Sinopsis
Spain so much more than straw donkeys, castanets, sangria and bullfighting.Join James Taylor in an hilarious series of podcasts that tries to make sense of the way the Spanish behave their language, customs, behaviour and personality. The indispensable Podcast guide if you plan to holiday or are an ex-pat trying to cope with the cultural differences between Spain and your home country.Broadcaster and journalist James Taylor takes a humorous look at daily life in Spain.
Episodios
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Day 67 - "Holidays in Spain?"
22/05/2020 Duración: 06minToday do you think you will be taking your summer holiday in Spain this year? Dirty deals behind closed doors and road works. find out more here: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 67 Holidays in Spain? Day 67 We have reached Thursday of Phase 1, Day 67 of Lockdown. So many numbers, so many days so far. The sweet sound of the birds singing in the trees, the gentle roar of the sea in the bay in the distance has been replaced by a terrific roar of the road gang who are re-surfacing the main road through our Estate, We own the road although the local Town also are supposed to help us keep it roadworthy as it leads up to the Campo, the countryside beyond. They have kind of glued a new surface to the old. The danger of doing anything more is that a lot of the services run just a few inches under our road. Back in Britain many roads were in a shocking state. The High Street in the town we lived in – Chelmsford was little more than a dirt track with an open sewer running one side of it. It took the
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Day 66 - "Palm Sun Day"
21/05/2020 Duración: 07minDay 66, and this is a story of an old man called Pepe, a palm tree and a trip into the little seaside town of Salobreña. Daily life behind the police lines in Spanish Lockdown. find out more here: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 66 Palm Sun Day Wednesday of phase 1 and yesterday evening we went along to the big house, belonging to our friends Petra and Justin. We did a bit of watering; they have a great many planters filled with exotic plants that all get thirsty in the warm weather. We also let in Pepe, and his wife, I would guess that Pepe is in his late fifties, maybe early sixties, it is hard to tell, he was one of those thick set, strong looking Spanish that come from families that have spent years of harsh back breaking agricultural work here, picking at the rock hard soil, that grows so much of what you are probably buying in the supermarket right now. From avocados, pineapples, strawberries, tomatoes, kumquat, oranges, lemons, grapefruit. Throw it in the ground, water it and it grows. The
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Day 65 - "Stealing from the sun"
20/05/2020 Duración: 06minDay 65, Tuesday and Phase 1 of the unlockdown, today stealing from the sun and the return of the peseta. Find out more at: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 65 Stealing from the Sun We are in Phase 1 of Unlockdown – it is Tuesday and the weather is improving, bringing with it our hay fever. We both suffer from it, I have to say that I didn’t really suffer in the UK, but although we live in the coast, it really gets me for about a month a year. Some of culprits include the blossom from Olive trees, they do say if you consume the local honey it can help with immunity to hay fever. The local honey is delicious, a bit like a floral toffee. It comes in quite plain jars that have been filled from a great big vat of the stuff. It is a bit like the water, which tastes delicious if you go to the spring just outside the village, we lived in. Whilst we were living in the village we filled used water bottles with the water, it had a clean sweet taste to it. I do ponder that with a solar panel array, some b
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Day 64 - "Wise Words"
19/05/2020 Duración: 06minDay 64 of Lockdown, day one of Phase 1, and life is just starting to get back into gear, albeit with only a few small changes, here in Spain. Today a story of why Ernie Wise influenced our decision to come to live in Spain. Find out more at: https://www.thesecretspain.com
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Day 63 - "Christmas and The Magna Carta"
18/05/2020 Duración: 06minDay 63 and the reason we don't work Christmas Day anymore, how the Magna Carta protects us but not the Spanish. A daily diary in Lockdown from a British couple behind the police lines in lockdown in Spain. Find out more: https://www.thesecretspain.com The Seaside Gazette https://www.theseasidegazette.com/ Day 63 Christmas and the Magna Carta It is day 63 of our Spanish Lockdown, tomorrow brings some freedom, I think, but in true Spanish Practices style there is a lot of confusion and weird rules. Martin Myall from our local paper “The Seaside Gazette” writes, I quote: “You can jump in the car with your kids and spouse, but you can’t go out walking together. You can, however, sit with them altogether on a bar terrace. You can drive out into the mountains, but you can’t park up and go for a walk whilst you’re there. What time you go for your walk or take your kids out for fresh air is restricted, but you can go to a bar or restaurant any time you want, as long as they are open.” Thanks Martin. In
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Day 62 - "Everybody Out!"
17/05/2020 Duración: 08minIt is day 62 of our Spanish Lockdown and we have reached Phase 1, well on Monday, here in Granada and Malaga, hooray. But there are plenty of rules to follow. This is our daily diary of life here and a glimpse back into the past when we worked for LBC Radio in London. Find out more here: https://www.thesecretspain.com Full uncorrected transcript: Day 62 It is day 62 of our Spanish Lockdown and the good news is that we can go to Phase 1 of the un-lockdown process here in Andalucia, Spain, from Monday morning. Of course there are a magnitude of rules to follow, and places and things you can’t go to or do, but it is a start, it will also help local business get back to work, it will require social distancing, that will easily be the weakest link in the plan. Meanwhile in Madrid which is still stuck in phase zero and a bit, ..yes the Government have changed the rules yet again. The posh residents of Salamanca district are revolting. Some of them believe that this is just a power grab for the central gov
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Day 61 - "Civil Unrest and Manic Mondays"
16/05/2020 Duración: 06minDay 61 and this is the story of a British couple behind the police lines in Lockdown Spain, the real story of day to day life under the Alarma. The frustrations of a loss of freedom despite the Health Region reaching the criteria for the easing of Lockdown, the Government have decided though to keep us in Lockdown. Find out more: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 61 - Civil Unrest and Manic Mondays It is Day 61 of our Spanish Lockdown, we have reached the point last week when we were hoping for a bit of freedom, by the end of today we should know, but last week the government didn’t tell us until Sunday afternoon. Just the ability to pop to the main town would be helpful, a few restaurants open anything that would bring a touch of normality to our life. Yesterday we spoke to our friends Shelley and Chris back in Essex. Apart from going for walks they have not left the house, though will need to next week to pick up medicine in central London. They will drive in and only one visit the Doctors. They sho
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Day 60 - "Golf and Grandmothers"
15/05/2020 Duración: 08minWe have reached Day 60 and frankly have had enough, but we are taking courage by channeling my Great Great Grandmother (Pictured in the episode art) This is the story of a British couple behind the police lines in Lockdown Spain, the real story of day to day life under the Alarma. Find out more: https://www.thesecretspain.com Here for: Natalie's Golf Conditioning Podcast Day 60 It is Day 60 of our Spanish Lockdown and we have had enough, enough of the weather, enough of not being allowed, sensibly and with distancing, to live our lives, oh and definitely enough of the stupidity of some Spanish Government Ministers. Yesterday the Minister for Consumers Alberto Garzón stood up and said that “Tourism is not a strategic sector of the Spanish Economy”. Consequently the Government will not put any effort into starting the tourist sector up again, until next year. Stupidly putting the jobs of millions of Spaniards at risk. Uncle Alberto also went on to say that it wasn’t important because “the sector only wo
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Day 59 - "Bosoms and Birthdays
14/05/2020 Duración: 06minDay fifty nine. Life behind the police lines in Lockdown Spain for a British couple and their three good legs cat. Today Bosoms and Birthdays Find out more at: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 59 bosoms and birthdays It is Day 59 of our Spanish Lockdown, Wednesday, there is a rumour that Mercadona has masks for sale in its stores, and if so we will buy some. I notice that the UK Government is encouraging people to make their own out of sticky back plastic and a pair of Val’s old knickers, since the episode with the Blue Peter Advent Calendar where my poor construction of the thing allowed family retainer Reg to be scalded with boiling wax.. I would rather leave surgical mask making to, .. surgical mask makers. The day is dry and there is some sunshine, enough to clear up the mess of dirty rain that fell last night covering every surface in Sahara sand, three good legs cat is having a bad day, he has had several of his ‘fits’ and horrifying sight where his right back leg comes unjointed and clearly giv
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Day 58 - "Bombs and Bonfires"
13/05/2020 Duración: 08minDay fifty eight. Life behind the police lines in Lockdown Spain for a British couple and their three good legs cat. Today Bombs and Bonfires Find out more at: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 58 Bombs and Bonfires It is Day 58 of our Spanish Lockdown, and what a miserable wet day it has been, chilly too. It is quite annoying that the UK is enjoying good weather and we have had, well really quite British weather. A few days ago, we had a massive fire along the vega – the reed beds between Salobreña and Motril, destroying many acres of natural wild habitat. It looks like it was started by yet another bonfire that got out of control. Several times a year we suffer from bonfires that are uncontrolled, burning whole sides of beautiful rugged mountain landscape, destroying acres of plains, leaving a blackened scorched waste. Here between certain months of the year you are allowed to burn agricultural rubbish, leaves and the like, although judging by the acrid black smoke sometimes, the odd bit of plasti
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Day 57 - "Railway Children and Sewers"
12/05/2020 Duración: 08minDay fifty seven. Life behind the police lines in Lockdown Spain for a British couple and their three good legs cat. Today Railway Children and Sewers Find out more at: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 57 It is day 57 of our Spanish Lockdown and the cold wind has returned and is blowing everything around, making the dogs bark and giving the usually mild-mannered Mediterranean Sea white horses. I do love being by the sea, everyday it is different, different colours, from proper Med Blue down to slate grey, most days, even in Lockdown there are ships out at sea to watch. From tiny trawlers to big container ships on the far horizon. We also get from time to time dolphins coming to play and eat fish, so this is a special place only marred by the poo bloom. The Mayor of Salobreña just refers to it as the ‘El bloom’ a line of scummy water that makes its way around the coast from Nerja to Salobreña, ending up on the beach. The bloom is caused by the town of Nerja pumping raw sewerage into the sea. You ar
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Day 56 - "Churchill and porn"
11/05/2020 Duración: 07minDay fifty six. Life behind the police lines in Lockdown Spain for a British couple and their three good legs cat. Today Churchill and Porn Find out more at: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 56 It is Day 56 of our Spanish Lockdown and the Mayor of Motril is mad, not in the crazy, dribbling eye swivelling sense, although she might be also doing that too. She is mad at the national Government for setting out the criteria for allowing a Health Area to move to Phase 1 and then changing the rules at the last minute, but only for Granada and the Malaga area. She has asked for a written explanation as to why they have done this? Many of the businesses that have prepared to open on Monday, now cannot. One restaurant along the coast in La Herradura - “Bambu” had spent time and money flattening out the beach, laying their tables out at 2.5 metre spaces, putting in sanitation, buying food and bringing back four of their workers from Furlough. Understandably the owner Darío de Haro is a little pissed off. One
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Day 55 "The Pain in Spain"
10/05/2020 Duración: 08minDay fifty five. Life behind the police lines in Lockdown Spain for a British couple and their three good legs cat. Today The Pain in Spain. Find out more at: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 55 - The Pain in Spain It is day 55 of our Spanish Lockdown and Uncle Pedro has succeeded in shattering the country into tiny pieces. Some parts will move forward to phase 1 including the Basque region which jumps to moving between provinces too, I am sure it has nothing to do with the support that the Spanish Prime Minister needs from the Basque Party. We will stay in lockdown phase zero. Despite our local health area coming up to the criteria of phase 1 we have been lumped together with the city of Granada and so our lockdown continues. It is interesting a similar province like Valencia has been allowed to split into its health authority areas and not us. I think the reason is that the government are frightened that if they open up the coastline of the Costa del Sol and the Costa Tropical, where we live. There will
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Day 54 - "Naked women and fireworks"
09/05/2020 Duración: 06minDay fifty four. Life behind the police lines in Lockdown Spain for a British couple and their three good legs cat. Today naked women and fireworks. Find out more at: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 54 Naked women and fireworks It is day 54 of our Spanish Lockdown. Victory in Europe day. Last night there was an enormous fire that stretched along the coastline between Motril and Salobreña. The reed beds were alight, and the fire raged most of the night. It was finally put out at 10.30 in the morning. Weirdly it must have been reminiscent of watching the buildings of London burning in the distance after an air raid. When I think about my grandparents and my mother, father and stepfather, they all went through an awful lot but the war did eventually end. When the war came to an end the street where my mother lived held a party, somebody had an old firework that they had kept until the end of the war, it was lit, veered off course and burned my mother. Which is why we rarely had fireworks when we were chil
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Day 53 - "Buzz Aldrin and Marshall Tito"
08/05/2020 Duración: 07minDay fifty three. Life behind the police lines in Lockdown Spain for a British couple and their three good legs cat. Today back to the sixties and why the Spanish might face chaos Find out more at: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 53 Buzz Aldrin and Marshall Tito It is day 53 of our Spanish Lockdown, phase zero hasn’t brought any real change to our situation here. Except Chris has been able to go to the pool supply shop that is now open. He came back with a boot load of chemicals, but the rules about car travel and distance continue and of course the beaches are closed unless you are walking along the beach. Phase 1 on Monday might not happen if we do not make the criteria – based on number of deaths and infection rate. But if that phase starts, we will be in a similar situation as the UK is now. Spain can only dream of doing what Britain plans this Monday. The Spanish press has been full of the news that Britain as a country has had more deaths now than Spain or Italy. After having quite a simpl
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Day 52 - "Corkscrews and ants"
07/05/2020 Duración: 07minDay fifty two. Life behind the police lines in Lockdown Spain for a British couple and their three good legs cat. Today back to the sixties and why the Spanish might face chaos Find out more at: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 52 corkscrews and ants It is day 52 of our Spanish Lockdown and a Wednesday worry, the hateful weekly shop is with us once again. This morning our neighbour was stopped by the police on the way back from the chemist. “Where are you going?” – back to my casa “Where have you come from?” – the chemists “OK perfecto, you may go.” An encounter with the police in Spain is very different from one in the UK, where usually, if you are doing nothing wrong the police are usually quite charming. I remember once when Chris was stopped for speeding with a blues and two behind us, pulling into the hard shoulder the W.P.C. got out and the first thing she said to Chris was “That’s a nice car, I have the new Mini too, and it really can go fast, sometimes too fast.” – And that was her very Bri
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Day 51 - "Cops and Kaftans"
06/05/2020 Duración: 07minDay fifty one. Life behind the police lines in Lockdown Spain for a British couple and their three good legs cat. Today back to the sixties and why the Spanish might face chaos Find out more at: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 51 Cops and Kaftans It is day 51 of our Spanish Lockdown, and the day started early, Chris had a BBC interview to do on Skype, so I set the laptop up for him and got out the figures and facts just in case they asked him about specific numbers. Today it was Sonia on BBC Essex, I like her and Ben her normal co-host. Having worked for the BBC it is refreshing to hear real local sounding voices, the radio station is run by our friend Lou and she tries very hard to make the content sound good. It is really hard to do that as the BBC tries equally hard to be well meaning but often shoots itself in the foot. Day 51 and my cousin, Pandy has discovered Facebook and also the irritating habit of mass messaging people. It is her birthday and she is sharing the day with us, complete wit
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Day 50 "Fifty days of Lockdown"
05/05/2020 Duración: 09minFifty days of Lockdown. Life behind the police lines in Lockdown Spain for a British couple and their three good legs cat. Find out more at: https://www.thesecretspain.com A random handful of clips from the last fifty days of lockdown.
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Day 49 - "Gin and Toksvig"
04/05/2020 Duración: 06minDay forty nine, Gin and Toksvig, Life behind the police lines in Lockdown Spain for a British couple and their three good legs cat. Find out more at: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 49 Gin and Toksvig It is day 49 of our Spanish Lockdown, the start of phase zero and limited outings for exercise both for children and adults. The day is going to be hot so an early start to build some shelves for a cupboard and to finish plastering over the cables I had put in for the wifi. All done by 10am before the sun starts to make things uncomfortable. 10 am is usually second breakfast time for the Spanish, so we had a coffee and a biscuit. The sudden hot weather has brought with it many, many flies, they get it in the moment you open a door or a window. You can spend a great deal of time chasing them around the place. We have mosquiteros or what the Americans call ‘screens’ and this time of year they are a godsend, that and have persianas or shutters that you can lower to darken a room and finally Toldos – awn
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Day 48 - "On yer bike!"
03/05/2020 Duración: 06minDay forty eight, On yer bike! Life behind the police lines in Lockdown Spain for a British couple and their three good legs cat. Find out more at: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 48 On yer bike! It is day 48 of our Spanish Lockdown, slowly we are unpicking that lock, last week, the children could go out for a bit of exercise, today we can join them. I went for a walk, I planned to take a gentle ramble into the countryside, maybe accompanied by my trust tape recorder, giving you a walk with nature, maybe accompanied by three good legs cat, who I take, or rather he takes me on his lead. He is a bit of a cat dog, in respect that he will tolerate a lead and loves to sniff and explore every nook and cranny along the way. Instead we headed for Petri and Justin’s big house on the corner. Petri called from the UK.. “Justin is worried about the tall palm, can you take a look.” So we both took a walk to the house, took some pictures of the palm, it is growing the fruit tendrils, which Justin would like cut