Gustavo Hernandez: The Zeitgeist Movement

Do you know what The Zeitgeist Movement is? I’m sure you have heard something recently on TV or read the newspapers about the slogan “Occupy the Financial World". If any of you are interested in those kinds of news and want to know what’s behind the scenes, you should watch the video down below and visit the movement's website. As I see it, the coincidence with “15-M” isn’t accidental, is it? Has the “Spanish revolution” found its echo in The States? Watch and decide for yourselves … But before that, just as a matter of interest, let me explain that “zeitgeist” is the Hegelian term to describe the “spirit” of a particular period of History, what contemporary historians describe as “mentality”.

 

Juanjo Diego: A small tribute to Steve Jobs

I must confess I am a Mac user (or should I say a Mac lover?) I haven't got an Iphone or an Ipad, but all my computers have been made by Apple Co. for ten years (most musicians use them) And I listen to music from my Ipod (it has inside more than 7000 songs and hundreds of podcasts in English!) Yesterday, the Apple co-founder, Steve jobs, died of cancer, and I think his success story could be very interesting to everybody. I'm not a mythomaniac, and I've always preferred the actual works rather than their makers, but I believe Steve was an amazing man and his speech in Standford in 2005 is a valuable sample of capacity and perseverance (and not very difficult to understand).

Thanks a lot Juanjo! May I just say I also love Apple gadgets and gizmos and nowadays I'm a diehard Mac user. I converted to it a couple of years ago after painfully suffering, for way too long, Bill Gates' unreliable OS, the infamous Windows, a necessary evil, I guess.

BBC's "Holiday": Salamanca (1999)

Some twelve years ago I videotaped (those were the days of non-digital technology!) this two-and-a-half-minute clip from the famous travel programme on the BBC, Holiday. I've always treasured the recording (that's why I later digitalized it and eventually uploaded it on Youtube), as it reminds me of the programme's hugely popular host in those days, the gorgeous Jill Dando, who was tragically murdered a few months later outside his London home by an unknown gunman.

Dando does not appear on the video, but one of her co-presenters instead, whose Indian name I'm unable to remember right now. But that's another story. Anyway, I've transcribed the script down below. Then (no script available this time, sorry!) a former British politician, Michael Portillo, whose father was a Spanish law professor at our university in Franco's days and, being a staunch Republican, went into exile to the UK, came to Spain on a rather spiritual journey searching for his roots. The last stage was, not by chance, our beautiful town. Just one thing: the sound and the picture are slightly out of sync (more noticeably during Portillo's part), but I can't fix the glitch.

Holiday Presenter: A couple of hours down the road to another of Castille’s great cities, Salamanca, which clothes like gold, if you’ve been poetic, or, more prosaically, like sandstone, which is what it's made of. The hotel itself literally grafted onto the ruins of an old church. In fact, this is the kind of place where you can’t fall out of bed without tripping over a monastery or a cathedral. This extravaganza is inside the convent of St. Stephen.

Salamanca’s other claim to fame is its university, built in the 13th century and once as prestigious as Oxford. But that was before the Inquisition got its claws into the place. You have to wonder what was going on in the mind of the sculptor who came up with these creatures.

Salamanca is overwhelmingly one colour: sand. It’s a very nice colour, but when you’ve done the university … sand, the cathedral … sand, the convent … sand, just about all the houses … sand, you get to feel maybe enough is enough and you’re parched for a bit of colour. Did I say … a bit of colour?

The turn-of-the-century Casa Lis is a deluge of colour. It’s now a museum of art nouveau and art deco, with some stunning bits and bobs on display. It’s an oasis in the sand, and the playful contrast to the pomp and circumstance outside.

Night falls on one of the most beautiful Plaza Mayors in Spain. The whole town seems to be here, among them the temporary residents: students, who’ve also come out to play.

Student 1: I think the fact that it’s such a small place and everything is packed into it. It’s not really lacking anything: I mean, nightlife, people, the restaurants, I mean the buildings.

Student 2: It’s the true Spain what you experience when you come here.

Presenter: True Spain? Well, it’s certainly a vision of old Spain which time has not withered.

Salamanca revisited

Simon Calder, a British travel writer, visits Salamanca for 48 hours and is seduced by our lovely city, where he mingles with the university students and comes across an astronaut among the carvings of the cathedrals.

Then American historian Rick Steves immerses himself in the high and vast plateau of central Spain and visits a sunny, sandstone town and the finest Plaza Mayor in Spain. With the help of a local guy he samples a glass of Rioja and a plateful of ham and "bravas" and savours some people-watching. He finally takes in the centuries-old troubadour tradition of "tuna bands.