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Strutting About, 1973, El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain

It's late afternoon, 1973, in El Puerto de Santa Maria. I look out the window of the apartment at  the horses being trained for the Feria. A man has one tethered and he holds the strap loosely as the horse walks round and round in circles. It tries to get away, but the man pulls it back and soon the horse settles down. It starts to strut, lifting its hooves high off the ground. The Feria is one of the most important events of the whole year. It's a time for not just the horses to strut around, but for the people as well. The women wear brightly coloured dresses that flair out each time they move a leg, and the men are dressed in tight-fitting trousers and short jackets that make them look as if they're wearing their big brothers' hand-me-downs. I've been practising the Sevillanas dances with one of the teachers from the school. We attend a local church where they offer free dance classes. Pretty good, if you want my opinion. The instructor is this really skinn...
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'Se', the Anti-Hero. Learning Spanish.

One day in the autumn of 1980, when I was living in Talavera de la Reina I spent a morning in Madrid. Keen to learn more Spanish, I browsed around a shop selling just about every text book you could think of.  Amongst this array of books, one caught my eye. It was a teeny tiny, skinny minny paperback which looked completely innocuous. However, as I flicked through the pages the contents were enough to make my skinny minny brain puzzled and perplexed. The only subject of the book was the Spanish word, ‘se’.  Can’t be that bad, can it?  I can hear you mutter. And you’d be correct. He’s just a wee word is this ‘se’.   But, gollee wollee, he certainly does change the meaning of sentences. He evolves and revolves, slipping and sliding just like any elusive anti-hero we all love to hate. Let’s look at some uses of ‘se’. El niño se llama Juan.     (The boy calls himself Juan.  The boy is called Juan.) Ella se llama Ana . ...
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Learning Spanish, Part Two - El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain, 1972

1972, El Puerto de Santa Maria. I have a lovely sharpened pencil and a notebook, and I can't wait for my first Spanish lesson. The doorbell of the apartment rings and I meet my very own personal private tutor for the first time. He's a bit older than me, and a little bit taller. He has a beard and also has very nice teeth. "Agudas. This word is an aguda". He talks loudly and writes a word in my notebook, then underlines it. "This next word is a llana." He underlines it too. He has a  flair for underlining words. I haven't a clue what he's talking about. It's something to do with accent marks and pronunciation. I ask him that question that native speakers of English always ask any time they find themselves in a situation requiring even just a rudimentary knowledge of a foreign language, "Do you speak English?" His eyes twinkle and he grins broadly as he replies, "Why? What difference does it make?" His English is cer...
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