Episode 19: Carnival time

When the Spanish do something, they like to do it well and for a long time. Why do you think I married one?! However in this instance, I'm talking about Carnival. In the UK, we orgnise some floats on a wet Saturday afternoon, maybe have a small travelling fair turn up and some sideshows, Mrs. Fazackerley makes her jam that no-one likes but it sells like hotcakes as no-one dare tell her and then it's all over. Everyone goes home until next year. Here, things couldn't be different. A couple of weeks ago, Spain had its carnival and, unlike the UK, where we couldn't organise the ubiquitous excessive alcohol consumption get-together in a hop brewing establishment, Spain has no such problems. Carnival goes on for no less than FIVE days and is an opportunity for every Spaniard to dress up, go out into the street and look ridiculous. Personally this is something I see most days and I wondered what carnival would actually bring to the party that was so different, but I wasn't to be disappointed, although I was a little perplexed when served at the local Gadis supermarket (known in my house as the Gladys supermarket) by a chicken. Imagine the health and safety concerns in the UK, but it appears that in Spain, no-one really minds a little feather in their steak or a felt turkey wattle in their ribs.

Three minutes after I took this picture, this chicken was seen waving a cleaver & hacking up meat joints. It was a little scary & somewhat surreal to watch. I left the supermarket straight after.

I need to tell you a little about carnival here. It is a national event. It starts on Friday night with the enthronement of King Momo and ends on the Wednesday when they bury a sardine. I know, I know, but stay with it............King Momo is considered to be the King of Carnivals. He's a large jolly man with a big belly. Sounds familiar??

I am SOOO dead when he reads this!!

Anyway, we went to the enthronement on the Friday night where there are groups of Comparsas. These are people who have nothing better to do of an evening and spend their year making matching costumes to wear for carnival. In the UK, we call them weirdo's. The carnival each year has a theme and these groups get together and make up new lyrics to well known songs about that theme. They then dress up in their matching costumes and perform them in front of judges who, judging by this years winning entry, were a couple of meths drinkers from the María Pita square here in the city centre. The winning group gets to perform on the night of King Momo's enthronement, whilst the other Comparsas all stand around watching and willing them to forget their words or fall off the stage.

I'm not sure which was which, but I'm guessing
the one on the left was wind, judging by the
look on his face

After the enthronement, we were shepherded across the road to a demonstration of more weirdness. A samba band stood across the zebra crossing, blocking the way for all the cars and played whilst we pedestrians wandered across. That was fun. I could have gone backwards and forwards across that crossing all night just to piss off the Spanish drivers, because I still have massive issues with their (non)-driving skills here (Blog episode number 8 if you're interested or need reminding) Well, going across the road was a big mistake. I was told that Earth Wind & Fire were over there, so I laced up my platform shoes wandered over to shake my groove thing to "Star", "Let's groove" & "Boogie Wonderland" to name but three of their million selling hits from the late 1970's/early 1980's. When I realised it was some blokes on stilts and a couple of birds waving silks around in order to represent the elements (and they didn't even have the decency to have a red scarf to represent fire), we left and went for dinner instead. Mind you, I was interested to see how they were going to represent wind, although after the falafel we had later that night.........................!!


Saturday was the parade. The Carrozas (or Floats, in case you thought I'd forgotten this weeks lesson) were all out in force along with loads of really fabulous costumes and papier maché figures. The Comparsas were also out again. I don't know what it is with them, but once they spot a party, they just don't stop. That said, by the end of the second consecutive night of constant walking and dancing, their costumes are getting a little whiffy and people start carrying air fresheners with them in case of emergency situations.


Nothing much happens on a Sunday, although I imagine that after two long days of boozing, boogying and banging (drums love, drums!), there are bunions to be soaked and costumes to be steeped in Ariel before Monday!

Never mind Angry Birds,
here's a couple of ugly ones!

Monday night sees the world and his wife dressing up and going out - again. It's a young person's thing, so if I were to do it at the tender age of 48, I would get some funny looks as people stare in sympathy at my obvious lack of self esteem. However it's great fun to wander around the city centre and see the costumes people have. The one problem is that we have a plethora of Chinese Markets here in this country, all of which sell carnival costumes, so the age old problem of wondering if someone is going to be wearing the same as you at the party is increased significantly if you go down that route. To that end, we saw loads of Angry Birds (the video game, not distressed ladies!), superheroes, police, animals etc, but also some stupendous home-made costumes. It's also a night when traditionally, men also dress as women. There was some hilarious Cissie and Ada type drag wandering the streets, which I admit I loved. I think that next year, the taffeta has to come out. I shall go to the ball!


Due to their hard partying, Tuesday is a day of rest, hangovers and holiday. Here in Spain, there is a Bank Holiday once every three weeks by law, or so it seems. I'm not bothered as it means I don't have to go to school and see María, who is not improving I have to tell you! In fact, during carnival week, the language school was closed from Monday to Wednesday, which meant it was carnival for me too and I damn well enjoyed it without having to listen to her wittering on.

How very like my own dear mother, although
her moustache is more convincing!

Then on Wednesday night (Ash Wednesday), the Spanish like to get together and bury a sardine, as you do. It's no ordinary sardine though; it's a ma-hoosive one, which is made from papier maché and carried on a float, surrounded by funeral directors and grieving "widows" in black, some of whom are - shall we say - a little less ladylike than others!! As we watched the procession go past, some of these widows, wailing and clutching tissues, came up to us and thanked us for coming along to such a sad event. It's all part of the show, apparently. Then they go down to the beach where a "pastor" delivers a service to signify the death of the carnival season. King Momo is burned as is the sardine and it's ashes are buried on the beach, ready for some 5 year old child to find in the summer months during a hot summer's day sunbathing. Cue more wailing at the death of the carnival! I could hear all this clacking and thought that people actually had their castanets out until I realised it was the sound of 100 "widows" simultaneously gnashing their dentures in grief.


With this, the carnival season is over and the period of abstinence of Lent begins. This year, I'm giving up believing that I've seen it all, as I obviously haven't. Weeping over a 25 foot long papier maché sardine has taught me that valuable lesson. 

I was going to put something funny here, but I can't beat the reality that the Spanish make a sardine,
hold a funeral cortège and then bury it on the beach. You couldn't make it up!!

Before I go, there are two things I would like to mention totally unrelated to carnival, but which caught my eye this week:
The first is my mobile phone bill. You may remember I recounted the sad story and promised a bulls testicle to each of you, should this be sorted (Episode 13)? Well, I can't believe I'm telling you this, but.......it's been sorted. A little while ago we were contacted by the phone company who decided to offer us a reduction in our bills. The game of brinkmanship was nearly over, but not quite. They made us a good offer but those of you who know me well will know what happened next. The offer wasn't good enough, so I told José to reject it and ask for a little more. He was a little anxious about this as we'd never had even one offer from them, so to reject the one we had was possible madness. Being more than a little used to this state of mind, he went for it and they agreed to a further reduction. We settled there and then. I've now worked out that we are going to be paying less over the period of our contract than we would have done had we have paid full price, so that's a result. I do love a bargain (or a 'ganga' as they say in these 'ere parts!) As a man of my word, here's a bull's testicle for you. A word of warning though........................don't eat before watching this!!

And finally, Groupon. For those of you who don't know what Groupon is, it's similar to the agency we used here in Spain to sell our Conversation and Holiday English courses - expensive stuff but with a considerable discount. Last week, they sent out one daily email with a full Microsoft Course, down from around €800 to €99. They also advertised some masturbatory eggs, with a poor out-of-work actor/model looking extremely embarrassed that his life had reached this low point. (DIRECTOR: "Excuse me love, can you give us that 'Ho hum, I have no job, so I may as well knock one out´type look please?") 

Alas poor Yorrick........I once gave him a Happy Ending behind the bike sheds with one of these!

Can you believe that at the end of the day they'd sold only 14 Microsoft Courses and a whopping 387 packs of masturbatory eggs, which just goes to show that there are far more wankers here in Spain than intellectuals!