Nuts
is what we are. What possessed us to come up with all this stuff? Just look at it!
Who is Eduardo Noriega, indeed? Our contributor Alexander Bewick knows - we didn’t. But he’s worth knowing; Eduardo Noriega, that is, we’re not too sure about Bewick. (Page 6) We’ve read Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s novels, or some of them. They’re good, very good! And Blas Jiménez Calvente has interviewed him, so he’d know about this fascinating writer. (Page 12) We want your help to create a new feature, as you’ll see on page 16. No, it’s not about money (phew!), it’s about your neighbours. (Page 16) Bet you didn’t know that a casino is a gentleman’s club, Spanish version. (Page 18) Did you sleep with Orson Welles? We did, sort of. In Algeciras if you must know. (Page 20) The Wild Side awaits you. This is just the right time of year to take a nice long walk. (Page 24) Abbé gets quixotic on page 28, too. Now it’s your turn to enjoy DominGo as much as we do - and my apologies for the delay in publishing. Alberto Bullrich, Editor Publisher
Design
OneLinePULSE Publications
In-house
Editor Alberto Bullrich
Contributors Alexander Bewick Peter Hillcock Blas Jiménez Calvente
Translations The Translation People
Photography Alberto Bullrich Serafín Sánchez
Advertising Alberto Bullrich (+34) 956 640 209 (+34) 637 033 659 alberto@jimenapulse.com © COPYRIGHT Alberto Bullrich 2010 No material from this publication may be reproduced in any media without the express permission of the copyright holder.
this is eduardo noriega...
...and this is pérez-reverte
who are your neighbours?
what’s a casino?
orson welles slept here, too
visit a captain’s throat plus abbé (28) and so what? (29)
By Alexander Bewick
here are two Eduardo Noriegas in films. The other one is Mexican, this one is Spanish. The 36 year old actor, whose full name is Eduardo Noriega Gómez, is probably best known internationally for his role in Peter Travis’s political thriller 2008 Vantage Point, but in Spain he has been not only a star but also a much respected actor. 6
Born in Santander, Cantabria, in the Basque country, Noriega is the youngest of seven brothers, none of whom became actors. As a child, he wanted to be a musician, but at age 20 he put aside his law degree and his love of music and moved to Madrid to become an actor joining Madrid's School of Dramatic Art . He was in several short films by directors that would soon stand out. He appeared in a small role in the well known Spanish film Historias del Kronen. But it was not until Tesis (1996) that he had his first starring role in a film that became one of the biggest hits in the history of Spanish films, directed by Alejandro Amenábar, one of the directors who had given him a part in a short three years before. It was also Amenábar’s rise to film fame. Amenábar confessed in a interview that he hadn’t chosen Noriega for Tesis in the first place he was just a "pretty face". The director’s collaborators thought otherwise. In the end he gave in and called Eduardo for the part, preferring him to the other actors at the casting. Tesis won a host of Goyas, the Spanish industry’s Oscars. (Continued on page 8)
7
(Continued from page 7)
The two became close friends, and have since worked on several different projects together . Amenábar and Noriega, with Mateo Gil as producer, released Abre los Ojos the following year. The film did not win any awards but drew such a following that it was redone in the US the following year and named Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise in the lead. In 2002, Eduardo starred as the main actor in Novo, a French movie directed by Jean-Pierre Limosin, where he appears completely naked. That is not the last time. Known for his seductive looks, Noriega has managed to miss being typecast in that kind of part; in fact, he says he is very shy in roles that require him to undress. He also keeps his private life very private. He doesn’t give interviews without an appointment and refuses to divulge anything that is not previously agreed with the reporter. Nevertheless, Eduardo Noriega is fast becoming one of Hollywood’s ‘next best’. He doesn’t yet have the status of fellow (Continued on page 10)
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Spaniards Penélope Cruz (see DominGo Number 2, April 4), Antonio Banderas or Javier Bardem, but he will be there soon. It hasn’t been an easy climb -is it ever?- but in the global village, Hollywood is hardly what it was. International actors are no longer a property of the studios (MGM is currently in severe financial trouble) and Noriega is happy to be called to film in France, Italy, Argentina or wherever. He has portrayed everything from a young punk (Historias del Kronen, Montxo Armendáriz, 1995) 25 year-old in a prosthetic face mask (Abre los Ojos, Alejandro Amenábar, 1997); from a business executive at an intense job interview (El Método, Marcelo Piñeyro, 2005) to a soldier in Kosovo (Guerrero, Daniel Calparsoro, 2002). His US films include Transsiberian, a thriller starring Ben Kingsley and Woody Harrelson. He is presently shooting a remake of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid called Blackthorn in Bo-
livia, under the direction of Mateo Gil , with Sam Shepard in the starring role. Another of his great hits is the film Alatriste (2005), directed by Agustín Díaz Yanes and based on a character in a series of historical novels by Arturo Pérez-Reverte (see page 12), in which he plays the Count of Guadalmedina. Until the advent of Ágora last year, Alatriste was the most expensive Spanish film ever made (a ‘modest’ €24 million). ______________
Noriega is happy to be called to film in France, Italy, Argentina or wherever. ______________ The movie stars Viggo Mortenssen as Alatriste, together with a who’s who of Spanish actors, and even PérezReverte in a cameo. So who is Eduardo Noriega? He’s an excellent actor with a range that is somewhat typical of many Spanish actors that could probably be traced to the need for work in a relatively small European or Spanish-American industry.
WAR CORRESPONDENT JOURNALIST POLEMICIST BEST SELLING AUTHOR Member, ROYAL ACADEMY OF LANGUAGE By Blas Jiménez Calvente Translation: The Translation People
fter spending over twenty years in front of the cameras as a war correspondent, Arturo PérezReverte now admits to being shy in front of them. His admission came as he was on a promotion tour for his latest novel, El Asedio. Not evidently a shy sort, the author says that his conversion has much to do with his becoming a writer of fiction. That was back in 1986, while he was still working for television as a correspondent in such theatres as Cyprus, Lebanon, Eritrea, the Sahara, the Falklands, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chad, Libya, Sudan, Mozambique, Angola, the Persian Gulf, Croatia and Bosnia, among others.
He disappeared in the Sahara desert for several days in 1975 and had been given up for lost by friends and employers, when he turned up again, apparently unscathed. His experience was fodder for his novels. But he eventually became weary of the internal politics at RTVE, the
Spanish state-owned network, and resigned to become a full time writer in 1994. “Nobody is the same before and after writing a novel; when it is no longer like that I will have become just a manufacturer of stories,” he concludes. Pérez-Reverte is not averse to self
promotion, either. Behind him is a well oiled marketing machine that is not surprising given the enormous success of his novels. Translated into over thirty languages, his fiction is published in thirty-six countries. International, non-Spanish, fame came at the hands of one Diego Alatriste y Tenorio, a veteran of the War in Flanders who survives as a mercenary in 17th century Madrid.
(Continued on page 14) 13
(Continued from page 13)
Captain Alatriste is the leading character in a series of six of PérezReverte’s novels, with another one due out in November. Alatriste has been in films, too. His creator has also adapted several of his other novels for the screen, as well as writing scripts for other authors’ novels-into-movies.
Internet. Don Arturo (one should address a member of the Real Academia Española with respect) is fond of bad words and has no qualms about insulting anyone in his writings. He sometimes puts together words that would never be found in the dictionary but which anyone with a certain amount of colloquial Spanish might easily decipher. This naturally leads to his exalted position within the Real Academia. Arturo Pérez-Reverte is one of 46 members charged with maintaining and updating the Spanish language (it has recently allowed ‘pen drive’ and ‘USB’ into its dictionary, which
One of his most successful novels, Queen of the South, is partially set in and around Gibraltar and Cádiz. Dealing with the international drug trade, it was also adapted, by the author himself, for a Mexican TV series. As a polemicist and essayist, PérezReverte writes a weekly column for (another) colour supplement, El Semanal, as well as other articles in more academic publications. He is often criticized for his language -but not his magnificent use of it, for which he is much admired- and many of them do the rounds on the 14
raised many hackles). Each seat on the Academia is denominated with a letter of the alphabet, in caps and otherwise. Don Arturo occupies the letter T, to which he was elected by (Continued on page 15)
(Continued from page 14)
majority in 2008, although not without controversy: some objected to his use of foul language. Born in Cartagena in 1951, he is a passionate sailor, spending his time, when publishing commitments allow, between his home in Madrid and his hometown in Murcia, by the sea.
It is no surprise, then, that PérezReverte sets a good proportion of his novels in or around the sea. His latest novel, El Asedio (The Siege), launched last week in Spain, is set in Cádiz, a seafaring place if ever there was, in the early 1800s at the time of the 1812 Constitution, known familiarly as La Pepa, a very revolutionary era. The book is in translation and an international launch is scheduled for later this year.
RESERVATIONS
956 642 244 · 678 731 078 E-mail: laestaciondesanpablo@gmail.com
We are surrounded by people wherever we live. In cities we hardly know our neighbours, in villages, a little better. I’d like to introduce you to some of mine. And I’d love to meet some of yours, so take a photo of them and send them in to: alberto@jimenapulse.com HELP US START A NEW FEATURE! By Alberto Bullrich, Publisher
16
Arlequín
Eric
Marcelo & friends
Taking the air
Business is business
Birds on a wire
Boy oh boy
Lucía
Tea time
Mickey & Junie Jane
Gwen
Andrés & grandson
Anita & friend
In the bar
Alicia
Rosa & Jesi
Jesús
Manuel
Sorana
Keeping them alive
Paco, Ma Ángeles & Victor
Keeping it clean
Dominoes
Someone’s got to work
Cards 17
1. n. club. 2. n. Association with a common purpose, formed by adepts of a political party or by men of the same class or condition. Casino liberal. Casino agrícola. Casino militar.
El Casino, Madrid
3. n. Building in which the association meets. 4. n. Place where, through payment, people can attend shows, concerts, dances and other entertainment. Usually near or on beaches, spas, etc. and generally devoted to the practice of games of chance.
Casino Militar, Madrid
The old casino, Algeciras 18
The above is a translation of the word ‘casino’, taken from the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española. Only the fourth meaning has anything to do with gaming, but it is easy to guess that a lot of it went on in these Spanish gentlemens’ clubs. The word derives from the Italian for ‘country house’ - not to be confused with the English meaning: this is more ‘a house in the country’.
The photos are evidence of the different kinds of casino to be found in Spain, though the concept and some of its architecture was exported to the Spanish colonies in the Americas. Tauste, Zaragoza
The main casino in Madrid is seen as the example to be followed: it is one of the most grandiose buildings in Spain, other than churches.
Casino Militar, Melilla
Casino Municipal, Huesca
‘Casino de pueblo’
La Habana, Cuba
Casino de la Expo, Sevilla
Madrid (interior)
But grandiosity is not given to all. Any town or village with aspirations will have had one, though many have fallen into disuse or changed into something else, especially after the end of the Franco era. In many parts of the country, the casino was seen as the place where the privileged gathered and to a certain extent it still is. Not anyone can become a member of a casino militar, for example, certainly not anyone in the ranks. One wonders how many plots were concocted inside, or business deals. Not unlike the same idea in Britain, is it? By Alexander Bewick
CĂĄceres, now a hotel
Madrid (interior) 19
By Alberto Bullrich
rson Welles slept everywhere in Spain if you believe the public relations. But how many places can boast this list: King Alfonso XIII of Spain, the Counts of Paris, the Sultan of Jahore, Federico García Lorca, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Marshall Petain, Queens Elizabeth of Belgium and María Jos‚ of Italy, the Dukes of Nemours, Kings Michael of Greece, Idris of Lybia, King Juan Carlos of Spain and Doña Sofía, Prince Murat, Mrs. Franco, Lord Halifax, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles de Gaulle, Cole Porter, Juan Belmonte, Orson Welles (did I mention him?), Ava Gardner, King Umberto of Italy, Rock Hudson, Edward Heath... ? 20
Those are just some of the names and signatures in the Golden Guest Book of the Hotel Reina Cristina, in Algeciras. The names that are not in the Golden book may well belong to spies and collaborators from Britain, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Spain and Portugal, the US, the Soviet Union and places between and beyond. They would have signed in -and may have but you wouldn’t know it- before, during and after the Spanish Civil War and WWII. The Italian Navy, for instance, chose to lodge its team of mini-submarine divers there, evidently the perfect place from which to attack the British fleet at Gibraltar and the Straits. A hotbed of skulduggery as well as a (Continued on page 21)
(Continued
from page 20)
very fine place to stay. The hotel began to be built in the 1890s as a result of the construction of the Algeciras to Bobadilla railway -a 'sister' establishment, the Reina Victoria, was built in Ronda- and named after King Alfonso XIII's mother, Queen Christina, a daughter of Queen Victoria. A British company, headed by Sir Alexander Henderson, got the railway job, but Henderson, who stayed in Algeciras while construction was going on, liked the area so well that he decided to invest in building a hotel near both the port and the railway terminal. The land on which it sits belonged to the British Vice-Consul in Algeciras, William J. Smith, who sold part of his property to the railway company, keeping part of it for his own magnificent home, now called Villa Smith. Not surprisingly, there is a distinctive
British feel to its architecture, with a deep bow to that of AndalucĂa. The same is true of Villa Smith, which was designed by the same architect, T. E. Colcutt, and both buildings are listed. A short circuit burned the hotel down in 1928 but it was rebuilt with the addition of a third floor and reopened in 1932. My own memories of the Cristina go back almost forty years, when it was the place to meet in Algeciras. It was where the bullfighters stayed during the feria, where business was conducted over coffee or drinks, where everyone who was anyone ran a tab to be paid whenever possible (I was but a guileless youth so -sensibly- no tab). At that time it was owned by Trust House Forte (remember them?) and run by Miguel Ares and his wife Jennifer, who had been sent to wind it down for eventual closure but decided to revive it instead. And very successful they were, too, thanks to a lot of hard work. 21
To my surprise, I was greeted there just recently, by an elderly member of staff, who recognised me even after almost twenty years of absence from my corner at the bar. It may have had something to do with my behaviour back then... Since then, the Reina Cristina has been owned by a series of chains and is now part of Globales Hotels & Resorts. The old lady has faded somewhat and holds her place like a dowager duchess in a couple of rooms in a tourist trap castle. But a dowager duchess has a lot of stories to tell if anyone cares to listen.
Photo: Serafín Sánchez
Garganta means throat, which explains why it is also used to describe a waterfall apparently exploding from the rocks. ‘The Captain’s Throat’ is a waterfall that one can visit quite easily near Los Barrios, taking the old Algeciras-Los Barrios road (CA-2312), then the CA-2311 to Barriada El Cobre. Then take a turn off on the right, about 400m before the Botafuegos prison. Leave the car locked! 24
This is a forestry road belonging to the municipality, therefore public, that will take you to the rest stops at Hoyo Don Pedro (not signposted). After crossing the gate (leave it closed, please!) there are magnificent views of the surrounding mountains. A few gates later, and after taking a (Continued on page 25)
(Continued from page 24)
sharp bend right in the middle of the route.
an otter or two gambolling close by. If you’re really lucky, stay absolutely still and quiet. Watch them - fascinating!
This is a circular walk that allows a return along a different way. The choice is yours (but check the map below just in case.)
The peace and quiet of the spot is just the thing. A sense of tranquillity is bound to bring forth the best in us all. The waterfall, not quite so roaring or splendid in the dry summer months, when it might be too hot for this walk, is the objective. Among enormous rocks that have come tumbling down through the riverbed, some sharp, some filed down by the water, are an invitation to jump from to the other, or to edge the pools to enjoy the vegetation.
Bathing in the peaceful pools is allowed but not advisable in the full summer (July/August) as the water can get a bit grungy. Along the way, coming or going, you will see the ruins of an old flour mill, whose grinding wheels were turned by the water. The remains of a channel can just be spotted in the underOccasionally it is possible to surprise
(Continued on page 26)
25
(Continued from page 25)
growth. This is a good spot for a rest or a picnic. Vegetation in the area includes cork oaks and many varieties of fern. Also, Mediterranean heather and flowering azaleas. Birds are plentiful, too, this being part of the migration routes for many species, though best watched in Spring and Autumn. Like almost anywhere else in the area, the best time of year for a visit must be Spring. The wild flowers are out and the spirit is renewed. Good walking!
Distance: 11 Kms Walking time: 3 to 4 hours (depending on stops) Difficulty: Moderate Climb levels: 45ยบ only in very short patches Permits: None required Resources: Google Maps Information is correct at time of going to press. DominGo, its publishers, editors or contributors accept no responsibility regarding this article. 26
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Judge Baltasar Garzón in his quixotic quixotic attempt attempt to ‘recover the historical memories’ of Spain on the side of the losers. He smiles because he knows that the law is the law...
My friend next door, Abbé the cartoonist, whom I have known for many years in many disguises, is very p****d off about what’s happening to Judge Baltasar Garzón. The Spanish media is full of it, and so is the international press. So, for that matter, is the English-writing blogosphere (see The Alexander Bewick Soap Box, Tilting at
Windmills, etc.). There’s no need to go into it here, except maybe to mention the fact and to say that I, too, am p****d off. *** You will notice that I have been torn in half this time. That doesn’t p**s me off at all because it means we have sold a half page ad to ‘sponsor’ this page. We
need it, believe me. Also, I don’t have to waffle here and can get on with getting this issue published - old moment: what was I saying?
Alberto Bullrich is the publisher and editor of this magazine and of JimenaPulse, CampoPulse and The Alexander Bewick Soap Box.
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