I try to avoid mentioning the ‘crisis’ in the things I write, not because it isn’t affecting me – far from it, it’s as disastrous for me as it is for many people – but because you can get tired of reading about how worse life is going to be in 2012 than it was in 2011, so I prefer not to write even more bad news. One thing I’ve noticed, though, is that where once the Spanish press were always giving away freebies, there hasn’t been anything accompanying the morning paper for ages. I was wandering through my archive when I found this, written in the heyday of promotional give-aways – was it really only a couple of years ago?

‘One of the pleasures of life in Spain, expat or otherwise, is the morning stroll to the newsagents to pick up a newspaper before a gentle meander to the cafetería for a coffee and croissant. What confused readers of the newspaper La Razon recently was that they didn’t have to get as far as the caff to get their pastry – it was presented to them when the picked up their copy of their favourite daily.

Whereas the British press may occasionally bung readers a free shampoo or scrap of paper scented with the latest ‘must have’ odour from Lanvin, the Spanish periodicals are far more giving in their freebies. Had our La Razon reader changed his allegiance to Levante a couple of weeks ago he’d have got a pack of longanizas, dried sausage, to have for his mid-morning snack. A couple of days later he’d have picked up a tin of aceitunas rellenos, stuffed olives, (no clue as to whether the olives were black or green or had sabor de anchoas or pimento stuffing) to go with them. (Longanizas have a Methusalah sort of shelf-life and the name lends itself to a popular Valenciano saying ‘Hay mas dias que longanizas’ a sort of Spanish sausage version of ‘another day, another dollar’.)

Just so this newly acquired reader wouldn’t forget where the bounty came from, the next gift was an advertising fridge magnet, but God forbid that you should think that Levante is trying to push itself too much to the fore. These pretty little magnetic plaques were reproductions of posters for early 20^th-century products. You could be enticed by the 1922 Gran Concorse de Avion, decorative cigarette papers from Alcoi (a town near Valencia and boss fagpaper-maker in age-old times), or Oranjina, the fizzy drink in the funny shaped bottles that seemed ‘Oh so French!” when we went there in the ‘70’s.

We’ll pass over the stick on tattoos offered a few weeks ago, to come right up to date with their latest give-away, a bottle of sun tan lotion – a big bottle of sun tan lotion. Well, they would, wouldn’t they, because summer’s here, but just try convincing your boss that honestly, you’re not intending to knock off early for a couple of hours of bronzey, but you didn’t have time to nip home to drop it off, and besides, it’s only factor ten and what bloody good is that in these days of global warming!

Not to be outdone, Las Provincias, Levante’s biggest local rival, has been doling out its own enticements. If I’d wanted to look even more camp than I usually do I could have had a chi-chi set of earrings a couple of weeks ago, but they were a bit too sparkly for me. I’m not sure I fancied the ‘specially selected coffee set’ they offered for nowt last month, particularly as they have one of the biggest local circulations and I didn’t want to take coffee with a friend and find that I could have brought my own cup and saucer and not have spoiled her table setting. LP’s summer promo last year was a prettily decorated fan, but I’m not much good with a flick of the wrist – much more the macho knotted hanky on the balding bonce. (A totally uninteresting historical note here: the Valencia region produces 100% of the fans made in Spain. You never know, it may come up in a pub quiz sometime.)

I’ve always considered myself a loyal sort of chap but I have to admit that Las Provincias lost my vote recently when Levante offered me a bottle of Rioja if I turned coat. Forgive me, but it’s like buying either the Preston Herald or the Preston Evening Gazette. How different is the news going to be! And if I’m going to kop for a bottle of tinto and a newspaper for €1 call me a traitor if you wish, but don’t throw stones at this particular glass window when you would do the same!

All this largesse might be well and good for thee and me, but there’s always a price to pay. Spain’s got its W H Smith sort of newsagents where you can get every known periodical from Mushroom Growers Monthly (free packet of Death Cap attached) to My Cuddly Little Teddy Bear (usually bought by mothers, with free vomit bag attached for fathers). Mostly though, you buy your newspaper from a tiny shop that is the last free space on a Y-junction that could conceivable be rented off. If you could catch a passing cat your couldn’t swing it but the bosses at the newspapers expect these shops, the dimension of a modest-sized public toilet, to store boxes of bathroom cleaner, cartons of tamarind juice, containers of this, that and the often bloody useless other that they have to give away with a newspaper that, on its own, sits quietly in a pile on the counter top.

My newsagent, Pepe, has his own way of dealing with them. He plonks the boxes down outside his shop and sits on them, taking in the summer rays. Given his girth, love of nosh and whatever ominous gaseous escapes that might provide, and a bad temper if disturbed, very few people have the temerity to interrupt his siesta for the sake of a can stuffed olives. After all, they are only thirty-five centimes in Mercadona just around the corner.

If you would like to know more about Spain, visit my web site, Derek Workman, and Spain Uncovered. Articles and books can also be found at Digital Paparazzi.

With influences from Africa, Latin America, and the Spanish peninsular, as well as recipes of the islands’ own creation, the Canary Islands are said to have the most original gastronomy in Spain. Gastronomes might argue the point, but there’s no beating the Canarian ‘tater.

The humble potatoe was first discovered in Latin America by Spanish conquistadors, although no one can say exactly when the first one was brought to Europe or from exactly whence it actually came. Despite claims that Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake introduced it to England, this appears to be the stuff of legend as there is no evidence to back the claim up. Historians believe that the tuba arrived in the latter part of the sixteenth century, and as there are records showing potatoes being sent from Tenerife to Antwerp in 1565, it is generally assumed that the staple diet of most of Europe first arrived via the Canaries.

The sweet potatoe reached England via the Canary Islands and was the common potato during the Elizabethan years. At that time, sweet potatoes were sold in crystallized slices with sea holly (eringo), a thistle style plant with a blue flower that grows on sand dunes throughout Europe, as an aphrodisiac. Shakespeare mentions this sweetmeat in  “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (“Let the sky rain potatoes…hail kissing comforts and snow eringoes”), and the Empress Josephine introduced sweet potatoes to her companions, who were soon serving them to stimulate the passion of their lovers. (Shakespeare also mentioned Malmsey, also known as Sack, an important wine export in the 16th and 17th centuries. Originally produced in Tenerife, the main area of production is now Lanzarote.)

Known locally by the original Indian name of papas, the Canarian potatoes we dine on today are direct descendants of those said to have come from the Andes in the 16^th century. Small, wrinkled and knobbly, black, red and yellow, they have their own distinctive flavour. (You may well hear of two local varieties, Kineua  and Otudates – bastardised versions of ‘King Edwards’ and ‘Out of date’ respectively, words said to have been stamped on the sacks when they first came to Spain and mis-read by the non-English speaking locals. This smacks heartily of a local giggle at the dumb tourists expense, given that it was the Spanish that introduced the potatoe to the English.)

The traditional way of cooking papas is with a large amount of sea salt (they were originally cooked in sea water), the quantity being decided on by putting the potatoes in fiercely boiling water and pouring in enough salt until the potatoes float. They are served in a small dish, with a white encrustation of salt on them and known as papas arrugadas (wrinkled potatoes). Traditionally they are accompanied by mojo picon, a piquant sauce made from garlic, paprika, cumin, breadcrumbs and wine vinegar.

The dish is an accompaniment to almost any meal or it can be eaten on its own, washed down with Canarian wine. Simple and simply delicious, no one should leave the Canary Islands without having tried papas arrugadas con mojo picon.

If you would like to know more about Spain, visit my web site, Derek Workman, and Spain Uncovered. Articles and books can also be found at Digital Paparazzi.

I was sauntering back from Mercadona this evening with an ecoligical bag full of last minute veg for Christmas, before stopping off at Consum for a couple of bottles of their pretty well-priced Rueda. To be honest, the veg weren’t particularly for Christmas, it was just that I wanted something to go alongside the chicken I’d roasted earlier today (with shaved ginger and slivers of garlic slid under the skin, in case you want to know).

It was a blow when they closed Marks and Spencer in Valencia about four years ago, and I lost the only place within walking distance I could buy a Christmas pudding for one. Laugh if you will, but that meant a lot to me, the good old M&S Christmas pudding for one. I’ve had a cardboard carton of Birds Custard Powder in the cupboard for years, which gets spooned out now and again when I serve up a – usually – burnt apple crumble. Yes, I know, it’s almost impossible to bugger up a crumble, but take it from me, my oven can, and does regularly.

Anyway, we’re not here to talk about puddings.

I was taking a detour around a bulky old granny when her phone rings. I hold up my hands, it still strikes me as strange when I see an old biddy take out a slim-Jim telling-bone and chat into it as naturally as if she were jawing over the wall with a neighbour. I’m a throw-back – I admit it.

So there I was, skirting the old dear with her shiny patent leather handbag and iphone, when I hear her say,

“Hijo, ¡que pasa! No te preocupes, estoy en la calle muy cerca de tu casa y…….”

She thinks it’s her son, wondering where she is. Not that far away, apparently. And she continues yammering on.

“Dos minutos, nada mas, y tengo un botillo de vino para la comido y…..”

Quiet.

“¡Padre! Lo siento muchísimo.” It’s the vicar, not her son at all.

“Es un miraglo. Tu voz tiene lo mismo sonido de mi hijo.” The fact that the vicar and her son have a similar sounding voice seems to be something of a miracle to her. It may well be, but she gets stuck in and tells him how lovely it is to hear from him, but she can’t chat for long because she’s late for pre-Christmas lunch with the son and family, and she thought that was him on the phone wanting to know where she was, even though she was only a few minutes late, and you’d expect that wouldn’t you because the queues at Mercadona when she popped in for a bottle of tinto were terrible, but you’d expect that, wouldn’t you because it was Christmas Eve day and everyone was getting the last few bits in for the family dinner tonight and her and Javier and his family had decided to make it a family lunch instead of dinner, what with her Miguel having passed on last year but one, and to be honest, she couldn’t take the late nights like she used to so……..

I didn’t find out what the vicar called for, and I suspect neither did she. But it was a lovely little moment, nonetheless; an old dearie, done up to the nines, on the way to her family for lunch, and she gets a call from God’s local rep, just before his son’s birthday.

It’s more than I bloody get!

If you would like to know more about Spain, visit my web site, Derek Workman, and Spain Uncovered. Articles and books can also be found at Digital Paparazzi.

When painter and writer Danny Moynihan, friend of avant-garde (or simply weird) artist Damien Hirst, and author of Boogie Woogie, a novel that dished the dirt on the New York art world, decided to restore a riad in Marrakech’s medina, he and his wife, actress, film-maker and former showgirl Katrine Boorman – daughter of film director John Boorman – trawled the markets and souks of Marrakesh for fabrics, a well-known dealer for 20th century furniture …. and the Bab el Khemis flea market for “almost everything else”.

Of the twelve gates in the 12 km-long, rose-pink 12^th-century wall that wraps around the ancient city, Bab el Khemis is one of the oldest. It takes its name from the Thursday market where once camels, horses, mules and asses were sold, and, at least according to Arthur Leared, who travelled the country in 1872, “On the sale of each animal a guarantee that it has not been stolen, verified by a notary, is required”. How anyone could guarantee the provenance of a rag-tag assembly of worn out critters, (and you could probably use the same term for the dealers), many of which had walked hundreds of kilometres across sand and mountain to end up as camel meat on the tables in the open-air restaurants of the Jmaa el Fnaa, remains a mystery.  Jmaa el Fnaa itself was the scene of the Friday market that sold horned cattle, and near the Souk el Ghezel, slaves from the Sudan and Sus were sold on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays during the hour before sunset. While it’s unlikely that any of the commodities sold at this market would end up on a butcher’s slab, the life of many of them wouldn’t have been a whole lot better than the pack animals auctioned off at the Bab el Khemis.

It’s Thursday, and as the Thursday market has been on my ‘must-do’ list for ages, and I haven’t yet got around to doing it, I saunter off to see what somewhere that has been described as ‘one of world’s greatest mixes of junk and treasures’ has to offer on this fine day. I’m secretly hoping that I might find a decent second-hand Brooks bike saddle at a bargain price, as I do at every flea-market I go to. I haven’t as yet, but it doesn’t stop me secretly hoping.

When I get to the gate I’m slightly disappointed not to see the hordes of hustlers and cascading bric-à-tat that I’d imagined from the various descriptions I’ve read about the Khemis Thursday market. Mainly what I see is a lot of young men selling mobile phones and their accoutrement. Some are as carefully displayed in small glass cases as the sparklers Audrey Hepburn saw in the window of Tiffany’s when she was on her way to breakfast; others are simply tumbled in a ‘pile it high and sell it cheap’ early Tesco fashion, but there’s plenty of action going on. I’m impressed by the chap who has brought a full home gym to sell, and wonder if he brings it every week or simply anchors it to a post until the next Thursday. I hope for the sake of the poor donkeys that he brought it by van, because I’ve got one of them at home, left by a previous tenant and carefully avoid by me, so I know how much they weigh. I tried to move it once so I could decorate the spare bedroom where it lives. I bought a bed-settee for the living room instead. Respect, man.

I was equally intrigued by the detailed inspection a tall gangling chap was giving a dentist’s chair, circa 1950, (the chair, not the chap, although by the look of him it could have been getting its final coat of paint around the same time he was getting his first nappy changed). Excellent piece of kit it was, and in fine condition. In fact there were two of them, so the erstwhile punter would be stuck for choice if he only wanted one. Perhaps he was considering opening his own clinic and was looking to bulk buy, and even a pair of chairs nearing pensionable age were a damned site preferable to most of those you see used by peripatetic ‘dentists’ in the souks, something rescued from the kitchen, where they simply plonk the agonised patient down before delving into the dentures with a pair of ancient pliers.

It turns out I’ve got the wrong gate. I’m not at the Bab Khemis, that’s a much grander entrance around the corner. I’m at a side entrance, but I’ve been sufficiently entertained by what I’ve seen so far that I decide to dive into the souk and come out by the main gate later, to see if I’m missing anything. Needless to say, I get lost in the skinny alleyways and don’t find the right gate until a taxi driver points it out to me a couple of days later.

I stroll in through an archway that draws me into a clattering, banging, screeching, grinding, shower-of-sparks-flying pandemonium. But it’s only pandemonium to my ears and eyes; to everyone else it’s just the daily noise of the metal-workers souk. Whether it’s something that involves metal in its construction – mopeds, bicycles, ancient sewing machines – or it is something that will be made entirely from metal – window grills, decorative arches, tables and chairs – there’s someone here who can fix it or make. Scattered everywhere are large sheets of metal, long strips of steel two fingers wide, pencil-thin rolled rods that are bent and twisted to create intricate designs. Sparks shoot from angle grinders like spinning Catherine wheels as young men with no protection other than a pair of sunglasses and a cloth wrapped around their face – and sometimes neither of those – cut, burnish and smooth. Everything is covered by a fine black powder, but this is Morocco, and the dusty monotone is alleviated by the brightly coloured djellabas of passers-by.

Work stops in one tiny workshop when their machine literally grinds to a halt. The intermittently spinning blade indicates that the carbon brushes that drive the motor are worn out. They are awkward devils to replace at the best of times, but with the make-do-and-mend temperament that you find in most third-world countries, the worker simply strips the case off, packs a bit of cardboard into the spring on the brush housing so that it can’t be forced back, re-assembles the machine, and within a couple of minutes is back at work, the machine still spluttering and kicking, but at least it’s okay for a few more hours yet. It makes me smile; I remember doing the same when I was an antique restorer many years ago in the Lake District; make-do-and-mend was sometimes the only option.

I watch a group of four men working on different parts of an ornate arch, just over two metres high and slightly less wide. The main structure is finished, and a young man draws the curlicue design in chalk on the concrete floor of the workshop that will be created by the thin metal rods at his side. When he is satisfied with the design he measures the first section, a shallow curve, and cuts a piece of the required length from the five-metre rod. With a lump hammer and his cold chisel he slowly curves the metal until it reproduces perfectly the design he has drawn on the concrete. Everything cut, bent, curved and twisted by hand, and each piece slotting perfectly in place. I’m fascinated and could watch him for hours, but I’m dying for a coffee.

Turning away from the street of the metal workers I wander down a cluttered alleyway of wonderful ancient doors, rolls of antique rugs, Lloyd-loom chairs, exquisitely painted tables, worn and patinated with age, a 50s pram, plastic garden recliners – and yes, I do even see the kitchen sink, as well as one for the bathroom, along with its bath, toilet and bidet, all in the chunky cut-corner style of art deco. I also pass men and women squatting on the ground behind a pile of odds and ends that can have no conceivable value other than to someone who has nothing of value at all; a Kodak cartridge camera, a pair of stiletto-heeled shoes with one stiletto, an alarm clock with no hands, odd socks, seven-year old magazines in Spanish – the same detritus you see on every flea-market in the world. It used to sadden me as I walked to work at the Marche aux Puce at Clignancourt in Paris many years ago, to think that this was all these people had, and would pack up at the end of the day exactly what they had laid out at the beginning. It still does.

I hear the Koran being sung, the beautiful a cappella coming from a tinny-sounding loudspeaker hung outside a café at an alley junction bustling with second-hand clothes vendors. Anticipating a hot coffee, the sound draws me towards a table like the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. Parking myself in one of those plastic garden chairs that succumb to too much time in the sun and bend when you lean backwards, I wave at a passing waiter and ask for a café au lait. It could well be my accent, or he may not speak French, but he casts a bemused look around the other clients, obviously not having understood any of the three words I’ve just spoken“Mint tea,” a voice says in English, but I’ve no idea which table it came from. Obviously coffee’s off the menu.

“Bien,” I say, and the waiter goes off to get it. He comes back a couple of minutes later with a glass of something that looks as if it has been sitting around for a while, probably at the bottom of a u-bend of a kitchen sink. I reach into my pocket for some money.

“One dirham,” a different voice says.

“One dirham!” Ten centimos, cheap in any currency, about one-tenth what you would pay elsewhere. I hand the coin over – never look a gift glass in the mouth.

“A mange,” says the chap with the grey stubble and wool bobble hat at the next table. They may not be big conversationalists, but they all helpfully want to get in on the act.

I suddenly realise that I’m sat at a workers caff, and everyone else is getting stuck-in to bowls of bean soup or something made from bits of innards whose origin I’d really rather not know. But it’s cheap and fortifying and obviously pretty popular. (I try some another day. The stock was good, but I had to close my eyes when I dipped the spoon into the bowl.)

No-one objects that I’m taking up a table with only a cup of mint sludge, so I sit for a while and watch the second-hand clothes salesman hawking their wares. I haunt the ‘pre-used’ clothes stalls at my local Monday market in Valencia, and think I’m pretty well turned out in my two-euro shirts and three-euro jumpers (I once bought a cracking Stasi-style leather jacket for twenty euros, and it’s still going strong), but they are nothing compared to what’s on offer here. If Ryanair weren’t so parsimonious with their baggage allowance, I’d be elbow deep in the piles of check shirts, corduroy trousers (when was the last time you saw corduroy trousers?), sweaters – I’ll pass on the tartan one but I definitely fancy the hooded jacket with the toggle fastenings. I haven’t seen toggle fastenings since my green duffle coat when I was seventeen.

Pulling myself away from kitting out a new wardrobe, I wander into an enclosed part of the furniture makers souk, piled to the ceiling with beds, tables, fat mattresses and, it has to be said, some painfully ugly mogernised pieces, (that’s not a typo, it’s a derogatory word a friend invented to cover all the ugliest aspects of modern design), that are similar in quality design concept to the little gold bear that waves its arm up and down that you see in tatty Chinese shops everywhere. Who could conceivably want one?

One of the things that always amazes me is that in Europe, and most probably in the US and elsewhere, so much of the furniture is made from composites; plywood, block-board, chip-board, MDF – in other words, sawdust, wood shavings and a lot of glue – but in Morocco they make their furniture out of proper wood, the stuff that actually comes direct from the trees. Okay, some of it might look as if it has been rescued from pallets, but it’s still wood.

A stooped ancient lady came toward me, supporting herself by a crutch on her right side, her left hand held out, hoping for a coin to be dropped in it. I put my hand in my pocket, randomly pick a coin drop it in her palm as we pass, one of those automatic actions that neither acknowledge. She’s not a happy bunny, though, and obviously the coin wasn’t of grand enough value, because a few seconds later I hear the tinkling of it hitting the cobbles, and look down to see it skittering past me – she’s thrown it back! A few others hear it and look around, but no-one spots it. I’m tempted to pick it up, but if it’s not enough for her to keep it’s probably not enough for me to shame myself by bending down to pick it up in front of everyone, so I leave it and walk on. Maybe someone will find it who believes in the dictum, ‘see a coin and pick it up and all that day you’ll have good luck’.

As I continue my walk through the furniture souk, I pass a young lad in his teens carving intricate scroll work in the top of a small table. His curved chisels are almost worn to nothing, from generations of grinding and sharpening. He uses a squared-off length of wood with one end roughly round as a handle as he carefully taps the chisel, turning his hand slowly to create a curve in the scroll, all the while chatting to his friend whose busy planeing the sixty degree angle of one of the joints that will form the traditional hexagonal table. Once again, I’m back at my workshop in the Lake District thirty years ago, choosing a length of wood from my scrap box to use as a mallet to carve the finer points of a design, my usual rounded mallet being too weighty for fine work. I’m suddenly brought back to reality when I look further into the workshop and see a large band saw where, beneath as sign that tells you without any subtlety, ATTENZIONE ALLE MANI! – watch your hands in any language – a worker is cutting a fine curve in a piece of wood without any guard on the blade. I shiver at the thought that there’s someone could easily lose one of his mani if he doesn’t pay enough attenzione.

In the wider alleyways you can hear the rattling sounds of mopeds and small vans long enough ahead in time to get out of the way and let them pass. It’s not the same with the donkeys and carts, though. The carts usually have rubber tyres, although nine times out of ten, worn down to the webbing, and the donkeys don’t exactly make the coconut clacking sound of horses galloping, given their docility and sedate pace. The first thing you know that you are stopping someone in pursuance of their livelihood is when you hear someone shouting, “Balec, balec,” which guide books will tell you means, “Make way, make way,” but is usually said in a tone that more realistically says, “Oi, you, shift your arse!” You turn around to see the doleful stare of a donkey looking at the design on your T-shirt, not that it’s really interested in knowing that you ‘heart’ Agadir, but because that’s how tall he is, and frankly, he doesn’t care whether you move or not.

I find myself back at the door I came into the souk by, more by chance than design. I didn’t find my Brooks saddle, but there again, I refrained from being tempted by the toggle jacket. Still, tomorrow’s another day, as they say, or as far as the Bab Khemis flea-market is concerned, next Thursday is.

If you would like to know more about Spain, visit my web site, Derek Workman, and Spain Uncovered. Articles and books can also be found at Digital Paparazzi.

Years ago I was walking down Market Street in Manchester, around about the time they put the metro tram lines in. In the distance I could hear someone playing the bagpipes, but not the swirling, skirling, into-battle-we-go-mon sort of stuff, this was rockaboogie, someone really giving it stick.

As I got closer, through a space in the crowd that was going about their business doing their Saturday shop at the likes of Next and Mothercare, I caught a glimpse of a young chap in a doorway, with tumbling curly hair, a sweatshirt with the logo of a local brewery on it, and baggy Indonesian tie-dye pants, giving his all on the pipes, stomping his feet as if he were at a highland ceilidh, but one given for country-funk rockers rather than the Gay Gordon brigade.

I’ve read the phrase, ‘his heart jumped into his mouth’, but always thought it was a load of old Victorian tosh – until that moment. Two thoughts collided, “He’s the spitting image of Jim,” (my youngest son) and, “What the fuck’s a young lad like him doing wasting his time on the freaking bagpipes for!”

Shame! Shame! He’s having a great time. Blowing, stomping and giving everyone a bloody good time! And he was having the best time of all!

So what brought back this rambling memory? I was wandering around Youtube and came across Penguin Café Orchestra, one of my favourite bands, playing Salty Bean Fumble. Wonderful, absolutely wonderful! http://bit.ly/penguinsaltybean. Top flight classical musicians having a whale of a time. Would that I bloody well could! (I loved the way the chap on the triangle just keeps going around and around – if that’s what you actually do with a triangle – to keep the beat; take it away from all the other instruments and you’d really notice its absence.) I spent a delirious half-hour re-living a time when, at least for me, nothing musically got labelled, it was just damned good to listen to, especially because those were the days when the big names now were hustling for a venue. Elvis Costello and Ian Drury at a tiny theatre in Rochdale; Little Feet supported by Tower of Power at the Free Trade Hall as part of the Warner Brothers Tour in 1975, with TP upstaging the headliners when the brass section sashayed off the stage and did a jazzed promenade through the aisles as Lenny Williams belted out, “Giddyap, giddyap, Hiyo silver, Giddyap, giddyap hiyo yeah…” in one of the best Motown voices of the era. It was the first time I smoked a joint in my life…first time I smoked tobacco, come to think of it, and it made me feel so bloody awful that I never touched either again. But, joder, the music was fucking awesome!

I slowly came back to the twenty-first century by way of Air à Danser, one of my favourite Penguin pieces.

So what happened? I was there when Louden Wainwright gigged at the Academy, before he became known just as the dad of Rufus and the husband of Kate McGarrigle, who, with her sister, Anna, were real biggies on the folk-rock scene at the time. I saw Hugh Masekela long before Paul Simon got on the South African gig and recorded him for the Graceland album; Ali Farka Touré, who took The New Embassy by storm (which rose from the ashes of The Embassy – most of the best gigs ran out of money), and was still living in squats with friends as he tried to get his Malian music known, and non-events like The Smiths, The Buzzcocks and Duritti Column had yet to raise their heads, although the rock poet John Cooper Clarke, he of the welded-on sun glasses, and The Salford Jets, were packing the crowds in?

 I got old. That’s all. I simply got old.

 If you would like to know more about Spain, visit my web site, derekworkman-journalist.net , and Spain Uncovered. Articles and books can also be found at Digital Paparazzi.

When we finished the bike ride in the High Atlas, as a celebration of a ride well done, the final night was to be dinner at Le Comptoir Darna, a chi-chi establishment made doubly enticing by the promise by Andy of a bevy of beautiful belly dancers. While I hate sounding like the T-shirt – been there, seen it, ticked it off – I’ve seen the dance a few times before and didn’t find it particularly enthralling. In fact, I once won a belly dancing competition at an country fair in Pennsylvania, which, to be perfectly truthful, was more belly than dancing, and only three of us took part so I had an odds-on chance anyway. By the time the show at Le Comptoir was supposed to start I’d usually be tucked up under the duvet, but it was a celebration, and what the hell, a bit of swirly-girly never did anyone any harm.

Le Coptoir is dark and decadent, wonderful in its sparkling exoticness, although I couldn’t help feeling that, like so many of this sort of night-haunted places, the ambiance is a bit different when the cleaners come in in the morning to do the carpets. Ever a pedant, I’m afraid.

The meal was wonderful; the service I can’t tell you about as I was distracted by the voluptuous waitress who glided around in tight black outfits with brightly coloured pouch bags shimmering with gilded tassels.  But I experienced something that made an old man very happy, and will stay with me as one of those moments….you know the ones, they happen, linger briefly, and pass, to reward you with a smile years down the line when the mind isn’t concentrating on the realities of life.

Needing to relieve the strains of too much excellent Moroccan white wine, I wandered up the sweep of the elegant main staircase and found myself on a richly carpeted hall that would have made a pasha proud. In front of me an enormous pair of mirrored doors reflected back a bemused chap nervously looking for the sign that said either gents or had a stick figure of a body with two rigid legs spread astride, showing me where to go. Oh good Lord no! Nothing so banal – and besides, they speak French and Arabic in Morocco, so I would have looked in vain for the ‘gents’.

The huge door mirrored door opened up in front of me like the secret cave of the Forty Thieves when Ali Baba struck the rock, although in this case it was more an Ali Barbara.

Round at all the points the good Lord decreed that provocative roundness should appear on a lustrous young lady’s form; curves to defeat the best geometrical designs of a luxury hand-built boat-maker, lips as rouged and full as one of Raphael’s cherubim, dark cascading locks framing a face of delicious plumpness set in which were two deep brown incandescent pools masquerading as eyes. As I approached, those entrancing pools sparkled, her rose red lips seductively bid me, “Bonsoir, Monsieur,” as she gracefully opened the door to which she was guardian. Never in my life, from the far flung Indies to the high-falutin’ gambling soirees of Paris, have I encountered a toilet door opener of such beauty. That was her job, to open the door to the toilet at just that perfect moment of arrival…and, by some magical device, probably known these days as a video camera, to repeat the action on departure.

It occurred to me later to wonder how far into the gents’ urinals did the camera focus? Did they cover only as far as the sinks, to make sure we actually washed our hands before taking the ten dirham coin from our pocket to give as a tip, or as far inward to focus on the ritual shaking and zipping that we all, each in our own way, perform? It mattered not, the smile was as welcoming on departure as on arrival. I was tempted to feign a case of prostatic hyperplasia (look it up) to keep going back, but I think she may have noticed a bald old degenerate making repeat journeys. I consoled myself with the thought that all of us, even if our job is only to open toilet doors, can do it with the greatest aplomb we can muster, because it may just raise a smile for an aging juvenile who can drift back for a few moments to the time when his smile was one of love and longing, when it didn’t just cover a shell of skin and bone, now lost between desire and capability, looking for nothing more than a cheery sidelong glance, the sort we knew about so many years ago. And this gift the little darling, who I will most likely never see again in my life, bestowed upon me.

Lights lower, vibrant music, four tall men in white robes and turbans descend the stairs with a palanquin shouldered between them. On the small platform a curved figure is sheeted in white, behind which sway two women in shimmering floor-length dresses; on their heads are balanced silver trays, glistening with lighted candles. As they shimmy down the stairs the candle flames perform their own iridescent sparkling dance.

A burst of music, and a flurry of red and white butterflies in slit-sided silk pantaloons clasped at the ankle, twirl and swirl diaphanous shawls; broad sparklingly embroidered waistbands paired with lustrously beaded and shimmering bra tops; the belly dancers, the luscious ladies of the raqs sharqi, enter the room with a fanfare and sensual exuberance. They weave between the tables, their hips gyrating and flicking in a staccato rhythm. It is a thing of beauty and a joy to behold.

Kohl outlined eyes, seductive finger, wrist and pelvic gyrations, with tiny toe-to-heel steps they sashay around the room. As they pass tables, men slip one hundred dirham notes into their waist belt or tops, but this, in a slight way, seems to diminish the beautiful sinuous dancing to the bar-top ‘exotic’ dancers in the sleazy bars of Queens in New York City.

Most of the attention is focussed on the young beauties, but I’m captivated by the two older ladies balancing the trays of candles on their heads. Broader of beam and stouter of girth, their movements, nonetheless, have refrains of a more mature sensuality. Were they the belly dancers of twenty years ago?

I watch their dominance of the restricted floor space. When a svelte young ingénue parades her comehitherance as she passes too closely to a candle dancer, the latter extends her arm in what appears to be part of her dance routine, and carefully but surely moves the belly dance aside. She is, after all, carrying a potential fire hazard on her head, whereas the young girl is merely exhibiting a strategically sexy control over her hips.

As a table of seven men, one of whom has tucked a fair few dirhams into the lingerie of various young ladies, we eventually share the spotlight of which the dancer is the sparkling star. Glasses and plates on our table are moved aside and a gorgeous young thing with flaxen hair, abundant cleavage and a mock-leopard-skin outfit is assisted onto the table by one of the waitresses. After some eye-raising shimmying she bends over backwards and executes a perfect arch, her well-filled top directly in front of the Moroccan with the an equally well-padded bill-fold. Under the gaze of everyone who can get close enough to the table, he ostentatiously folds a 200 dirham note under each strap of her leopard-skin top.

I’m sitting directly opposite the centre of attention, and my view is of a pair of beautifully formed feet with toenails painted in a devilish shade of crimson. I may not have had the best view in the house, but it consoles me to think that there will be an awful lot of photos of a beautiful upside-down Moroccan darling with bank notes sticking out of her costume, with face of a tired old man in the background, wondering if it’s time to go home yet.

If you would like to know more about Spain, visit my web site, derekworkman-journalist.net , and Spain Uncovered. Articles and books can also be found at Digital Paparazzi.

The English cuisine has always been laughed at by its European neighbours, but is this necessarily fair? The Italians eat nothing but spaghetti, the gastronomy of Spain is based solely on paella, don’t tell the Germans that a frankfurter tastes like mushy wet paper or the French that frogs legs are nothing to get excited over. Suddenly, the roast beef of old England  doesn’t seem so bad.  But whatever our European neighbours might say about British food, not one of them can measure up to the Great British Pudding. The variety is endless, and even the French were forced to admit British superiority when Misson de Valbourg said, after a visit to England in 1690, “Ah what an excellent thing is an English pudding!” (And despite its French sounding name, crème brulee, the creamy dish with the burnt sugar topping, was actually created in Cambridge in the early 19^th century.)

But when is a pudding a pudding – or not, as the case may be? Yorkshire pudding isn’t a pudding, it is a savoury pastry case than can be filled with vegetables or served, full of gravy, with that other English staple, roast beef. And neither is black pudding, that’s a sausage of boiled pig’s blood in a length of intestine, usually bound with cereal and with cubes of fat added, and which sometimes goes under the more realistic name of blood pudding. In the reverse, ask for mince in the UK and you will be served with ground beef, but that Christmas delight, mince pies, are actually filled with a paste of dried fruits. Confusing!

Most British puddings are rich and sweet (‘sweet’ is actually another name for pudding) with the recipes often going back hundreds of years. The quintessential English pudding incorporates the fruits that are grown in England, the apples, the redcurrants and raspberries, bright red rhubarb, a plant that seems to be unknown elsewhere in Europe, (a childhood treat was to be given a long stick of it and a cone made of newspaper into which sugar was poured for you to dip the rhubarb in), or gooseberries, which, apart from being a small green, slightly bitter, hairy fruit, is the name given to someone who goes out with a couple on a date without a partner for the evening himself.

Pies, tarts and trifles, rich with cream, eggs and butter; spices, dried fruit, rum and rich dark brown sugar, first brought into England through the port of Whitehaven in Cumbria, items of such high value that the lord of the house would keep them locked away in his bedroom, portioning them out to the cook on a daily basis. The port had an equally dark history of supplying slaves for the plantations of the West Indies in exchange for the rich harvests of the islands, and was where the last invasion of the English mainland was attempted, in 1772, during the American War of Independence, when John Paul Jones, the father of the American Navy, raided the town but failed in his efforts.

Just the names of some puds cause them to stick in the mind. ‘Spotted Dick’, a hefty steamed pudding with butter, eggs and dried fruit folded into its heavy pastry, had a gigglesome name for generations of schoolboys (‘dick’ being a naughty word for ‘penis’), and so strong is this childhood memory that hospital managers in Gloucestershire, in the west of England, changed the name to ‘Spotted Richard’ when they put it on hospital menus, thinking that patients would be too embarrassed to ask for it by its original name. The truth is that no-one actually has any idea where the name came from, other than that the currants traditionally used gave the pudding a ‘spotted’ appearance. And a gooseberry fool isn’t an idiot whose friends don’t want to have him around, it is a deliciously creamy summer pudding.

An inescapable addition to any British pudding, especially the steamed ones, is custard; rich, golden and runny, which is poured hot over a steamy bowl of treacle pudding, apple crumble, plum duff or any other delicious pud hot from the oven. But another complication; ask for ‘a custard’ in a British bakery and you will be given a small pastry with a thick, creamy filling, which you would eat cold. Pudding custard is a flowing nectar made from egg yolk, milk, sugar and vanilla pods and the thought of licking the bowl after your mum had made it fresh must linger in the top five of every Brit’s favourite childhood memories.

But above all, the Christmas pudding reigns supreme, the highlight of the Christmas dinner when, if you were very lucky, you would be served the portion with the lucky sixpenny piece in it.

Copious quantities of currants, candied fruit, orange peel, lemon peel, eggs and beef suet to bind it all together. Then go in the spices, cloves and cinnamon; brandy if you want it and a good slug of sherry. It’s then steamed for an hour, maybe two hours, it depends on the size of the pudding.

But it isn’t just the wonderfully rich pudding that is important, it’s how it is served. You warm yet more brandy and then light it, pouring it over the hot Christmas pudding moments before it is carried to the table. If served when the room light is low, the blue flames dance and sparkle around the traditional sprig of berried holly stuck into the top of the pudding.

So, you may laugh at our fish ‘n’ chips, make rude comments about our drinking warm beer, or call us a nation of tea drinkers, but you will never, never – even in your wildest gastronomical dreams – be able to match the rich, calorie defying British Pud!

 If you would like to know more about Spain, visit Spain Uncovered. Articles and books can also be found at Digital Paparazzi.

I was having a coffee with my friend Dan in his splendid deli-diner in Valencia, Spain, when we got on to the subject of Spanish cuisine. Knows a thing or two about food, does Dan, which isn’t surprising, given that he served a long apprenticeship in Harrods fabulous Food Halls.

“I’ve been told,” I said, “that despite El Buli having been voted the best restaurant in the world, the Spanish are a bit conservative in their tastes. Would you agree?” “No, I wouldn’t say that,” said Dan, “I think I’d probably say that they are totally, completely, unutterable and absolutely unadventurous in their tastes as far as food goes.” No punches pulled there, then.

For a country through whose portals has arrived a wide range of foodstuffs on their way from Latin America to the tables of Europe, thanks to Christopher C., you would think that they would be open to something gastronomically new, but oh dear no.

Potatoes, tomatoes, avocadoes, tobacco and cacao all graced the plates of Spanish grandees long before the crowned heads of Europe ever got their teeth into them. It’s said by some sources that Columbus brought the first chilli to the continent, (although others say it was the Portuguese), so you’d think the Spanish would have a bit of spice in their cuisine, if not in their life. But once again, oh dear no. Not a sparkle, not a tingle, not a nothing, as far as we Brits are concerned, having educated our palettes to the wonderful spicy flavours of the far east.

Despite it’s limitations to an outsider, the Spanish are enormously proud of their cuisine, and fair enough, in some respects they have every right to be, as their gastronomy is based on freshness and no saucy mucking about, as is that of their northern neighbours, the French, (or at least it was until Ferran Adrià and his ilk started creating foam and warm jelly). But even though the country is the market garden of Europe and the markets are full of gloriously vibrant vegetables, they have no idea what to do with them – fried on a skillet or roast in the oven, and that’s about it.

What particularly irks me, though, is their patronising manner regarding British food, usually put about by those who have never even visited the country, or those that have, but only ate a cheap meal in a greasy caff, which is hardly likely to give the same idea of fine Brit dining that a visit to the Hinds Head, Heston Blumenthal’s beautiful Tudor country pub in Bray, voted Michelin Pub of the Year, 2011, might offer. (And if they were ever to try some of the awful tapas served in a ‘typical’ Spanish restaurant in the UK, they’d understand why we can be equally disparaging about their food in return.)

“Fish and chips,” that’s all you offer, someone said to me the other day, obviously not knowing that the people of Cadiz on the southern coast of Spain claim to have invented fried fish. Great Britain had links to Cadiz in the eighteenth century and it is thought that the British imported the idea of fish ‘n’ chips from there (about the same time as they discovered a taste for vino de Jerez, giving it the name ‘sherry’). My hackles bridled.

“Do you like pescado frito?” I ask; fried fish, a traditional Shabbat dish originating amongst the 16th century Jews in Andalucia, which could be eaten hot or cold and was a favourite dish for a late breakfast or lunch after synagogue services on Saturday morning, now offered on almost every Spanish menu.

“¡Por cierto!” “Of course.”

“And patatas fritas, do you like them?” ‘French fries’ to Americans, ‘chips’ to the British.

“Absolutamente, con un poquito de salsa brava,” ‘brave sauce’ a supposedly spicy tomato sauce – at least to them. To me it’s ‘salsa cobarde’, coward’s sauce, given the lack of tingle it leaves on my tongue.

“And do you buy them from a fritadeira?”

“Claro, ellos son los expertos.” Always best to buy from the expert.

“So, you buy your pescado frito and a portion of patatas fritas from a fritaderia, no?”

“¡Claro que si!”

“In other words, you buy your fish and chips from a fish and chip shop.”

I rest my case.

If you would like to know more about Spain, visit Spain Uncovered. Articles and books can also be found at Digital Paparazzi.

The first time I visited Marrakech was in the spring of 2003, in the company of my friend Dan, who’s full moniker, Daniel Moresco Pierce, I’ve envied since the day we met in Malaga a few years earlier. So much more distinguished than the mundane Derek Workman.

Dan is an illustrator, (and to my mind his series The Fridge is the definitive cartoon series featuring cheese and vegetables), and a short time before we met, he and his missus, Amanda Innes, had just finished overseeing the restoration of Riad Maizie, a delightful oasis of calm in the Medina, before there became an abundance of oases of calm in the ancient heart of the city. Amanda, amongst her many skills, is a top-hole style and design writer (author, as she depricatingly describes herself, of twenty-seven books about cushions), and in a couple of years hence her book Cinnamon City – Falling for the magical city of Marrakech would be named as one of the top ten yarns of the year by the Daily Mail.

But this story isn’t about Dan and Miranda, although I could chat forever about them, given the chance. No, this is about a totally different animal than an illustrator or a writer.

On a morning warm in the sun, although still a little cool in the shade of the narrow souk streets, I wandered off to the outskirts of the Medina, away from the early tourist bustle of Jemaa el Fnaa. There’s nothing quite like sitting and gawping at the passing parade, and as I sat outside a crowded café having a cafe au laite – you need to take a break from mint tea sometime – an English voice asked if they could take the empty seat at my table. After years of living in Spain I was a bit startled; you don’t do that sort of thing here, a table in a cafe or restaurant is the gastronomical equivalent of an Englishman’s castle. But this being in the Arab world, I politely acquiesced.

Inevitably, my coffee companion and I got into conversation. The chat followed the usual lines of where are you from, been here before, are you on holiday, etc. but it was his answer to the last question that brought me up short. My answer had been simple; a bit of a break and to see somewhere new, but Tom (as was his name) was in Marrakech to record his feet. I kid you not, but to be fair, it was the sound of his feet that was being recorded, not his feet themselves. He was a Foley artist, which to me didn’t mean a thing, but if Tom and his fellow artists didn’t exist, almost any movie, radio and TV programme or advert would loose half the impact our ears absorb.

When you see Colin Firth walking across his voice coach’s floor in The King’s Speech, Meryl Streep beating eggs into a bowl in Julie and Julia, the story of TV cook Julia Child, or the rustle of silken robes just before the heroine of a blood-lust horror movie succumbs to the hacking and slashing of a Freddie Kruger-like character, the actions are theirs, but the sounds are those of an un-named Foley artist. Pages being turned, squeaky doors opening and closing, a cup placed on saucer when The Queen finishes a cup of tea, (or in the case of our dearly departed Queen Mother, an empty G&T glass being placed on a table), all those sounds are the work of the Foley artist. Their work helps to create a sense of reality within a scene. Without these crucial background noises movies feel unnaturally quiet and uncomfortable.

It would be very easy to dismiss the Foley artist as a wannabe actor who never quite cut the mustard, but that’s far from the truth, and the top Foley artists are highly regarded specialists in their field.

It began in 1927, when Jack Foley, who had been working for Universal Studios since 1914, the heyday of silent movies, was asked to be part of the sound crew of Show Boat, Universal’s answer to The Jazz Singer, the first ‘talkie’ ever made. The microphones of the time could only pick up dialogue, so Foley and his crew projected the film onto a screen and recorded a second audio track of the actions to capture the live sounds. Their timing had to be perfect so that footsteps and closing doors would sync with the actors’ motions in the film.

My new-found friend Tom was recording the sound of a man walking through Arab streets for a film about Egypt (as with many productions, a scene is never quite where you think it is), and it was a lot cheaper to send him and a crew to Marrakech than to Cairo.

So when you watch Sex in the City or any other movie purporting to be either about or filmed in Morocco, don’t assume that the sounds of jangling bracelets or swishing curtains you hear are being made by Sarah Jessica Parker or Kim Catrall. They could be a colleague of Tom’s shut away in a dark studio somewhere in downtown L.A.

Find out more about Riad Maizie

If you would like to know more about Spain, visit Spain Uncovered. Articles and books can also be found at Digital Paparazzi.

Talk to the hand

A couple of years ago I was with a friend in the Medina in Marrakech. She’d successfully bartered her way to ownership of a very attractive rug, and was feeling pretty pleased with herself. The salesman was all smiles and compliments until my friend made a gesture which, to you and I would indicate that, “Great, everything’s fine, we done good!” She smiled and put her thumb up. Instantly the salesman’s jaw dropped and his eyes glared wide. He bundled the rug at her and sharply turned his back, much to the distress of my friend, who realised she’d done something wrong, but for the life her didn’t know what.

Imagine you’d stuck your middle finger up to an American; basically you are saying, ‘screw you’, ‘up yours’ or, as a Brit might say, ‘sit on that and wiggle’. That’s exactly what my friend had said, albeit unwittingly, to the carpet salesman. So, far from showing her pleasure at a deal well done, she was telling him to stick his business where the sun don’t shine. Best not to do it in Latin America and West Africa, as well as Greece, Russia, Sardinia, the south of Italy, either.

Travel certainly broadens the horizons and can provide a fund of uplifting experiences. Interacting with people is the best way to understand different cultures, societies and ways of life, but if you visit non-English-speaking countries and you don’t understand their language, you have to fall back on body-language and gestures. The problem is that some gestures have a completely different meaning in one country than they do in another. Not only could your intended message get lost in translation, you could actually end up offending someone or getting yourself into a difficult situation. Some simple everyday gestures that we take for granted can get you into big trouble elsewhere in the world.

Years ago, I was working in Athens at a time when the English football team were playing an international game in the city, on the same day that Greece was playing away elsewhere. England won 5-0, the Greeks got hammered. That night hoards of England supporters roamed the Athenic streets chanting, ‘Five-nil, five-nil’, and thrusting their hand, with the palm open and the fingers extended to represent the number five, in the face of any male Greek they could find. When the Greeks started battering hell out of the visiting team’s supporters, the Brits thought they were just very bad losers. They might well have been, but the one thing you never do to a Greek male, whether you’ve just won a football match or not, is stick an open palm with fingers extended in his face. It’s known as a moutza, and is one of their most traditional insults, telling the recipient to ‘eat shit’. The gesture comes from Byzantine times, when people would smear excreta on the faces of prisoners as they were dragged through the streets.

Another gesture that doesn’t go down well in the Arab world is the A-okay sign, making a circle with the thumb and forefinger and extending the other fingers outwards. Like the thumbs up, we mean it to imply that everything is good, fine, okay, and is used to communicate between sub-aqua divers, when shouting, “Yes I’m fine, thanks,” isn’t really an option. But what’s good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander, as Suzanna, a friend in Fez, found out when she wanted to show the workmen restoring her riad that all was going great. She made the A-okay sign, and was surprised when the men showed obvious shock, and not the smiles she expected. Without realising it she’d told them they were a set of arseholes, or, in the worst case scenario, they were all homosexual. The circular shape of the gesture is seen to represent the anus, with all the unwholesome connotations it brings to mind, and you would never, ever use the sign in Brazil, Germany and a number of Mediterranean and Arab countries. There is the apocryphal story of President Richard Nixon arriving on an official visit to Brazil, which received an enormous amount of media coverage. As he stood at the top of the gangway he put both his hand in the air and made a double A-okay sign. While Suzanna only offended a handful of chaps, Nixon told the whole of Brazil that they were a set of arseholes and poofters. History doesn’t record how successful his talks were. It’s also an insult in France, although not quite such a serious one, as it signifies something or someone as being worthless. Not a good way to show your appreciation after a delightful dinner.

The corna (making a fist and extending the fore- and little fingers) may be the thing to do at heavy rock concerts, but in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Colombia, Brazil, Albania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, it’s seen as saying to someone he’s a cuckold and his wife is cheating on him – although residents of these countries seem happy enough to use it at football referees. Curling your finger toward you as a “come here” sign is perceived as derogatory in many South East Asian countries. This gesture is commonly used for dogs in the Philippines so when used for a person, you would be implying that you see them as something inferior. What’s worse, this gesture could get you arrested, and to prevent you from using it again, the authorities could break your finger.

Perhaps there might be a new guide book here. It’s unlikely we need another Guide to This That And The Other, or a phrase book that tells you everything you will ever need to know about asking for a postage stamp in Swahili. A picture book of offensive hand gestures might just save you getting your head kicked in Athens.

If you would like to know more about Spain, visit my web site, www.derekworkman-journalist.com , and Spain Uncovered. Articles and books can also be found at Digital Paparazzi.