Welcome to Galidonia

This blog is about my observations of life in Galicia. It will focus entirely on matters of interest to me which are related to the city and the region/country. I have been living in A Coruña for one year now. Below is a record of previous writings on Galician subjects that have appeared on my other two blogs; the football dominated The Ball is Round at http://www.ballis.blog.co.uk/ and the more general Catadonia at http://www.catadonia.blog.co.uk/ . The posts were written between August 2006 and July 2007. Start from the bottom if you want to read in chronological order. The posts are separated with asterisks.

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One of the objectives of the new "Ley Orgánica de Educación" is that Galician children will begin to study English from 6 years of age. La Xunta (the Galician govt.) has decided they should be taught English from 3 years old and almost one thousand Galician schools will begin teaching English to 3 year olds in the new school year (2007-08)

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"Luton is more famous for its airport and an old and glorious football team than for anything else." That's according to the newspaper La Voz de Galicia. Glorious football team? Maybe they remembered that image of David Pleat skipping across the pitch like a demented pony in his brown tweeds sometime in the early 80's. But come on guys, that was because they had avoided relegation, not won the FA Cup. To be fair, Luton Town weren't a bad team back then.

The reason Luton got a mention in the Galican press is because a lounge at the airport has been named 'La Coruna'. The newspaper questioned the dodgy spelling of the airport company in question. It looks very strange from a Spanish perspective to see Coruña without the ñ, which makes the (correct) pronunciation "Corunya" not "Coruna". A spokesman for the company explained this was because the ñ does not exist in English. He also faced interrogation over the use of La Coruña instead of A Coruña. You might see the name of the city spelled both ways, that's because the former is Spanish and the latter Galician. However, even most of the mainstream Spanish press now opt for A Coruña as that is the official and politically correct name for the city these days.

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Galician football puts the word ‘crisis’ into perspective at the moment. The Old Firm are said to be ‘in crisis’ after losing a couple of games and other Scottish teams like Hibs and Hearts were ‘in crisis’ after dressing room bust ups this season. But Galician football really is in a bad way right now.

Celta Vigo are fighting for survival in the primera and must beat Getafe at the weekend to have any hope of staying up. However, an even bigger crisis is arguably taking place at Deportivo La Coruña. Last weekend they lost 5-2 at home to the mighty Recreativo de Huelva. But that pales into insignificance compared with Depor’s estimated debt of almost 150m €, that’s about 100m pounds. Top international players such as Capdevila (Spain), Andrade (Portugal), and Duscher and Coloccini (Argentina)look to be on their way out this summer. They will be replaced, in all likelihood, by more young hopefuls gathered up from the reserve sides of other clubs. This development started last season and saw the club nicknamed ‘Baby Depor’. But the team has been struggling to find its feet this season, currently languishing in 14th position with the joint lowest goals for total in La Liga. The coach, Joaquín Caparrós, who is also certain to leave, could be partly blamed for negative tactics but his hands have been somewhat tied in the transfer market as years of big spending have finally come back to haunt Depor.

Many fans are holding the club’s president Lendoiro to account. He has plenty on his plate as he’s involved in legal disputes with former club legends like Fran, Mauro Silva, Luque and Tristan who claim they are still owed money. Lendoiro claims these players are holding the club to ransom and had to leave ‘by the back door’. Quite frankly, it’s hard to believe that players like Fran and Mauro Silva who dedicated most of their playing careers to Deportivo, and are still held in high esteem by the fans, would now go to the trouble of undertaking expensive legal campaigns unless they had a case.

The latest development is the resignation of club lawyer, Germán Rodriguez Conchado, described as Lendoiro’s right hand man. The final straw for him was apparently being called a ‘macho gorilla’ by the club’s own newspaper but it might just be that he has had enough of trying to defend the indefensible.

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Hristo Stoichkov is the new coach of Celta Vigo. Celta are in relegation trouble as although their away form is pretty good they’ve only won once in a league match in Vigo all season – against Valencia in October. It would be somewhat ironic if Celta could end this dismal record on Sunday. Stoichkov faces a baptism of fire as his first match in charge will be at home to fierce rivals Deportivo La Coruña.

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This must be my third or fourth Christmas in Spain. But it’s the first one I’ve spent with a Spanish family. It’s traditional to have a big family meal on Christmas Eve. Last night we ate loads of king prawns and shrimps, followed by cod with cauliflower and then lamb before finishing off with dessert.

No presents today as the tradition is to give gifts on the last day of Christmas – the 6th of January. I quite like this because it makes the run up to Christmas more relaxing. No frantic last minute rush and I can buy some stuff while I’m visiting the UK. Hopefully the shopping frenzy will have died down by the start of the year.

I used to miss things, like some decent comedy, while spending Christmas in Spain but not any more with the Internet and sites like youtube. Today I watched the Steptoe Christmas specials from 1973-74.

Plenty of good food too. The Christmas Day menu included a chicken soup with pasta, “salpicón” – a cold seafood salad, queen scallops and then a spread of sweets with marzipan and almonds featuring heavily. ¡Felíz navidad a todos!

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Last week I went to the Barbanza coast to check out some stuff for an article. We got lost on the way as Susana, her mother and sister, all have a terrible sense of direction. I ended up having to point out on two or three occasions that we were going in the wrong direction. Quite sad really as I had never even been in these places before and was supposed to be the tourist.

The museum in A Pobra about the writer Valle-Inclán was closed due to flooding. There’s been an incredible amount of rain over the last few months. I read once that Santiago de Compostela has three times as much rainfall as London. I’m beginning to believe it now.

On the way there we passed through a village called Escravitude (Galician for “slavery”). There wasn’t much in Slavery apart from a crane depot and a small train station. Since the museum was closed we took rocky route a trip up to the Mirador de Curota where we got a good view over the Arousa firth.

Then it was on to Corrubedo. I have been told that it has the largest moving dune in Europe. I can’t verify that but it was certainly an impressive sight. I read that there are nineteenth century records talking of a 60 metre high dune. If you know Edinburgh, that’s about the same height as the Scott Monument.

While walking back from the dune the sky suddenly darkened and we were hit by a heavy hailstorm that turned to rain. We were all soaked through by the time we got back to the car. Luckily, Susana and I had a change of trousers as we were staying over in a hotel for the night. Her mother and sister weren’t so fortunate. After a lunch in A Pobra of sea bass in orange sauce, lobster and crab, we went to a shop together to buy some dry shoes. I think the owner thought we were crazy but it was probably his biggest sale of the day.

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Hopefully there won’t be a bad atmosphere at home later tonight. We’re going to watch the Galician derby between Deportivo La Coruña and Celta Vigo. Susana is a big fan of Deportivo while Celta were the first Spanish side I saw in action. I still have a soft spot for the team from Vigo. However, I can live with the result no matter what happens as I'm not a fanatical native.

Deportivo 0 Celta 1
Rangers won the “crisis derby” this week with a goal from Nacho Novo. He is from the Galician region of Spain where I currently live. I’m not sure which team Nacho supports but I went to the Galician derby in La Coruña on Sunday. Celta won the match thanks to a strike from Nené, a Brazilian, midway through the second half. We worry about the lack of Scots on show in some of our own derbies but there was only Galician in the starting line ups for this game – Celta midfielder Oubiña. It was a pretty cagey affair and more incidents of note took place off the pitch.

Firstly, it would not have been difficult to walk into the match without a ticket just before kick off. There are no turnstyles at the Riazor, Depor’s ground. Although there is normally a gate where someone checks the tickets, on this occasion big gates were opened up and we were caught up in a flood of fans and just flashed our tickets as we passed the two policeman standing at either side of the entrancee.

Secondly, as there is no great tradition of travelling away fans in Spain the segregation is not very good. In one corner of the ground, not far from where we were sitting, there was a group of about 500 Celta fans who made a good job of making themselves heard among about thirty thousand Depor fans who were expectant of victory. At half time the less desirable elements among the Depor support were able to launch a volley of spit over the top of a toilet wall reserved for Celta fans. One or two Celta foot soldiers raised their heads over the top of the trenches to complain and were then hit with a rain of lager as plastic cups were thrown in their direction. The police finally realised what was going on and chased the hoodlums. Just before the goal I saw plastic seats flying through the air between opposing fans.

The game itself wasn’t overly physical apart from a free for all in the Celta penalty box near the end which resulted in one player from each side being booked. At full time various objects were thrown onto the pitch, mostly plastic cups. But a couple of glass beer bottles were lobbed from a great height and landed not far from security staff. I have seen this happen quite often at matches in Spain and the throwing of objects onto the pitch rarely gets a mention in the press. Of course, in Britain coins are sometimes thrown or even the odd mobile phone. But on the whole it brings home to me that our football grounds are more secure due to more efficient policing which can seem a bit over the top at times. Bottle throwing is very rare as you can neither take them into the stadium or buy them inside. And in the Scottish grounds I tend to visit, away fans are given their own stand and can feel safe. Not that I felt in much danger the other night but I probably would have done if I’d been sitting near the fence that separated the two groups of fans or if I had been standing just behind the goalposts where bottles were landing at the end of the game.

Here are the Riazor Blues – the most fanactical element of the Depor support complete with lunatic fringe –warming up for the game:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=B0qOgvz0BVc&mode=related&search=

Depor are on the attack and the Blues are singing. This is one of their favourite songs, “Vamos campeón” (Come on the Champions). Well , they were champions six years ago and it looks like they are still celebrating:http://youtube.com/watch?v=AOyKtJq0CUk&mode=related&search=

They were left feeling blue by the end of proceedings though. At the time I thought the goal was a bit scrappy – a typical derby winning goal. But viewing it again it came from a neat, swift counter attack that is quite characteristic of Celta Vigo. I was high in the stand just behind where the goal was scored:http://youtube.com/watch?v=m_iAQ9EAryo

Hope you enjoy the clips.

For more on Celta Vigo, see these pages from my book The Iberian Horseshoe:
http://www.badosa.com/bin/obra.pl?id=n250-06http://www.badosa.com/bin/obra.pl?id=n250-07

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A few months ago I moved from Catalonia to Galicia. At around 700 miles it's more than a hop from Barcelona on the east coast to La Coruña in the west.One of the consequences of this move is that I am encountering yet another new language. I have left Catalan behind and am becoming acquainted with Galician (galego). It's fun watching and listening to Galician TV.

Although the language is very much secondary to Spanish on the streets of La Coruña, I like to tune into TVG (the regional Galician channel) for an hour or so each day. Galego sounds pretty similar to Spanish but is perhaps closer to Portuguese in many respects. In fact, Galician and Portuguese are so closely linked that subtitles from Portuguese are not deemed necessary on TVG. So far I have heard a doctor from Oporto explain some medical problem and a Brazilian woman give her viewpoint on the recent Brazilian elections without any dubbing or subtitles.

Last night I was watching an old episode of Os novos (The Young Ones) on TVG. It’s a series which has really dated. Perhaps I’m biased as I seemed to be one of the few teenagers of my generation who didn’t see what the fuss was about in the first place. But this so-called anarchic comedy now appears simply archaic. Surely sticking your head through a wall or hitting it with the nearest object to hand can no longer be considered hilarious. I wouldn’t claim to be a Ben Elton fan by any means but the Blackadder series he co-wrote with Richard Curtis, the writer of daft but not unwatchable British screen hits like Notting Hill and Love Actually, was surely the motormouth's high point. The Young Ones had an immediate and devastating impact when it hit our TV screens in the early eighties but is there anyone out there who would still describe it as great comedy?