Two themes dominate Spanish news and conversation at the moment. One is the lack of rain – it's been an extraordinarily dry year there so far and there is a severe danger of total crop loss in some regions. One area which had 195mm of rain in the first three months of last year has so far had 2mm this year, for example. A genuine worry and another sign, if any were needed, of the increasingly rapid changes to our weather patterns.
The other is the alleged mendacity of the King's son-in-law, one Inaki Urdangarin. More details here, but one datum which is missing is the size of the alleged misappropriated pot. Spanish news channels claim up to €17 million is missing and there may yet be criminal charges. The case has divided opinion in Spain along the lines you'd expect in a country where left and right are politically still much more clearly delineated than they are in Britain. He's been condemned as a thief by an already convinced left, defended as innocent until otherwise proven by a more pro-Monarchic right. It's a case which promises huge ramifications for the Spanish monarchy already, even more so if it turns out he's a criminal.
What struck me, as usual, though, was an odd side-effect of this story. Spanish celebrity culture makes our own seem like an amateurish, high-brow, passing fancy. In the birthplace of Hello magazine, this case is manna from heaven for the countless gossip channels (yes, channels), magazines, newspaper columns. On shows (nicknamed tertulias, though the word has much more genuinely artistic roots than the sort of telly it now applies to) filled with z-list celebrities – often former Big Brother contestants, to give you an idea – people literally yell and scream at each other about the latest celebrity scandals. Often they will invite friends and relatives of those involved on to the show, so they can yell at them too, and show clips of other shows in which to give yet more z-listers a chance to respond to, or with, some slur. And so the cycle of self-feeding continues. It makes Jeremy Kyle's show look like Melvyn Bragg discussing poetry with Will Self and Will Gompertz. High-brow it most certainly is not.
On one occasion last week, around lunchtime, one such show was in full swing. Two lines of four guests, I have not the faintest idea who any of them were, faced each other and variously sat, stood, pointed, gesticulated and sulked as they exchanged opinions on the Urdangarin scandal. I cannot understand a word of this as they all shout at the same time, and we were going out anyway, so we switched it off. We went out, had a coffee and a chat with friends in a bar, went for a quick beer and another chat with more friends in the village square (it's that sort of place), then went for lunch. A leisurely lunch was followed by another coffee in another bar, and then a few frames of pool in yet another bar. (It's that sort of place too). When we came home some hours later, the same show, with the same host and the same guests, was still on, talking about the same thing. Indeed they were now showing clips from a few hours earlier in their own show to invite comment from yet more guests, and the people who'd been on there all along.
That kind of commitment to celeb gossip, to scandal, and to shouting at each other, is awesome in its way. I have nothing but disdain for this kind of thing but at the same time a kind of grudging admiration for just how sedulously they go about it. If this were British TV, at some point, a real programme would have to be put on, and not much short a royal wedding, or the death of a Royal Family member or serving PM will clear the airwaves in such a fashion.
I'm due to return to Spain in July at some point. I can only wonder if the same show, with the same bickering, exhausted, furious, empty-headed panellists will still be going at it then.
No comments:
Post a Comment