After a mixed career as an aircraft technician, London fringe theatre playwright, Franciscan friar, and secondary school teacher, I find myself looking after the needs of four donkeys in a remote location in the mountains in the Costa Blanca. I like to listen to BBC Radio 4 and the wind in the pine trees. My favourite film of all time is "Jean de Florette" as it details the concerns of country people and quietly shows how evil enters our lives through mundane and petty matters. Now retired, I have lost the need to fight past battles and recognize that my various contributions to life - both ecclesiastical and secular - have been enjoyable, sometimes flawed, occasionally disastrous; but mostly times worth celebrating.
In 1961 President Kennedy used the following ‘quote’ in a speech : “As the great parliamentarian Edmund Burke said, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’” The problem that Burke never actually said it does not prevent us regarding it as one of the great non-quotations of … More The US president is a fascist
It is the end of the school year, but after a year of retirement I have only noticed this because there seem to be more children in evidence when I go shopping. The daily physical work involved in the care of four very large animals keeps me very active but the mental challenges in such … More Bath time for Morris
One of the questions in the practice tests for the Spanish citizenship exam was: Uno de los principales puertos de España en transporte de viajeros es… a) Gran Canaria. b) Alicante. c) Algeciras. I opted for b) but the correct answer is c). The preparation was a good exercise in learning more about Spain. The … More How to be Spanish: Lesson 3
I came across this wonderful photo on an Ibiza photo archive site recently and it was captioned, “Ibiza 1970s”. That was quite wrong and I knew it immediately. The red Porsche in the photo was only there for a year and it was 1965, the year that I first started taking photos of interesting cars … More How to be Spanish: Lesson 2
It was on this day 20th June 66,038,000 years ago that the great extinction event occured – most probably a meteorite strike – which wiped out the dinosaurs. Some people are hoping for a repeat of this, which would be a fitting end to the creatures that replaced them.
I received a text message on my mobile phone from the Instituto Cervantes reminding me that I have my Spanish citizenship exam next week, in Alicante. The Prueba CCSE is the citizenship test, with questions about the constitution, social life, geography and culture of Spain*. There is also a language exam which I shall sit … More How to be Spanish: Lesson 1
And that’s all I’ll say about her. It is the 31st. of May and I have not written a blog post since 24th April. That is the longest time without a regular post since 2010 when I began writing Brother Lapin’s Pilgrimage from which this blog continued five years later. There is no particular reason for … More The end of May
If you think British politics is now the laughing stock of the world, Spain is in its run-up to the general election on Sunday and the four main candidates were in a television debate last night where it was impossible to hear any of them because they couldn’t stop talking over each other. Then came … More Blue sky at the end of a stormy week
In a small gathering of English, Dutch, Spanish and American friends on Saturday 30 March here at El Parral, we celebrated with paella the day after the much-trumpeted “Brexit” day 29 March, and declared “We are European!” The Brexiters have been confounded – or to put it simply, they have confounded themselves – and it … More We are European!
Today 29 March was the day that Theresa May repeated more than 100 times was meant to be the day “Britain is leaving the European Union”. Thanks largely to her own monumental incompetence but also to the plain fact that even those supporting it have no idea what Brexit actually means, we are still in … More 29 March 2019
