Seville

Back on the trail of my cyber-photo-album tour of the world, we cross the Pyrenees and venture forth into Spain. Specifically, to Seville in Andalucia.

A few years ago, I went to Spain to learn the language and chose Seville in which to do it. The advice from a lot of people was that Salamanca in Central Spain was the place to learn Spanish in it’s purist form but since I speak English with a bit of a Brummie accent I figured I’ll do the same for Spanish. (No!… not speak Spanish with a Brummie accent – I meant Spanish with a regional accent)

Another reason for choosing Andalucia, apart from the sunny weather, the beaches and the cheap flights to Malaga, was that it is the part of Spain that retains the most evidence of Spain’s 800 year old Muslim heritage. Ever since childhood when I saw ‘Charlton Heston put his chain-mail vest on’ in El Cid I’ve been gripped with a fascination for the place. The idea that there once existed a thriving part of Western Europe which had a mixed population of Muslims, Christians and Jews and which had bridged the gap between the civilisations that, (some would have you believe), are clashing now.

Of course, it wasn’t an Idyll, there was much bloodshed, tyranny, war and bigotry, (some things never change), but the lagacy of those times is reflected uniquely in the Spanish cuisine, architecture, language and even the people. The Alcazar, (taken from the Arabic word for fortress), is in the heart of Seville and although begun by the Moors, was developed to it’s current state by the Christian King Pedro employing muslim artisans. One of the things the Moors were rightly famous for was their brilliant tilework. All the time I was there I just couldn’t get over the attention the Moorish craftsmen had paid to detail. Sheer Quality!

You have to hand it to the Spanish though, they’ve done a great job of preserving the past and in a Catholic country where that past is Muslim that’s quite an achievement. Like all important Catholic cities, Seville has a fairly impressive cathedral aswell. The fascinating thing about the Seville cathedral is that it is said to be the last resting place of Christopher Columbus. Well, you know me and my hysterical historical fixation – 1492 is all I have to say… but I’ll say more anyway.

Not only was that the year that old Chris accidently bumped into the America’s while he was sailing westwards towards India but it was the year in which the last Muslim Kingdom in Spain, (Granada), fell to Isabel and Ferdinand’s Reconquest. Infact, it’s said that old Chris got his sailing orders from the royal duo while they were garbed out in the manner of Muslim rulers!

Be that as it may, in 1492, Seville had already been in Christian hands for several hundred years and so there has been more time to ‘Christianize’ the Muslim elements of the city. Nowhere is this more evident than in the cathedral itself. Prior to it’s ‘conversion’ to a Christian place of worship, it had been the grand mosque of Seville and you can see this in the bell tower which is hugely stunning. The lower and middle part of the tower are obviously Moorish but the top part of it was a later Christian addition. Of course, it’s a shame that the original minaret wasn’t preserved in totality but given that changes were made, I don’t think it’s at all a bad meld of the two quite contrasting styles.

Actually, the grand mosque itself was probably built on top of an even older place of worship from Spain’s Visigothic times and perhaps that itself was built atop an even older Roman building! This was a recurring theme I saw in Andalucia – the building on things past… but more on that next time.

An Iranian girl blogs

Notes of an Iranian girl is, rather unsurprisingly, a blog by a young Iranian high-school student who is just finishing her exams.

I’ve just blogrolled her after reading her humane accounts of the events taking place in Tehran now. I fervently wish that the prayers are answered for the university students who have been protesting, for the past five nights, against the theocracy which prevails there.

An interesting account by ‘Iranian girl’ is the reports of the police not involving themselves in the actual suppressions. Indeed, it appears that in some instances they are actually encouraging the protesters. I remember a history teacher of mine, talking about the Russian Revolution, telling us that revolutions can never succeed without the active support and participation of the police and army. The original Iranian Revolution, which deposed Shah Pahlavi in 1979, itself only succeeded because the army were involved in it on the side of the Islamic revolutionaries.

I wonder whether what we’re seeing is the continued evolution of that original revolution and not merely a counter-revolution. Well, in my humble opinion, it can only be a good thing for the people of Iran if their protests succeed. I think it was clear to me that something needed to happen when I began to read reports of women being harrassed for wearing the wrong colour hijab! (This link is to a slightly irreverent Guardian article but the ‘Iranian girl’ blog about it is unavailable – blame Blogspot archives!)

The irony is that Mohammad Khatemi, Iran’s reformist President, is in the minds of many of these protesters, being lumped togethor with Ali Khamenei, the ultimately powerful Ayatollah in Chief! Which is a bit unfair as he has been trying to bring about change but that change has been thwarted to a greater extent by the hard-liners and now, one hopes, they’ll all be swept away on the tide of a genuine democratic expression of the will of the Iranian people.

Any real reading of the history of Islamic peoples will show that Iran, (Persia), has always had a powerful influence on the direction of Islamic civilisation.

[UPDATE: As usual, I've only just jumped onto an already crowded bandwagon - Editor: Myself is another Persian weblogger who links to yet others including his friend, the once arrested but recently released blogger, Sina Motallebi. He also has an excellent Persian blogging resources section]

La Rochelle

Still on my hols and loving every minute of it. So, I’m still virtually in France, this time on the Atlantic coast in La Rochelle. It’s quite a well off town thriving, apparantly, from being a tourist destination for the French themselves but comfortable with the presence of your’s truly. (They get a high score on the ‘Guess Where I’m From?’ game).

I was there for a few days and it was slightly off-season so the weather was a bit ‘iffy’ but being drenched by French rain just seemed cooler. Besides, I had my anorak and what’s the point of having one if it doesn’t ever rain on you hey?

Infact on a particularly gloomy day somebody had the bright idea of cycling around the place. Now, France is a cycle-friendly place and very trusting too. In this town, the local council lets locals and EU citizens borrow a bike for the day… for free! Can you imagine that at Skegness? you wouldn’t last a day if you offered free bikes in Britain, they’d be repainted, put onto a container and shipped off to Timbuktu before you could say ‘avez vous un cuppa?’. In La Rochelle they trust you… mugs!

So, we got on our free bikes and armed with a map headed off into the environs. It’d been a while since I’d ridden a bike and I’m not as fit as I used to be… okay I’ve never been that fit… okay I’m a physical wreck and always got picked last during sports but the old phrase ‘it’s like riding a bike – you never forget’ … well it’s bollox! I could have been killed several times over as I strained up and down the cycle paths. Those things are only the width of… er, a bike, anyway, for me they weren’t wide enough – I’ve got big elbows you know.

Awright! I’ll stop whining already, anyway by the end I was peddling like a demon and reckon I could have cycled for Britain or Bangladesh, (if a terrible leg eating alien came down from the moon and depedimented everyone perhaps). The point about the free bikes is that they have to be returned to the council bike attendant by about 7.00pm which meant an overly exciting ride, through the marina, towards the end of the day.

There isn’t a better thing to do on holiday than eating I think and unsurprisingly La Rochelle had, hidden amongst it’s arcades, some great sea food restaurants. Well you know about us Bangladeshi types and our fish, (if you don’t then consider yourself told), we love our fish and the place was swimming with the little beggers… urm, literally!

Ah, yes! I still remember a cray fish or ten that was gobbled by yours truly one evening but I have to say that French chocolate isn’t anything to write home about… unless you blog it instead. But French bread – awwwwww! so much better than Gregg’s or even Tesco’s – maybe it’s the water, I dunno but every morning you’d see the locals walking cheerily towards the patisserie and a few minutes later they’d jauntily walk right back past carrying a steaming hot pain franglais.

Now if only they grew rice in La Rochelle, it would have been perfection.

Lille

I can’t afford a foreign holiday this year, (in fact I couldn’t afford one last year either), so I’ve decided to go on a virtual holiday. Actually, it’s really a case of re-living my holidays from previous years. I finally attached a scanner to my trusty laptop and am in the process of scanning in all those snapshots I’ve been meaning to for years.

So, here’s the first installment, (what?… you have to leave?… so soon?… be like that then!)

Well, if you’re still here – this was a Eurostar hop across to Lille. It’s the first major stop on the way to Paris. First impressions are that it’s a gargantuan shopping mall taking advantage of it’s position as the hub for travelling between London, Brussels, Amsterdam and Paris.

However, if you venture away from the main shopping areas there’s actually a real-life French town out there with cafes (ooh la la!), patisseries (yum!), McDonalds (why!) and French people (well nothing’s perfect).

I jest, the locals were, contrary to popular myth, friendly enough. I guess they’re used to Brits barging about the place and my school French was laughably passable enough. In fact I think I must have spoken what little French I did with a heavy English accent because their little gallic faces lit up whenever I opened my gob. Though it may have been relief at knowing that I wasn’t just another ‘dodgy North African’.

Am I being paranoid? not really. Wherever I go abroad, the last guess at my nationality, by locals, is British. So, as long as I don’t open my mouth I can play at ‘guess where I’m from’. A simple game that has the added interest of alerting me to what the local attitude to their immigrant population is. It’s best played away from large cosmopolitan areas such as Paris, Madrid or most Western European capitals.

Well, France is as multicultural as Britain, (perhaps moreso), and despite all the hoo-ha about Front National and Le Pen, I’m happy to say that I’ve never had any problems anywhere in France.

Vive la France!

Brum Bid Blues

The Beeb runs a Brum section on their website which I browse through sometimes and I was there recently when I noticed that it had a link to a page of reactions to the failed bid for Capital of Culture.

I decided to see what other Brummies felt about yet another snub to Brum by New Labour, (I know I should forget it and move on but dammit! I’m annoyed). As you would expect most of the comments were supportive and expressed disappointment but I thought the most telling reaction was from a young woman called Shona who said,

“It doesn’t really bother me, I didn’t really think about it. It’s not important. Birmingham could have won. There’s a lot of stuff to do here – it’s good.“

Sadly, I think that was the real attitude of most Brummies. I also think that Liverpudlians are more obviously proud of Liverpool – perhaps that was the difference.

Also on this reactions page is a link to culture films, which are five short films commissioned by Birmingham Council as part of the bid. Perhaps the real reason behind my own, (me me me me me!), disappointment lies with the hopes of these films. Back in March, I spent a couple of days as a runner on one of these films and so I view the failed bid as a personal attack on me by the Labour Party! (Damn the blessed leader!) Anyway, here’s the relevent section from that page,

Asian sweets

Multiculinary
A sprint round the restaurants and styles of food available in Birmingham. Charlotte Metcalf the director is a director of issue based films working for Channel 4, C5 and many news and documentary programmes. She works mainly in the third world where she highlights issues of race and sexuality.

See the film: Multiculinary

If you bother to view this RealPlayer film you can see my hand deftly dipping a dim sum in chilli sauce (alas! my budding career as a hand model dashed by a bunch of scousers!)