Getting dirty

On Monday, I was getting a sick scared feeling in my stomach but I thought maybe things would calm down a bit after the Diada, the national day of Catalunya. But now I am getting that same feeling again. A certain Mr Assange is championing the cause of independence and that frightens me. He is using the famous picture of a Chinese guy in front of tanks in Tinamen Square as if to suggest that Spain exercising its laws is the same.
There is much that I want to do today, painting, learning Tagalog for my visit to the Philippines. But I cannot concentrate - I am genuinely scared about what will happen in the next two weeks. It will get dirty. The government in Madrid puts its faith in the law, as did I, but this could crumble under the onslaught of lies and extreme language on TV and in the press and, of course, the internet. There are people around the world who have no idea about the issues here, they simply see the "poor under-dog" Catalunya being denied its "legitimate, democratic" right to self-determination (the phrase which is used here). If every region in every country had that right under a referendum, the world would be thrown back decades in its progress towards peaceful co-existence. We should be looking for closer ties between countries, not fragmenting the world into myriad small states. Everyone has a vote, it is called the Elections for a Parliament! A referendum is quite different. There are people who simply want to disrupt Europe and the democracy that I so value and which keeps me safe.

As I mentioned yesterday, the Fiscalia in Barcelona has issued a warning to the mayors of all the municipalities which belong to the Association of Municipales de Independencia (AMI) that they face charges if they continue to promise support for the referendum but this worries me - it could back-fire against them because the charges are very serious. (They represent about 75% of the total). Carles Puigedemont describes this as "barbarity".

Barbarity, civil war..... ? This is Europe?

The Government in Madrid closed down the Referendum website yesterday but today, Carles Puigdemont announced two alternatives, one of which (www.ref1oct.eu) was registered on 6th September. So obviously they were prepared. I think the website is hosted in the UK so the Spanish police can't do anything about that.

If I wanted to create a website which the law could not touch, then it is very easy. It doesn't need the knowledge of Assange. Simply register the domain name in Luxembourg as they have done and host the website in the UK... or anywhere, so long as it is not Spain.

I guess they could block the website in Spain but they would have no control about the rest of the world seeing it. And there are ways around that anyway as many expats watching BBC iPlayer found. Except that it is not possible now!

Tonight, I will be among friends and like-minded people. I am a member of SCC (Societat Civil Catalunya) and the Girona branch is meeting tonight in a Civic Centre. The SCC is not a political party, it is a group of people who do not want independence, especially if it is carried out illegally. But the independistas shout louder.
https://societatcivilcatalana.cat/es

OK, what if the referendum goes ahead? I suspect people who dislike the idea of independence will not recognise it as legal and stay away. That will leave the way open for independence. And that would be a disaster of major proportions. Many people are so full of hatred for the governement in Madrid, and resentment about the Franco years and even the defeat in 1714 that they are blinded by what lies in the future. It is rather like driving a car and looking out of the rear window. I would feel a little calmer if the prospect for an independent Catalunya was to be in the EU but I cannot see how this is  possible when the EU President - no less - has confirmed that it would leave at the same time as leaving Spain.

What is happening in Catalunya

News about Catalunya and its proposed referendum on 1^st October now appears frequently in the world-wide media so I thought I would write a dispatch from the front in order to give my view on what is happening here.

In general, I don’t like referendums because an elected parliament, with many political and financial experts at its disposal, decides to hand over a major decision which may have repercussions for decades to the general public, many of whom will not have a clue about the pros and cons and instead will be influenced by what they read in the newspapers or on Facebook, much of which will be lies (such as £350 million per week more for the NHS). The decision may also be swung either by a rainy day on the day in question, or by a major event, or simply by someone pumping a large amount of money into one of the two sides. I prefer a government to make the choice, that’s why I voted for them.

Also, I am a “better together” person. I thought it was a very bad idea for Scotland to leave the UK because both would have been the poorer. And as for Brexit! Well I am sure you can guess what I think about that. It is proving to be a disaster. I am about €350 worse off each month because of the drop in the value of Sterling and my free health-care is not assured after the UK leaves the EU.

But this post is about Catalunya (I know it should be Catalonia in English but I prefer to use the spelling that I normally use here).

In 1714, Catalunya was defeated by the Franco-Spanish army in Barcelona after a siege in the War of Spanish Succession and it has never been forgotten, or forgiven. Ironically, it is used as the national day of Catalunya which has just passed, on 11^th September.

The Catalans….. Hey, let me stop just there because what defines “Catalan”? Normally a nationality is defined by the passport but there is no Catalan passport, it is an autonomous region of Spain. So to be “Catalan” is not easy to define. There are many people from other parts of Spain living here. And in order to vote here, one requires a Spanish ID or passport. In the press, the term “the Catalans” is used to describe people who live her but in effect, it is quite a mixture. It excluding people like me with a UK passport which allows me to vote in UK elections but not for elections for the parliament in Barcelona. I can only vote in local elections.

So, I will continue! The Catalans have several grievances. One is that they lost the battle in 1714 and want a re-run effectively - to re-write history and restore the once proud nation of Catalunya. 

They still have grievances about the Franco era when Catalans were suppressed and their language forbidden. But Franco is dead and that era has passed. But unfortunately people here have long memories and the current centre-right ruling party in Madrid, the Partido Popular, is described by some as being headed by the grand-children of the Franco era. But it happens to be the democratically elected parliament of Spain so one can’t really argue against that.

Another grievance is that they frequently cite the fact that more money intaxation goes to Madrid than comes back in kind. Catalunya is a relatively wealthy region of Spain and it tends to help support the poorer regions. This also happens in the EU and in the world at large. My opinion is that wealthy states should support those less well off. I am still not totally convinced about this argument anyway because an independent Catalunya would have to obtain an army, air-force and maybe even a navy to protect Barcelona from threats from the sea. And currently, of course, Spain provides all of these things.

These grievances have surfaced more in recent years as Madrid has clamped down on attempts by the parliament in Barcelona to achieve greater freedom, for example passing a law with Catalunya considered to be a “nation”. Madrid said, “Sorry no, you are not a nation!”

In the last elections here, the winner was an independista coalition of parties called Junts pel Sí. Together, Yes. But they required the support of a left-wing party, CUP in order to have a majority. And it is this group which has now passed a law to carry out a referendum on independence on 1^st October. This law was immediately annulled by the TC, the Tribunal Constitutional in Madrid whose job is to uphold the Constitution of Spain which strictly forbids any referendums and certainly independence.

This hasn’t stopped the parliament in Barcelona from defying the law and attempting to prepare for the referendum.  The President of Catalunya is Carles Puigdemont who was previously the mayor of Girona so I used to see him from time to time. And sometimes I would speak to his wife who edits Catalonia Today, a pro-independence English monthly magazine. It is produced by the same company as publishes El Punt Avui which is so partisan is is barely a newspaper, more a political party leaflet.

Maybe the government in Madrid was happy to let the Catalans have their day in the sun on Monday (11th) but now things are hotting up.

Catalunya has its own police force, the Mossos de l’Esquada and about 4 months ago, its chief “The major” resigned but it was unclear whether he jumped or was pushed. He was in favour of respecting the laws of Spain, not those passed in Barcelona and he was replaced by Josep Lluis Trapero who is pro-independence. This obviously concerned a lot of people, would the Mossos comply with the law?

The answer came yesterday. Catalunya has its own judges, La Fiscalia, rather like the High Court in the UK and they summoned the major to their offices to make it clear what was expected of him. He agreed to comply with the law.

Another crucial point is the actual practicality of holding the vote and this requires the cooperation of the mayors in all the municipalities of Catalunya of which there are about 900. Not all are sympathetic with the referendum even if they may privately wish for independence. Many municipalities belong to AMI which is the the Association of Municipalities for Independence. Celrà where I live is strongly pro-independence and the mayor belong to the CUP, the left-wing part of the parliament in Barcelona.

I spoke about grievances but there seems very little thought given to the future if the unthinkable happened. Army? Air Force?

There is one crucial point which many people try to avoid. That is, membership of the European Union. It has been stated very many times, even by the President of the EU, that an independent Catalunya would be immediately outside the EU. And yet people here go around saying that, "No they would never do that". It’s not something they would “do” or "not do". It would be outside, automatically from day one. So how would it trade with the outside world?

It would very soon be bankrupt and I would be doubly outside the EU, once through Brexit and, to make absolutely sure about it, outside the EU with Catalunya.

The other completely pointless argument is about paying more to Madrid than comes back in kind. If Catalunya was independent, the whole financial model would change.

I was listening to a Catalan friend last night and she was talking about the (illegal) laws passed in Barcelona versus the law in Spain as if they were competing on a level playing field like FC Barcelona playing Madrid. But the laws in Catalunya are subject to Spanish law; they are not equal.

I have many Catalan friends and I respect their wish for independence but what I can’t support is doing it by breaking the law. Catalans call the referendum, “Democracy”. It is anything but. It is anarchy because democracy is about respecting the law. Anarchy is making your own rules. In a modern society, you simply cannot do that. But that is what is happening here.

The Government in Madrid has one weapon but it is reluctant to use it, that is Article 155. It takes complete control of the parliament in Barcelona, but that would be a huge step. Instead they are attempting to seize the ballot boxes and papers by using either the Guardia Civil, the national police, or the Mossos who have promised to respect the law. They are also warning the mayors of the municipalities that they are breaking the law by agreeing to facilitate the vote.

That is how things stand today but I will write more. I hope I have given a balanced view which is more than can be said for TV3 and El Punt Avui which provide a most biased view of the world. No BBC-style interviews here! Instead, we have respectful interviews with the President in the Presidential Palace, beautiful lighting. Polite questions. I would love to see Jeremy Paxman interview Carles Puigdemont! At least I was able to watch Raül Romeva being mauled by Stephen Sackur about a year ago on Hard Talk where he called him an “anarchist”.

Going Home... but some work to do!

Tuesday morning, I woke early and after breakfast, took the Metro and tram down to the Confluence where I met Jerry, the sound guy, at church. They have two speakers very high up at the front but there is nothing we can do about that because they are part of the installation of the church. And the church is borrowed from the Roman Catholic Church. The sound would be much better if they were lower down. People's voices sound ethereal and un-worldly, maybe that was the intention!  The rest of the gear is mounted in a small trolley and is owned by the church.

I made various recommendations and we went through all the gear which included three wireless microphones. I suggested getting a small clip-on electret microphone for Ben, the priest. In general, they were using the microphones too close to the mouth the result of which is an increase in low frequencies and a subsequent lack of intelligibility. 

After our meeting, I went back to my hotel to check out and then I wandered around Bellecour before taking the Metro to the station at Part Dieu. The photo shows us waiting for the platform to be displayed.

The train is a Spanish AVE which makes the journey between Barcelona and Lyon every day. The journey takes about 4 hours, 20 minutes. Between Brive and Perpignan, the train trundles along at the same speed of all the other trains because France has not built a high-speed track to connect Perpignan with the track to Marseilles and Nice. I think they are doing that now. It has an engine at each end which would be sufficient to pull (and push) the 18 carriages of a Eurostar train but this AVE has only 8 carriages, so it appears rather over-powered. It was designed for the TGV Atlantique, built by Alsthom in France.

The journey was pleasant and the time passed very easily. I arrived back in Girona just before 7pm, in time for my Meetup group in Plaça de la Independencìa. So I will end with a photo from the meetup! You can see that it is authentic because my suitcase is parked over on the right!

Swimming in Lyon!

On Monday morning I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do! In the morning, le Musée des Beaux-Arts and then I would go swimming!

I exchanged a few messages with Ben, the priest at the Anglican church and at one point in the day, we decided that I should meet the sound guy, Jerry, at the church on Tuesday morning before I checked out of the hotel and headed for Part Dieu station.

I have visited the museum a couple of times before but this is the first time I have taken a real camera, my Nikon J1. By far the best part of the museum is the chapel which is full of amazing and beautiful sculpture.

I have added one or two of my favourites here.

Boucher: Aux Champs
This is by far my favourite because I describe it as a little bit "Harry Potter", as though the young girl is coming out of the stone, having been captured there for many centuries!

Rodin: Paolo et Francesca (from Dante's Inferno)
 

Maillol: La Montage

After wandering around the chapel for a long time, I then went up to the second floor (Floor 0 is the ground floor in France and Spain for those of you who are used to the ground floor being 1!) I skipped Antiquities because I had been there before and headed for art in the 19th and 20th Century. There, I found paintings by Renoir and Dégas and many other great artists of late 19th and early 20th Century.

I stopped for a coffee on the terrace and continued on to the modern art section but the selection was not brilliant. Maybe the Pompidou Centre has nicked all the best pictures!

After visiting the museum, I bough a sandwich and iced tea in Monoprix and went back to the square close to the hotel for my lunch. Next stop was the swimming pool so I didn't want to eat too much. 

After swimming, I arranged to get in contact with Ben at the church to arrange a meeting for Tuesday and, after an exchange of messages, we fixed a time of 9am for me to meet Jerry, the sound guy, at the church.

On the way back from the pool, I discovered a narrow street full of restaurants close to my hotel and the prices seemed quite reasonable so I decided to go back there.


At around 6.30pm I had a beer and made the mistake of ordering a large glass of Leffe. It was very expensive, €6.80, and after I had drunk about half of the glass, it started doing strange things to my head. It had alcohol, sure. But I should know better with this beer, the same thing has happened with Leffe before. So I left the rest of it!

 Here is the street where I had my evening meal.

I had half a bottle of wine and it was about €8 which is not too bad for here! The meal was a duck steak with a generous salad and chips.

And after that, I went back to the hotel, just a short walk away.

Sunday in Lyon

Sunday in Lyon was just great! I decided to go to church in the morning. The Diocese of Europe is just like a diocese in the UK such as in Oxford or Gloucester. It is very large because there are very many Anglican churches in Europe. By "church", I mean it in the sense of a community because many Anglican groups "borrow" a local Roman Catholic church when it is not being used for services if they don't have one of their own. The church in Barcelona is an Anglican church, not borrowed!

In Lyon, the Anglican community borrows a centre of worship with many rooms and a church space. I looked up the service on the internet and went along at 10.30am. The church is close to the Confluence of the two rivers in Lyon, the Saone and the Rhone. They are what makes the city so attractive, one is never far away from water!

This is my third time in  Lyon and my second time visiting the church and I remember Ben, the priest, from the last time I came. He is English as one would guess. The service was very informal and, being a sound guy, I noticed that the sound was not too good! There are two loudspeakers at the front but very high up and the acoustic of the space is very reverberant. So that when Ben was speaking, his voice actually appeared as an ethereal voice from above although he was only a few metres from me. Ben used a hand-held microphone and I thought I would ask him later why he didn't use a small eletret clip-on microphone but I never got the chance to speak to him on Sunday. But then I didn't need to!

After the service, coffee and tea were served and later a meal was prepared by a charitable group which the church runs in order to help people in the community in Lyon. I also met two students who had been helped by the group. There was one young girl from Mosul in Iraq and she gave me advice on my French accent because she had trouble understanding me. I hesitated to comment on the fact that there is probably very little of Mosul left.

Then I got chatting to a young woman, Natalie, who seemed to share all the same interests as me, everything from quantum computing to sound. And when I said that my original job was as a sound engineer, she asked for my help in improving the sound in church. This, of course, I was happy to do. We exchanged details and she said that she would speak to Ben. More about that later because I ended up going back to the church on Tuesday (today, as I write this on the train going home).

It was a beautiful day and I walked back to Bellecour along the river. The water is remarkably clear as you can see in the first photo. And then I made a great discovery! A swimming pool - outdoors and very close to Bellecour. I had bought my swimming costume and goggles so a visit there was placed on the agenda for next day.

 I had a tea and cake outside McDonalds and returned to the hotel. I did some catching up on my blog and I went for a walk around the local area. 

In the evening I had a terrible meal but it was my own fault because it was evident from the photo in the menu that the chicken was pre-cooked. And you know what happens? It ends up solid and tasteless. The half bottle of acidy red wine was 14 euros. The bill was 33 euros! In general as I said before, France is very expensive to visit but I am sure that to live here would be much cheaper. Prices in supermarkets are more or less the same as in Spain, it's the bars and restaurants which mark up the prices horribly!

Monday, I went to le Musée des Beaux-Arts. I have promised myself for a long time to go back there. Part of the reason is the chapel which is full of beautiful and amazing sculptures, this time, I took my Nikon camera. But I will write about that tomorrow afternoon (Weds) when I can upload lots of photos!

A quick post!

I can't wait to tell you about my days in Lyon! Why I loved the place and how I fell out of love! I have 4 hours on the train home tomorrow (23rd), a Spanish AVE from Lyon to Girona leaving at 2.30pm. So I will have plenty of time to get my blog up to date!
 

From Paris to Lyon.... rapidly!

On Saturday morning, I expressed a wish to....... Oh, erase that, very pompous!

On Saturday morning we walked down to the river from the apartment because I wanted to see some of the real Paris. I seem to have been in museums or food shops most of the time!

The sun was hot but the air was quite cold. We took some photos and walked across to the Isle de la Cité and Notre Dame Cathedral. There were lots of people around and there was a bread baking fair. Here are some photos!

 Outside Notre Dame

 We then walked around to Île Sait-Louise which is about the most expensive place to live in Paris and then back to where we first crossed the river. We then had a look around the huge BHV Marais store. I wanted to see the art department but only in order to feel smug that I bought some really good materials in Ukraine about 10 days ago, much cheaper!

We then visited the multimedia department where Louise had a chat with a robot.

We had lunch in the restaurant on the top floor. I calculated that I would have to leave the apartment at 3pm to catch my train. I left a little after that but still got to Gare de Lyon in good time.

The track between Paris and Lyon was the first TGV route in France back in 1982 and I travelled on it when it was still quite new. I was visiting Canal+ TV with my French distributor when I was making synchronisers for video and audio, but the journey was wasted. They wanted a chase synchroniser, not a control synchroniser. One follows the movement of the tape and the other has a control panel for the operator. The chase synchroniser has no control panel. The whole story of the synchroniser was a disaster; I was completely out of my depth and the product never worked well.





I wish I knew the speed of the train because on one section of track, it went faster than anything I have experienced before. The engine two coaches ahead of me was screaming like a banshee. I thought the regular top speed was 300 km/hour. But a shortened train actually achieved over 500 km/hour but it was specially prepared. The journey took a little under 2 hours. So before I knew it, I was in Lyon. I took the Metro to Bellecour and checked into Hotel Elysee. I had a beer by the square with my book of French nouns. Then I had a (very expensive) steak and went to bed!