30- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
A lump of British seaside rock: Gibraltar
There’s a small patch of southern Spain that isn’t
Spanish.The red postboxes, signs for Sunday roast
and bobbies on the beat are a bit of a giveaway. Gibraltar
has been under British rule
since 1704, but Spain wants
it back.The 430-metre-high
Rock has been a sore point in
Spain for generations, and
relations across the border
(which only reopened after
the Franco era in 1985) are
often tetchy.The lack of road
signs for Gibraltar within Spain hints at the grievance.
Perhaps Britain would concur with Spanish demands
were it not for the vociferous Gibraltarians who, with
their enviable tax breaks, seem determined to cling to
the mother country. In 2002, 99 per cent of them
voted against shared sovereignty. By the way, most
Gibraltarians speak Spanish as a first language and trace
their origins back to Genoese settlers.Blood and thunder:
Andalusian culture
Flamenco, with its
handclaps, wailing song,
guitar and impassioned
dance is unmistakably
Andalusian.
The wholesale variant
served up for tourists
belies distinct local
variations, derivative
of the originalgitano
version that evolved in
the Guadalquivir valley
some 200 years ago.
Sevillanas, a form of
Andalusian folk music
and dance closely linked
toflamenco, is another
regular at Andalusian
festivals. Andalusia is
also the spiritual home
of bullfighting – the
white town of Ronda
has the oldest bullring in
Spain. The region seems
to edge the rest of Spain
in the vibrancy of its
festivals. The Feria de
Abril in Seville, a week-
long blur of dancing,
drinking and bullfights
two weeks after Easter,
is the biggest knees-up
in the country. Every city
in the region celebrates
Carnaval in the week
before Lent, but Cadiz
outstrips the lot with ten
days of organised
mayhem.
Pasta la vista:
Spain’s Wild West
Sergio Leone chose Almería’s
small patch of desert as a
budget Wild West for the
legendary spaghetti westerns
of the 1960s. Today, you can
watch stuntmen strutting
about like Eastwood, Bronson
and Van Cleef in the Mini
Hollywood theme park.
Don’t forget your poncho.