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Steve Martin addresses crass mass tourism.
sunday song – king tut
24 Sunday Apr 2022
Posted in humour, music, sunday song, welcome
Category Archives: welcome
la glorieta de ofelia nieto
19 Thursday Aug 2021
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[photos courtesy of Diario de Sevilla]
Shocking to learn that last night someone set fire to the Glorieta de Ofelia Nieto in María Luisa Park… for the second time in five days!!! Honestly, what kind of sick fuck does this? I mean, they think it was the same person (or persons). Park officials say they hope to be able to salvage the hedges and repair the ceramics that have sustained serious damages. I know there are a lot worse things going on in the world right now but this is still heartbreaking.
masks off!
25 Friday Jun 2021
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So first of all… that’s a misleading title, like many of the headlines I’ve been reading this week about Spain returning to “life without masks”. What IS true is that from Saturday June 26th people are no longer required to wear masks outdoors IF they can maintain a distance of 1.5 metres between people not from their household. Which, as you can see from that photo, is not actually possible in city streets. Heck, some streets in Sevilla are barely 3 metres wide. The other thing the media has been neglecting to point out is that we are still required to carry a mask with us at all times or risk a 100 euro fine if caught without one.
Meanwhile, in spite of the central government’s decision, the regional government in Andalucía is asking us to keep wearing masks everywhere due to our continued increase of infections (we have the highest Covid rate in the country and the EU Council has placed us in their “high risk” level). Given that the Delta/India variant is highly contagious, I am really hoping people will be sensible (fingers crossed). Because this pandemic is far from over.
alex update
21 Friday May 2021
Posted in welcome
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So remember me telling you about my friend Alexandra del Bene’s crazy and wonderful new mural project the other day? Well, I had to go and see for myself how she was getting on. Turns out I showed up on the first day of actual painting. Previously the walls of these fifteen buildings had been freshly painted white to create her “canvases” and then, for each mural, one of her paintings is projected onto the wall at night (by Alex’s friend Fran), and she traces out the basic outline before starting the actual painting. Seeing it up close like this just floored me. I mean, the amount of work, the fact that Alex will spend all this time up in a cherry picker when it’s 35º in Sevilla… the sheer effort being put into of all this incredible.
The buildings are facing the Port and are mostly house university students. Apparently the paintings should last about four years and, with some upkeep, as long as eight. But what happens after this herculean task is finished is out of Alex’s hands. Apparently it’s also up for a Guinness Record.
Anyhow, I walked over to the site… a good hour’s walk from home (I’m still not using public transit). And I stupidly didn’t leave early enough so I got there when it was already super hot, BUT I also got there when Alex was finishing for the day and so we went out for a beer and a chat. I’ll be keeping an eye on this and visiting during its various stages of completion. But next time will leave early in the morning.
tomato sauce
14 Wednesday Apr 2021
Posted in welcome
So well anyhow… what a day! Which actually started off last night when I realised that, after opening the last bag of cat food in the house, that it had been slashed open. At first I didn’t think a lot about it (screaming cats demanding dinner) thinking maybe this bag got accidentally sliced by a knife when opening the packing box. But then this morning I remembered that I had actually bought two bags of cat food a few weeks ago, had taken them to the checkout myself, and then had them delivered along with the rest of my stuff. The first bag I opened was fine, this was the second one (which has been in the original delivery bag and in a cupboard all this time). At first I didn’t even notice it had been slashed until this morning when I saw cat biscuits all around the dishes. I tried to rationalise it, thinking there must have been some accident… BUT of course, if I saw a bag of any sort of human food had been opened before arriving at my home, I sure as hell wouldn’t eat it.
So of course the obvious thing was to go to the shop and get a new bag of food. Except today was “one of those days” which happens from time to time and, as an agoraphobic, I try not to push it unless I absolutely have to. And so I called my friend @svqconcierge (aka ovenless Peter), who happened to be going out shopping this afternoon, and he did me the big favour of picking up a fresh bag of cat food. EXCEPT it turned out the shop was sold out of the usual stuff… long story short, he bought something “similar” and brought it to me. Not ideal, but better than giving my cats possibly contaminated food!
What does this have to do with the famous Marcella Hazan 4-ingredient tomato sauce you ask?
casa azahar 