.

Ever since the UK joined the European movement in the early 1970s, it has been nothing but a whining pain where the sun doen't shine. When I worked for the EU, during the 1980s and 1990s, it was embarrassing to be British: even then the UK looked far too much at its own needs and worried too much about is "national sovereignty" instead of working for the cause of European union and advancement. Now, with the other 26 member states agreeing to relatively harsh but necessary measures to shore up the Euro, the UK has once again shown its true colours and has vetoed the agreement.

Well, UK, get out, please, just go and wallow in your petty island mentality. Sadly, of course, England will take the other countries of the UK down with itself, unless Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have the means, the will, and the courage, to throw off the English chains of constraint and oppression in order to go their own way as part of a United Europe.

The current crisis is, in many ways, a good thing. It offers Europe a chance to get its house in order, it highlights both the weak and the strong aspects of Europe and demonstrates the need for the member states to forget all about their ridiculous worries about sovereignty. It really is now time to stop putting the individual member states first and instead to put a united Europe first, to work towards far more harmonisation, far closer political union, and far more freedom for the citizens of Europe.

And this can be better done without the dragging anchor of the UK to slow things down.

As for other member states, they must decide either to be in Europe, or out: no half measures, no pandering to their own right-wing, nationalist elements. From now on it must be either 100% Europe or get out and go-it-alone. And if you want to be in Europe, you use the Euro.

When It Rains, It Really Pours

I don't expect that Elvis was thinking of Spain when he recorded his magnificent version of "When It Rains, It Really Pours," but the song is certainly an appropriate one for much of Spain at the moment.

Even here in Guardamar, one of the driest parts of the country, we have had a couple of nights with some heavy rain (and no less than a small tornado in nearby Elche) and today the rain has hardly stopped. Heck, we have had to get the umbrellas out and have come home with wet shoes, something which rarely occurs here.

It is clear when driving and walking around, that the locals are not used to wet weather. This is not the case in all parts of Spain, of course, for much of the country, especially the northern regions enjoy (?) a great deal of rain, spread over the whole year. Down here in the south-east, however, rain is very unusual and there are quite simply no installations to deal with it. There are, for example, no drains in the roads to remove the water from the gutters. As a result, roads, especially those on a slope, soon turn into small rivers, with huge amounts of water reaching the lower points. And roads are laid with little or no thought to water control: they have dips in them and are often metalled incorrectly, so that large pools soon form. To add to the problems, much of the land has very little vegetation, and when heavy rain falls onto and then runs off it, the rain takes a significant amount of soil with it, often depositing that soil in the roads, thereby producing dangerous patches of mud.

The locals are pleased with the rain, for the ground is extremely dry and this quantity of rain will save a lot of money that would otherwise have to be spent on irrigation. In fact, there is no shortage of water in Spain; more than enough water falls here, but it is not equally spread over the country, with far more in the north than in the south. As with many other things in the country, however, poor management of resources leads to the crazy situation where the excess water of the northern regions is allowed to empty into the sea, while the southern regions spend huge amounts of money to develop and build desalination stations to take seawater and turn it into potable water. Madness!


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Museo de Belenes, Alicante

If you have an hour or so to spare in Alicante, a very pleasant way of passing the time is to visit the Museo de Belenes. Belenes is the plural form of Belén, or Bethlehem. In fact, the word is used here to indicate a nativity scene.

You don't have to be Christian to enjoy the displays of modelling that are exhibited in this small, but well looked after museum. I'm an atheist, but have been fascinated by the Spanish tradition of Belenes since I first discovered it some ten years ago and can only admire the work and dedication that goes into setting up these delightful models.

You can find Belenes all over Spain during the weeks leading up to the celebrations of the winter solstice (used by Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ) and on to Epiphany. They range in size from small scenes that people set up in their homes to very large scenes, sometimes displayed by a village or town, either outside, or, as in Guardamar, in a special room. Sometimes the scenes are extremely large, covering many square metres, often set up by local enthusiasts. San Javier, where the Murcia airport is located, claims to have the largest open-air Belen of Spain, covering 520 square metres and incorporating more than 1200 model figures with many moving elements. Another large one not too far from Guardamar is to be found in Casillas, a suburb of Murcia. This Belén is under cover and is particularly well known for its many moving parts.

Almost all Belenes have a secret: somewhere, hidden in the scene or scenes depicted, is a man crouching down, with his trousers around his ankles, doing his business. He is known as El Caganer (the crapper) and is said to be fertilizing the soil of the Belén, so that it will flourish again the following year. Probably originating in Catalonia, the caganer has become a popular element in Belenes and a small industry has grown around this single figure, selling not only the traditional form, but others, too, often depicting well-known personalities, including royalty and politicians, such as Barak Obama and Angela Merkel, to name but two.

I have to admit that I did not notice a Caganer in the museum, which was something of a disappointment, but otherwise the museum is a jewel, with many typically Spanish displays, as well as numerous nativity scenes from other parts of the world. The models are made of all sorts of material, ranging from clay, to wood, to ceramics, as well as less likely materials.

Entry to the museum is free. It is open from Tuesday to Friday, from 10:00 until 14:00 and from 17:00 until 20:00. You can find more information and a map of the location of the museum here.

I have made a small Picasa album, showing the inside of the museum.

Ruby Dracaena draco

On 29 October (just two days time, as I write), She Who Must Be Obeyed and He Whose Task Is Simply To Obey (that's me, in other words) will have been married 40 years. We've known each other for over 45 years, but that's a different story.

40 years. So it seems that this is our ruby wedding anniversary. To celebrate this wondrous occasion, we decided yesterday to buy ourselves a Dracaena draco, otherwise known as the Dragon's Blood tree. Well, blood is red, which is the colour of ruby, or so I'm told, so it seems appropriate, especially as this particular specimen was looking rather lonely and forlorn in one of the local garden centres, so clearly needed a good home.

The stem is about a metre tall, which makes the plant about 15 years old. We've had it potted up in a good earthenware pot and it now looks happy in our ever-more overcrowded little garden, standing next to its fellow countryman, the Senecio kleinia, which is seen to the left of the photo.

Both these plants originate from the Canary Islands, with the Dracaena also being found in Madeira, the Cape Verde Islands, and the Azores.

If you have visited Tenerife, the chances are that you have seen one of the few Dragon trees to still grow in the wild: a specimen estimated to be about 1,000 years old is a tourist attraction in the village of Icod de los Vinos. It is, of course, just a tad larger than our own…

Steve Jobs dies

Steve Jobs is no longer with us.

In 2003 he was found to be suffering from pancreatic cancer; in 2009 he underwent a liver transplant.

Jobs recently retired as CEO of Apple and took on the role of Chairman of the Board of Directors. He had been on an extended leave of absence because of poor health.

Now, at just 56 years of age, the man who helped launch Apple and later helped to relaunch that same company, has died of the complications of the big C.

I have already written about Jobs and there is plenty of other information about him on the Web to make it quite unnecessary for me to write any more.

Suffice it to say that the world has lost a great innovator and motivator and the overwhelming response to his death is perhaps the best demonstration of his importance.

'Bye Steve.