Seagull

by Tamara Kulikova

Early to mid-noughties. Paper, watercolour. 8 x 10.5 cm

More watercolours by Tamara Kulikova @ Shutterstock.

Chapter Three: Viva Emiliano Zapata

by Gato Barbieri

In 1998, I almost bought this album in Cologne’s famous and huge Saturn shop. After wandering through it for about two hours, I’ve assembled a large pile of CDs without which, I thought, I should never leave the building. But this is exactly what happened because the shop did not accept credit cards. According to Wikitravel, it still does not take them. Cursing quietly, I left my pile (containing the only copy of Chapter Three in the shop) at the counter N and rushed outside in search of an ATM. By the time I came back, the counter girl N was nowhere to be seen; ditto my collection. In the end, I managed to spend my Deutschmarks on something else.

For a few years after that, the CD was not available anywhere. Then the remastered edition appeared. For about three years, it was on my wishlist (that’s a hint, dear reader), I finally decided that enough is enough and gave it to myself as a well-deserved present. Which was nice.

Gordos

a film by Daniel Sánchez Arévalo

Last Saturday, when I was contemplating which topic to choose for the 500^th (that’s right) blog post here, Spanish television came with an answer. This movie.

It is refreshing to see such an intelligent and funny film whose protagonists, for a change, come in vastly different shapes: rellenit@s, gordit@s and, er, gord@s; group psychotherapy, love, death, sex (read the rest of clichés here), all this and more, beautiful Senegalese music and a song which I hoped never to hear again: Casi, casi by Raphael. The actors’ work — I don’t think I saw any of the cast before — is outstanding. I wish I knew Spanish better, or at the very least the subtitles to stay on screen longer than for a few milliseconds. That only means I have to watch it again some time.

Venus On Earth

by Dengue Fever

This is another great band I learned about from Songlines. A mere four years later, I got the album. Strange (to say the least) and beautiful music. I don’t understand Khmer (the language most of the album is sung in), so I have to make the most of the priceless song titles: Woman in the Shoes, Tiger Phone Card, Integratron, Sober Driver... Best of all, the bonus track One Thousand Tears of a Tarantula.

El hobbit: un viaje inesperado 3-D

a film by Peter Jackson

It so happened that we went to see the first instalment of The Hobbit trilogy in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. In Spanish. In 3-D. It was fantastic.

Dr. Watson Arthur Dent Martin Freeman is a perfect Bilbo. (On the contrary, Elijah Wood was — still is — a horrible Frodo.) Gollum is as great as he was in The Lord of the Rings. I liked Sylvester McCoy as Radagast. But of course it is the dwarfs who make this movie.

If LotR had some humour in it, An Unexpected Journey is a full-blown comedy. You can’t really have a serious movie with heroes named Balin, Dwalin, Fíli, Kíli et cetera. I love the way Jackson pokes fun at his own epic: for example, Gandalf still bangs his head in Bilbo’s house. Elrond, Galadriel and Saruman all make unashamed cameo appearance in Riverdance Rivendell, the home of fine vegetarian cuisine.

Here are all the words you need to understand the movie in Spanish:

acertijo	riddle
Bolsón	Baggins
enano	dwarf
Escudo de Roble	Oakenshield
espada	sword
mago	wizard
mi tesoro	my precious
setas	mushrooms

Finally, the third dimension. Not that I expected much of it — I still believe that 3-D should be reserved for animated films only. In all live action movies I’ve seen so far the 3-D only makes things worse. The Hobbit is not an exception. Not only does it look unnatural (well, OK, I don’t know how natural goblins and dragons are, but at least realistic beings in realistic landscape should look realistic), also the scenes where the camera moves fast appear out of focus. I’m looking backward to the good old 2-D version.

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

by Alexander McCall Smith, illustrated by Iain McIntosh

An absolute classic. How come I didn’t read it until now?

This special edition hardback (no. 126 of 1200), with black-and-red illustrations by Iain McIntosh, is a beauty. Maybe one day there will be such thing as an e-book signed by both the author and illustrator. Maybe. I don’t care really. I prefer the real thing.

She knew the railway station slightly. It was a place that she enjoyed visiting, as it reminded her of the old Africa, the days of uncomfortable companionship on crowded trains, of slow journeys across great plains, of the sugar cane you used to eat to while away the time, and of the pith of the cane you used to spit out of the wide windows. Here you could still see the station — or a part of it — here, where the trains that came up from the Cape pulled slowly past the platform on their journey up through Botswana to Bulawayo; here, where the Indian stores beside the railway buildings still sold cheap blankets and men’s hats with a garish feather tucked into the band. Mma Ramotswe did not want Africa to change. She did not want her people to become like everybody else, soulless, selfish, forgetful of what it means to be an African, or, worse still, ashamed of Africa. She would not be anything but an African, never, even if somebody came up to her and said, ‘Here is a pill, the very latest thing. Take it and it will make you into an American.’ She would say no. Never. No thank you.

Searle’s Cats

by Ronald Searle

This is the book no cat lover — or hater — should be without.