A Short Treatise on Pies

This is a piece I wrote late last year, but never posted. I was reminded of it yesterday when I read an article in the Guardian entitled 'How to Make the Perfect Steak and Ale Pie'. This article is part of a series by the normally-admirable Felicity Cloake; what she does is take a bunch of recipes from well-known cooking folks, makes them all and then figures out which is the best (and it's frequently an amalgam of several recipes). It's a terrific idea, and I have used many of her 'perfect' recipes for various things. However, with her 'pie' recipe, she has been seriously misled by the likes of The Hairy Bikers, Valentine Warner and Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall. All of the recipes she makes are for Things That Are Not Pies. See below; all will be explained...

For many food-related items in the UK, the latter part of the twentieth century saw a tremendous rise in industrialised production, with a corresponding fall in quality. Pies were no exception, and many people who grew up with some of the horrible products on the market at that time have a pretty dim view of the beasts. Fortunately, things have improved somewhat, and pies have been enjoying a bit of a revival. They are no longer looked down on as cheap, grotty products for the proles, although you don't have to look hard to find that kind of rubbish if you really don't care about what you eat.

So, what is a pie? According to the Melton Mowbray Pie Association, promoters of the annual British Pie Awards, 'a pie is deemed to be a filling totally encased in pastry'.

Now that's a fairly tight definition, but it would also allow things like Beef Wellington to be called pies, and lattice-topped fruit pies to be sent to the naughty corner. I understand why they defined it that way, and I more or less agree, because it keeps out Things That Are Not Pies: Pizzas; Flans; Quiches; Shepherd's Pie; Cottage Pie; and the dreaded bastard-son-of-pie favoured by many a pub landlord, the ceramic bowl full of slop with a slice of bought-in puff pastry sitting on top.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the MMPA chose their definition of a pie because of the rival UK pie competition, British Pie Week, sponsored by Jus-Rol Pastry, where Things That Are Not Pies are regularly favoured with awards.

The most popular savoury pie fillings are probably Steak & Kidney, Chicken & Mushroom and Minced Beef & Onion (the item after the '&' is normally there to provide a bit of bulk from something that's cheaper than meat). Unlike Spanish attempts at pies, the meat and vegetable is cooked in a tasty gravy or sauce. You can put pretty much anything you like in a pie, but stew-based fillings tend to be the most successful.

There are no hard and fast rules about what accompaniments should be served with a savoury pie, nor even about what should be in it, but if you visit any of the traditional pie shops in London's East End, your pie will be served with mashed potatoes, possibly peas (mushy or not), and 'liquor'. Now, this is a bit weird - it's basically a fishy parsley sauce and is a hangover from the days when the Thames was swarming with eels and most of them ended up in pies. The liquor was the water the eels were cooked in. These days, eels in the Thames are rarer than hen's teeth, and pie fillings have drifted to the meaty side of things, but the liquor continues.

You may also come across pies served with chips or french fries (and note, there is a significant difference between these things), and maybe with mixed vegetables and/or salad. If you're very lucky, you may be offered extra gravy.

I should mention at this point that not all pies are designed to be eaten hot. The main one in the 'eat-me-cold' category is the pork pie. This contains minced/chopped pork surrounded by a savoury jelly and encased in a fairly hard pastry. Traditionally, these pies are not made in moulds, but the pastry base is 'raised' around a wooden former called a 'dolly'. The jelly is poured in through a hole in the lid after the pie has been baked.

I actually took part in the British Pie Awards a couple of years ago: took a red-eye from Madrid, watched in dismay as airport security confiscated my gel-filled chilling packs, and arrived at Melton Mowbray in the English Midlands with warm and squishy pies that impressed nobody.

I had expected this pleasant market town that claims to have invented the Pork Pie to be in full fête, but none of the people I spoke to had ever heard of the Pie Awards. I'd also been expecting the place to be swarming with fellow pie-makers, and it possibly was, but you can only go up to so many strangers and ask them if they make pies before Social Services start taking an interest. The next day was Judgment Day, and while the public and the Gods of the Art of Pie were welcome to wander around the outskirts of the judging area, there really wasn't much to do until the results were announced at about 5pm.

I retired to one of the pubs adjoining the huge church where the awards were going on (and the vicar had blessed the pies, which I thought was rather enlightened of him), taking a bar-stool directly opposite the kitchen door. As I settled myself, one of the two oldish men in the kitchen put on his coat and announced he was off to pick up his car from the garage, leaving the other one fuming and grumbling out loud 'I'll feckin' killim, leavin' me on my own at lunchtime!' over and over.

I noticed they had Steak & Kidney Pie on the menu, and eavesdropped with interest when someone approached the barmaid and asked about it.
'Does it have pastry top and bottom?'
Aha, I though, a fellow competitor.
'Ooh yes,' said the barmaid, 'it's lovely.'

So he ordered one, and I watched in jaw-dropping, eye-rolling, tearing-my-hair-out horror as the grumbling madman in the kitchen assembled this utter travesty of a pie. He removed two frozen puff-pastry 'pie-shells' from the freezer, defrosted them in the microwave and popped them under a grille to brown. Meanwhile he heated up the S & K filling, put french fries and salad on a plate, and then built the 'pie' - one crust on the bottom, some filling, second crust on the top. I have never in my entire life seen anything so bizarre. Neither, I imagine, had the poor customer who'd ordered it, probably wouldn't be able to bring himself to eat it, but would still have to pay over a tenner for it. And this sacrilege was carried out on the very day of judgment of the British Pie Awards.

But I digress. You get the idea that I am passionate about pies. And so, I hope, are you. May the Pi be with you.

Trains, Planes, Automobiles, Car Ferries and a Jelly Tot

We've known for about six months that one of the clan would be celebrating his 50th birthday in the Netherlands in mid-October. But did anybody book any flights when they were cheap? Nooooo, of course not. So we ended up organising the most bizarrely impractical itinerary for the weekend just gone.

We had basically given up on the idea of the Holland trip because we had no money and the fares between Madrid and Amsterdam had just become insane. But then one of the bruvvers said he would be driving from Surrey to the Netherlands via a car ferry from Dover to Dunkerque. So if we could get to Dunkerque, he could take us to Holland. A bit of research quickly revealed that to be a non-starter (based on flying to Paris CDG, TGV to Lille and local train to Dunkerque, we'd be looking at €350 each, each way). But then he had a brainwave-ette, and we checked fares from Madrid to Gatwick. Not too bad, actually, for the outbound sector. Coming back on Monday was pretty nasty though. MamaDuck needed an earlyish flight because she had classes from about 1330 on Monday. But we bit the bullet and got her a direct ticket from Schiphol to Barajas, while I opted to return to London in the car, stay overnight with the Offspring, and grab a €34 flight back from Gatwick on Tuesday evening.

As you can imagine, getting to nearly-Amsterdam was going to be somewhat circuitous, but we didn't mind because
1) We weren't driving
2) We'd have a couple of hours on the ferry, and that might be fun
3) It makes a total change from flying everywhere

SATURDAY
MamaDuck was working late on Friday, so we'd booked an early flight on Saturday, along with a minibus to take us to the airport. I am totally paranoid about missing flights and stuff, and when they say you need to be there 2 hours before departure, that is what I do. So we were up at 0430, in the van at 0515, at the airport 10 minutes later. The formalities were completed in no time at all, and we spent a couple of boring hours waiting for the flight. When it was all boarded we waited half an hour on the tarmac because the Air Traffic Control computer had crashed (that's really not a word you want to hear your pilot using) and so they couldn't issue the aircraft with a flight plan. Smart-ass passengers thought things like 'go North', but it's apparently a bit more complex than that.

At Gatwick we found our driver after a fair bit of exploration of the various car parks. We headed down to Dover, and arrived in plenty of time for the ferry. It was a pleasant surprise to find that security consisted of nothing more than a quick look in the boot.

I haven't been on a ferry for decades, but I remember loving the fact that you could wander around the public bits of the boat and weren't restricted to one tiny seat. We had a good, reasonably-priced lunch, served by jovial staff, and before we knew it we were pulling into Dunkerque.

We thought the drive up to nearly-Amsterdam would take about 3.5 hours. It actually took more like 5 because we got lost around Antwerp. We stopped for a coffee somewhere in Belgium, and didn't know whether to order in French or Flemish (as if!), but the girl spoke perfect English anyway.

The weather was lovely - sunny and warm - there were hot air balloons and lots and lots of wind turbines. Once we'd recovered from our undesired tour of Antwerp's ring road, we made good time and were around the outskirts of Amsterdam at dusk. We had GPS on one of the phones, but hadn't used it much because of astronomical data roaming charges. We did use it when we were lost in the little residential streets around our destination, and you really had to be there to hear the English GPS voice try to pronounce 'Wijkermeerstraat'.

The Dutch make a big deal out of 50th birthdays - blokes of this age become 'Abrahams' and ladies are 'Sarahs'. Abraham is a wise and reverend old man who 'knows where the mustard comes from'. Don't ask. Anyway, our Abraham's wife (who still has a few years to go before becoming a Sarah) had hired a local bar/restaurant, decorated it with the traditional Abraham stuff, and invited half the neighbourhood. A great time was had by all, and we staggered home about 2am, having been up for 22 hours.

SUNDAY
Sunday was a pretty lazy day. Abraham cooked a full English breakfast, his two boys were delivered by his mother-in-law, and we all went to a nearby patch of woodland with a couple of lakes in it. The kidz had a great time, and we finished up having some nibbles and drinks at a futuristic restaurant built out over the lake.

We returned home, and then went back to the restaurant where the party had been and had dinner. Being accustomed to Spanish mealtimes, the idea of booking a table for dinner at 1830 just seemed plain weird.

MONDAY
Monday was the parting of the ways: we set off at 0800, dropped MamaDuck off at Schiphol ('just catching the plane to work, dahling, see you later xx'), and then headed back to Dunkerque, from where we were booked on the 1400 sailing. The weather was a bit foggy, but not dangerously so, but we really had no idea how long the trip would take because we were likely to get stuck in morning rush-hour congestion around Rotterdam and Breda. As it happened, there was no serious congestion, we didn't get lost, and by 1115 it looked possible that we could make the 1200 sailing. So we went a lil bit faster. What we'd forgotten, of course, was that the Ferry Terminal is about 10kms south of Dunkerque town, and the last 5kms are on windy little local roads with lots of roundabouts. We got into the Terminal at 1150, but UK Border Agency were a bit dubious about Driver's passport picture (and I don't blame them - it's 9 years old and looks a lot more like Abraham than Driver), and the ferry was pulling out as we parked up. Entering the Terminal building, we realised we'd made a terrible mistake. It was nothing more than a big room containing a play area, some tables and chairs, some vending machines, and a determinedly shut café. Pretty grim place to spend the next 90 minutes.

The crossing and the drive that followed were unremarkable, and around 1800 I was dropped off at Woking railway station. The ticket office was closed, and the ticket machine was too dumb to tell me why it kept rejecting the €20 note that I was trying to feed it with. I finally noticed my mistake and hurried off to a bank to withdraw some BritDosh™.

The plan for the evening was to meet Offspring and Old Mate From When We Lived In Dubai, and have a beer or two. Offspring had found a completely amazing, hidden-down-an-alley pub called Ye Olde Mitre, and it's really worth a look if you're ever in that part of London. Old Mate toddled off about 2130, and we weren't far behind. We toddled off to Offspring's new flat in St Reatham, made a plan for the following day, and had an early night.

TUESDAY
So, the plan was that Offspring would get off work a bit early, and we would meet in a pub near London Bridge Station at 1630. I would have to leave between 1730 & 1800 to get a train to Gatwick in plenty of time for my flight.

I got to the pub half an hour early, so I went into the station to get me a ticket to Gatwick. As I was waiting in the queue, I pulled out my boarding card just to quadruple-check the departure time. I was beyond surprised to see it was a little over one hour from now. Instant panic ensued, and a quite unbelievable problem materialised out of thin air.

See, I'd bought Offspring a belated Graduation Present. I can't tell you what it is, because he hasn't got it yet. But it's definitely something you cannot take onto an aeroplane in your hand baggage; for the sake of brevity we'll say it's a 101g Jelly Tot. I rushed around London Bridge station, found the Information Desk and asked if there was a Post Office or Left Luggage facility. Nope, they had neither, but Waterloo station had both. No good. I phoned Offspring, told him what had happened, got a ticket and was at Gatwick Airport in about half an hour.

A helpful lady there said no, there wasn't a Post Office, but there were some postboxes. In my addled state, I didn't know what she meant, and I asked her to explain. She happened to be standing beside one. A tall red tube-like thing with a slot that you put letters into. Ah. No, thanks. Left luggage? Yes, in the Arrivals Hall.

I ran to this place and deposited the Jelly Tot. The chap explained it would be £8 per day or part thereof, and I said I would get someone to collect it tomorrow. Fine, said the chap, just make sure they bring the original receipt. Another part of my world crumbled. I explained I was on my way to Spain - surely I could fax them a copy or scan it and email it? Nope, guv, has to be the original, guv, I don't make the rules, etc, guv. Grrr.

No point in arguing further, and I had a plane to catch. I mentioned Gatwick's marvellous new security system in this post, and was thrilled that it worked pretty quickly even when there were quite a few passengers - I think I got through in 7 minutes, and then pelted down the corridor to the gate, stamping on small children, leaping over carelessly positioned wheelie-bags and pushing aside other obstacles in a willy-nilly fashion. They had just opened the gate when I arrived, and quite a few stragglers joined the queue after me - some of them looked like they had recently been roughed up by a small tornado or a high-speed maniac. A couple of them looked at me with very slitty eyes indeed.

WEDNESDAY
I was home by about 2130 Tuesday, twitching mightily as I retold the story to MamaDuck. Even now, I haven't the slightest idea how I managed such a monumental screw-up. And now we have the problem of getting the Jelly Tot to its rightful owner. Just to complicate things a bit more, OffSpring is off to Scotland today for a week. So Driver is going to retrieve it: I've sent him the receipt by Registered Post. He should get it Friday morning. He's driving past Gatwick anyway on his way down to Dover (to get a ferry and then drive to the South of France where he mostly lives). He will then have to try to post it before attempting to board the ferry with it.

But the good news is, after all this stressiosity, I didn't reward myself with a smoke.

Moving [Eventually]

They do say that moving house is up there with divorce and the death of a loved one in the stress stakes. And they're not wrong. We've moved twice in Madrid, and now we're onto our third one. Or maybe not. I'd mentioned to my mate the property rental guy that we would be looking to move to a bigger place - at the very least we wanted 2 bedrooms so we could have guests. This was back in September, I think, and almost immediately he came up with an attractive place, not very far from where we are now. Lots of space, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and more or less the same rent we're paying now. We paid one month's rent as a holding deposit, and gave our current landlady one month's notice. She refused to accept the notice, brandishing our original contract which she interprets as meaning 'you can only leave at the end of each complete year'. I personally think this is wrong, but don't have the money, time or inclination to hire a lawyer.

So we were obliged to stay put until the end on March, when the second year was up (had we been able to find anyone to take over the lease, that would have been fine, but winter is less than great in the rental market). Towards the end of March, I spoke to my buddy about moving, and he went kinda pale - he said there were short-term tenants in the new place until the end of June, but was sure there wouldn't be a problem for us to extend our current lease until then. Well, of course there wouldn't, except we really, really don't want to. We are desperate for that extra space. Long story short, he tried to move the tenants of the new place somewhere else, and it didn't work.

So, end of March approaching, we need to move, and we need our 'holding' deposit back.

Christmas and That

First of all, Happy New Year to you all: let's hope it's a good 'un, despite all evidence to the contrary. And apologies for the lack of posting - the pie biz went insane in December (I must have sold 400-500 mince pies!), and then it was Christmas, and now the web biz has gone crazy. Moan, moan, whinge, whinge.

Our Christmas kicked off about a week early when we had our traditional mince pies, mulled wine and carol singing bash. 30-40 people crammed themselves into our little flat, and a great time was had by all.

The Offspring visited us for a lovely week. His departure from Heathrow on the 22nd was touch and go right until the plane's wheels left the tarmac (you may remember Heathrow Airport's astonishment and total failure to cope with a bit of snow and ice since the previous Saturday).

I treated Offspring to a tour of all the local supermarkets, trying to find Brussels sprouts, but picking up several tons of other stuff on the way. Because he's young and fit, I made him carry all the stuff, and he began eyeing old ladies' shopping trolleys with envy. I said I was willing to buy one (and I really do need one now, with the amount of flour and meat I buy now for the pies), as long as it was tartan-free. Don't get me wrong: tartan looks great on kilts and bagpipes, but for God's sake, why do shopping trolley manufacturers think it looks good on their products? Anyway, we managed to find a plain one in a funky purple, and so it was purchased.

On Christmas Eve we went to the movies to see Little Fockers. I'm not thrilled by the Focker movies - I find the humour a little too crude for my refined and snobbish tastes, but MamaDuck and the Offspring enjoyed it, so that was okay.

Parsnips are pretty much like Unobtainium in Madrid (I have seen them as part of a cocido vegetable mix at Lidl, but that involves, like, going into Lidl). Brussels sprouts were pretty thin on the ground too - a tour of five local supermarkets produced one packet of frozen ones, but then I spotted fresh ones in a fruit and veg shop nearby, so I got some of those too. I don't normally go a bundle on sprouts, but this year I did this recipe from Gordon Ramsay, and they were very good indeed.

I fancied having a goose for Christmas dinner this (last, 2010) year, but it was not to be. Enquiries at poultry stalls in the local market had me wondering if 'oca' meant 'stoat' or 'raccoon', rather than 'goose' as my dictionary told me, such was the bewildered response from the stallholders. Even having a friend enquire of the poulterer he's used for 20 years (and who did once manage to get my friend a goose, although it turns out it was 10 years ago now) drew a blank. So, no goose for us, and I didn't fancy cochinillo (suckling pig), so it was the ever-reliable turkey.

The one I got turned out to be a bit too big for our oven, so I ended up having to roast it without its legs and parson's nose. But the seven of us enjoyed it, and we've been eating the leftovers for the past week. All gone now, thankfully.

As a surprise, I'd bought us all tickets for a circus on Boxing Day. It was the first show of the day, 12 noon. Imagine my joy when I awoke at 5 to 12. I was all for forgetting about it, but MamaDuck woke like a shot, forced tea down us in record time, got us into a taxi and had us strolling into the big top at 12.15, just as the show was starting. And it was very, very good. It's owned by Teresa Rabal - not a name I'd ever heard of, but speaking to a Spanish friend the other day, she's what kids of several generations grew up on (possibly the singing equivalent of John Noakes and Valerie Singleton to Brit kids). A bit of a legend, in other words.

The Offspring left on the 28th, and after we'd seen him off at the airport we got the new 24-hour airport bus service and finished up at Cibeles. We had lunch at the James Joyce pub and when we came out I noticed that the queue for the Belén (Nativity scene) at Nuestra Señora de Communiciones (formerly the main Post Office, now the Municipality HQ) was very short. We joined it, and we were inside in about ten minutes. I'd suspected that this year's Belén would be a small and disappointing affair, what with Spain being bankrupt and that, but it wasn't. It was enormous and splendid - the best I've ever seen. After that we went for a wander in Retiro Park, where we saw a red squirrel wandering around a lawn, and as the sun set we went to look at the marvellous Christmas lights on Calle Serrano.

We had an elaborate plan for New Year's Eve. We were going to wander up to the Plaza de Castilla, from where we might be able to see some fireworks. But at about 11.30 we decided not to do that. So we stayed home and watched it on the telly. I picked out the best 24 grapes that we had (silly Spanish tradition - eat one grape for each bong of the midnight bells and you'll have good luck for the next year), and dug out the cava flutes. One of MamaDuck's brothers Skyped us from the UK at ten to midnight, and stayed with us until New Year arrived in the Canaries (and the UK, of course) an hour later. Great fun, and an unexpected pleasure. We stayed up for an hour or two after that, watching old clips of Spanish stars doing their stuff - one of them was a young Teresa Rabal!

In the following days I tried to do some work, but my heart wasn't in it. The Christmas season in Spain doesn't end until the Magic Kings have been - they come on the evening of 5th Jan and the kids wake up to get their presents on the 6th. We toyed with the idea of taking the stepladder and watching the main parade on the Paseo de la Castellana, but MamaDuck came home from wherever she'd been with the idea that there would be a Cabalgata de los Reyes Magos on Calle Bravo Murillo, a very short walk from where we live. So we went to that one instead (I hadn't realised before, but many of the outlying barrios of Madrid have their own parades) - it was a much smaller affair, but it did mean we actually got some of the sweets that they throw from the floats, and we got to see Teresa Rabal yet again on the Circus's float.

So there ya go. Another magical Madrid festive season, only slightly ruined by the introduction of a smoking ban in all bars and restaurants. Sales of outdoor heaters are rocketing, apparently.

¡Feliz Año a todos!

Heston Blumenthal and Me

Me and Heston have many things in common - we're both great cooks, both a bit geeky, and both suffering from a shortage of candied orange.

In Heston's case, you might have read the story in the news. He occasionally creates dishes for the upmarket UK supermarket chain Waitrose. For this Christmas season, he invented a large (12-14 people) Christmas pudding with a whole candied Seville orange in the middle. The company contracted to make these babies - Northern Foods - bought the entire year's supply of whole candied Seville oranges. About a week ago, it was announced that they were only days away from selling the entire production. And it takes seven weeks to candy a whole orange. These puddings are now selling on eBay for upwards of a thousand quid.

In my case, I thought it would be prudent to make mince pies for the Christmas season. I reckoned I'd planned ahead for this by making 5 litres of mincemeat - you can buy it in Madrid, but it's full of bad stuff and it's very expensive. If you're unfamiliar with mincemeat, it contains sultanas, raisins, apple, cider, chopped nuts, spices, and, in my recipe, about a half litre of brandy. Traditionally, mincemeat also contains suet, but to make ours vegetarian friendly, we use shredded butter instead. Oh, I nearly forgot, it also has candied orange peel in it. Now, I've searched high and low for candied peel, without success, so I decided to make my own. It takes four days, but it was pretty fab.



So, off we go making mince pies at the beginning of December, and before I know it, we're down to the last jar of mincemeat. Fortunately, I still have enough candied peel, and I make twice the quantity of the first batch. But in the last week, we've sold hundreds of mince pies, with more orders to fulfil in the next few days. I realised this situation was looming, so a few days ago I made some more candied peel. Except - and my marketing buddies will say I shouldn't tell you this, but hey, I'm an honest kinda dude with a full selection of funny hats - I screwed up. Didn't put enough sugar into the mix, so instead of drying out into the preserved fruit wossname we wanted, it all started to go black. Blueghhh.

I made another batch of mincemeat tonight, but instead of candied peel I used caramelised orange peel (which takes about an hour to make rather than four days), and I don't think I'll be getting any complaints.

And while I'm in boasting mode, let me just share this comment from one of my customers: "Those pies are amazing! I have only recently developed a taste for mince pies but those are the best I have ever had, and I have tried a lot."

So nerr.

Awayday

We went to San Sebastian de los Reyes today. If you've ever been there, you'll be wondering why. It doesn't seem to have any historical interest, and not even the most optimistic town councillor would describe it as pretty. It's a kind of newish dormitory town to the north of Madrid. The reasons for the visit were twofold:

1) To check out a shop selling British products there

and

2) It's time for the annual IKEA trip.

When we emerged from the Metro at Hospital Infanta Sofia, we had an incredible sense of deja vu: the last time we went to a place like this was when we went to the IKEA at Las Suertes to the south of Madrid. Identical Metro station design, a view of motorways, mountains and general back-of-beyondness, and then wide boulevards flanked by 7-storey brick-clad apartment buildings and plenty of empty plots of land. All a bit desolate and weird.

Item one is called The Food Hall, and basically I wanted to see if it was worth trying to sell my pies to them. We came away with a selection of loot - a Wright's (of Crewe) Steak & Kidney pie for research purposes (yes it was as nasty as you'd expect for a pie that was made in England, frozen, shipped to Spain and ultimately sold for a bit over 2 Euros), a couple of Scotch Pies (pretty good, actually), 3 bottles of beer (Old Speckled Hen & Black Sheep), a bar of Cadbury's chocolate, some oatcakes (I don't know - the missus chose them) and some dried cranberries. 

Item two; when looking at the location of The Food Hall, I noticed there's an IKEA 'nearby'. So we had a spot of lunch, and set off walking in search of the big blue box. We found it after about 20 minutes, or rather, we found its backside, the bit where people pick up big bits of furniture. It was another 10 minutes' walk to get to the front door. And then the usual half-hour trek to go through the store and get to the checkouts. And the reason for going? In previous years, I've always bought these slippers they sell for mooching around the house in. They're very cheap, always come in bright colours, and only last for one winter. So I need some new ones, but was rather narked that I couldn't find them.

So we went to the 'nearby' Carrefour hypermarket - we were in some kind of 'retail park' - lots of big box stores around a gazillion-hectare car park. Again, miles and miles of walking. I did get some slippers, and some vino, and some turkey breast (gonna make some turkey & cranberry pies). And then we staggered, exhausted, up the hill to the Metro station.

Down To The River

Unlike all other European capitals, Madrid does not sit astride a big river. It does, however, sit beside a little one, the much ignored Río Manzanares. The lack of flowing water was always a downside to Madrid for us, so I was interested to hear the plan by Alberto Ruíz Gallardón, Mayor of Madrid, to bury about 6 kilometres of the M-30 motorway, which had previously formed a fairly impenetrable barrier between the city and the river (you've got to admire 70s and 80s Town Planning, for its sheer stupidity, if nothing else). With the motorway out of the picture, the plan then was to create a linear park along both banks, a beach, a rowing area and some cafés. Existing bridges would be refurbished, one or two of them closed to traffic, and about nine new footbridges would be built.





Recently we heard that much of the park is now open, so we went to have a peep. I have to say the bit we saw (between Principe Pio and Estadio Vicente Calderón) is very impressive. The hard landscaping uses rough-hewn slabs of granite for walls, smooth granite for footpath edges, and something like rough slate setts for the paths themselves. Metal details like fences and lighting are done in stainless steel. These materials will look good for a very long time, and the stone will actually improve with age, unlike the rain-stained concrete that would have inevitably have been used if this project were done in, say, Sheffield. Plants and trees, obviously, need a couple of years to mature, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops.



I'm wondering what they can do get more water into the river - it only seems to be about a foot deep at the moment, although staining on the old embankment walls show it can be a couple of metres deep. We saw two pairs of sluice gates - I guess they could use these to trap more water in the central section.



Anyway, a marvellous project, and I'm sure the EU thinks it was money well spent!

Another Football Story

So last night I donned my Cruzcampo cap, slapped a flag on each cheek and went off to find my buddies to watch the Spain vs Portugal match at a terrace bar near the Bernabeu. I've never been to this place before ('Boulevard'), and it would have seriously helped if they'd had some signs up announcing their name. I must have walked round it two or three times (and I'd forgotten my phone, so I was somewhat stuffed). On the fourth pass somebody guarding the entrance gave me a flag and I asked him if he knew where this Boulevard place was, and he said 'here!'

The match wasn't great, but Spain got the goal that counted and Ronaldo the Smirking Diving Cheating Git didn't get on my tetas too much. So that was grand. And of course, walking back up the Paseo de la Castellana was an absolute treat - thousands of happy fans on foot and in cars, lots of good-natured horn-blowing and flag-waving; hard to beat, really.

And the next game is against Paraguay, which everybody seems to think should be a walkover...

Great British Food in Spain

The waiting is over and the website is now up and running. If you live in Central Madrid (inside the M-30 motorway), you can now order our fabulous pies: pork and pickle, chicken and ham, beef pasties, steak and kidney, chicken and mushroom, and a little apple one for your pudding. Oh, and we're also doing scotch eggs.

Great British Food. You know you lurve it.

Spanish Health Service

I posted a couple of weeks ago about a visit or two to my doctor. This eventually resulted in a referral to a specialist medical centre up the road. The appointment was for this morning, and I put the previous horrible experience out of my mind. My positive approach worked: a young lady came out of the consulting room and told us who was who in the queue. I was actually seen at the appointed time, and the consultant spoke English! Brilliant. He didn't actually do anything much, though, just gave me some forms. One for a hospital appointment, and another for a follow-up with him where he would tell me the results.

Things took a turn for the worse after that. The appointments room was packed solid with people, and it took me five minutes to work out there was a ticket system in operation, and another five minutes to actually locate the ticket dispenser (it wasn't actually in the room, it was about ten metres away down the corridor outside). I was horrified to see I was number 818. The display was currently showing 702. I stood waiting for a few minutes to see how fast people were being dealt with. The answer was 'not very', so I went for a long walk. When I got back, the queue had advanced by about thirty. I went and did some shopping - the queues in the supermarket are normally fairly long and slow, but today I just whizzed through the checkout.

Back at the medical centre, there were still fifty-odd people ahead of me, so I went walking again. The display had just reached 800 when I got back, and the crowd was thinning out so I managed to get a seat. But I still had my positive little attitude on me. It would soon be my turn and then I would find out how Spanish hospital waiting lists would compare to British ones. I felt sure they'd be much shorter. Finally, after only one and a half hours of waiting, it was my turn.

The lady at the counter looked at my appointment request, looked at the computer, looked a bit puzzled, and picked up the phone. It seems the department in question is fully booked until the end of July.

'And after that?'

'Vacacciones.'

But surely they still operate the service? Buggered if I know. Try again in a couple of weeks, I think she said. And she very helpfully gave me the number for the free appointments phone line, which, of course, I am never going to use. Annoyed doesn't begin to describe how I'm feeling right now.

UPDATE: to be fair, I've just looked at the stack of papers they gave me, and the hospital appointment sheet has 3 boxes the doc can tick to indicate priority. It goes from urgent, in which case you should be seen within fourteen day, medium, a month, and non-urgent, three months. Guess which one is ticked on my form?

A Luvverly Day

Like most of the slobs on this planet, I am quite capable of staying in bed until noon or beyond on a Sunday. But this morning was different. I was awake at five a.m., and began thinking about my new project. In my head, I was designing the workflow for the production facility, and even had an idea for how the façade should look. Then I moved on to directing the CGI animated TV commercial. Sleep was avoiding me, so I gave in and got up at seven. MamaDuck showed no signs of stirring, so rather than disturb her I got dressed and went out in search of a coffee.

On a triple holiday (Sunday / Dos de Mayo / Mother's Day), most cafés were resolutely closed (okay, it was also a tad early for most of them), and I was about 2km from home by the time I found an open one. I had a chat with a couple of young Spanish guys who were rounding off their night out with a couple more beers (I kid you not), and when I left the café, the sun was giving a bit of warmth to the day and I didn't feel like going home.

I had an idea. I would do something MamaDuck has repeatedly tried to get me to do previously, i.e. go to the Rastro. The Rastro is a huge flea market that takes place in the La Latino / Embajadores areas in the south of the city. It's more or less over by one or two in the afternoon, and I don't really like it because of the crowds. But I thought if I got there early enough it wouldn't be too bad.

Unfortunately, I'd left my sense of direction at home, and I soon found myself in Argüelles and then Moncloa, which are in the west end of Madrid. So I started heading east, and ended up in good old Chueca. I headed west again, along Gran Vía / Princesa before realising that what I should really try to do was head south a bit. And so it was that when my phone rang at about nine, I was outside the Palacio Real. I told MamaDuck I was on my way to the Rastro, and invited her to meet me there.

'Who are you, and what have you done with my husband?' she demanded. Anyway, she said she would come. And I realised that the top end of the Rastro (it's actually on a very long, straight, steep street) was somewhere near Plaza Mayor, so I headed up there. I stopped at a café for a thirst-quenching caña (small beer), and tootled down the hill to Calle de Toledo, which, if you proceed in the right direction, takes you to the Rastro. I realised the crowds were going the opposite way to me, so I turned round and followed them, and pretty soon was at the bar outside La Latina Metro station where we'd agreed to meet. She wasn't there, so I sneaked another quick caña and went outside to find a bench to sit on - that particular bar is all counter and no seats, and my little legs were a bit weary from all the walking. I soon spotted the boss and we went to another caff where we could sit outside and have a bit of breakfast.

We mooched through the Rastro - it was fairly busy, but not unpleasantly so, and about halfway down the hill I spotted an inviting-looking archway. We went through it and found ourselves in a marvellous Italianate courtyard with antique shops at ground level and lining the gallery above (I can't remember the name - it was Galerias de something) - I'll go back there one day with my camera.

The Rastro, with its infinite array of tat of all descriptions, didn't have anything we wanted to buy, so we carried on to the bottom of the hill, fought our way through the crowds on the Ronda de Toledo, and then escaped up into Lavapiés where a couple of cool drinks were waiting for us on a pavement table. The Spanish Air Force kindly put on a couple of fly-bys for us, and finally we made our way to Retiro Park to look at trees and ducks and swans, and consume a bit more beer and a sandwich.

The sky was turning cloudy at this point, and it was half past three, so we went and found a bus and came home. Perfect day, really. And I reckon I'll sleep okay tonight.

Quiet Round Here

Once again I find myself apologizing for the lack of posting on this blog. I'll blame this on several factors.

1) Nothing much happening - well, nothing positive, anyway.

2) Ongoing family crisis in the UK that has us all depressed.

3) I've been posting a canny bit on my new writing blog.

I was going to do a post about our trip to the beautiful town of Alcala de Henares just before New Year. But the photos are terrible (it was pissing it down that day), so I think I'll save that post until we go again.

What else to talk about? Oh, yes, I'm a Brit, so the weather is always an acceptable subject. It's been chuffing cold (I think I had an attack of mild hyperthermia last night - just couldn't stop shivering, so I got up, put both the heaters on max, and had a cup of tea). It snowed all day yesterday, but didn't settle. Today it's raining. Bloody miserable.

To end on a happy note: we met with our landlady's daughter yesterday. We didn't really know why a meeting was arranged. But the lease renewal is coming up, and the President of our building's community (responsible for maintenance of common area) hates us, so I half expected we were going to be given the boot. But no. If we are happy to stay, would we accept a reduction in the rent? Well, bears, woods and poo.

Let It Snow...

Woohoo! It was bloody cold yesterday, and the roads around us were gritted around 10pm, so I wasn't entirely surprised to wake up to see an inch or so of snow sitting on the ground. I rushed down to the little park at the end of the main road to get some piccies.

And when I got home, the flat had been invaded by hornéd Vikings (well, just the one, and she was quite cute).

San Antón Market, Chueca

This is gonna be a rant about architecture and fake bricks. Sorry.

When we moved into Plaza de Chueca, Madrid a couple of years ago, there was a fenced-off hole in the ground directly opposite the entrance to the Plaza, on Calle Augusto Figueroa. A sign announced it to be the site of the new Mercado de San Antón (I have no idea if there had previously been a market on the site, and if there had been, what happened to it). While the Barceló market was only a few blocks away, we awaited developments with interest. The site appeared to be dormant for about eighteen months, when suddenly it sprang to life, in November 2008. The grotty graffiti- and fly-poster-covered fence was removed and replaced with a tall and shiny corrugated aluminium barrier (and a week later it too was bespattered by graffiti and fly-posters). Site huts were installed, followed a few days later by a tower crane that moved so much in the wind we were convinced it would not survive the construction process.

And a few days later, up went the sign with an 'artists impression' of what it would look like.

Oh. My. Giddy. Aunt.

What the fuck is that? It looks like the very worst of British municipal 'architecture' from the seventies - and I should know, I grew up in the town that invented it. I stared at the sign in disbelief, trying to analyse what this picture is telling me. Okay, Keefie, take a deep breath. Right. It looks like a two-storey monolithic podium. At the ground level, it's clad in black stuff: can't tell what it is. There don't seem to be any openings like doors or windows in it on the main street elevation. Above that, the first storey seems to be clad in pinky-red tiles or brick slips*, arranged vertically. Looks like the top floor splits into two chunks with a gap in the middle suggesting a light-well or atrium. And this level is clad in golden tile or brick.

I rush home to get my camera: I have to document this. It must be a mistake. The Municipality has held a design competition, and this was the losing entry but a junior clerk was given the job of ordering the sign and supplied the wrong image. Hohoho, how they will laugh when they realise the mistake.

After a lengthy delay while the contractors built two levels of underground parking, the concrete superstructure began to emerge. Oh. My. God. It wasn't a mistake, they were actually building the shite in the picture. At this point we felt obliged to move a long way away.

A few weeks ago, I was showing our visitors around central Madrid, and we went into Chueca. The building is very well advanced: only a few weeks from completion, I guess. It's far, far worse than the 'artists impression'.

Oh, man, this is just awful. My pictures probably don't do it justice, but you have vast expanses of one batch of brick slips, interspersed with a different batch that should be the same colour, but is different enough to make it look like the cock-up it is. And because the 'architect' has designed this abomination with no surface relief whatsoever, your eyes are drawn to the errors. The corners are awful: there's no pretence that this is real brickwork (because it very obviously isn't) - maybe the 'architect' thought he was making some kind of ironic post-modern joke, because if you were actually building this thing in brick it would fall down: the brick slips cladding the first floor are stuck onto the concrete as if they were tiles (which they are, of course): around the corner they are stuck on in a stretcher bond pattern. It's just too awful for words.

And look, look! Down that little street, how this blank, ugly facade says 'fuck you, hombre' to the delicately detailed buildings around it.

Well, you know, 'fuck you' can sometimes work extremely well in historic urban contexts. But the building doing the fucking had better be good enough (go to St Mary Axe in London and see how Number 30 just completely ignores its context, but you don't actually care because that is one helluva gorgeous building).

So, early next year this hideous affront to the fine-grained architecture of Chueca will open. Graffiti artists will abseil from the roof and decorate it. I might be one of them.

*Brick slips - just like normal bricks - same material, same texture - but only a centimetre thick: used when you want to convey the impression of bricks in an unsuitably bricky context.

Reasons To Be Grumpy

MamaDuck's cold, which has been incubating for a while, burst into its full glory this morning. So she hasn't gone to work, and needs to see a doctor. In our usual lackadaisical way, we haven't registered with the local Health Centre since we moved in April. And that's because we didn't get a new Empadronomiento* when we moved. We nearly did: we got as far as downloading the form and filling it in, but didn't actually give it to anybody. So, off we trot to the Ayuntamiento*, along with half the population of our district. When we found the building, there was a queue to get through the door (all bags and bodies were being x-rayed). Then there was a queue to get a ticket for the queue. And then there was the crowd of people waiting to be seen by about 15 officials. Our number came up after about 50 minutes, and we presented every scrap of documentation we had to the nice lady at the counter. She looked at it, tapped something into the computer, and handed us the sheet of paper she'd just printed. It was clearly not an empadronomiento. It was an appointment for tomorrow.

Ho hum. So MamaDuck got herself an appointment at our old Health Centre in Chueca, and has gone to cough and splutter all over a doctor.

*Empadronomiento =registration with the local council so they know how many binmen, schools and traffic wardens they need.

* Ayuntamiento - Town Hall.

I Have A Feeling...

'Tengo Una Corazonada' is the slogan for Madrid's bid for the 2016 Olympics. It means 'I have a feeling'. Today, the IOC will make its decision. I have a feeling that Madrid has no chance for the very simple reason that 2012 is in London and they never have consecutive Games on the same continent. Still, we live in hope...

Shall I venture a prediction? On the basis of almost no evidence: Rio, Madrid, Chicago, Tokyo. Let's see how wrong I can be!

5.20pm: Chicago out!

5.30pm: Tokyo eliminado!

5.45pm: We have to wait another 45 minutes. Tension is mounting. I think Madrid can do it: 70% of the infrastructure is already built (including Metro station Estadio Olimpico): this makes it a good bet in these financially-straitened times. Plus security is not the concern it might be in Rio. Fingers crossed...



I wish I'd known this was happening a bit earlier: coulda gone down to Plaza de Oriente (outside the Royal Palace) and got me a BIG HAND.

6.25pm:
TeleMadrid is showing Plaza de Oriente and Rio side-by-side: I have to say if it depends on the size of the crowd, Rio wins.

6.55pm: Rio. Borrocks.

So I was three-quarters right with my prediction, and there's always 2020.

La Noche En Blanco

Last night was La Noche En Blanco (White Night). This is a thing that's been happening in Madrid for the last four years, but it's the first time we've actually been. It started in Paris in 2002, and now happens in Brussels, Riga, Bucharest, Valetta and Amsterdam and other places. It's basically an all-night arts festival. Traffic is banned from the centre and the streets are thronged with people. Galleries throw open their doors (and vast queues form). Places that are not normally open to the public host events. There's a beautiful garden on the corner of Cibeles; it's part of the Army's HQ, and normally you'd stand a good chance of being shot if you tried to get in.

MamaDuck arrived back from the UK yesterday afternoon and said she wanted to go. So we hadn't really planned an itinerary, and just spent a few hours wandering around. Lots of people had white balloons, and we finished up in Plaza Mayor where they were being inflated and handed out. There must have been about twenty inflation stations, but the queues to get balloons were lengthy. Being a bit geriatric, we were home by 1am, but the events continue until 6am. The Metro stays open till 3am, instead of closing a 1am as it normally does.

Good fun.

Hot, Hot, Hot!

I'm beginning to understand why most Madrileños get out of the city in August if they can. It's bloody hot (high 30s, methinks) and it's been a bit humid the last few days. You might think we should be used to it, having lived in Dubai for so long. But everything in Dubai is air-conditioned, even the cheapest, nastiest car has a/c. So you run from building to car and back again and don't really experience the heat. In Spain the extreme heat only hits for a month or two, so air conditioning is not so common.

We had a house-warming party a month ago, and about thirty people came. The house certainly got warm, and two of our neighbours disappeared down to their store-room and came back with a portable air-conditioner. They said they didn't need it in their flat because they've got permanent a/c installed, so we could hang on to it as long as we wanted. It was extremely kind of them, but we really didn't think we'd use it. It has, however, been on day and night for most of the last week.

Before we made the move to Spain (2 years and 12 days ago, in fact), we spent a couple of summers in Valencia and Barcelona. During the second of these trips we did a 2-week intensive Spanish course. On our way to class one day (we might have got off the tram one stop too early), my shirt was soaked, so MamaDuck disappeared into a shop and came out bearing a brand-new t-shirt. I put it on and we went into the classroom. Llorence, our conversation teacher took one look at it and collapsed in laughter.



'What does it mean?' I asked.
'Fuck, it's hot,' he replied.

Sadly, that shirt went missing shortly after we returned to Dubai, although I have seen it on sale here in Madrid.

Weather Report

We noticed the weather was a little bit cooler today. Of course, it's the first of August, so we're almost into winter. It was quite humid and overcast when we came back from town this afternoon, and at 8pm we heard rain outside. It was a torrential downpour. Which is good, because we hadn't watered the plants on the roof.

Around And About

I promised you some picture of our new neighbourhood, so here goes. Actually, where we live is nothing like this. These picturesque / falling down / ramshackle houses are further down the road, overlooking a small park in a valley.


See the mountains in the background - still a bit of snow on them.