Ayuda! – Fiesta at the Trafford Centre (Part 1)

When I’m writing about other countries, I’m deeply aware of my journalistic responsibilities. It’s deeply important to portray other nations and other peoples using nothing but honest reportage and cold hard fact, free of cultural bias, jingoistic xenophobia and other popular British pastimes.

In short: I have to be open-minded. I’ll tell you things as they really are. I won’t embellish or muddy. I won’t reinforce insulting stereotypes except when it’s absolutely necessary (for example, when it’s amusing, or when I’m being paid to do so). I won’t shirk my duty to treat the rest of the world with the respect and dignity it deserves. I’ll tell it straight.

On Sunday evening, I went through to Manchester to meet a Spanish acquaintance for the first time.

We’ll call her Carmen.

But before I tell you what she did to me, let’s enjoy a little context.

Spain Fact Sheet.

1. The Spanish unit of currency is the passata – a rich paste made from tomatoes. This makes traditional Spanish banks and retail outlets very messy places. Although the Euro has officially been introduced into the economy, the Spanish people have been reluctant to embrace it, chiefly because it’s practically inedible as a topping.

Bank clerks attempt to serve customers at the Madrid branch of HSBC

2. Laying directly on the Equator, Spain is one of the hottest places on the planet. In Summer, temperature regularly reach 200 degrees Fahrenheit, a point at which most materials burn or melt, excluding stone, metal and a few complex forms of paella. For this reason, the months of June to August are known as Estoy usando mi almuerzo (’I am wearing my lunch’). Tourists are advised to seek out a good sastre del paella (tailor) at the airport before heading out into the punishing midday sun.

A traditional Spanish breakfast for one.

3. Spanish food is so flavoursome that it has an exceptionally high mortality rate. The bland, traumatised palate of the British or American visitor is often unable to process the gustative complexity of dishes such as albóndigas del fuego (’meatballs of flame’) or the coastal classic muerte por el pulpo y la pólvora (’gunpowdered octopus-death’), leading to a catastrophic overload of the central nervous system. For this reason, the World Health Organisation puts Spanish food in the same safety category as Japanese fugu or the American Jamba Juice Chocolate Moo’d Power Smoothie. Visitors are advised to bring their own food and gradually mix in small quantities of tapas to build their tolerence level up.

4. It’s a fascinating cultural quirk that many Spanish cities and landmarks are named after types of automobile – for example, the fortress complex named after the Seat Alhambra, or the Andalucian province thought to celebrate the Ford Grenada (this is unconfirmed – an alternative theory is that it references television broadcaster ITV).  Another popular trend is to market cars after the Spanish names of high-profile celebrities, such as Mitsubishi’s SUV named in honour of English comedian Russell Brand, the Pajero.

So that’s Spain, in a cáscara de nuez.

So let me tell you about my evening with Carmen…

To be continued.

Images: agsaran, Andrea Balducci, larry&flo.