Marx, Castro, Lenin and the Pope are at the racetrack. The communists are studying the odds; the Pope is down in the paddock asking after the horse that nobody wants. As the new Pope prepares for a visit to Spain, an odd political spectacle is taking shape. The same far-right forces that eagerly borrow from…
This morning’s piece came from a feeling I couldn’t quite shake: a strange, low-grade nostalgia, not for some golden age, but for a time when certain ideas, however persistent, at least had the decency to keep their voices down. The article looks at how that quiet embarrassment seems to have evaporated, replaced by something far…
Gin fumes in the hotel foyer. Shotguns of hair lacquer. Sideburns sharp enough to draw blood. On one side, tweed-and-testosterone conservatives sloshing G&Ts like it’s the Siege of Granada. On the other, flamenco devotees with ozone-destroying bouffants and eyes fixed on an imaginary stage. And wedged between them all: the exam candidates—browner, nervous, clutching documents…
Why nostalgia for ’the good old days’ can be dangerous — and what’s really behind the revival circus Spain seems to be caught in a weird collective daydream lately — a growing number of young people claiming: “Under Franco, we lived better.” In my latest piece for the Camino de Ítaca column, I dig into…
In a world that often shouts about what sets us apart, there’s something quietly radical about embracing what brings us together. In this week’s Camino a Ítaca a counterdance against the demagogues threatening to deport an imaginary eight million immigrants. From the rhythms of Castile’s town squares and narrow streets to the rare shared silences of…
On Benches, Boulevards, and the Beauty of Belonging One of the things I’ve always admired about life in Spain is how public public space truly is. A square is not something to pass through—it’s something to dwell in. A bench belongs to whoever needs a rest. A park, a pool, a plaza: these are…
“For a moment, it felt like we had won. The bad guys were relics. Fascism was a lesson Spanish schools didn’t teach, and liberal democracy was what all the cool countries were wearing.” The Camino a Ítaca climbs the Statue of Liberty this week for a look around to see what is left of something…
This ain’t John Brim’s seminal Ice Cream Man and perhaps little more of David Lee Roth’s take on it. In this week’s Camino a Ítaca Christmas and what it means for the oldest city in the world. Will it turn into a Turkish colony? Will the Israelis make a huge land grab or simply annex it?…
Bond villains, war criminals, mud volcanoes and ununderstandable Scottish accents in this weeks Camino a Ítaca. It’s the second year in a row that the United Conference Conference Climate Change conference (COP29) has been held in a fossil fuel dependant state and the watered down results are sadly foreseeable. We think we have so…
I’ve been writing for the Spanish newspaper HOY for almost 15 years now, but my pieces have always been in, surprise surprise, Spanish. It took a tragedy in Valencia and a chance look at a tranlated piece by my colleague J.R Alonso de la Torre to put the pieces together. Today, I try out my…