Barcelona & Sonar 2004

Barcelona Tales

Leaving London is always such a good thing to look forward to, until you face the hell of getting to Heathrow by 5.30AM. Not being one to waste valuable holiday beer money on over-priced airport cabs, I have devised various methods of getting myself on early planes over the years, but following on the tail of a 26-hour gig, this time was particularly unpleasant. Still, I did get myself there, and taking in the grey skies and distinct November-like chill in the June air, I think I would have done another 26 hours without sleep just to get somewhere where summer takes itself seriously and fulfils its warming functions with pride, dignity and a sense of self-worth.

Needless to say, summer in Barcelona does just that, and a much happier sky awaited me there. First glimpses revealed Barcelona to be a city encircled by hills, the blue skies only mildly marred by the fog of city pollution that nestles cosily within them. The trip into town is very easy, taking only about 20 minutes, and I got chatting to an English girl who was meeting up with friends for a week. Now I am the kind of traveller that hates to be identified too easily as such, and therefore hide in toilets/corners/remote areas before pulling out a map. I almost never ask for help and would rather traipse around unnecessarily for hours than be revealed as ignorant of my environment. This girl (never got her name) was the opposite. She had her giant map completely open, destination and current position viciously circled and was struggling in a very American Tourist fashion with a suitcase that must have held clothes for two months. Since she was sitting next to me, I managed a good tube-stylee over-the-shoulder-read of her map and got to Placa de Catalunya without any unnecessary traipsing.

The main reason for being in Barcelona at all was the Sonar Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art. Not working this one, just playing. As the name may or may not suggest to you, this is a festival of largely electronic music and visuals, that ranges from the very experimental and highly chin-strokey in the day, to full-on raves at night. Sonar is not the usual camping-in-a-field hippy-dippy-crusty festival. Sonar By Day takes place in and around one of the contemporary arts museums (don’t ask me which) just off the main drag on the old city, La Ramblas. There are at least four stages that I remember, three outdoors, one indoors, and a record fair where labels/industry people have stalls and do business. Unfortunately for the poor stall holders this was in a basement and so unpleasantly hot I kept well away (and I’m really on the wrong side of a mixing desk to deal with this side of the industry anyway). There are also the requisite bars, inadequate toilets (will any festival ever get this right?) and thousands of people milling about in a bright, bright, sunshiny day mood. Sonar By Night is in a completely different place, in an industrial area that is quite difficult to get to if you can’t find a cab, and trust me, there is a business opportunity for someone here. THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH CABS IN BARCELONA! Someone, please go get rich and sort some more goddamn cabs out! Anyway, this is out in the styx ‘cos it goes on till 6AM and a big portion of it is open to the lovely clear skies.

Checked in to my just-about ok Hostal room (it’s amazing how my standards drop when I’m paying for my own accommodation) and picked up my “accreditacion” (that’s a pass to all events) with ease, being treated like the VIP I always knew I was. Then found friend Joana and we did the only thing there was to do right at that moment, which was find a little table at a lovely tapas bar, on a Placa surrounded by old terracotta Barcelona buildings (and modern Barcelona graffiti), sun twinkling through the shady trees, a random and very beautiful sculpture of a little boy kneeling down, totally absorbed in what he’s looking at on the ground, and order in ice cold cerveza, gazpacho, and yummy snacky tapas. Perfect!

After a tour of the extensive Sonar By Day facilities (and not having to stand in the very long queue to get in (it always serves to have the magic pass (thanks, Jo))) we went for a cup of tea at the home of Georgia, who is one of the people who make Sonar happen, where Jo was staying. Our route, though, went via the Boqueria Market, and I had my first sight of this wonderful place. Beautiful brightly coloured fresh, fresh fruit and veg, everything the right size and colour, no weird treatments to keep them fresh, and meat stalls and fish sellers and lots of hams and chorizos and cheeses to die for. I really wished I had self catering accommodation, as it would have been wonderful to buy stuff to cook there. Next time… There are also little tapas bars dotted around and the fruit stalls cut up all kinds of fruit and sell it in boxes with a fork, so you can eat it as you stroll. This turned into a daily ritual. Café con leche and really really really fresh fruit for breakfast! Now that’s a good way to start a day. Also started another daily ritual of a glass of freshly squeezed kiwi juice. You gotta try it!

Leaving Jo to chill at home, I went for an explore down La Ramblas. This is a pedestrianised street, where cars are barely catered for, and is like many a touristy stretch with café after café and souvenir stall after souvenir stall, but it also has flower sellers and bird sellers and a huge number of human statues and artists selling their wares. Everyone’s hustling for a buck and range from being really crap to really quite OK. The only street performer I ever gave money to was a puppeteer who had the cutest marionette frog playing a grand piano. He was excellent, and required a bit more practice than painting yourself gold and posing as Che Gevara (what a way to make a living – all that paint and make up in a Spanish summer) so he got my Euro…

Down the sea-side end of the Ramblas was something a bit special. A bunch of Tibetan Monks were “making” (not sure what the verb should be here…) a Mandala. I was absolutely awestruck by the patience and beauty of it, never having heard of this before. What happens is they set up a raised square, about 16m2 and have chants playing inside this Tibetan tent. There is a template drawn out on this dais, and a monk works all day, sitting cross-legged, filling in the design with brightly coloured powder. The design is incredibly intricate (and every little thing has symbolic meaning) and I think they remember the colours to use by heart. They scoop some powder into a long thin brass conical thing, with a hole in the end and a serrated top-side. They then use another conical thing to rub across the serrations, which makes the powder flow out in a very controlled way, and they use this to colour in the patterns. It is astounding to watch, the tiniest details, and they never make a mistake. When I first saw them at it, they had completed the central square metre. I checked up on them daily, and by the time I left Barcelona 8 days later, they had done the next 6 inches all the way round. There was a LOT more to do! And apparently, when they’ve finished it, they have some kind of ceremony and then sweep it all away. Something about remembering the transience of all things. Not sure on the details on this, someone with a bit more knowledge of Buddhism, please feel free to inform me!

A further stroll towards the sea took me to the statue of Christopher Columbus, pointing out to sea. He’s supposed to be pointing to America, but symmetry required him really to point to Libya, but I’m sure no-one is much worried by that. He stands atop a column, something like Nelson on Trafalgar Square, but this column is really over the top. The decoration is extreme, almost to the point of kitsch, with Angels rejoicing, laurel wreaths in hand, divine beings playing trumpets, frills, curls and other sillinesses, and a Don Quixote look-alike sitting at the base in an uncertain pose. This passionate, emotional and utterly Mediterranean column does contrast rather favourably with the grim, austere and disciplined, stiff-upper-lip column that Nelson stands on!

There is a cable car that runs from one of the hills closest in to town (Montjuic) to the beach. It has a couple of towers along the way that you can go up, even if you don’t get on the cable car. Saving the actual ride for another day, I went up the central tower just to get a good look at the city. And what a view! Sea on one side, city on the other, you can see the streets marked out by lines of trees, and see all the landmarks. Gaudi’s half-finished Sagrada Familia Temple stands out tall among the city blocks, as well as several other towery buildings that are not quite so attractive. Barcelona is building it’s answer to London’s gherkin building, and phallic as that may be, this one bears even more of an unmistakeable resemblance to, well, a rather large willy. Phallic symbols are obviously not a feature consigned to the stone-age past. So with views out to sea, and over the city, the tower rocking gently in the breeze, I spent ages up here, just looking looking looking. And noticing that sirens round here sound like pee-pah pee-pah horns, rather than weeeee-oooooh weeeee-ooooh wails like London. I notice this because Brixton Police Station is round the corner from my house. It is a very busy police station. So busy, in fact, they have no time to investigate crime. Instead they send out wailing cars out every few minutes and probably just drive round the block a few times to look good. And to be able to say they’re really busy investigating bigger crimes than the ones perpetrated against me. (Do I sound bitter?)

On my descent it was time for the England v Switzerland match, which I watched in the company of some Swiss. They were touchingly honest about the crapness of their national team and took their 3-0 thrashing with admirable good humour.

Just enough time for a quick shower and scrub up and then the Sonar Launch Party. Used to walking just about everywhere when I’m away, and having checked my map (in the privacy of my room), I figured it was close enough to get there by just after midnight. Roots Manuva was due on at 00.30 (none of this namby pamby 2AM closing time rubbish in Spain, even midnight is relatively early to arrive at a venue). Naturally I wore my cutesy new shoes. The walk turned out to be horrendously long and very uninspiring (most of it was through deserted industrial estates) and when they laid out the modern bits of the city, they decided to go for a grid system. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but instead of just having nice square blocks, they cut all the corners off. So instead of walking a nice straight line down the pavement, you have to walk all the damn corner bits as well (see my nice red line!! That’s me walking!). And so my pleasant evening stroll was horrible, ugly, long and my feet were in un-danceable shreds by the time I got there. At about 1AM.





But all was made up for once inside. The performances were running late and I got there just as Roots came on, with a full backing band which is apparently the first time he’s performed with one. They were ace and I had an excellent time. Then hooked up with Joana again and met a few cronies with whom I then spent the rest of the evening.

The venue, Razzmatazz, was fantastic, really big dancefloor with bars down either side and a wide balcony going all the way round. There was also another flight of stairs that led up to a huge outside terrace, where I spent most of my virtually crippled time. Late into the night Vitalic came on, and we made the effort to go inside only to be rewarded with disastrous sound. My guess is Vitalic was doing something odd the crew were not prepared for, cos the rest of the night the sound was perfect, (he had enough electronics on stage to do many strange things) but it was pretty damn ugly. Took them ages to sort it out and kinda killed the set for me. So more terracing until time to go. The utter lack of cabs was ridiculous but it was so late the morning Metro was already running so we got one of the super-efficient Barcelona tubes home. Quote of the night from random clubber: “it IS 1992 and I AM 25…”

Next morning I checked out of Shit Hotel No.1 and went to meet Charlotte. Now Charlotte is a friend of Joana’s who I had never met before. She works for Soma Records up in Glasgow, and I had co-incidentally done sound for one of their bands at Neighbourhood a few weeks before. At that gig I met Dave from Soma and we struck a deal for Charlotte and I to share a Not-Shit Hotel room for two nights that the company would have to pay for anyway. So first time Charlotte and I met was in the hotel lobby, and we clicked immediately. After checking in and chilling and getting some lunch we headed for Sonar By Day. After losing each other and Jo and frustrating attempts to find each other in the crowds and heat, we made an executive decision to head out and save ourselves for Sonar By Night. So took a stroll down the Ramblas, checked in on the progress of the Mandala and stopped in at an exhibition about Micronations that was also part of Sonar.

Now that’s an interesting one, people who’ve declared their own teensy nations. The Principality of Sealand, for example, is an old man-made island fort thing in the middle of the north sea that was used as a fort in WW2. Looks kind of like an oil rig but no towers. They have their own passports (apparently recognised), postal service (with the collaboration of Royal Mail) and the guy in charge (the self-proclaimed Prince of Sealand) occupied it in 1967 and runs a functioning economy as an internet service provider. Apparently you can go visit. Strange. Weather probably sucks, though. Check it out… http://www.sealandgov.com

Other Micronations are less physical, there’s the State of Sabotage, and a nation called NSK which is apparently a State in Time. There’s also one which lays to claim to all borders as it’s physical land. Very odd, and I wish I’d got more info. Something to google when there’s nowt else to do…

Had pleasant dinner at trendy restaurant then went back to hotel to crash and gather strength for the long, long Sonar By Night ahead… A Kevin Costner movie dubbed into Spanish (a great improvement, actually, you don’t have to listen to his inevitable god-awful Truth, Justice and The American Way speech) hastened our exit out the door and after hassles getting a cab we finally made it Sonar By Night. Skipping the vary large riff-raff queue (as is only fitting) Charlotte and I met up with Joana who greeted us with the words “you gotta come check out this PA!!!”

First room we went into was the main room. A super-giant hangar-like building. Stage at front, bumper-cars at the back (sore knees!) and inbetween a pretty damn fine sound and light show. The PA company got this one JUST RIGHT! The sound was perfect. I would have expected it to be Wembley Arena-like in there, but it just WASN’T. It was clear as a bell and perfectly under control. The lights (and slightly retro lasers, but hey, you gotta love lasers! Especially on that scale) and projections were just as excellent and I was gobsmacked. Straight to the bar for refreshments and more friend-making, then a quick look in at the outdoor stage before adopting our weekend-long spot at the left front stack. Danced the proverbial night away to Mr Richie Hawtin (looking like something out of a gay Hitler-youth porn flick) and Ricardo Villalobos and Matthew Dear. Charlotte and I tried to make our escape around 5AM, ostensibly to avoid the cab queues, but only managed to emerge at 5.30 by which time everybody else had the same idea. It was only at this point that I noticed there was a third huge hangar-like room in the complex that I hadn’t even realised was there.

So we followed the directions of a local working the gates to try find the train station. He actually sent us in completely the wrong direction (go OVER the bridge! He said. The cab driver we finally found almost an hour later said it was actually turn RIGHT at the bridge.) Now I didn’t believe Charlotte (who grew up in Madrid) when she’d said earlier that day that the Spanish will often just say anything to get you out of their face when you ask them directions or tricky questions. Now I do. It did actually happened more than once – cab companies, cab drivers, security people, hotel concierge’s, shop assistants all lied (blatantly and with a lovely smile) to me at some stage. Just to get me out of their hair, and in some cases, I suppose, to have a laugh.

When we got back to the Not-Shit Hotel around 6.30, we were absolutely starving. Breakfast was to be served 7-11. Acknowledging with no guilt whatsoever that there was absolutely no way at all we would make it up before 11, we decided to sit out the half-hour till breakfast started. After only partially succeeding to stay awake on the couch, at precisely 7 we pounced on the dining room. The staff were NOT impressed ‘cos they hadn’t actually finished preparing everything yet, but we felt a fuck and climbed into an excellent breakfast. Only thing that was rubbish was the very lukewarm tea. WRONG!!! AND there were no tea & coffee making facilities in the room. What’s THAT about? Even the crappest hotels in the UK have some semblance of tea/coffee making in your room. Anyway.

Saturday afternoon we dragged ourselves out of bed around 1.30. The weather was dodgy so Charlotte cancelled her beach plans and came with me to Park Guell, which is the park designed and built by architect and genius, Antoni Gaudi. Originally intended to be a utopian community, he only ever built two little ginger-bread houses and it became a public park instead. It is on the slopes of a hill and so has various levels and the whole place is just an explosion of fantasy. Imagine some rich dude turns up on your doorstep and says, “here’s a large amount of money. Please build you wildest dreams on this nice bit of hillside”, cos that’s pretty much what seems to have happened here. Nothing is ever just a straight line or just a surface or just a colour for this man. Every inch of every little thing has colour, texture, unusual angles and innumerable other unlikelynesses. Quite over-awing, actually. There is an open placa area that is edged by a very famous, very long squiggly bench covered in mosaic, where we stopped for a bread, chorizo and manchego cheese picnic. Even the simplest food in Europe is gorgeous. No formed-from wafer-thin, water-and-cereal beefed-up ham here. Why the UK tends to eat in such an Americanised, formed-from pre-packaged convenience-food way when we have Europe on the doorstep is beyond me. On our way to catch the end of Sonar By Day we were waylaid by an exhibition of photographs of Salvador Dali and his wife Gala and friends, and so never made it. It did, however, inspire me to decide to get out of Barcelona for a day later in the week and go to the Dali Museum in Figueres. What a character, and you can just see in the photo’s how much he and Gala loved each other.

Having made plans to meet up with various people for dinner, we swung by our not-shit hotel for a couple of hours before heading to Barceloneta (the dock/beach area) for a very, very fine, non-touristy paella. Half way through a very civilised dinner, the city goes completely mad! Fireworks then more fireworks, ocean liners tooting their horns (I’m sure they’re not actually horns, and I’m sure one doesn’t ‘toot’ them, but I don’t know what to call them), cars on the road hooting. All echoing off the surrounding hills. And just when you think it’s all about to stop, it all carries on instead. Must’ve gone on for about an hour! On asking the waiter what it was all about, he said it was a celebration of the summer solstice. ‘But that’s only in two days time!’ we exclaim in wonder. Waiter shrugs and says, ‘so we start two days early’ as though it’s the most normal thing in the world. I LIKE these Spanish! (Catalans, really, but for purposes of ease and simplicity, I’m just gonna call them Spanish.) Muchos Fiesta!

After another endless, interminable and very very frustrating wait for a cab, we got to Sonar By Night JUST as Massive Attack came on. Once again the sound was perfect and we adopted our left-front-stack position. For me the show was perfect. I’ve only ever seen them live once before, and although there were moans about vocalists having changed, for me it made not the slightest little bit of difference. The songs were all there and beautifully executed, so I was just the most happiestest bunny.

Carl Cox had done the dirty at the last minute and cancelled, so Miss Kittin took the stage instead and did a fine job of keeping us on our feet before Jeff Mills took control. I popped in to the other hangar for a quick peek at Kid Koala, but it was a bit slow for me in there so immediately returned to the main room. We’d arranged to go to another party in town around 3AM, so said goodbye to Mr Mills and headed off. Luckily at this time people were still arriving so there was the occasional cab around, and outfoxing the cab queue with a smart (let’s wait on the OTHER corner) manoeuvre we were dashing into town quite quickly. After 10 minutes in the very very over-crowded way-too-hot venue, however, I packed it in and went home. Couldn’t face trying to keep a group of three people together in the crush, and Massive Attack were so good I didn’t need any more, so went back to the not-shit hotel to soak in a hot bath and re-live my day. Lovely.

Sunday, and Sonar was officially over. I think I like this Thurs-Fri-Sat festival thing (as opposed to the Fri-Sat-Sun thing) as you get a long lazy Sunday to recover. So after a long, lazy Sunday get-up (neither of us remotely made it for breakfast) Charlotte and I checked out of the lovely Not-Shit Hotel and I checked into Shit Hotel No. 2, which was more of a prison cell than a hotel room, but at least it was clean and had a balcony (albeit such a small one that if you lean on the railing your arse is well inside the room). Charlotte was on her way home today, so we met for long, lazy Sunday brunch of tapas, fresh orange and café can leche. And when the Spanish say ‘Fresh Orange’ they mean just that. They squeeze it in front of you. Unlike ordering ‘fresh orange’ in an English pub, where you get some hideous bottled thing ‘made from concentrate’. A big moan I have with the UK. Although the opposite can be said of milk. Europeans seem to actually LIKE UHT milk. What’s THAT about? People prefer it because ‘fresh milk goes off’. Weird.

So, after sad farewells to my new friend, I spent the rest of the day high. Really high. I took both the cable car trips, one up Montjuic and the other from another part of Montjuic across to the beach. Went and sat on top of the castle on top of Montjuic and did one of my very very favourite things to do: sit on top of a castle on a hill and watch the ships go by with the wind in my hair (Lisbon and Istanbul also have this wonderful facility). The Mediterranean Sea is indeed very pretty to look at, all those shades of blue, but it really is a bit of a boring old sea. No waves to speak of and it barely even smells of the sea! It’s a big warm puddle, but a very pretty one. The Castle itself houses an incredibly uninteresting collection of military artefacts and some mange-ridden wild cats. The best part (apart from sitting on top of the world) is the actual cable cars. They are open-sided, seat four, and you have to be all responsible ALL BY YOURSELF and not fall out. In the UK there would have been all kinds of disclaimers, instructions on how to sit down, seat-belts with more instructions on how to use them and the sides would have been glassed in with un-openable windows. The more I think about it the more I think joining the Euro and becoming more European would be an excellent thing for the UK. The current tendency towards American mental attitudes is not the way forward in my opinion.

The beach being a bit not-the-nicest-beach-in-the-world, I didn’t stay long and got the bus (did I mention that the tubes and busses are AIR-CONDITIONED!!!! What an absolute pleasure. You don’t have people’s sweat rubbing off on you as they shuffle past to exit the bus. Another thing London could well take note of. It is obviously NOT impossible to air-condition the tube) and went back to my cell for a pre post-Sonar party nap and to watch Spain v Portugal.

Bit sad that Spain lost (was hoping for a Taksim Square style celebration when Turkey beat Japan in world cup) but nevermind, and headed off for the party. Jo said to be there at 11. I was fashionably late and got there sometime after midnight, by which time there were about 10 other people there, none of whom I knew so got myself a stiff rum and coke (it is cost effective to drink spirits in Europe, I have discovered. 3 euros for a beer a bit smaller than a half pint, or 7 euros for a very generous unmeasured glassful of rum. I stuck with the rum) and found a pleasant beachside spot to await the arrival of people I knew. A much-depleted crew turned up eventually in drips and drabs, and we stuck around for an hour or so then chucked it in and went back to Jo’s place for tea and a spliff, a far better proposition. Couldn’t really be dealing with another party – even I, dear friends, have my limits. Didn’t stay long, though, and went back to cell block H to have another toke or two with my arse inside the room and most other bits outside on the teensy balcony. With three and a half days left in Barcelona, it was time to think about Art.

Had planned a Picasso Day for Monday, but the museum was closed so decided to head for some more Gaudi instead. First stop was, of course, the Sagrada Familia. I won’t even attempt to describe it except to say that what has been built already is astonishing, and the ambition and vision for what the finished church will look like is breathtaking. Again no surface is untouched by decoration and symbolism. If I were god, I’d choose this church for my homebase. It is a glorification of the natural world and is filled with light and joyous symbols – no hellfire and brimstone here. The structure copies nature (pillars are trees and exist at odd tree-like angles) and the gargoyles are not scary nasty demons and dragons, but happy snails and seashells and lizards you’d want to make friends with, and there’s baskets of mosaic-covered fruit exploding from the tops of towers. Only 2 of the facades are currently complete – one side depicts the birth of Christ and was completed by Gaudi himself before he died, and the other side shows the passion, by another sculptor in his own style, but after Gaudi’s intention, which is quite extraordinary. I thought it was beautiful. 8 towers have already been completed, representing 8 of the apostles. There are to be another 4 apostle towers, four evangelist towers (higher than the apostle ones), a Mary tower (higher still) and then the highest tower of all, the Jesus tower in the middle.

The whole place is colourful and bright and on the scale of the ancient cathedrals of Europe, just a lot more fun. They hope to have it finished by 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death, which means it will have taken about 140 years to build, on the same time-scale as other great churches. Very impressive.

After climbing to the top and looking around some more I found myself a very special bench in the Placa de Gaudi opposite the church. It was breezy, sunlight dappling through the jacaranda trees (in full bloom, made me miss Pretoria!), not many people around and I had a view of one the facades with four apostle towers through the purple flowers. Lay back and finished the joint I’d saved from last night, having semi-religious thoughts. How could Gaudi not get into heaven? This church is the most glorious tribute to a god I’ve ever seen. It’s not a threat to keep people subdued like most other religious architecture, more of a celebration of the earth and it’s existence. A kind of “thanks for this pretty nice world, dude, here’s a little something I made for you in return”.

And they’re going to finish it! When the Jesus tower is done it going to be the tallest church in the world. Spectacular, and I can’t wait to see it finished. And while I was lying there thinking this doesn’t get much better, the bells rang! Now this could have been a recording, because the guide said nothing about bells and most churches do like to boast about their bells, but even this was happy and if it was a recording it was a damn fine one! Played a kind of jaunty christmas carol-like tune. Nothing sombre at all.

Tuesday was Picasso and Shit Hotel No. 3 Day. Dumped my gear at the new place which was less shit to look at but was ON prostitute corner. Even at 10.30 AM while I was hunting down breakfast, all the girls are in one spot, chatting happily waiting for custom. Really strange that they were all so concentrated on that spot, and there be no vicious fights for the best place. I didn’t really notice any others around in other areas (I can be a bit blind about these things, though).

The Picasso Museum was sensational. Went and sat in a (bright, sunny) park afterwards to digest what I’d just seen. Never having studied art history (a large gap in my education I’d like to fill one day) I was just amazed at the things I’d been seeing in this city. Sorry, Gilda, but this is what’s missing in the southern hemisphere, the incredible sense of human history. Africa has a sense of geological history which is difficult to beat, but when it comes to art, Europe has it all, I’m afraid.

Had an early night in honour of the next day’s trip out of town, but that was the exact opposite of what everyone else in the neighbourhood had in mind. This room was on the first floor, and between the girls, their pimps and their clients, I had a pretty noisy corner of Barcelona to try sleep through and was grateful I understand neither Spanish nor Catalan. And a zillion kids on the streets with firecrackers (this summer celebration thing seems to on after the solstice too…)

Up early to get the train out to Figueres (about 2 hours out of Barcelona) and my neighbourhood of vice was dead quiet and sleepy while the rest of the city was bustling on it’s way to work, although the morning shift of girls were in place as usual. The tubes in Barcelona are cool. Not just literally with all that lovely air-conditioning, but the map has little lights at each station which flash when you’re approaching a station and go out when you’ve passed it, and there is an indicator to say which side the doors are going to open. Perfect for me cos you look less like a tourist when you don’t stand waiting at the doors on the wrong side. Didn’t like the advertising though. At least in London ads tend to be quite wordy and give you something to read while waiting, and if you want to avoid them it’s easy to not look. In Barcelona they have giant TV screens with ads, so everyone is locked into watching these as is the human wont when faced with moving pictures. And it only costs 1.10 euros for a single ticket that takes you anywhere in the city. Busses were also the same price and air-conditioned and moved. In fact the whole city moves really well, the roads in the new bits are so wide I didn’t see any traffic jams at all (I really am staring to think like a driver again…) Even the on-board buskers seemed to be better musicians and less junky-fied than London freaks who wander through trains with a bad guitar and a MacDonald’s cup (and smelled better, too, but this is perhaps a function of their air-conditioned work-environment). And there was a constant work-force out cleaning and mopping the platforms. Nice! Although passengers on the morning tube were every bit as silent and untalkative as London morning commuters.

Obviously missed the train I was aiming for and spent a very boring hour in the station waiting for the next one (I’d already gone through the barriers and couldn’t leave to go for a stroll, which annoyed me). But, once aboard, and despite the lovely air-conditioning, this train had the hardest seats EVER, cunningly disguised by a thin layer of fabric that belies the hardness hidden beneath. Honestly, it was like doing a catholic penance or something. ‘Say 4 Hail Mary’s and get the train to Figueres’. I realise that I have bad posture, but the angle at which these seats try to prop you up comes straight from the Inquisition chambers.

Arrived at Figueres early afternoon and Dali Day took shape. And turned out to be my favourite day of all. As moving as was Sagrada Familia and as special as was Picasso, Dali, Dali, Dali… What can I say. His portrait of Gala In Spheres made me cry – his love of her literally SHINES out of every drawing and painting he did of her (there were many) – and is my New Favourite Painting (toppling a Picasso, funnily enough, the moon-faced woman). Figueres being right close to the French border, two French school trips were going round the museum (which was built by Dali himself, so the word ‘museum’ conjures up all the wrong images, this is more of a playground) at the same time as me and the kids were absolutely fascinated. No-one looked bored, they were asking questions and loving all of it. Quite nice to see – and no wonder Europeans tend to be very well educated and fairly broad-minded. Imagine the influence of growing up with Gaudi AND Picasso AND Dali AND Miro (I didn’t get round to a Miro Day, unfortunately) as a regular school trip. Wish I’d had that. But anyway, I could follow the hand gestures from the tour guide, so tagged along a bit and saw stuff I wouldn’t have noticed without his help.

Left the museum feeling a bit breathless, it was all just SO AMAZING!!! He was just so, I don’t know, CREATIVE! I look at every single thing he produced and think, I could NEVER in a MILLION YEARS have done that! Some art you look at and think, well, if I’d that idea I could have executed that too, but with The Greats you just know that there is a very fucking special talent at work here, from both the ideas side and the execution of it. Was in dire need of a chilled Cerveza afterwards, in the suitable medieval streets around the museum, to contemplate the wonders of the world.

I wish I’d made decent plans before leaving home as it would have been nice to stay in Figueres overnight (they were building the rig for a festival that night as I left, GUTTED!) but did another two hours penance back to Barcelona and went to say goodbye to the Mandala instead.

Back to London on Thursday with the firm thought that I could really, really LIVE in Barcelona. There’s enough going on, has enough venues to probably get enough work, I’ve met a few local music industry bods, it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL, the weather’s great, there’s good beaches further up the coast, there’s hills and castles and art and it’s not as ridiculously expensive as London. I’ve been searching for a place to move to, and so far nothing really appeals more than London, especially for work. But I reckon another two years or so here and Barcelona may well be The Place. Want to go and have a look at Madrid as well, but Spain feels like a really good option.